The Great Pumpkin

Here are the pumpkins we carved for Family Home Evening as I know many of you did. Bryan's is the OSU pumpkin, Julia's is the happy pumpkin and mine is the scary pumpkin. I decided we needed atleast one scary one, just to get Julia going.
Here is Julia with the pumpkins. We lit them with candles and she thought that was so cool. She loved being outside carving with her dad, though her idea of contributing was driving her bike around the deck and occassionally right into Bryan.
I was personally very proud of my pumpkin's ears. We rigged them in with paperclips and I used the eyes so they were pointy ears. I was very proud of them. One of my piano student's told me it looked like a goblin. Then I remembered why I teach piano-because they make me feel good about my pumpkin carving skills.
Julia with her little pumpkin. She had a great pumpkin carving time!

Trunk or Treat!

So we had our ward's trunk or treat this year. We actually don't do the trunks but pick a room in the church instead. We were smart and picked the nursery room with all the toys and paired up with our good friends the Gailey's so it was fun for all. This is Zach and Julia looking so cute in their costumes.
Zach was kind enough to share his sucker with Julia. You don't see her complaining.
Julia and Hannah. Julia the Spider Princess and Hannah the cute Tinkerbell.
Partners in crime I tell you. These two are hilarious. They are like sisters, if one is getting into something the other one is right there. I love this picture-they both really needed some candy. After Julia would get candy at each door she just wanted to eat it. She didn't get the concept of filling the bag, but she certainly got the concept of filling her belly.
Julia and the adorable cheerleader Kaitlyn. She is so cute in that cheerleader outfit!

Fall Time

We have been enjoying the beautiful leaves this fall and took tons of pictures. The leaves are so pretty this year! The first part is just the trail behind our house. The second half of the pics are at Highbanks Metro Park in Worthington. Julia has to have sticks when we go on walks so you'll notice them in her hands for most of the pictures. Hope you enjoy!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Halloween Cookies

We had a Halloween cookie party tonight with our Med School friends. Many have been gone on away rotations and the crazy interview time is coming up and so we decided we needed to get every one together. When I told Julia that her friends were coming over she spun in circles until she got dizzy she was so excited. When they came she would spontaneously start counting how many friends there were. I made tons of sugar cookies last night and was covered in flour by the end of it. Bryan asked me halfway through what I would do if they didn't turn out. Oh ye of little faith, they turned out fine. Atleast I'm pretty sure the kids thought so.

This is Dr. Ethan and Julia on the floor eating cookies. It was really hard to get them to sit still for a photo, but we atleast got them looking at the camera. Ethan would only eat the frosting and sprinkles off his cookie. So cute.
This is Cassie the pony. She was in love with Julia's stuffed kitty and was so distraught when she had to give it back. It really is a beautiful kitty.
This is my spider princess. She was so pumped when I told her that we were going to put her costume on. She ran right to the closet and started pulling it down. She even wore her spider crown the entire night.

The colorful pumpking decor. I know, it's lame, but it kept the kids really occupied for a long time. By the end of the night they had been thrown in the air, sat on, stood on, and chewed on. Needless to say they were completely flat by the end of the night. I was amazed at how flat.
Yummy cookies. The pumpkin plates were a favorite of Julia's. She kept sneaking them throughout the night. We found her at one point with the plate and a tube of sprinkles. Let's just say that was a mess. A delicious mess, but a mess nonetheless. Julia cleaned all the sprinkles pretty quickly.
Alyssa the cute ladybug and Ethan. Alyssa would steal bites of cookie throughout the night. Her mom was curious how she got frosting all over her face. She's sneaky that one.
Now Ethan knows how to eat a cookie. Julia was quite concerned about how to go about eating hers without making too big of a mess. I must say she ate the entire thing without a bit of frosting on the dress. I am very proud.
My cute girl. I must say Halloween has been so fun because of her. She is loving every minute of it. Thank you to all my Med friends for coming and bringing your cute kids! We also had an elephant, frog and another lady bug, but getting pics of that many kids together is impossible. But we had a great time and hopefully the year won't pass too quickly that we can't do it again soon before everyone is off to residency. This year has gone too fast already.

Popcorn Time!

We picked up a random book at the library called The "Three Bears' Halloween" by Kathy Duvall and Julia has been obsessed with it. They make popcorn spiders in the book and Julia pretends to eat them when she is reading the book and has, gross, even licked the book a few times in her excitement (I know, you are now thinking I will never get this book at the library). Anyways, we decided for family home evening we would make her wildest dreams come true and make popcorn spiders for our snack. I have never made caramel popcorn, and was worried the entire time I was stirring that it would burn, but it actually turned out really good!
Julia displaying her creation. The spider had skittle eyes and I honestly think that was her favorite part. She humored me by taking a few bites of the popcorn but then asked for more eyes. She was very excited about her spider though and if I moved it she would freak out. I actually made one for a girl I visit teach and when we dropped it off to her Julia threw a major tantrum because she needed the popcorn spider. Let me tell you, that was a good time. Not only Julia enjoyed them, but Bryan is a huge caramel popcorn fan I discovered. When I got up the next morning I found a bowl filled with sticky carmel and discovered Bryan had eaten it for breakfast. That's a way to start the day off right.
Here is a close up of our creation. We had a great time and as I said Julia loved it. It is so fun that she is at the age where Halloween is so exciting and making popcorn spiders is this huge event that calls for dancing in circles and singing (which she did in excitement when she saw what I was making). I don't think I ever realized how rewarding a holiday could be until I had a child of my own that gets so excited about it. Every time we go in the store she begs to see "Halloweens". And of course I humor her, enjoying it as much as she does, just because I get to see her so excited and pointing at the "happy pumpkins" because "scary pumpkins" are no good.

Check Out Those Freaks!

Bryan and I dressed up for a Halloween party this year and we decided we would be a goth couple. I can't believe how freaky Bryan in particular looked. It was so funny after we were all done with make-up at how different we looked. When we were driving to the party people were giving us some strange looks.
Wohoo! We won the Jekyl and Hyde award because our costume was so unlike our true personalities. We were very excited!
This is our arrival at the party. As you can see we had awesome matching t-shirts and Bryan's dog collar and my skull and bone tights really pulled the ensemble together.

Bryan totally looks like a crazy rock star. It totally freaked Julia out. She kept asking him to fix his face. She really didn't like the skull shirt.
Who is that Julia is cozying up to? I really have a hard time with the "serious" face, so it always looks like I'm just about to smile. I don't think I make a very convincing goth.
These are the awesome party favors and our award. The hosts are extremely talented and creative. We had so much fun.
I couldn't get over how freaky Bryan looked. We had so much fun getting dressed up and so much fun at the party. Thank you to everyone that was involved!

Pumpkin Picking Fun

We went to Circle S Farms to pick pumpkins for our ward's midweek. This is Julia playing in the hay. They have slides that come down into the hay and she was loving it. She went down the slide so fast that I couldn't catch a picture. This child has no fear.
This is a family pic of us on the hay ride. Julia thought it was so great. She is obsessed with Halloween and pumpkins so she was excited to find a pumpkin that was small enough for her to carry.

This is the big pile of pumpkins. We had to be careful because there were hornets all over in the pumpkins. Julia didn't care. She was just so thrilled with the piles and piles of pumkins that were everywhere.
this is Julia and her daddy on the hayride. She is holding the pumpkin that she picked out for herself.
We went with our friends the Gailey's and this is their little boy Zach. Julia loves him. She calls him Zachy and was thrilled that he came to pick pumpkins with us. They sat by eachother for the entire hayride.
Julia standing by the flowers. They have such pretty sunflowers there.
She thought this was so cool, to stick her face in the hole and smile. Now she's a genuine farmer.

This is a slide show that I made. I could only put in five pics, but I thought it was pretty so I added it anyway. I'm still pretty new at this blogging stuff. So anyways I think it has music-high tech I know. So enjoy!

Make your own slide shows and scrapbooks

Random Pictures

Julia with her kitty and playing with the legos.
Cheeser smile. Every once and a while I can get it out of her.

Julia feeding blue bear. She has to put him in the car seat with the buckle and with the bib on. If it isn't perfect she isn't happy. She's a funny girl.

My Birthday Girl!

This was Julia two years ago. I can't believe how fast time has gone. She has gotten so big so fast and I feel so blessed to have such a sweet little girl.
This is Julia at age one. We kept the birthday hat for this year. You can tell her hair has grown a little bit and she definitely has grown taller, but still the same sweet girl.
The big two. I love being your mom Julia and I hope you know how much I love you. Happy Birthday my sweet girl!
My two favorite people in the world. I don't know how I got so lucky.

Julia's Presents

This is Julia's cake face. I think that you can tell by her face how her day has been. She has loved every minute. It's been fun for all of us, especially when we gave her the presents. She was in heaven.
This is the kitchen I got at a garage sale for five dollars. It's certainly not the fanciest kitchen in the world, but she loves it. I love how she puts stuff in the microwave and pushes the buttons and how she fills the cups with fake water.
Here she is opening presents with me.
This is the food for the kitchen. We are going to be picking up plastic fruit and bread for the rest of our lives, but for her happiness I suppose it's worth it.
This is the shopping cart. Her baby fits perfectly in it and she loves it. We were actually going to take her somewhere to play tonight but we just went out to eat and brought her home because she was so happy with her toys.

This is a video of Julia playing with her new toys. I tried to get her to talk for the camera but she was in the playing zone. She wouldn't even look at us- she just wanted to play. She is pushing the baby in the shopping cart, and serving food to the bear at the table. I hope you enjoy!