Our Little Lady Bug!

This past Saturday was so crazy! We started the day by going to the gun show (I go for the yummy jerky) and looked at all the booths, including jewelry! Jamie and I went to Rachel Bassett's baby shower after that and had a lot of fun, Christine did an awesome job. Then we headed to the Halloween Party at church. There was lots of yummy soup and so many awesome costumes!

Madison and I are posing with our neighbors Chuck and Madi (she is the cutie that I babysit).

Marcie is so awesome with all the kids, she always hauls Madison around for me (not to mention she made the adorable lady bug costume Madison is wearing!) I couldn't believe how Daniel looks like he is the same age or older than Madison-I love big babies!

After the party, we went over to Brittani's to celebrate her birthday. Madison had fun posing in front of the pumpkins.

This is my favorite picture. I just picture her saying "Life is easy when you are young and beautiful!"

And here is the birthday girl! I can't believe that you are 21 now Brittani! We are so excited about her getting into nursing school so she'll be here with us through dental school. After her party, we stopped by the Konkle's pie night which was also a blast. I ate way too much pie but who could pass up having 10 different selections? It was so fun hanging out around the fire and enjoying everyone's company. Overall, a very fun day but I don't think I want to be that busy again for awhile!

Murder Mystery Party

Friday night we went to our first Murder Mystery Party. Marcie and Jamis Charles hosted it at their apartment and did an amazing job organizing everything. The setting dated back to 1940 as WWII was approaching and each of the characters were invited to escape Paris on a government train heading to Southern France. Everyone showed up dressed to impress as we began four rounds of accusing and denying each other's clues. Between each round was a course of food-my favorite part! and then there was a final accusations round where everyone guessed who the murderer was. And the criminal was. . . . . . . . .ME! I didn't find out until the fourth round and was excited to learn that I am better at hiding emotions and deceiving than I thought. It was tons of fun-thanks so much Marcie and Jamis-I think I may have to host one some day.

Brian and I played the parts of Capt. Wey (a pilot of renown) and Idelle (princess of the ancient and noble Chattre family).

Melissa and Aaron Wood played the characters of Mal (a soldier of fortune) and Mary (a journalist for a newspaper)

Quintin and Jill played the parts of Khover (A worldly businessman) and Belinda (a famous designer).

And the wonderful hosts acted the parts of Duke Klare (a military leader of a small nation) and Barbra (a rich and spoiled daughter of a French perfume king).

Daddy-Mommy Time!

Brian and I went away for our first night alone together without Madison last week. We went up to his family's ranch near Rock Springs and watched the animals come in for the evening hunt (Brian went for the morning as well but I stayed in bed). We initially went up to try and find Brent's deer that he shot last weekend that they never found but had no luck as well. It was a lot of fun and we really enjoyed the time together. I was a little disappointed that Brian didn't shoot anything, but he had to get back for school. Thanks again Jamie for watching Madison!

Daddy-Daughter Time

I love this picture of Madison and Brian. Brian has done an amazing job at finding time to help out lately-I'm so greatful for him and everything he does for our family. Here they are cuddling at Brittani's house.

More Daddy time also means more messes for me to clean up. It is so amazing to me how messy she gets when he feeds her. I think her expression says it all! Mess or no mess-it sure is nice to get a break every once in a while. Thanks for all your help lately Brian!

Halloween Fun!

This past weekend we went to the Bassett's to carve pumpkins and see their beautiful new home (I am so jealous-I love your kitchen Rachel). Here I am carving the pumpkin! It really wasn't as tedious as I thought it would be (then again I chose like the easiest design there was)!

Here are a few of the finished products. Mine is the furthest on the right. I had to blog this once I read a comment Jaime posted about it reminding her of Edward and Bella-that is right Jaime. Once I saw it I immediately thought of my latest addiction and had to have something in my house to remind me of EDWARD!

Here is a picture of it in the light-it looks a little more clear (I think?).

And here is the whole crew that came out for the fun. Thanks for having us over Rachel & Jed! We really had a lot of fun and enjoyed all the yummy snacks! (P.S. I wanted to give a shout out to Jamie S. for the pictures-I didn't have my camera so this post is made possible because of her & Lyssa. Thanks again).

Happy Birthday Brandon!

We celebrated Brandon's Birthday a couple Sundays ago (the actual day was Oct. 10th). Here he is blowing out 23 candles on the beautiful (and delicious) german chocolate cake Linsay made.

We had two games of Settlers going-one table with all the girls and one with the guys. The men seemed very excited about this arrangement claiming they could actually play without worrying about upseting their wives. The games were very close but at the end of the night, Jamis dominated the boys' game and I won the girl's (I think I am starting to get the hang of it!). We had a lot of fun and enjoyed celebrating-hope you had a great birthday Brandon!

Men at Priesthood = Women Party

During Priesthood, Krista was nice enough to invite everyone over for food and fun! Krista had fun things going on in every room. The women enjoyed playing games and here Bretta was acting out a wrestler, exclaiming "I'm going to smash your head to pieces!"

The karaoke machine was definitely a hit and we especially enjoyed the amazing talent of Jazmin and Jill.

Upstairs, there was a theatre room set up for the kids and here they are watching Toy Story and eating popcorn! I wanted to stay and hang out but I kept getting dirty looks!

Kate is quite the popular new girl. Madison got acquainted with her at Eric's party and told Olivia to check her out. Here she is getting a closer look!

And my favorite part was the coming out of Hillery and the newest addition-SADIE! She is such a beautiful little girl and I love all of her hair! She slept the whole time I was there and looked like a little angel.

All in all, it was a lot of fun-thanks for opening your home to us Krista! By the way, I think I was still worn out from that morning and took one wrong shoe home. It is a dark blue Old Navy flip flop if anyone is missing it. Sorry! I don't know how I got it confused with a brown one!

STILL ALIVE!

Saturday morning Jenni, Jamie and I competed in the Longhorn Sprint Triathlon in Austin. Here we are pre-race, still smiling-Jamie and I still unaware of the long road ahead of us. I can't believe how dark it was outside. We got there three hours early to make sure we were totally prepared, so this was taken a little before 6 AM! Around 9 is when we began the .5 mile swim, 12 mile bike, and 3.1 mile run.

Here I am meters away from finishing the race. No my strides are not usually this long (I wish), I just really picked up the pace when the end was in sight!

AND we survived. Here we are standing in front of the finish line. I finished 322nd out of 740 with a time of 1:34:50 (a little over an hour and a half in case I wrote that wrong). It was definitely a satisfying experience-in fact the MOST EXPENSIVE experience I think I've ever had, but I think I might go at it again next year! I'm just so glad that I didn't have to do it on my own- I think it would have been so much scarier and not as much fun if Jamie and Jenni weren't there- Thanks for the help and support (and for the pictures Mason)!

The Beauty of Babysitting

To ensure that I will in fact be ready for another child one day, I thought it would be fun to get a glimpse of what it is like to have two kiddos running (and crawling) around. I watch the beautiful Madeleine Ross about 4 days a week and it has been a lot of fun. This is her adorable picture she took a few weeks ago before we started watching her.

And this is her now! I thought Madison wore me out, but it seems like Madi can't keep up either. She usually ends up this way every afternoon during lunch. Madison is usually climbing on her high chair wondering why she is no longer talking back or moving!

9 MONTH PICTURES

We finally got our pictures taken (I am such a bad mom-we never even took 6 month pictures), but in my defense I was waiting on a convenient time for Brian so we could take family pictures the same day but he decided to buzz his hair two days before our appointment. I was frustrated at the time but it is starting to grow on me more! Anyways, Madison is a doll and I am so jealous that she is photogenic and I am not-where did she get it from? Maybe Brian has some hidden talent that I am unaware of .