Birthday Boy

Well Brigham turned 26 this last Saturday. I tried to give him a relaxing day and I think he got one. He woke up and watched the movie Australia all morning and I served him left over pumpkin pie with homemade white chocolate whip cream for breakfast. Then he played the Wii and next it was time for the BYU/Utah football game. Although the outcome wasn't quite what we wanted, (you should have been at my house and witnessed Brigham standing on the couch screaming NOOO! like someone had just died when BYU's game-winning field goal was blocked. You would have been afraid. I was.) it was still an exciting game to watch. It was fun to have all of our brothers over to watch the game with us.

 I made brownie tarts for Brigham since we aren't really cake fans and even though he didn't expect presents since he's getting super expensive contacts/glasses, he got a few small presents. He got a shirt and I framed his recently earned diploma for him to hang on the wall and a plate and cup to use at work. Somehow he always gets a Spiderman something or other for holidays. This year was no exception with his Spiderman plate to eat off of. Luckily I won't have to look at it since he'll use it at work.

 The rest of the day we played cards with my brothers, Scott and Kyle, and then watched Toy Story 3. I hope Brigham had a good day off because he deserves it with all the work he's put into graduating from college and working hard to take care of our little family. Happy Birthday Brigham!

(oh, I would have a picture of him with his diploma, but since it was from the U of U, Brigham wouldn't even hardly look at it because the sting of our loss was too fresh on his mind, so we get a Spiderman plate instead)

The World is my Canvas

      A few Sundays ago, Lydia's nursery leader informed me that she was doing better coloring which floored me because the last time I had tried coloring with her, she only attempted to eat the crayons with no concept of their actual purpose-- despite me trying to show her. So, I took her home and sat down with a sheet of paper and crayons. To my surprise she does know how to successfully scribble. I was such a proud mom. My one year old can scribble!! :)
      Well now I'm afraid the situation has escalated. I have a package of blue pens that Lydia has found. I swear she took some and hid them randomly around the house because I keep finding her with one in hand. Every time I turn around I find her with another one. Well she has also learned how to "color" with pens. I try to tell her only on paper, but as you can see below, she has discovered that pens can draw on lots of things that crayons can't, like skin!!

You can see a little pen on her face in this picture, but I couldn't quite capture the full effect on film because she's so wiggly. Luckily it hasn't been too bad because I keep a close eye on her. So far only her face, hands, and clothes have suffered but I'm sure she'll discover more things to draw on. Oh goody.

 Besides pens, Lydia loves to practice feeding her baby. What a good older sister she'll be :)

Oh, and she looked so cute before church last Sunday, I had to take a picture. It really doesn't do her justice. 

HaLLoWeeN 2010

(Warning: This is a long post! Prepare yourself now)
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, probably because it's just so much fun. Also, my Mom has always been into Halloween and we laugh that she has more Halloween decorations than Christmas ones. Anyways, I have also developed a love for this fantastic holiday. We did small family activities, the classic trick-or-treating, and also our annual Halloween party so this post will be done in parts.

Pumpkin Carving and Caramel Apples

So we love carving pumpkins and making caramel apples and we do this pretty much every year with this year being no exception. I did caramel apples a little different this year because I wanted to be able to decorate them with heavier candies. So I read online about how to make sure the caramel doesn't slide off the apples, such as boiling the wax off the apples, (yes apples have wax on them to make them look more appealing. You should try dipping your apples in boiling water for 15 seconds and wipe off the wax. They look very different afterwards!) cooling the apples, letting the melted caramel sit for awhile, etc.  At first I thought it had worked, but we discovered the caramel still slid off the apples if they were left out of the fridge for too long and became a gooey messy pile. They still tasted delicious though!
     Carving pumpkins was fun as well. Lydia liked dipping her spoon in the pumpkin imitating us scraping the guts out. I carved three in the time it took Brigham to carve his one, but in his defense, I did very simple shapes so that Lydia could point them out and help me. Brigham took his time deciding on his angry cat face. We had a pumpkin for Brigham, me, Lydia, and even baby Ammon. It was a fun family night!

Costumes
Last year I swore I wouldn't make our costumes ever again because it was so time consuming, but I was roped into it again and I realized I probably will be every year. We usually plan our costume theme around what Lydia is each year. This time we borrowed her Tinkerbell costume from a friend at work. She LOVED it. She was so happy with how she looked.  So with Lydia as Tink, Brigham as Peter Pan and me as Wendy, we were ready for Neverland. I sewed Brigham's hat out of felt, and created the rest of his costume and mine from DI. It wasn't too bad, just a lot of time searching for the right pieces. Total spent was around $25 for all three costumes.

Yes I am a pregnant-looking Wendy.

Trick-or-Treating
Trick-or-treating for the first time with my own child was pretty exciting for me. This year was strange, however, as it was pouring rain the entire night. Every time it would let up a little and we would attempt to leave, it would start pouring again. Finally we just said, it's now or never. So, with rain pouring down, we went to six houses. Sounds small, but by time we were done, Lydia's bucket was half full! Apparently everyone on our street gives out full size candy bars!

 Lydia definitely wasn't thrilled with the rain and whined about her legs getting wet . . . that is until the first person put candy in her bucket. Then she was the happiest camper ever! She would not give up her bucket after we were done and I think she wouldn't have minded going all night long. If she could open candy she would have eaten her whole bucket that night. Luckily she just dumps it out, attempts to open a piece, and then puts it back in her bucket when she realizes she can't and moves on to the next piece.

Halloween Party!
Throwing a Halloween party each year is kind of our thing. We love to do it and it's usually a blast. This year was interesting because most of our friends have babies now. This, I learned, calls for adjustments. Also, I wasn't as impressed with my game selection this year. However, it was fun to have everyone over and dressed up! One of the games was to create a scary Halloween scene out of objects I had prepared for each team in a box. Ironically, the teams pretty much built the same scene! I loved this game because it was creepy-cool :) Here are the two scenes side by side, click on the picture for the full effect.

We also played a game where you have to suck up candy using only a straw into a cup while the other team tries to answer Halloween trivia correctly. This game was a little crazy!

 People had great costumes, such as ninja's, cowboys, Mario and Luigi, Ken and Barbie, etc.

We had scary treats, other fun games, and good times with friends. Thanks to everyone that came, it was a blast!

Recovering from being super sick previously that week, I'm impressed with how well everything went and how much we did for Halloween. It was another great year :)

Silly Girl

Lydia is now almost twenty months. She's a giant ball of fun and also challenging in ways that I didn't expect. It's a pain trying to get her to eat anything that's not sweet and she's learned how to bite, pinch, and yell no. She also is into the whole tantrum thing, which I cannot stand. However, as we are working with all of this, I also get her kisses, new words, and silly personality.  Here are a few moments of her silliness captured.

We brought home 3-D glasses from a movie and Lydia loves to have us put them on her. She'll keep them on for a good time. Here she is with her Uncle Kyle displaying her glasses.

Here is a great shot of how she generally sleeps.... with her butt straight up in the air. Believe it or not, she is sound asleep. She usually takes all her naps this way and no matter how I start her out, this is how she ends up.

I just can't imagine how it's comfortable, but she seems to prefer being up on her knees, butt in the air, and arms folded beneath her. She's so silly, I've tried to straighten her out once she's asleep but she usually navigates back to the same position.