So Thankful

Being the time of year that it is, I am in an exceptionally thankful frame of mind. Everyday countless things come to my attention that I am so grateful to God for!
Someone emailed my dad this picture today. This past Sunday, we went to the early service, so Caroline didn't to see my Dad. I guess that Chris let her run in to give him a hug as the service was starting. A friend of ours snapped this precious moment.
It brings back so many memories for me. When I was a little girl, I would prance myself up to the stage during the "Welcome to Guests" time. I loved walking up the stairs and watching my dress bounce as I did (of course I had on a big puffy slip underneath). I'd give Dad a big hug and then hurry back down to my seat. It has always been a special memory for both my dad and me. To be able to see my daughter continue this with my father is beyond words for me. I am so grateful to have such a sweet family and such a sweet church and for the chance to enjoy both of them together!

"We're Going Camping Now..."

We just wrapped up a wonderful weekend of food, fun and FIRE! Actually the fire part is still with us... No matter how many times I wash my hair, I still smell smoke! Caroline actually told me the other day that my hair smelled like meat.
We met 5 other families out at Lake Mineral Wells State Park after I got off of work. Chris went ahead and I had the pleasure of riding with my favorite two Gentrys. They did a little fishing and setting up before we got there, so we didn't have to mess with any of that. After a little milling about, we got the fire started and got dinner going. Aaron E. did a great job handling the grill! I was actually able to make the best roasted marshamllow in history!
After we ate (actually we pretty much ate the entire time we were there), we settled in for a few hours around the fire. I am not really sure what the kids were doing all night, but they were very excited. The Ericksons brought some glow sticks, so we started identifying the kids by color. There was a lot of "Purple stop chasing Blue" and "Red get out of that tree." The best time was spent after the kids were put to bed, even though Paul never quite went to sleep. Occasionally we would hear him yell out a comment about our discussion from the tent ("who did I punch in the face?"). So funny!
The next morning we woke up and made omelets in baggies. you'll have to wait for Emily's blog for details on that. She was the photographer. We were trying very hard to do some Pioneer Woman cooking documentation.
We spent the morning eating and fishing and chatting. After we packed up early, thanks to a rambunctious group of Boy Scouts that practically ransacked out camp, we headed over to the other side of the lake for some hiking. Again... see Emily's blog for that.
What a great time we had! The kids were thoroughly exhausted! Can't wait to do it again!

The kiddos and the sunset
A blurry pic of the ladies

Watching the Dads build the fire

The Guys playing

Andee with a donut

Smokey and Andee

Bryan chopping wood

Me chopping wood. Yes ma'am!

Reece and Hailey

The boys coming to see Caroline

Caroline enjoying a rest in the tent

8 Months

Our Little (Big) Man is 8 months old! He is more precious every day! It has been a great month!

The News of the Month
-no doctor check up, so no new stats on weight or height
-He has crawled some but prefers the army crawl. He can move!
-FOUR!! new teeth came in all at once, so he now has the bottom two and the top four
-pretty much wrapping up baby food-YEAH!- because he can eat pretty much anything we cut up now
-Constant pink cheeks and diaper rash
-Saying Dada a lot and once in a very blue moon Mama
-Done with pretty much all baby contraptions except the occasional minute in the excersaucer. I'm ready to have my living room back!
-Still a good sleeper and eater
- Loves church and Nana's house
- Flaps his arms and kicks his legs when he's excited. I love that he is so demonstrative with his motions since he's so quiet


Coming this month...
babyproofing, new carseat, first airplane ride

We're Off to See the Wizard

Last Thursday night, Caroline and I had a Girls Night. Our sweet friend, Caroline E., was performing in her school's play. The play just happened to be the Wizard of Oz, which is very big in our house right now and Caroline E. was playing Dorothy, I jumped at the chance to go see her and for my Caroline to have one last chance to wear her Halloween costume. The play was wonderful! I couldn't have been more impressed with Caroline E. I babysat her from birth and she was in my wedding, so it has been so special to watch her and her sister grow and blossom.

Caroline, Connor and Drew enjoying the play

Caroline (Dorothy) and Caroline (Dorothy)
Caroline with the other main characters

Halloween Part 3

On Halloween night, we went over to the Gentry's house to celebrate. It was a great night of food and fun.

The hosts- Princess Peach and MarioThe Esteses
Elder Chris won the costume contest

Oh the curl of a pink sponge roller

Dorothy

The Ladies

The Fellas

Hailey, Me, Em

Halloween Part 2

The church did a great job hosting a Fall Festival for the families at our church. We are so blessed!

CC and Lo

One Drooly Lion
Getting her face painted

Love my little Man

Papa got some face paint too!

Goal!

Caroline and Kennedy

The balloon room

Halloween Part 1

We started off our Halloween season with trick or treating in my parents' neighborhood. It is one of my favorite traditions!
My mom made Caroline's costume- amazing as usual! Caroline is really into the Wizard of Oz and my mom pretty much made an exact replica of the original dress.

Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion

Cowardly Coop
Sweet Dorothy

Heading out

Made a quick stop at the Hayes' for a party.

Paul and Caroline being silly

Brandi and Tink

A very sleepy lion

Zodiac

This past Saturday, I had a blast from the past with a luncheon at Zodiac at Neiman Marcus. I remember being a little girl and going to eat there and feeling so special. It really isn't fancy, but I love it because it reminds me fo the days of the shopping trip experience. You'd dress up and go with friends and wear white gloves and have lunch at Zodiac while they prepared your packages.

The special part of this certain luncheon was the company. We ate with my mom, grandmother and another set of 3 generations- Mrs. Carolyn Coggin, Mrs. Olivia Eudaly and my friend Deborah Desario. It is so special to have 3 generations of women that are all friends. It's actually 4 generations because Deborah's son, Marshall and Cooper are the same age and will grow up around each other. We ate popovers and souffle and drank tea. We ended the meal with a yummy dessert in honor of my mom's recent birthday.

Park City

We spent our second day in Park City. Oh I died! It was so beautiful and full of quaint cafes and shops.

The leaves were just beginning to get really beautiful. Love the tree in the back of this picture. We all convinced ourselves that the altitude was what was killing up shopping up and down this hill all day. But it was worth all of the huffing and puffing!

After our shopping and snacking and a quick boost from Starbucks, we headed to the Olympic

facility nearby. Man we had a ball. I'm sure there would have been a number of under-the- breath comments about Texas had the others in our tour known about our home state. We laughed the entire time and just really enjoyed the experience.The freestyle skiers are able to practice their jumps at this location during the summer. They blow oxygen into the water so that the landing is nice and soft.

Can you believe the hugeness of this thing? It is covered in a long AstroTurf-like material to mimic the smoothness of snow.

The day we were there was the first day that they were trying out the ice on the bobsled track. Right as we walked up, Howard Siler was taking off on a test run. Howard Siler is the Jamaican bobsled team coach played by John Candy in the movie Cool Runnings. He spends a lot of time at this facility working on the ice and training sledders. You can see him waving as he passed.

Chris thought he'd give the luge a try...

The view from the top of the Nordic track. Seriously steep, but so amazing!

Em was a little freaked out by the see through walkways way up there!

A view of the bobsled track

Olympian Emily

All in all it was such a wonderful day. We ended our Park City time with a few hours at the outlet mall and then headed back to SLC for dinner and some of this...

SLC

As always, I am slightly overdue with this post... We were so blessed to be able to take a quick weekend trip to Utah with our sweet friends, Brad and Emily. Brad was there for about a month working, so we jumped at the chance to use Emily's Southwest vouchers to hang with them for a few days! Thanks Em!
We flew over the Grand Canyon, which was a first for us, and were able to catch a glimpse of the MASSIVENESS of this place! It was seriously breathtaking!
We started our weekend tour of Salt Lake City cuisine at a great bakery. The weather was just gorgeous, especially because we had been living in constant rain for weeks leading up to that in Texas! We enjoyed our time on the patio and loved the desserts we ordered!
Check these out...
We left one eatery and headed to the next. Mini's cupcakes was so delightful! They make their cupcakes a little smaller so people like me can enjoy several with each visit. We ordered a coconut (with meringue topping!), a smores (with marshmallow icing!), a chocolate that was the consistency of a brownie and a Breakfast at Tiffany's (seen below). We saved them for that evening- delish.

After getting settled, we tried this fabulous pizzeria with a view of the mountains. We seriously fell in love with Salt Lake City. There was pretty much constant commentary throughout the weekend about starting a commune in the area with friends and family. When in Salt Lake...
We headed from there to the Temple Square to hear the Mormon Tabernacle choir's Thursday night open practice. Words cannot describe the beauty of their music. My Taylor Swift sing-a-longs in the car are even less acceptable to my ears now than they were before.We wrapped up our evening with a crisp evening stroll around the temple. My curiosity of the activities of this building was killer!

Sunday Singin'

Today was a big day for our Big Little girl Caroline. She was singing in big church for the first time! I predicted that we would all dissolve into a puddle of tears at the sight of our Sweet C on stage! I have so many memories of singing in big church. I hope that she loves it through the years as much as I did! Check it out...

So when I said tears, I was thinking of us, not her! If you can't tell what happened, Caroline started picking her nose and my mom, on the front row, was telling her to stop. So, she called down to my mom that there was something "crusty" in her nose that hurt, which of course made us all burst out laughing. As soon as she saw this, she started crying because she thought we were laughing at her. I was hoping that she would recover and get over it, but she ended up being pulled down to sit with us. Well, at last it was memorable!

Ladies & Gentlemen, Boys & Girls

The Shriners offered all local teachers and their families free tickets to their circus last night. It was such a treat! All of the acts were very professional and impressive. Caroline was in heaven! She was on the edge of her seat the entire night!
Caroline was too chicken to go up to the clowns, so we let Coop show her that it was nothing to worry about. Yeah, didn't work out as planned.
Chris' mom got Caroline an elephant stuffed animal and it has not left her presence since that moment!

Caroline rode the elephant 3, yes 3, times and the camel once. This picture is not good, but you can see how teeny Caroline looks on this huge elephant! Mommy had obviously left when the decision was made for her to make her first solo ride on a multi-ton animal. Thankfully, she was safe and had a great memory!