Goodbye heat- I will only miss my tan.

The upcoming end of September is a wonderful thing for my little Texas self. October is the month where the heat slowly admits defeat and more pleasant weather takes its place. We have been experiencing some of that weather lately and while still hot during the day, not quite as suffocating. The shade provides much relief which is a definite change from the summer. This hopefully also will mean the minimizing of the insane number of beastly mosquitos left by the hurricane. Besides talking about the weather, (which, by the way, I love watching the weather on the news. Ask Jake. I'm such a nerd.) I had preschool at my house last week and its here again this week. Last week we learned about the letter "L" and collected leaves for our "leaf families", made ladybugs, practiced writing, made fall trees, and searched for lollipops. The group is pretty much the same as last year, with just one different boy. This week is the letter "J". I'm sure it will be a good one.

Onto Boo... she has been making me see the necessity in investing in a pair of earplugs. I honestly think I would be so much happier if I could pop those in now and again. Due to her inability to communicate very effectively, she has become a very loud and whiny child. I had to bust out the backpack again yesterday just like I used to when she was a baby so that I could get stuff done without her following me around crying and hanging on my leg. It was about the time that Jada was in the backpack, Mya was helping me make cookies (which, as a complete side note, allowing your children to help you cook can be a completely patience-trying experience), and Elle was trying to do homework that I thought, "I need like five of me."

Anyways, back to Boo. She is trouble! She somehow figured out that if she brings out the bathroom stool she can climb up on stuff. She is often found carrying it around the house and using it to climb on Mya's bed or the couch.

I can see the need for the high chair straps. And owing to the fact that Jada can also do what is seen below, the ladder has to be removed each day.
We have some good friends who are about to have their second baby. While this is exciting news for all (as long as she holds that baby in until after her baby shower Thursday night) it does mean the end of our regular game nights. Not saying that they have to stop altogether, but that they will probably become more infrequent. The Newman's usually bring their little boy Lincoln over and put him to sleep in our guest room, and we would stay up late playing games. I'm just glad that I went out on top as the winner of our last night before the baby.

Not only am I so happy that Jake finally got my curtains up, I am also loving the fact that I've been able to open my windows in the morning. Love that cool fresh air!

Because of the nicer weather, we got to play outside yesterday afternoon. It's once again good to see that not even the cast can slow Mya down. And although her and Elle do love to play together, she told me today that she doesn't miss Elle and that she likes playing with me. I'm glad I'm so fun.

October also means Halloween. And Conference weekend means Halloween decoration time! I got some really cute new stuff while in Utah and can't wait to decorate. Costumes have all been decided and I'm happy to say that Project "Convince Elle She Wants to be a Ballerina" was a huge success. So now we are all set on being a little ballet dancer, a skunk, and a zebra.

In an effort to continue to stray from the "junkyard christmas tree" look, I found some super cute decorations on sale at Hobby Lobby. I have decided to stick with the red, green, and white candy cane-ish theme for the tree. And after 7 Christmases as a married woman I finally got a cute tree topper!
Monday will be a special day around here because it will hopefully be the removal of this...
It is nasty. It is dirty. It is thankfully not too smelly (although I haven't given it a good sniff). I really have tried to keep it clean, but apparently to no avail. I guess the effort was always destined for failure. And we are missing a shoe. I guess its bound to happen when you're only wearing one. Although I do have to say that Mya has been a complete trooper through all of this. She has hardly complained at all. I'm sure I could not say the same if child #1 was in the cast. And I'm sure Mya will be happy when bath time doesn't look like this anymore...
At many times in my life I have pretended to know what I was doing when cutting hair. I've cut Jake's hair for years (although it still makes me nervous), I've cut Elle's and Mya's hair, I've cut my own a little (like side bangs), and I've even helped my sis-in-law cut some side bangs. Well, I haven't been overly thrilled about my hair lately and decided to cut some side bangs again. The only problem is that I'm apparently out of practice and was a little too hasty with the scissors. The removal of the hair below resulted in a nice little hack job on my side bangs. Oh well. At least my hair grows fast. And there are always bobby pins.
Lastly, I thought I'd include a couple of pics from the engagement of the two little lovebirds. You better believe Brad had help with this set-up. No guy could set a table that nice, make a heart of candles that perfect, and would probably never dot his "I's" with hearts.

I'm beyond thrilled for my sis and Brad. He is one of the funniest people! He will be a great addition to the fam, and I'm sure Jake will be happy to have another sports addict in the group. The wedding is December 27th, colors are brown and cream, with accents of some type of blue and salmon. She's getting her dress made and has sent me pics of what it looks like. It is beautiful! I'd post the pics but don't want Brad to see if he hasn't already. Needless to say, Christmastime will be an exciting one this year!

Spreading a little sunshine!

I just have to say that I loved President Uchtdorf's talk tonight at the General RS broadcast. I first off love it when they reassure us time and again of our worth as women. I think it is so easy to feel like we are not doing good enough. We are most often times our toughest critics. But I also like it that they then go on to tell us how to be a little better. It is never a message of "You are doing great, now just sit back and enjoy life". There is great danger in complacency. I loved President Uchtdorf's definition of ways we can be creative. It made the term take on a whole new meaning (not just the crafty sort of creative). We can create clean spaces, happy children, happy husbands, better days for ourselves, etc. If you really let yourself think about it, there are so many things we can "create". I also loved the quote he shared on being compassionate. I can't remember the exact words, but it went a little something like "If you spread sunshine to others you can't help but keep some yourself." Often times, when we are down, we don't feel like reaching out to others but we are told we will be happier because of it and our burdens will be lightened. It really just made me want to be a better person and to really start looking for ways to help others and stop being so selfish with my time. I feel like my life is really crazy at times and that I am barely surviving sludging through the daily mud with all the tasks that accompany my days. Because of this craziness, I think that I sometimes feel "entitled" so to speak to time for myself (ex: blogging, reading, nights out, etc.) I think that these things are necessary and do have their place, but life isn't all about getting through the necessary and then enjoying all the leisure we desire. I think this is something I can improve on and hopefully I can start using some of my spare time to try and make other's lives a little bit better.

And (in some completely non-related news) it looks like we'll be heading out to California for Christmas this year...

It's not a vacation unless someone ends up in the ER

Due to the fact that we have experienced a hurricane, traveled to Utah, inherited a new brother-in-law, and spent a night in the ER, you can expect a very long, yet fun-filled post. So let's just start from the beginning why don't we! Myself, Mya, and Jada left the great state of Texas the night before life pretty much shut down. Just so happened that our tickets were booked for the night before Ike swallowed the Texas coast. We flew out to Utah, leaving Elle and Jake behind. I was a little worried about what would happen while I was away, but glad that Elle was in good hands with Daddy. The two little girls behaved remarkably well on the flight, with Jada sleeping for a lot of the way, and Mya falling asleep after watching the ultra exciting "Diamond Castle". I'm not ashamed to say that I went back and watched the beginning of the movie after she fell asleep, although I do wonder what the elk hunter man next to me was thinking. It was a cute movie, what can I say, and the songs are just great. Anyways, most of my family was going to be in Utah that weekend at my parents' house for the BYU v. UCLA game so that is why I went out early. Little did I know that Elle was about to embark on an almost two week break from school and really could have come out with us. Mya loved playing with her older cousin Boston. She went with my sis Kellie and her family to BYU the first day we were there and got a cute BYU cougar named Hallie.

Her and Bos had fun out by the river behind my parents' house trying to throw items into the water.
This is my older sister Kellie and her cute little boy Logan. She has the boys, I have the girls.
And here's where things get a little exciting. The night the hurricane was about to hit Texas, Mya decided to leap off the air mattress and land on one of Jada's little Dora babies. She cried and cried, got really tired and wanted to go to bed with no dinner. She kept waking up crying, would only let me hold her, and would get sad if anything bumped her foot. Around 10 pm we noticed it was swelling. She couldn't sleep well, and the next day was a busy one so my dad and I decided to take a little trip to the ER. Once she got some Tylenol in her, she was much better despite the fact that it was almost 11pm. She didn't really want to go to the hospital, and when we were walking in she said something like, "The ouchiness in my foot doesn't hurt anymore". Yeah, sure. Mya spent the time in the waiting room being corrupted by watching The Simpson's and some other horrid show like The Family Guy or something. Luckily the wait wasn't too long, and we got back and got some x-rays, a diagnosis, and a temporary splint all before 1 am. The verdict... three broken bones in her left foot.
She was a great patient and entertained herself by taking pics with my cell phone. She got "Floppy" the frog from the nurse.

Saturday was the beginning of the wedding festivities with Eliza's bridal shower at the Old Spaghetti Factory. I was so happy to be able to go, even for just a little bit.
After the shower, I got to watch my cute nephew Logan. Luckily he liked me. Mya, however, decided that she was going to bring the rest of the world down with her and made it her goal to make me as miserable as she was. She became excessively clinging, making me carry her everywhere (she really couldn't walk well at all), and just being whiny and hard. I think people in Jake's fam can't get married in Utah anymore because when they do, bad things happen. Or maybe Mya just can't come with us because when Jake's brother Luke got married two years ago Mya was miserable with a double ear infection and made the trip just a super pleasant experience.
Also in Zion was my younger sister Kirstie's boyfriend Brad. He's seen below supervising Kirs as she sucks up some insects with the vacuum. He is so fun to have around and I'm so glad he came out to visit with the family that weekend.
Monday we visited Kirs's cute apartment and had lunch with her. She starched that sheet up to her wall. She's so creative!

Monday afternoon it was off to the Doc's for a hot pink cast. Life became a little better once she decided to walk again, although I did get a good work out carrying a three year old around. Doesn't she look happy posing by our grandma-of-a-rental car??
Tuesday became an exciting day after Kirs decided to drop all her classes on Monday night and move home to be closer to Brad (which, by the way, I am 100% supportive of and honestly couldn't be happier about). We started helping her move out on Tuesday during the day and she and I headed back out that night for a little late night moving after picking up Elle and Jake at the airport. Nothing like bringing piles of clothes down two flights of stairs at almost 2 in the morning!
On Tuesday I also decided to revisit some of the places Jake and I used to live and get some pictures. I'll spare you the complete walk down memory lane and just show you the house we brought little baby Elle home to.

On Wednesday I had big plans for us in the form of revisiting my childhood. When I was growing up, we used to go to Utah almost every summer and stay at this tiny old cabin with an outhouse up past Kamas. I think this is where my fear of deer was born. Honestly. Anyways, I decided to have us go and experience a little nature and check out the cabin. The weather, unfortunately, had other things in mind, and because the cabin is set back on a dirt road and you have to hike to get to it without a key to unlock the gate, I decided to veto the idea. The thunder and threatening rain was enough to scare me off. Below is one of my favorite pics from the trip. When I was trying to find the road to the gate that led to the cabin, I took us on a wrong turn which brought us up this giant dirt hill. Elle starts freaking out, and then when Jake got out of the car and saw a dead snake, she was done for.
We eventually found the gate and took a classic picture (used to take one as kids with all the cousins standing on the gate). Notice that Elle is making me hold her and she is covering her ears because of the thunder.
The only wild animals we encountered along the way were cattle (which aren't really wild). This big guy decided to come and stand right in the way of our car for awhile. I think we made him mad or something.

That is the bridge over the river that we caught many a fish off of as kids.

We had to do a car picnic because of the sprinkling rain. Luckily it never was too bad. We also walked around some once the rain cleared up and checked out some beaver lodges. I was hoping, yet terrified, of encountering a stray moose or something but no such luck. Only cows and dead snakes.

Afterwards we tried to hit up the old fish hatchery but it was closed due to some sort of whirling disease. Last stop on memory lane was the old ice cream shop in Kamas.
Thursday we headed out to Park City for some more fun. After searching a bit we finally found the Alpine slides, which were open. (Although we got some bad info from some information lady that they were closed... maybe we should report her...) I'm just so happy we decided to find them anyways and that they were up and running.

The girls both loved them, and we had the best time. Afterwards we hit up Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory for some yummy caramel apples (oreo and snickers... so good).
That night we got to go to the temple with Eliza for the first time. It was a great night, and we had lots of aunts to help babysit the little rugrats which was so great.
And Friday proved to be one of the longest days in the short history of my children's lives. We had to get them up, dressed, looking presentable, and out the door before 7 am to make it to Salt Lake for the wedding. I literally packed a duffel bag full of stuff to last us the whole day. First up are some pictures from the temple. The four of us below (sisters and sis-in-laws) were bridesmaids along with one of Tyler's sisters. Check us out in our cute, yet severely uncomfortable shoes. They were not worn a lot of the time.

The hot pink cast blended perfectly with the wedding colors. Didn't even stick out at all. Ha ha. Those will be some fun pics for the wedding album! Eliza's colors were a light purple and sage type color. Well, unfortunately, those colors were not really in season so the girls had to settle on a cute clover green instead of sage. Still, love those dresses.

The day was so beautiful as can be seen above. And isn't the Salt Lake Temple amazing?? Below is the girlies at the luncheon. They look happy here, but almost everytime we put them in the car that was not the case. Mya was on a rampage. It was fun.
The reception that night was at this cute little site with a fun house, stream, cornfield, tractor, bridge, well, and old dilapadated shack. It was such a great place for a reception, minus the insane amount of mosquitos. (I thought those things only infested the south!)

I had to capture another mud shot. And below is little Boo who checked out of the fun for a bit and had a little nap.

The girls had fun dancing until Mya's foot started to hurt, and Jada had fun running over the bridge again and again. It was just a matter of time before she was going to fall in (at least that's what I was afraid of). We had fun being with family and talking with old family friends, eating food and getting candy from the candy bar.
Afterwards we ran over to one of Jake's mission buddy's homes. He lived about five minutes from the reception. It was so fun to see his family and their cute new little boy. We wish we could have spent more time with them.
And below is the product of an extremely long day for small children...
After surviving the exhausting wedding day, we still had about a day and a half left of Utah fun. Mya was lucky enough to get two packages while we were there. Apparently a broken foot is the key to good mail.

On Saturday, Jake and I dressed alike in our BYU blue and headed out to support the Cougs against Wyoming. Jake's sister and brother were nice enough to watch the kids for us so we got to go on a little date with Kirstie and Brad. Still happy to report that I didn't learn the fight song. (And I love that girl in the background who is smiling for our pic.)

We met up with the kids at the park. Good to see that not even a cast can slow Mya down. It was so nice to be in a place that was not humid and cooled off at night. The park felt so great!
My cousin Leah came and met us for a bit with her cute baby Alex. It was so fun to see her and hang out for awhile. Hopefully we'll see them again at Christmas!
And that about wraps up all the fun one can possibly have in the small state of Utah. Onto much larger things like Ike... Jake and Elle rode out the storm like champs. I called him the night it was hitting from the ER to tell him about Mya. That woke him up and he had trouble sleeping after that. The power went out early Saturday morning and stayed off until Monday afternoon. They did get a little bit bored of "hunkering down" and spent lots of time with friends. They BBQ meat that was going bad with another family Saturday night. Luckily some cool air blew in after the hurricane so the lack of AC was not too miserable. Sunday night they spent at friends who had gotten power back. Monday our power came back on, and Tuesday Jake headed downtown for a half day of work. I have some pics of my own that I took of the damage when we came back, but I had to steal others from friends blogs because I wasn't here to capture them myself. Hopefully they don't mind!

Above is by the Walgreens by our house. Below is a street that leads out of the neighboring subdivision. Yes that is lots of water and a tree blocking the way.

Above is one of my favs from the whole event. It rained a ton Saturday night after the storm passed, flooding a subdivision of some people in our ward. Above is a family from the ward taking a little ride on an air matress. And below may be one cause for lack of power.

Most of the damage is wind related. Fences down, shingles off roofs, trees down, etc. Tarps can be seen on many roofs. We were lucky enough to only lose a handful of shingles, which Jake already fixed with the help of a couple friends. Part of our fence blew down some and is still in need of permanent fixing, but beyond that we were really lucky. Jake did a good job of staking the trampoline down so it didn't fly into the house. He got the chance to help out a guy from the ward who wasn't so lucky and had a tree decide it wanted to be part of his home and garage decor.
I came home to a freezer that looked like this...
(Notice the staple item! We had friends who stayed at our house while we were gone because they still didn't have power and they stocked us up with a couple of things.)
I went to the store on Monday to try and get some food and found lots of the shelves looking something like that above. So so crazy. I guess that's what food storage is for. Luckily other stores had things we needed and Jake was able to save some of our stuff in a friend's fridge/freezer so we weren't totally without. We were blessed to not have more long lasting damage as a result of Ike. Part of me is sad that I missed the adventure, but Jake and Elle enjoyed the bonding time during their "Hurricane Party" eating junk food and hanging out with friends. We're so lucky to have such great friends around and to know you'll all take care of each other in any type of situation. Elle went back to school to find damage in her classroom, missing cabinets, no computers, and pink carpet. Hopefully everything around Houston gets back to normal sometime soon. Now, if that wasn't a long post, I don't know what is!