November

November was a really busy and fun month. Here are the highlights:

My birthday always a highlight:>

Lizzie learned to walk
We spent a cold day at the zoo and learned the names of all the giraffes

Lizzie moved into Addie's room and I have a den again.
(No Lizzie does not sleep with this many animals. Addie decided to "make her very happy" after nap time)
We got new carpet and now wrestling time is a little bit less scratchy

I just added this because I think she looked cute.

Addie's Wisdom

Sometimes Addie comes out with the best little gems of knowledge. She shared this one with Natalie this morning after I left for work.

"I don't think that daddies should have to go to work. I think they should have to stay home and play with their daughters."

I had to post this because it makes me look awesome and I think it is funny. We will look for the future legislation...

Fall time

This last Saturday we went hiking because the weather was still so nice. I asked Addie what she wanted to do that day and she said "I want to go hiking and I want Milli to come." Milli is the dog by the way. Addie likes to pick up the leaves and sticks and rocks and acorns and everything else, but she hikes it by herself so I have no complaints.

Pumpkin carving and Halloween

First we will hit the main event of the costumes and trick-or-treating. Then on to the event that happened prior being the carving of the pumpkins. Please, no comments about the chronological order of things, there is a reason for it in our heads and as this is our blog that will be the way it is. Any questions? Anyway, on to the post. For Halloween this year we dressed up as the three little pigs and the big bad wolf. I had this idea last year. Addie started out the season excited to be a pig but then refused. She wanted to be a shark, sometimes an elephant, sometimes a hedgehog, anything other then a pig. A week before Halloween I finally gave up and decided to find a new costume idea. That day she suddenly decided that she wanted to be a pig. Ahhh. She isn't stubborn or anything. We had a great Halloween though and it was really warm. Nick took the girls out trick or treating and they both loved it. Lizzie just sucked on a sucker in her stroller the whole time. Addie yelled "thanks" and "Halloween" walking away from every door. She was supposed to say "Happy Halloween" but stating the name of the holiday was about all we could get. Anyway here are the pictures.

Now for the pumpkin carving. We picked our pumpkins from a local pumpkin patch which was really fun. We carved them the next night. Below is the play-by-play.

After her initial anger at putting a knife in her pumpkin Addie started enjoying removing the pumpkin guts

Lizzie found her own way of amusing herself
Addie's finished product. She drew the face she wanted and told me to make it look sad. I don't think I really made it look sad but she was satisfied.

The happy family, minus me, plus the pumpkins.

Lizzie turns one

I am about a week late, but on the 12th Lizzie turned one. She is so tiny it is hard to believe she is already a year old. She continues to be a very happy and easy child. We celebrated her birthday last Monday with my family and she was surrounded by her cousins who were eager to help. Here are some pictures of the party:

We made apple juice that night with my mom's apples. I'd forgotten how good it is.

Do you think anyone would notice?

We go on a trip and I examine poop

Last week we got to take a short trip to St. George with Nick's mom. It was a lot of fun and a really good break. Nick's mom is always a ton of fun and we ate really good food, stayed up late, and did a whole lot of this:The weather was beautiful down there and Nick and I even got to do some biking, but we were still happy that our house looked this even if it was just a day or two:
Viewer discretion advised: this story is kind of gross and I hesitate to share, but here we go. On Saturday night we stayed late at my mom's house. I put Addie to sleep in one of the beds and that was that. The next morning Addie told Nick and me a strange story about swallowing a ring while she was lying in bed. Addie has crazy dreams all the time though and lives in a world of make believe so I didn't think much of it. Later that day my sister Laurie who was staying at my mom's house says she is missing an earring and wonders if I have seen it. I start to panic a little and call Addie over. I ask her about the ring and she tells me, "There were two of them and they were too little to fit on fingers. I dropped one on the ground and I swallowed the other." Sure enough the other one was on the carpet. So now my daughter has swallowed my sister's very nice, very expensive, wedding anniversary earrings. To make it better I had to find it to make sure it came through. So this week I got to examine all of Addie’s umm waste to say it nice. We turned of all the flushers and every time she went to the bathroom I got to hold a bucket under and examine it for an earring. (People asked how I could be a nurse it isn’t nearly that gross) Luckily it came through and I now have a beautiful earring to return to my sister. I just know that pieces of this story will be told in nursery this week and I am going to have to do some fun clarifying.

Mill D Basin

This is a post that has been meant for a while but I just haven't gotten around to it and so, in keeping with the proud tradition of posting nothing and then posting a bunch, here we go. My uncle Paul and I took a meeting on October 1st. Now people say that all meeting are bad. Those people have not had meetings like this:
















If you were wondering, yes, we took this picture to prove that work was going on at out meeting, and yes, I was actually talking on the phone with work while mountain biking. They say that talking while driving is dangerous... As to the meeting locale, here was the view from my cell phone spot:
















We rode up from Guardsman's Pass past the backside of 9990 lift at the Canyons, down past Desolation Lake and then dropped down Mill D North Fork. I have done this ride several times into upper Millcreek canyon and it is a blast but Mill D puts that to shame. Millcreek is beautiful but the downhill on Mill D was very interesting. As in lose it by an inch to the left side and fall about 50'. Anyway it was a lot of fun and I realized that I want to ride in the mountains more. Anyone who wants to do this ride here is a nice free trail guide.

And now, without further ado, a couple more pictures of what might be the most beautiful fall leaves that I have ever seen in Utah.


















Yes, The trail was like this the whole time. Think speeder bikes on Endor in the fall.

















A little self-indulgence. I just thought this was a cool picture.


















One of the many signs you see. For the record, we took the detour up to Dog Lake from here. let me tell you that it felt like a whole lot more than .6 miles unless that was a measurement of the vertical gained.

















And here is Dog Lake. Not a bad little reward for a brutal climb.






















I love the color in this picture but the crazy thing is that this wasn't a particularly nice spot, it was just the one we chose to stop in. The trail was like the whole way.

We're done!

Hooray, Lizzie got her cast off yesterday and everything has healed nicely. She was, as always, very good about the whole thing. This last month she got around just as easily as ever dragging the cast behind her. She didn't flinch yesterday as they sawed it off and x-rayed again. The funniest part is that she won't bend her leg. She is still crawling around like her cast is on with her one leg stretched out to the side. I'm just waiting to see how long it takes her to figure out she can walk now.

One last picture with the cast

the removal

My leg!

A little confused on the whole crawling thing now

Camping (sort of) and a Bit of a Monologue

Yesterday I came home from work to a car full of girls. One in the passenger seat and two in car seats in the back. Natalie told me to go change fast and get in the car. I had no idea where we were going. Once we started up American Fork canyon I got a clue. When we got up there we roasted hot dogs and had some other camping type of food. Natalie and Addie walked around the picnic site because Addie heard dragons and Lizzie stared fixedly at the fire (that's my girl.) After that we walked along the little nature walk in the dark. Addie thought the idea of night hiking was about the coolest thing ever. However she was not happy when we got in the car and not the tent. We didn't have the camera, hence no pictures, but the story is pretty good.

Now please excuse me while I opine for a second but sometimes I get so into doing the big things that I forget about jumping the car and going to have a picnic or similar activities. I guess I see going into the mountains as a departure from reality and not a part of it which is so funny seeing as though we are closer to the canyon than a lot of people are to a park. I am all about doing the big things but I realized that a lot of my best memories from growing up are times when we just decided to jump in the car and head outside for a couple of hours. Now, mind you, there were dishes to be done and the back lawn needs to be mowed more than my hair did freshman year, but those things are still there today and we have some memories of roasting hot dogs in the fall and fighting dragons. Alex, I do not expect you to be OK with this.

Maybe these realizations come as a result of gas prices and all of the other crap forcing us to look at staying home when we would have been out of town in a heartbeat but, whatever the reason, his heart or his shoes he stood there on Christmas Eve... oh wait, different story.

Dance class and the very mean mom

Disclaimer: the contents of this entry will probably not be nearly as funny to you as they were to me.

Addie started a dance class this month and I think we are finally getting it down. The first time she wanted to go to the bathroom the whole time. The second week she left the house while I was getting out of the shower and headed off to class by herself. This week we BOTH walked to class with me properly dressed rather then throwing random clothes on and running down the street with wet hair yelling at her. We got there and she walked in then slammed the door shut in my face. I tried to open it and she said, "good bye go away I don't need you". I guess that counts as a success.

Lately Addie has decided that whenever she doesn't want to do anything she says that she can't because she is too scared. So, yesterday I was dropping off Nick's Mom and Addie started to cry and says, "Nana don't leave I am too scared." His mom asks what are you scared of and Addie says, "I am scared of my mean mom please don't leave me with her." Great I am the mean mom with one kid afraid to be alone with me and the other in a cast. Next thing I know DCFS will be at my door.

Moving up

Yesterday Addie graduated from this:
to this:

Lizzie was not impressed I'm thinking her next one will be this:

Lizzie's Leg

Now that the impact has been made with he previous post the details...

The break was a buckle fracture which is basically a bend in the bone
It was near the bottom of either the tibia or fibia (can't remember which)
There will not be any long-term effects from the break
She will have the cast for four weeks
It has done very little to slow her down

Sure Enough

Lizzie is kind of a monkey. She likes to climb everything and I finally taught her how to go up and down the stairs about a month ago rather then fight her off. Well she fell down them on Tuesday and I would love to say that this is the first time, but I'm afraid she is one of those kids that always has a bruise somewhere. I pretty much ignored it after she stopped crying because like I said she tends to get herself beat up one way or another on a daily basis, but I did notice her favoring her leg. Nick came home and pointed it out and then Wednesday she wouldn't put any weight on it. So off to the Dr.'s we went and a couple x-rays later and some waiting (several days) and we came home with ............................











this

Payson lakes

This post is a little delayed but just to make Sam jealous I felt like I had to include it. We went camping last weekend up at Payson lakes. It was a short but fun trip. We camped out on Friday night where we collected berries, roasted marshmallows, and talked around the campfire. That morning the kids made a fort and Lizzie enjoyed the dirt. We packed up after that and headed down to spend the day at the lake. Some of my family joined us and the kids played in the water all afternoon. Addie and the rest of the girls decided that I had to swim back from the raft when we were in the middle of the lake. I claimed that I couldn't do it because I didn't have my goggles, but Nan let me borrow hers and I had no excuses left. Later we walked around the lake and watched Nick unsuccessfully try to catch fish with his hands before heading back home.