*Every* night Emily thanks God for Halloween in her prayers. Still.

Happy Halloween! Emily loved looking at the Halloween decorations in the stores all through September and October, and then the week of Halloween began. All month she had been changing her mind about what costume to wear, until she finally said "I just want to be me. Just Emily." She ended up choosing her favorite costume from her dress-up, Cinderella, for preschool and the church carnival, then mid-week switched to 'Shiny Taranadon' (pteradactyl from the PBS cartoon Dinosaur Train) for Music Makers and the church trunk-or-treat. We decided to visit great-grandma for Halloween night since it was on the Sabbath this year, and Emily was a super helper to pass out the candy, a responsibility she took very seriously :)

Church Halloween Carnival

 

 

Pumpkin Carving! She thought the insides looked like cheese (??)

 Church Trunk-or-Treat

facebook leads to blog neglect...

I know, I know! It's been forever since my last post and even longer since pictures of Emily. Facebook made me do it. I was lured in by the status updates and friend requests :)

I've got a katrillion pictures to edit and file, so as I accomplish that I will do my best to blog my fave's.

Since these are already online and look fabulous... here are some of the portraits from our recent session with my cousin and amazing photographer Karen of Shine Photography. My sisters and I traveled to Utah for mom's graduation ceremonies at BYU (yay mom!) and gave her a photo session with us and the grandkids. You can see more of the sneak preview of the portraits at Karen's blog. I especially love Kristin's portrait!

apple-picking

It's only the third week of school and Jason has been craving another road trip. So on Labor Day we rounded up some friends and headed out to beautiful Julian to pick some fresh apples and eat apple pie! The weather took pity on us and gave us the perfect sunny with a cool breeze day. The orchard owner noticed Jason's height and pointed us toward the end with some good apples that were on the tops of the trees. Emily insisted on carrying the bag of apples

Best buds Brady and Emily. They held hands on their own!

The Empire apples were my favorite, and we also picked some Jonathans and Granny Smiths.

The goods.

The pie shop was out of plain apple pie, so Jason settled for raspberry-apple with cinnamon ice cream.

I'm not big on pie, so I tried one of their cider doughnuts- yum!

And shared a bowl of ice cream with Emily, who chose a chocolate chip cookie for her treat.

Everyone ended up with something different and we closed the pie shop when they ran out after we left!

Jon was very bitter after learning that the Julian pies were actually made in El Cajon, and that's why the shop couldn't make more. He ended up with an apple fold-over tartlet.

All in all it was the perfect way to end our adventure!

The kiddos!

road trip with melanie

Four days at Mom's wasn't long enough for me on the way home from Nebraska, so Emily and I hitched a ride with Melanie and her boys to spend another week in Utah!

If I ever get a pet that's not a plant, I'll name it Yermo. The first order of business as far as the boys were concerned was to go to Kangaroo Jump, an inflatable jumpie paradise. Emily was freaked out at first, but warmed up to it once she discovered the slide on the Shamu jumpie...

Tyler was cracking us up by leaping off the dinosaur and faceplanting against the side... over and over again!

I love Trader Joe's organic "cheetos" because it's like a treat with only half the guilt.

The perfect late-night snack- frosting on graham crackers!

The pool at the local rec center was totally decked out like a mini waterslide park. Derek and I went down over and over and over again!

Emily had a blast in the shallow pool, especially with the area that shot water out of the ground.

The kids were constantly jumping on the trampoline and coming up with hilarious tricks.

We joined Mom and Kristin's nightly Parcheesi ritual. Four players totally changes the game strategy. Ruthless. We had too much fun... someone (who shall remain nameless) "cut the cheese" while we were waiting for the camera timer to go off, and this is what we ended up with...

Melanie, Kristin, Heidi, Mom. Oh Cheryl, where are you??

I had a girls' day out with my friend Megan who took me to Gardner Village. We had lunch at Gardner Mills which was restored from the original mill, and one of Megan's ancestors was featured at a booth in the restaurant. I almost didn't finish my delicious chicken pot pie because we were having too much fun chatting and confessing our guilty pleasures :)

The Village is quaint and beautiful, with several shops that we perused.

I stocked up on Christmas ornaments, fell in love with the quilt and fabric shop, tasted the Heath bar fudge, and we laughed raucously in the Just For Girls shop over Anne Taintor's books and this *hilarious* book, title notwithstanding :)

Three years old and Tyler has his first auto collision under his belt! Well, really, who hasn't crashed into Kristin's poor car?

Emily was a natural on the trampoline, although I had a heart attack every time she bounced close to the edge.

The view from Mom's driveway. Sigh.

The kids did lots of exploring at the Children's Discovery Museum in Salt Lake. The favorite by far was the kid-sized grocery store, complete with checkout!

I love her concentrating look.

The kids brought bathing suits to run through the fountain, but were intimidated by how high it shot the water!

Grandma finally convinced Derek to run the gauntlet with her! I love this picture.

Emily was in dire need of a nap, so she just watched the fun and fell asleep on the way home.

While Melanie and the boys were off at a baptism and birthday party, Mom and I experienced the incredible food of Zuppa's (top of my Utah must-do list!) and hit some more DI thrift stores to add to my hoard of used books.

Jenn and Chad brought us to the yard where they keep their horses and we got to feed them some carrots and hay, then went for a ride!

They were *very* friendly

Emily loved feeding and petting them.

I even tried my hand at trotting, but was bouncing all over the place and ended up giggling so much I almost fell off.

Jenn taking the lead while I rode Chad's horse.

We had a great time visiting Grandma's house, and I'm proud of the kids for doing so great on the long road trip!