Life's been busy..

But we like it that way. :-)

Thanksgiving was... well, if you want to know, go ahead and ask me.

Our Christmas tree was $10 from the cub scouts and it is AWESOME. Don't tell my mom, she gets jealous when hearing about any advantages of living in the northwest. Christmas trees in California start at $80 for little trees. Chandler LOVES the tree, I don't know where he gets that. Currently, I can't find our camera (arg) so I can't take a picture of it.

Chandler is a genius. Okay, probably not. But he knows his letters (O, S, X, A, B; the easy ones), shapes and will spit out an occasional sentence.

The Gala was fun. Good thing I stole these pictures from Julie because we couldn't find our camera. It was on top for the fridge. It's fun to get dressed up and go somewhere every once and a while; even if we don't like to dance. The food was fantastic, but Brandon spent the rest of the night saying, "Can we get pancakes after?" I guess it wasn't enough food. And, yes, we had pancakes.

Danny is my hero! Since Brandon never seems sufficiently amazed by the transformations, I will show you and you can leave appropriate "holy crap" comments.

430 pounds

Stupid NBC.com wont let me steal their pictures... weird.

Look here @ 191 pounds!!

Common.. that's amazing. I can't even say how much younger he looks because he looks like an entirely different person. Congratulations Danny!

California, here we come. Only a week left, and I feel like there's still a lot to do, but we are excited none the less. Brandon will be driving down after finals next week.

FINALS. Brandon is a studying machine, and we are so proud.

Oh, PS: I made Brandon get up on the roof and put up Christmas lights, and I love them. I will try to post a picture later.

Christmas!

I wish I had something interesting to say..

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I promise, you've never seen anything quite like these..

They're not real people. Seriously.

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/11/mind-blowing-hyperrealistic-sculptures/

Halloween

Halloween was super fun and exhausting!
I made 75 cupcakes for the ward party cake walk.

I wish I had taken more pictures, but we were in a time crunch to get to the activity on time.
Brandon and I dressed up (I think for the first time since we've been married)..
We're a pregnant house wife and a milk man.
I tried to eat a doughnut off a string..
I thought Yousook and I both had awesome faces in this picture.

We ventured out trick or treating for the first time. I would not recommend fairview.. it was a zoo. Chandler had a good time anyway :-)

He's a dinosaur, not Elmo.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Dear Pregnant Ladies,

As you know, I cry about everything, all the time. Usually not sad tears. Holy crap, Biggest Looser makes me cry (nothing to do with you, pregnant ladies).

When I'm pregnant (I'm not) I cry more.. so I'm glad I wasn't pregnant when I came across this blog. Because I'm not sure if I would have been able to handle the sobbing. "Design mom" has other things on her blog, I'm sure it's fabulous.. but I just read these.

Brace yourself, pregnant or not.. these birth stories are sweet, intense, and heart wrenching:

http://www.designmom.com/labels/thoughts%20on%20pregnancy.html

Pumpkin Patch

Mom came to visit us Friday afternoon and left Tuesday morning. We were so happy to have grandma here.

Every morning Chandler got up and yelled "ga-ma!" We didn't take too many pictures, except at the pumpkin patch. So fun! Thanks, Valerie, for the idea.


Julie, why wasn't our pumpkin that big?
We payed $5 for Chandler to ride this pony..
...he was bored.
But he loved this pony...
...and this one...
He didn't like to touch the pumpkins because they were dirty and "yucky"


We played lots of games, ate lots of Chocolate, it was a very, very good time.

Everyone's had this conversation..

"I wonder what's the truth about the Dinosaurs?"

What the crap.. October, seriously?

Is anyone else in shock that it's October! I found myself blog stalking today and thinking, why hasn't [blank] updated yet?! And look at me it's been a whole month since I wrote that completely useless and uninteresting blog about fall...

We went to fair like 100 years ago..

The hypnotist tried, but couldn't but me all the way under.. my mom says it's because I have control issues. Oh well.Chandler and Benson tried to share our stroller for all of about 30 seconds. lol.

I made two cakes in one weekend, I don't recommend it. The pink and green one is my first attempt and a full size cake. I always make litttle one's like Teresa's undreneath. It was scary, but turned about better than I had imagined.

PS: if you're going to use that marshmallow fondant recipe follow it carefully. Teresa's cake was a ***** to work with.

Chandler went fishing with the men..
They didn't catch anything, but it was about the experience, right? Besides then brother Chezic gave us some fish last week. :-)

Our program came and went and it was fabulous(?). It's hard to know how the kids are actually doing while I'm up there with them. lol. I'm told it was fabulous. We're getting ready for Halloween, I'm going to the fabric store today to find some stuff for chandler's costume.
We've been discussing Christmas plans, and I've started our shopping.. so far Adam has the coolest present. In primary we are seriously discussing January's new classes.

I can't believe it, it feels like the year is OVER.

Autumn

I wore a sweater today and Sunday.

I love Fall. This morning I stood in the back yard and smelled the air for at least 3 minutes. I hope the Perkes couldn't see.. I am sure it looked weird. Then I went inside and smelled the crayons.

I thought about getting new clothes and tennis shoes. Clothes that sat in my dresser for weeks because I wasn't allowed to wear them until the first day of school. Walking into that classroom, that smells like construction paper and glue sticks in my new clothes. Close your eyes, can't you smell it? Can you smell new binders, paper, hot pencil sharpeners, erasers, whiteboard markers, sweaters, backpacks, and new socks?

It makes me feel excitement even tho I'm not actually returning to the school supplies this year.

Does it make you want to go outside and smell the air? (be careful, your neighbors might look at you weird). It smells like fall.. crisp, fresh... makes me want to bake an apple with cinnamon and sugar, then go buy Halloween costumes.

It makes me want to cry because I am happy, and I love this time of year, and I cry all the time at everything. It makes me want to cry because life is moving and I can't seems to enjoy everything as much as I would like because it's just too fast. It makes me want to cry because our primary program is next Sunday and that makes me panic.

So if you haven't done it yet, go buy a new sweater, and some crayons, and go stand in the back yard and smell fall. And if you're like me cry. God gives us these few short weeks in September before the rain (or snow, or fires) comes when everything is perfect, and everything smells perfect.

I have been crafting a little...

If you've never worked with fondant, you should, it's fun. I learned alot for next time. But more importantly, I made this fondant myself. It's marshmallow fondant. I had everything I needed for it in my pantry, no glycerine or other chemicals needed. Also, I was told (I didn't actually eat any of the cake) that it tastes better than regular fondant. Oh, PS: yes, it's supposed to be all crooked like that. It leaned a little more to the right than I would have liked, but like I said, 'next time'.

No, these aren't some kind of hint, or announcement. Everyone I know seems to be having babies. Emali got a few and there are a few going other places. ;-) They're just applicae (sp?), and then I had to hand stitch them all.. Took like a 100 years (probably 1-2 hours each), but it was totally worth it!

This one I did a few weeks after the others. Not the best picture, but you get the idea. Super cute. When I have a girl, she is wearing this home from the hospital. It was actually just tulle left over from Chelsea's baby shower. :-) I love Pottery barn....
Not because I would spend $26 on a pillow, but because I get their catalog and and it's full of things I can just copy with your sewing machine. $10, 5 old pillows, 5 new pillows! I really don't think these pictures do it justice, but you can come see them if you'de like.
Okay, gardening isn't really 'crafty', but it fits in the same category in my mind: "things I try to do". Julie and I are reaping the fruits and veggies of our labors. More exciting than these veggies is.. our pumpkins (and one cantelope) have started growing!! They're little tiny things, all 3 or 4 of them, but we are very excited. We bough "compition size". They're supposed to get up to 200 pounds or something crazy. I will be extremely happy if we get two that are big enough to carve. However, we have a slug problem. They get on our plants and make them whither. Have you seen the little withered pumpkin, julie? Any suggestions on how to keep the slugs out of our garden? Besides moving away from the mid west ;-)

Now I really want to make another cake. Who needs a cake?

PSS: if you think I stole the collage thing from you, I did. I have been trying not to use it (because I don't want to look like a copy cat.. yes, I am six at heart), but there just wasn't a better way this time! So, yes I stole it from all of you who use it on your blog. Thanks.

Ummm... Pictures

I don't have anything clever to say. We had our family pictures taken, and here are some of them. Hope you had a wonderful weekend!










Um.. please take a moment to check out my hair..


k bye.