Ready for Autumn

Yesterday, I received a lovely Halloween care package from my family. It contained some decorations, food, Halloween cookie cutters, a toy for Jared, etc.
It inspired me to deck out the house for the season and of course to make sugar cookies for family home evening (late) last night.

Note the green frosting I asked him to lick off half a dozen times.

Here is my pan. You may wonder why they are decorated so creatively. Well, we only had blue and green food dye. We had hoped this would make something like black. No.
So instead we have some forest green cats.
And because we didn't have many mediums to decorate the cookies we got a little too creative. My pan includes a green Halloween rat and the scary monster from a bedtime story my dad told us girls probably 15 years ago (two red dots!!!).


Ken got even more creative with singing ghost, running man, monsters, and green candied apples.


With all that food dye in the icing, even a little bit stained our tongues.


I (finally) changed the wreath on our door using a garland from Halloween costume a couple of years ago.


Emily (a girl I watch on occasion) is so cute in her outfit I had to include it.


Window stickers


I was outside and my friend Suzy offered to show me this orange tarantula like spider she and her son found.

And last but not least, I got my autumn-y flowers out along with a pumpkin I made in a YW craft night many moons ago.

All I need now is a cheap, easy, quick costume idea for my entire family. Suggestions?

Baby in laundry

Every baby needs a picture playing in the laundry!

Bouncy Seat Adventures

Jared now has figured out how to play with his toys.

This makes him tired, but will not stop him from keeping a hold on those toys.

He really loves this seat. He talks and laughs and plays in it all day long!

Essence of Women

I've been reading and rereading this article by Sheri Dew about motherhood that my mother-in-law sent me. It's really made me reflect on what being a woman is about. I don't really have a concrete opinion that I could share. But I've really enjoyed thinking about it. I just love the idea that motherhood is more and is before giving birth. Just read it- it says more, better than I can.

100 days

I counted. It's been great to have Jared a part of our home. He is (usually) the most smiley, forgiving, and angelic person we've got here! In his first 100 days he's done many things: set laundry records, kept our left shoulders appropriately damp, learned to smile and laugh, gotten us all to increase our time on the floor, helped me to get moving and walking and bouncing, won family singing endurance contests, started flirting with the ladies, developed his lung capacity significantly, come to love bath time, come to dislike bedtime, increased his attention span, become increasingly more adorable and much much more!

Thanks for reading this far! Here is a bonus video:

Why Ken is Great

Last night was a little tough with the little one and I was, um, a little cranky. When I woke up for the day, I found a love note on the kitchen table. It reminded me why I love Ken. Here are some of the reasons:

• Unexpected love notes
• Back rubs while I do dishes (should probably be studying, but isn't)
  
• He is always the first to stop being mad when we quarrel
• Excellent at rocking Jared to sleep
• Always cuddles me when I come (back) to bed, even if he is completely asleep
• Makes serious efforts to work on the Honey Do list
• Keeps our computers functioning
• Brings me chocolates for no reason at all
• Tells me I'm beautiful when I'm feeling like a frumpy housewife and really means it!

I'm so lucky to be married to such a wonderful man!

L-3 internship

Last week Ken finished his internship with L-3 communications in Salt Lake. They were a great company and treated us really well. We're so glad that he had the opportunity to work there- great benefits, great pay, good management, cool projects. It was a wonderful experience and maybe we'll look into working there after Ken is done with school. He gave his final presentation on Wednesday. So on Thursday we went out to celebrate! We went to see the movie UP. It was an excellent movie, very different than the average animated film.
However, I am glad Ken won't be driving that commute anymore!

Little Traveler

Today, Jared proved that he can move with the best of them. He kicked himself off the couch (he's fine, he landed on a comforter), across the length of his crib and out of his pants!
This is the first time that he has really had the power to exercise his will on us!