Carving Time!

Well the harvest is in and we ended up with 7 pumpkins, 1 big and 6 small pumpkins. Cole loved helping Dad carve as much as he could. Not too sure if Dad really appreciated the help though.

Here's the big pumpkin that Neil carved a cool looking Spider out of.

And we decided to have some fun with the smaller 6 pumpkins.


OK OK so we're not that immature. (Apparently I am for taking the above picture) Too bad these things don't last forever. You spend so much time carving them for what? Some kid to come smash them on Halloween night. But yet we somehow still look forward to it every year.

Strike!

We took Cole bowling for the first time on Saturday with my brother and his wife. Cole LOVED it! He was so excited the entire time. He wanted to go again and again and tried to take things into his own hands and pick the balls up himself when it wasn't his turn. Eventually he even did pick a ball up by himself but quickly found out that wasn't the best idea.

This video is quite funny as Cole is crying in the beginning because his finger just got smashed by a ball, but that couldn't stop him from taking his turn bowling. What a trooper.

When the lights went off and the music started with the disco lights, Cole couldn't help but get into the dancing himself. He loved the different colored lights and music. He thought it was the neatest thing ever! I don't know how well you'll be able to see this, but his socks should be glowing and going up and down.

Witchy Weekend

Well we found another getaway close to home. We had a YW activity at Salem Pond last week and I had no idea how pretty it was or even how close it was. So I had to show Neil and Cole.


I mainly wanted to go so Cole could feed the ducks. When I went before the ducks surrounded us. I had never seen so many ducks before. But apparently the ducks were full this night as only a few were interested in our bread.

But isn't it pretty? I hear the fishing is good too.

On Saturday we went with Neil's fam to see the witches at Gardner Village

And Grandpa bought Cole the biggest sucker he had ever seen! This picture was taken right after he had his first lick and said "Mmmm, Nummy!" Actually I think he's still in the middle of the "Mmmm" part.

Although, I'm not sure if this ended up being the best idea as you can see there was a constant stream of druel running off his chin the entire time getting his overalls soaked. He sure loved that sucker!

Cole waiving to Dad on the tractor seat.

Here is a picture of Cole and all this cousins except for the triplets. Sadly, this is the best picture I could get of all of them. Somehow cute little Joey (the baby) manages to smile.

And of course we had to stop at the petting zoo. Neil's friend owns Barnyard Buddies so it was fun to see her and let Cole pet all the animals. Except now Neil is really wanting to get a pet goat. He has always teased me that some day we are going to get a goat like his mission president had. And we found out this weekend that some of them don't get that big, like the little tan one behind Cole in this picture. He's full grown. So it appears that our animals will not consist of dogs and cats but a goat and did I mention that Neil also wants chickens? We really are turning into a bunch of hicks down here aren't we?

Better Than Broadway

For our anniversary Neil and I went down to St. George to see Les Miserables at the Tuacahn in St. George this weekend. It was AMAZING to say the least. I had seen it on Broadway and I must say this was even better! The performers were incredibly talented and casted perfectly. There were huge fireworks that lite up the sky. They had cannons going off, real horses and animals on stage, not to mention the beautiful red rock cliffs behind the stage, and the fact that it had rained right before the show started was perfect because the stage was all wet and cold and you could feel the despair of the people even more. If you've never been to Tuacahn you have to go!

The front of Tuacahn is gorgeous! This is us in front of that picture above. I know this is a horrible picture especially with the light reflecting off the rock. And yes it was a little cold and wet (notice we're in our winter coats.) but once we got packed in the amphitheatre we didn't notice the cold and it was well worth it.

Then on Sunday we went and walked around the temple before church and goofed off with the camera.

When we got home it looked like someone had been in our house. Our blinds had been messed with, picture frames and signs were knocked over, and there was just this feeling that something wasn't quite right

Then when Neil went upstairs he found an unexpected cat that had been living in our house for 2 days! Apparently, he ran into the house while we left our door open as we were packing our car. We can' t figure out any other way he could have gotten in. He must have really loved our home because almost every time I open the door he's right there waiting to pounce on in again. Luckily, not too much damage was done. I found it all rather funny.

Here are some of the random pictures we took at the temple and on the way home. Without Cole there we had a hard time entertaining ourselves in the car.

Four Years!

Today is mine and Neil's Fourth Year Anniversary! I have to say it's been the best four years of my life. Everyone always told us that the first year would be the hardest but we never went through any of that. We've always just got along so great. It's been amazing. We became best friends while we were dating and we've only gotten closer. We love to do everything together! Neil you are an incredible husband and dad and I can't imagine life without you. I'll bare you the embarassement and save the rest of my cheesiness for later. I know how much you love this stuff. Anyway, here is a little slide show of our wedding day and I've included some pix of us dating to show how young we were! The song playing "I Cross My Heart" By George Strait is our song. I even had I Cross My Heart engraved in Neil's wedding ring, but it was lost when we went canoeing down the Snake River a few years ago.

I also thought I'd post our story of how we met seeing that I always love to hear everyone's "story."

Neil and I met at ward prayer in our student ward in Salt Lake Sept. of 2003. He asked me out on a date after a couple of weeks of seeing me there. Our first date was..... well let's put it this way..... not great. I loved talking with Neil but just didn't think we had a connection and honestly I wasn't looking for anything at the time. So at the doorstep Neil says "this was fun we should do it again," and I said "yeah we should." And he said "Are you sure, you seem a little hesitant?" (I didn't know that this was a joke that Neil played on most of his dates to lighten things up but I took him serious.) So I said " Well, to be honest with you I'm not really looking for a relationship right now. I just broke up with someone and I have a missionary that I really want to wait for. I don't like playing with people's hearts so I just want to be upfront with you." So needless to say that about killed that. I would see Neil at church every now and again and he was always way nice but he never asked me out again. (Can you blame him??) I was on the activity commitee and so I had to be at every activity and Neil was very dedicated to making sure he made it to all the ward activities. (I had no idea it was because I was there) So we got talking at a ward activity and he asked me if I wanted to go rollerblading with him and his buddy. I can't really pass up a chance to go rollerblading so I said yes, but that I had to go study right after. So we went blading and had a blast. We had so much fun that I refused to go study and spent the rest of the evening with him and his buddy going to dinner and to a movie. We laughed so hard that night at practically everything and still have quite a few inside jokes just from that night. I had so much fun with him!! Anyway, after that night I STILL wasn't interested, but was so dissapointed that he didn't call me all week! So a week or so went by and then my friend Emily called me up one Sunday night and said that Neil was going to pick us up for ward prayer. So Neil came and picked me up and as we were driving to Emily's I looked over at Neil and something just hit me inside. I hadn't felt anything like that before. It wasn't like I'm going to marry him, but it was something. So all of the sudden I realized I was really liking this guy. And I knew that he wasn't going to ask me out again after what I did to him on our first date so I planned a date with all of my friends and called Neil up and made it sound like all my friends were going on a group date and that I needed a date and asked if he wanted to go. Once again we had a blast that night. It didn't matter what we were doing we just had SO much fun together. I could completely be myself with him and just felt so comfortable. So at the end of that date Neil asked me out for the next night to go on a group date with his family (that was extremely intimidating) but it turned out great. I think in that 1 week we went on 5 dates and basically we've been together ever since. He proposed 7 months later up at Desolation Lake and we were married four months later in the Salt Lake Temple. I'm so grateful that Neil gave me that second chance. Love ya babe!

Paying Off Your Home

Hey I just wanted to share a program with everyone that Neil and I have been doing for the past year. It's a program that helps you pay off your home in a fraction of the normal time. What I loved is that it was so easy to start and wasn't risky at all. We didn't have to refinance or change where we bank or even change the way we spend our money. Everything stayed the same except we now use software that we tell what money is coming in, what money is going out, and it tells us how much to transfer to our mortgage. So far we've taken 6 years off our mortgage, saved over $40,000 in future interest, and paid our mortgage down over $12,ooo. If you're interested I can refer you over to the guy that got me started on the program. Oh and if you don't plan on staying in the home you're currently in it doesn't matter because the program will transfer to a new house if you move. And if you have other debt that you want to pay off first before you start paying on your home it will help you do that too. Below is a little news clip about the program. Although, there's one thing in the video that states you need a Home Equity Line of Credit or 2nd Mortgage to do the program, but that is no longer true. Anyway, Neil and I have been pleasantly surprised with this program and if anyone else has the goal to pay off their home fast, this may be the way for you too.


Money Merge Account Program On NBC - The most amazing home videos are here

New Calling

I am the new Laurel Advisor in our ward! Wahoo! I'm so excited! Don't get me wrong, I loved Primary, but after teaching, being in the primary presidency, doing activity days, and then teaching primary again I'm a little done. I've wanted to be in YW for SO long and I really wanted to be Laurel Advisor and finally I get my chance. The youth in our ward are awesome and this past week we went rock climbing as a combined activity at the Rock Quarry in Provo.

Don't the walls look so cool? I had never been rock climbing inside, and it was actually way fun!

Although, this is what I did almost the whole time. Which was great because I had never belayed before because my brothers always do it and I've never had to worry about it. But it was fun to get to know the youth and so fun to watch the girls just kill the guys. They rock! I have a feeling I'm going to love this calling.

The Hut Relived And Other Ramblings

The other day we had some big boxes around from some furniture we bought. And I just couldn't resist so I built another hut for Cole hoping he would like this one better.

It was much smaller than the first hut but he actually had a lot more fun in this one, although you wouldn't be able to tell from the expressionless look on his face in this picture. I tried to make this hut more fun and there was one key thing that I did that made it so much more fun....


I made windows!

We also bought Cole a slide the other day off of KSL that he absolutely loves! This video is right after first got it. It was so fun to see his eyes light up when Neil brought it in the house. He knew exactly what it was even before it was all set up. This is what he did all night long. And when he got tired of it we just moved the slide to a different spot and it was a whole new slide to him. Too bad the weather just turned cold. He would have loved to slide down this into his pool. I guess there's always next year.

I know I'm jumping from one thing to another all on the same post but here's 1 more thing.

I did a post early spring about our garden that we were planting. I thought I'd give an update. It turns out that nothing we started inside survived. But we did end up with zucchini, pumpkin, tomatoes, and maybe a cucumber. :) But it's been fun and we've had some odd veggies come out of it.

Here is one of our zucchinis. I wish I had taken a picture of this before we cut it. You'd think we were going for a world record or something. And this was not the only one of this size. The day before we had 4 this size. Hopefully Neil's family got some use out of them. Our neighbors started refusing to take any more from us.

And then there are our perfectly ripe tomatoes. And no this is not supposed to be a cherry tomato. Most of our tomatoes are good size but this one is just odd. It's a cute little thing. Not quite sure what to do with it though.

Funny Little Cole

Cole seems to be doing something new each week that just cracks us up. I wanted to share a few.
Ever since we went to the parade on the 4th of July Cole has picked up this new wave. And it's funny because he will only do this little wave when he's on this bike. I tried to get a video of it but he was too interested in the camera. This is the best picture I could get. But basically he has his hand out flat, like in the picture above, and then waves it back and forth (almost in a circle) really close to his face and really fast. We're convinced he thinks he's in a parade.

Cole has always loved music and lately it has really shown through at church. When we sing in sacrament meeting he has to have the hymn book on his lap and then once everyone starts singing he'll just go at it as loud as he can. And of course he doesn't know when the song is going to end so he's always the last one singing. He cracks us all up to say the least.

Another funny thing he does at church is whenever the ward choir sings or there's a musical performance as soon as they're done he claps his hands and says "Yaay!" He doesn't do this quite as often as we're trying to teach him not to clap or shout "Yay" at church.

Cole has some weird traits. Not only is he not a huge fan of most fruits but he prefers veggies! And he doesn't care much for juice but loves just milk and water. And you'd think that he'd like to snuggle up with a nice stuffed animal to go to bed but lately he has been going to bed with a nice hard book in his crib. He is obsessed about books! He can't get enough of them.

Cole has become quite the jabberer. I get people ask me all the time if I know what he's saying because he sounds so confident in what he's saying that you feel like you should know what he's saying. He's developed his own little language. He's really good at saying "Thank You" and we're working on the "Please" and if you accidentally bump into him or something he'll be the first to say "Sorry"

Neil and I don't know what we'd do without our little Cole. He sure knows how to make us laugh.

Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day weekend was so much fun! Friday night I convinced my Mom, brother Brett, and his wife Tiffany to come down to Payson because our neighborhood was having a Movie Night in the park where we all bring treats and watch a movie on a big projector screen in the park. But once we got to the park we saw the movie screen which was about the size of our t.v. at home so we decided to head back to our house and have a party of our own. At 9:00 Payson had fireworks for Onion Days so we high tailed it outside and were able to see them from our front lawn.

Here's Cole, Neil, Me, and my mom watching the fireworks. Since my mom has been home I can't seem to get enough of being with her!

And we couldn't make a picture of all of us together work so I had to take a separate one of Brett and Tiff. Thanks for coming down!! You guys are too much fun!

On Sunday we went up to Neil's parents and had a family get together to celebrate Travis and Rick's birthdays! Happy Birthday Rick and Travis!

Then on Monday we went to Kung Fu Panda with my family. It was Cole's FIRST MOVIE in the theater and he loved it at first. But as time went on of course it became too long for him and we had to take him out. But it was still a new fun adventure.

She's Home!

My Mom is HOME!!! For the last couple of weeks we weren't sure if it was really going to happen and then we found out on Tuesday that she was coming home the next day! I couldn't be happier! It felt so good to give her that first hug! She's a small cute little thing weighing a whomping 123 lbs!

The airport was a little bit of an ordeal. Her flight orignally was supposed to come in at 1:30 from Paris, France. And being the bright and excited people we are, we didn't check to see if it was still on time until we got to the aiport and my brother pulled out his iphone and saw that it was delayed 2 hours. So we came back 2 hours later and saw that her plane had landed. Yay! So we sat there and sat there waiting for her to come down the escalator. Finally, Carrie figured out that we were in the wrong place and that we needed to be at the International Center since she was coming straight from Paris. So we all ran over there hoping she hadn't come out yet. After reading our sign and balloons and seeing the frantic looks on our faces 2 families guided us to her. They pointed me right to her, but I didn't recognize her because she wasn't facing me and she was so small and had long hair! She was at the phones trying to call us but realized she didn't have any American money. SAD! But once she turned around she saw us and a huge smile crossed her face and I grabbed her and just cried. The picture above is when she first saw us.

We're so excited to have Grandma Syl back! Thanks for the play gun grandma! I love it!

And I have to give a special thanks to my brother Brett. This is what he did the whole time we were waiting. Chased Cole. Cole is such a wanderer! At the airport we would take our eyes off him for 2 secs and he'd be way down the hall. And he's not afraid of being lost at all!!! He's fine if I'm not in his sight and is quite the independent little guy. Funny how all this changes on Sunday when it comes time for nursery.

WELCOME HOME MOM!!!

For all of you that weren't able to be there (Christy, Jorge, Matt, Matt, Alicia, and Neil) we have it on video and I'll upload the video shortly for you to see.

Family Photo

So I've been thinking for awhile that we need to have a family photo done. We haven't had a family picture since we had Cole, except for camping pictures, and I decided it was high time we did. So yesterday we spent a half hour trying to get a decent pose on our stairs. It was really a lot of fun setting the timer, steadying the camera, finding Cole and hurrying to get back on the stairs before the timer went off. In the end we had pictures of the ceiling, Cole crying, Cole looking up at Dad, and not to mention our tried too hard smiles. In the end we amazingly ended up with 2 decent ones. This one and the one above.

Going Green!

Neil and I broke down and bought a natural gas car last month. We like to do what we can for the environment. Actually, I wish I could say that's why we bought the car, but that was the last thing on our minds. We just really liked the aspect that it only costs us $4.00 to fill up our tank. Cool huh? We figured with the money we're saving in gas each month we'll have our home paid off 3 years faster! There are the drawbacks to the car though. It only has a 6 gallon tank and you have to have all your gas stops planned out and pray that they're working. Running out of gas in these things would not be fun. We've never been so stressed about running out of gas in our lives! And did I mention that the trunk is like half the size? So it's not all good, but we'll take it.

Young Artist

The other day I got the water paints out for Cole and let him have at it. He LOVED it! He painted his paper, his face, his chair, his belly, the counter, anything he could get his hands on.

Here's the little guy so proud of himself. I was proud of him too.

And here is his cute final product. Not bad for a first timer. What am I talking about? I don't think I could have done any better myself.

And seeing Cole have so much fun I couldn't help but get into the painting myself, so I finally broke down and painted this bird house I bought years ago that I vowed to paint the day I bought it. It used to be really busy with plaid stripes and stars and checkers all over it. I wanted to calm it down a bit so I just painted it brown and cream and then antiqued the edges. It's not nearly as exciting as what it was before, but I like it better.

Any Ideas??

With the weather being so hot I've been trying to find more things to do with Cole inside. So the other day I built a hut in Cole's room. You can see that it covers most of the room. It was a pretty cool hut and took me back to when I was a kid and did this all the time. I thought that Cole was going to LOVE this!!

Here's a view of the top of the hut.

Cole was probably in the tent a total of 1 min. Just enough time for me to get this picture of him smiling as he played with his blocks. I tried so hard for him to like this hut! I brought in his blocks, radio, cars, and made a bed for him (you can see the pillow in the background, he got mad at me for leaving his blanket there so he immediately came in and got that) He basically just came in and got what he wanted to play with and took it back downstairs. I think he was a little perturbed with me that I messed his room up so bad. Who wants to play in a mess? I would think a little kid, but I'm beginning to think I got an odd one.

So if anyone has any ideas of what to do with a 1.5 yr. old I would love to hear your ideas. We go to the park after I exercise every morning so he gets a walk and play in there, we read, play with play-doh, swim, color, do collages, and sing. I'm sure all you mom's out there have lots of fun ideas. So help!!!

Betcha Can't Guess

So we went camping AGAIN this weekend. Surprised? Didn't think so. We had been planning this trip for months with my family and I was actually really excited to go. I wanted to hike, fish, and swim! But the weather wasn't always the best and by the end I was done. I think I'm all camped out for the rest of the year. I'm sure you're all so sick of camping pictures so I'm just going to post a few. Maple Lake where we camped at.

Cole watching his buddy (cousin) fish. Cole had a lot of fun with his cousins Rex and Savannah and it was fun to see them play so well together.


And of course it wouldn't be a complete trip without Neil catching some fish.