September and October...

Hello friends!

I am still back-tracking and trying to keep up with our family journaling..

We made a trip to Mesa/Tempe at the end of September for Shannon Gorley's wedding. (Someone John grew up with when he lived in Apache Junction, AZ.) We stayed with Bob and Amy in their new house. It was a lot of fun. Amy and I went to IKEA with the kids and I fell in love. It was so good to see John's Family, Nancy (Nanny), Kenny (Grumps), Ganes (Uncle G), and Max (Uncle Frank). It was the first completely non-secular wedding we had ever been to. It was interesting to be at a wedding and never hear God or anything close mentioned at all. The vows were beautiful though. Kenny had just gotten back from Alaska and had a little grizzly bear for Emma and some awesome grizzly stories ..

The next weekend was General Conference and the Balloon Fiesta! My mom and brother Josh came for the weekend. It was a lot of fun. John missed all of the balloons because he was busy studying, so I am really glad they came. I knew Emma would love it and she did! We went to the Mass Ascension.
There were a lot of balloons and a ton of people. Here's Josh.

The kissing bees..
Emma loved this frog guy. All the other kids were kind of afraid of him, but he cracked Emma up! She would swing punches at him (he does actually make a good punching bag) and give him high fives. She is a picture of pure bliss..

The Air Force Band was there rocking out and Emma rocked out along with them.. she danced for a good ten minutes with no signs of stopping! Needless to say she was pretty much stealing the show..

We took a walk by the River Sunday morning. Emma loooves to be outside.

This is at the Petroglyphs Monument with the play group. (Aubrey, Gavin, Olivia and Emma). It was maybe a little too trecherous for toddlers, but they all had so much fun! Emma found an ant hill and thought it was the coolest thing.

There was a lot of movement during this photo shoot, but I have to share.. I thought it was so cute and how amazing it is to see the natural motherely instincts of a 17 month old. She got all of our clean laundry off the couch and was swaddling and covering (and burying) her little baby doll that she was carrying around in a little basket. And then giving the baby a drink of her sippy cup.. soo sweet!

I LOVE FALL TIME! We went out to McCall's Pumpkin Patch with the Smith's. Levi and Emma rode the cattle train together. We got a few pumpkins and Emma loved to pick up the pumpkins and throw them to watch them bounce, and she would try to carry several at once. I guess she loves Autumn also!

Emma also loves to read!

..and make funny faces! I also love fall because of all the pumpkin! (and squash and sweet potatoes).. I made something pumpkiny every week at least! Here's the pumpkin creme brule.. (divine) Here's a pumpkin cupcake with pumpkin cream cheese frosting I made. I found the best recipe for pumpkin cheese cake streusel cupcakes. yummmy! Emma also enjoyed all the pumpkin things I made, but cannot pass up some good cold cereal (also one of my favorite things)

Happy Halloween!!! We had so much fun with Halloween! I spent hours and lots of dollars making our costumes.. but it was well worth it. We had been planning this for several years.. and I'm pretty sure I fullfilled one of John's childhood fantasies as well. He was Han Solo with the boots, blaster and holster in tact! I was Princess Leia and Emma Jane was an Ewok. It was a lot of fun. We went to our ward Halloween Carnival the night before Halloween. Emma had so much fun. She really loves to be around a lot of people and other kids and likes to stay busy busy busy. I had to chase her around for a while before I got any good pictures of her.

sleepy ewok.

giggly ewok. This is Halloween morning when Emma drew some art work in the bathtub. It was just chalk. She was very proud of her work. :) Nanny and Grumps came over and helped hand out candy. Kenny is the best pumpkin carver. Emma was eating the pumpkin scraps raw! And I thought I liked pumpkin! We made some yummy pumpkin soup and watch some baseball. Happy Halloween!! November 1st, almost 18 months. Emma Jane climbing on Daddy's books.

Also.. John and I both had birthdays in October. We are getting old!