Cupcakes and Trophies

Dallin has enjoyed playing soccer so much this year. He had his last game on Saturday. He played hard, well, most of the time he played hard. While playing goalie in the third quarter, he spent a bit of his time spinning around and playing in front of the goal. As a result he ended up letting a goal in. But when he came out in the fourth quater as a defender, he did a fantastic job! After the game his coach had cupcakes and trophies for all of the players. Dallin was SOOO happy to get his very first trophy. He carried it around with him every where we went that day, and even found it necessary to sleep with it. Mandy didn't really care that Dallin got a trophy, but she did really appreciate the coach letting her have a cupcake too :)

Pumpkin Jumpin'

I bought this plastic pumpkin to put in the front window of our house to give our house a bit of Halloweenish ambiance. However, at first it didn't exactly make in into the window like I had planned. Dallin fell in LOVE with it and carried it around with him from room to room for a few hours, plugging it in to every outlet he could find in the house just to make sure that it worked. Then he decided to turn into Dallin be nimble, Dallin be quick, jump over a pumpkin not a candlestick! He had a blast. He thought that he was so awesome. Mandy tried to do it too, but she couldn't quite make it over the pumpkin, she just ended up jumping around the pumpkin. But no matter, she still had fun too.

Iron Man and Iron Mandy

Dallin's new favorite super hero is Iron Man. He wants me to go buy him an Iron Man costume, but I told him that he would have to wait until next year because we had already bought a Batman costume for this year. Dallin has never been one to be patient, so he decided to make his own Iron Man mask. In fact he made two of them and was nice enough to share one with Mandy. He designed them, cut them out, and colored them all by himself. The only thing I did was add an elastic string so that they could put them on. It always amazes me how creative he is.

Sleep

During the late afternoon Layton fell asleep while nursing. He already had his long afternoon nap so I knew that he would only sleep for a little while. Since Dallin and Mandy were playing nicely (thank goodness) in the living room, rather than lay Layton down in his bed I decided I would just lay down on my bed with him. Somewhere between enjoying the soft comfort of the bed, feeling his tiny warm body against mine, and smelling the sweet baby smell wafting up from his almost bald head, I must have fallen asleep too. The next thing I remember is feeling a little hand on my cheek and hearing a squeal of delight. I open my eyes and see this cute smiling face only inches from my own.

When you wake up to a little face like that, how could you be anything but happy?

Make-up Heaven

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Another Milestone Mastered

I think he's got it! For the last few weeks Layton has been sitting up on his own for 15 or 20 seconds at a time. Then he would flop over either to the side or backwards. Now he has definitely got the hang of keeping himself in a sitting position without falling over. He has even learned to go from a sitting position to a crawling position whenever he is ready to get moving. I still think its funny that he learned how to crawl before really mastering sitting up. My baby is growing up way too fast. With all the technology out there, hasn't anyone figured out a way to slow time so that I can enjoy my baby for a little while longer?

Johnny Appleseed

Dallin's kindergarten teacher is Ms. Allen and she refers to all of her students as "Ms. Allen's Apples". This first quarter of school they have been doing all kinds of activities involving apples. One day everyone was asked to bring in an apple and then using their math skills they sorted the apples by type and then graphed how many of each kind of apple was brought in. This activity must have left a big impression on Dallin because when we were in the grocery store the other day he surprised me by being able to correctly identify Gala, Granny Smith, and Red Delicious apples. In class they also studied the story of Johnny Appleseed and they each got to make their own Johnny Appleseed hat and seed pouch. Before Dallin would let me take a picture of him he removed his shoes because he said that Johnny Appleseed didn't have enough money to buy shoes.


P.S. I have now been tagged by a couple of people, Kim and Jennifer, so if you would like to read the questions they asked me to answer when they tagged me please click here.

Happy Anniversary

Today marks seven years that we have been married. I am so grateful that Heavenly Father led me to someone that I can share my life with. There are so many things that I love about Nathan, this list is only a few of them:

his smile

how he still cherishes his childhood dream of flying like superman

the way he looks at me when he laughs to see if I am laughing too

the little songs that he makes up

he calls me in the middle of the day just to see how things are going

how he dances with the kids

his passion about life

his patience with me when I am having a bad day

the time that he spends with our family

his devotion to the gospel

his worthiness to hold the priesthood

the way he touches me when he walks by

how warm he is when I am cold

how he sometimes holds me at night before we fall asleep

his firmness with the children

how he is never afraid to try a new food

his ability to see the irony of a situation

the way he can always find a way to make me laugh

how hard he works to provide for our family

his desire to further his education

the way he is always there when I need him

his love of the temple and for marrying me there

This list could go on for a very long time. Suffice it to say, I love my sweetie.

Dollhouse

Mandy really misses not having Dallin around to play with. So when Layton woke up from his nap she asked him to play dollhouse with her. And so he pulled all the furniture and people out of the dollhouse while Mandy made up little stories about the people and constantly tried to fix his destruction of the happy abode. I think that she is really ready for him to grow up a little more so that she can have someone to play with. She really loves her little brother though and judging from his happy face I think that he might love just love her too.

Our Nature Preserve

If you've ever been in our house, you'll remember that there are sliding glass doors leading to the back yard in our kitchen. Those glass doors seem to always be teeming with life. There is usually either a frog or lizard or moth or something on the glass. There was even a few times where we have seen 15 or 20 tree frogs on the glass all at once. I think that maybe it is because the light in the kitchen attracts insects and so the frogs and lizards gather there for an easy meal. My kids just love it though. They love to see what is out there each night and Mandy always acts surprised to see something there even though she has seen some creature attached to glass almost every night of her short little life. The really bad thing about it though is that it is impossible to keep the glass doors looking clean. The frogs are especially bad about leaving little trails along the glass. It is pretty easy to see how extremely dirty it is from these pictures. Yuck!