Pumpkin Guts

There are going to be a lot of pictures. Consider yourself warned. :)

(Love the smiles)!

I love fall. L.O.V.E. it! Our weekends have been jam packed with tons of fun stuff, and it's been great weather on top of that!

We made monster brownies. Cute and Yummy!
Went to Wheeler Farms where we dared to go through the spookable filled maze.
Good thing we had these tough chickies to protect us!
Played a little bit of Follow the Leader. Well mostly Banana led and we followed...

Picked out our pumpkins. Apparently the pumpkin was winning this battle.
Painted said pumpkins.
(Those are ALMOST finished Halloween Costumes in the background. So close)!


And here's the part where Running Man thought it'd be great to terrify Miss Em with pumpkin guts. I'm pretty sure the following was her thought process through the whole thing...
Hmm...what is that? Very interesting.
Oh wait. Maybe not. Don't come any closer dad. I mean it.
Maybe if I hide he'll leave me alone. Maybe.
Ok, maybe not. Maybe if I cry he'll see that I don't like it.
Well, crying has never really worked out in my favor. I think I'm going to be sick. Maybe puking will get him to back off. And maybe Mom will put down the camera and give a girl break.
Well, that didn't work either. I think I'll just resort to screaming my head off.
And success.
We're great parents, huh?!
To make up for it we went for a drive through American Fork Canyon.
It was GORGEOUS. So many pretty colors and there was the perfect fall crispness in the air. Heaven.Banana's biggest dream is to fly. Not like be a pilot fly. Really fly. Running Man tried to bring a little of her dream to life. They loved it.

The perfect end to a nearly perfect day.

Finally Fall!

I'm sitting here listening to the rain and wind outside, and it feels like HOME. One of our favorite things about living in Iowa was the amazing rain/thunderstorms. It is one of the top 5 things I miss about living there. Another things I miss about living there is this awesome girl.
And...she came to visit yesterday! I only got to spend a few hours with her but we didn't waste a second! I haven't done much, well anything, socially since we moved out here so it was SO nice to get out and spend time with someone who knows me inside and out.
I am LUCKY to have her as one of my best friends.
My girls take after me (and I after my mom) and fully embrace the start of the Holiday season! We love all things Halloween/Fall/Christmas at our house and I really believe it is my favorite time of year!
The first craft of the season were these Frankensteins. Super easy, super fun and kept them entertained for a good half an hour. Awesome!
(Em won't stop making this face in EVERY picture I ever take. And Banana looks slightly crazy in this pic...)

Running Man's parents and li'l sis came into town for Conference and I'm so mad I didn't get one single picture. But we did go to Gardner Village with everyone and had a blast finding all of the witches and eating some yummy candy from the candy store. I could have spent hours and hours in all of the shops, but there were 10,000 ppl there and the girls got grumpy. So...my bank account is safe for now. :)
The biggest thing to happen this week...Banana chopped her hair off! I kinda sorta didn't tell her I was going to cut that much off...Lucky for me she LOVES it. I couldn't get the smile off of her face, or get her to stop checking herself out in every mirror we passed. It makes her look so grown up!
(Yes, yes I know how dusty my shelves are. I did clean them promptly after seeing this picture on my camera)!
Here's to Happy Fall Festivities!

{Giggles}

Why I love my job!

Goings On

I'm a little behind...Life always seems to get a little more hectic when Fall comes around. Banana is LOVING preschool, and Em is LOVING having some one on one time with me. Running Man has been crazy busy with work. The past few weeks he has been working all of his normal hours at his office and every night at the State Fair. We all missed him! I escaped to Price for a few days so the girls could play with cousins, grandparents and aunts. One of the highlights of that trip was going to my HS's Homecoming football game. I haven't been to one since the year after I graduated. So...a LONG time ago. Banana has a slight obsession with cheerleaders as of late (thanks to her aunt Tay-Tay). She was in HEAVEN cheering along with the girls all throughout the game.
Super cute to watch!

The girls spotted the Homecoming Royalty during the parade and asked me if they were real princessess (Banana's life long dream is to be a real princess). I told her yes and it was all she could talk about the rest of day. Well...at the game she spotted Ariel so we had to get a picture!

Running Man's bday happened to fall during the State Fair so we had to spread out celebrating out to the times when we got to see him for a few minutes. Sunday we did bday cake and got to just relax together for a few hours!

On his actual bday Grandma T. and Kenna came up to see Kenna's quilt that was in the fair, so we went with them and got to have a quick dinner with him to celebrate!

Banana got to see a pig and you couldn't wipe the smile off her face. (Those who know her well know that piggies are her FAVORITE animal. Ever.)

I have been diving into projects at home to try and keep me busy and distracted from all of the craziness that has happened the last few months. We live in an apartment, so we can't paint any walls so colorful crafts have been my goal! These are all from Banana's newly finished room. I am pretty excited about the colors and how everything turned out.

Art work for the wall.

I finally found a way to display all of Banana's pictures my friend took a few months ago. There were way too many cute ones to choose from so I just displayed them all. :)

Finally, the BIGGEST project I have ever taken on. The girls have always used a dresser that used to be mine when I was a baby. I kind of tried to re-do it when we lived in Iowa, but with lots of curious hands grabbing at it, it didn't last too long. This is the best before picture that I could find...

And here's the after. I sanded, painted, stenciled and mod podged fabric onto the top. I LOVE how it turned out. I have the bug now and can't wait to get started on all of the other rooms in the house!

We {heart} school!

This little girl got all dolled up this morning and headed off to her first day of pre-school!

(Well...technically not her very first day ever seeing as she was in school last year).

But that didn't take away from the total excitement (on her part), and the tears (on my part).
Miss Em is slightly distraught about Banana not being around, and about her not being able to stay at pre-school. She did NOT want to leave that incredible classroom and come with her boring old mom. So I'm looking for things to do with her to help pass the time! Having Banana at school makes it easier to run errands, but I don't want my alone time with Em to turn into strictly errands all of the time. Any suggestions on what I can do with this spunky, crazy two year old?!

A Lesson For All

After a trip to the ER and five stitches...

Em has learned to NOT play with scissors.
{Sigh}
I'd rather she learned her lesson a different way...

These past few weeks have been the most trying of our lives, but the one thing that has kept us going is knowing that life goes on. Things get a little bit easier every day, and we have an amazing support system. I am grateful for so many shoulders to cry on, so many listening ears, and most importantly the comfort I feel from my Savior.

Running Man is busy as ever at work and we have made the most of what little time we do have together. The girls and I spent a week in Price playing with Grandparents, aunts and cousins. The girls loved the attention, and I felt very lucky to have so many extra sets of helping hands while I was in the hospital and recovering. Aunt Cole is the coach for the Drill Team in Price so the girls got to play at Jr. Drill Camp. They had a blast and it's fun to see how much they both love dancing and performing.
Banana and Blayr Bear are so funny together. I'm pretty sure their teachers weren't too impressed with what chatterboxes they were! :)

Aunt K and her kiddos came to visit and it was so much fun to see them! The Boy and The Girl are such dolls and Banana thinks The Boy is the coolest kid ever. The Girl is such a little cutie and I loved the cuddle time she let me have with her!

We also got to travel to Vernal for a family reunion, and I loved being able to see aunts, uncles and cousins that I haven't seen in quite a while. Once again the girls LOVED all of the attention. My Aunt and Uncle have an awesome property with lots of fun animals, a pond, and a tramp (which the girls pretty much lived on).

We have been wanting to go to Logan since we moved back to Utah and we FINALLY got the chance yesterday. Banana has been asking for a while to see where she was born, and it was so nice to go back to the town where we started our married life!

We took the girls to campus where Running Man showed them some of his favorite spots!

No trip to campus is complete without some Aggie ice cream! It was oh so delicious. :)

We drove past out first home and Banana was SUPER excited to see where she lived when she was a (teeny, tiny) baby. We have so many wonderful memories in that house. It was kind of weird to pull up, park in our old parking spot and not be able to go in the front door.
We stopped by for a quick visit with cousin Hadlee. Love that girl!
We went for a hike up the canyon, and took a dip in the river!
And ended a pretty perfect day feeding the ducks and playing in the water at First Dam.
Yesterday was just the kind of day we needed to recharge ourselves and get us ready to face another week.