HALLOWEEN PREP
We've been in full Halloween prep mode this past week. On Friday night, Avery went to a Halloween-themed birthday party where she decorated a pumpkin and bobbed for apples. Saturday morning, we went to a street pumpkin fair. Avery was a ballerina, I think, something reminiscient of the ballerina/princess genre :) They had a DJ who had the kids dance the hokey pokey and funky chicken and Avery LOVED IT! I had to take it easy with the funky chicken because Elliot was in sling around my shoulder; at least, that was my excuse to Avery when she was commanding me to "jump like this mom!"

There can't be many places in the country where you'd see this :)

That night was the ward Halloween party. Avery was Snow White and Elliot was her dwarf "sleepy." Dressing Elliot in orange and green didn't help with the general confusion around Elliot's name and her gender - but she mainly slept in the sling anyway, so it didn't come up TOO much. Avery's favorite game was the cake walk again. She won about 10 times, but never quite caught on that she, technically, could be taking a cupcake each time. I gave her one at the end of the party and she just licked all the frosting off anyway :)

Little dwarf Elliot Dee.

This past Tuesday, the girls and I went to a pumpkin patch. We've had a very busy week so Mike and I have split up the Halloween-prep duties. I went to the pumpkin patch and got the pumpkins and Mike carved them with Avery tonight. Anyway, the patch had an Alice in Wonderland themed corn maze. And, I was thinking about it, I don't think I'd ever been in a corn maze before! It was all I hoped it could be :)

Avery spontaneously posed with a display of muscle here. The maze was really cute with these pictures from Alice in Wonderland everywhere. I posted a video bit from our adventures below.

Avery as navigator in the corn maze.

Our little Ellie Bean.

Trip to California

We all went down to California last week for Darren and Cari's wedding (Mike's youngest brother), and then the girls and I stayed a few more days for some Cusworth family time in Thousand Oaks. I obviously need to figure out how to do the slideshow thing - but here are some pictures of the trip. And I'll try to make the scrolling worth it by adding in pithy comments.
Avery and Jesi were good friends at the beach until we hit lunchtime and the decrease in blood sugar. Then the sand started flying.

Mike is proud of the fact that he once fell asleep, while standing up, at a football practice. I think sleeping while sitting on a rock has got to be a comparable accomplishment.

Sandy, Mike, Andy and the kids braving the waves. My camera isn't fuzzy here; about 11am an enormous mist cloud rolled into shore.

The cute couple at the family/rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding.

Jubilation!

Cari's bridesmaids.

Wait, is this an ad for Men's Wearhouse? Handsome groosmen, don't you think? Esp the one of the far left. What's probably more impressive is that this is at Cari's home, which had beautiful landscaping.

The kids were all enthralled with princess Cari :)

My mom and dad met us in San Diego for the wedding to watch the kids and then came out to the reception as well. Avery has started the "make funny faces at the camera" phase.

We blessed Elliot at the Carr's home after the reception. Elliot wore the blessing dress my mom, myself and Avery were all blessed in.

8 Things Tag

Alrighty, my good friend Joanne tagged me (unless she knows another Sarah W!), so here I go. BUT, my little brain could simply not think of 8 genuine things under all these categories. So I apologize to the originator but I'm reducing mine to 4 :)

4 things I'm passionate about
- My family
- Project Runway
- Reading
- Finding at least one thing to do OUT of the house each day

4 words or phrases I say waaay to0 often
- if you do that again, you're going in time out
- Michael!
( I'm completely stumped on this one! moving on . .. )

4 things I want to do before I die
- Everyone says this . . write a book
- Go on a gastronomic holiday in Italy - like where you stay in a cottage run by a local person and shop at the farmer's market with her in the morning and help her cook the food that evening. And in the intervening time, stroll the countryside and pick wildflowers.
- I liked Carol's answer to this so I'm stealing it: dance at my children's weddings. Although, I don't particularly like to dance in front of people (by myself in a room with dim lighting is just fine), so maybe I'll just say - BE at my children's weddings.
- develop a physical hobby, something interesting and cool like rock climbing or ocean kayaking or something.

4 things I have learned from my past
- (it's hard to write this one without making my past self sound kind of pathetic), don't bake chicken in a makeshift sauce of lemon yogurt and water. In fact, I've learned to pretty much not try to cook at all without a recipe.
- To get invited to do stuff with friends, it's helpful to also do the inviting once in awhile.
- Reading church literature and listening to conference really does help me be a better person.
- It's better to ask Mike to do stuff during half time or commercial breaks when the Broncos are playing on TV.

4 places I would love to see
- Right now, I'd love to be seeing my parents living room. Just one week!
- I already used up one response with Italy so . . .the Louvre.
- Somewhere where there are Northern Lights - should be pretty close to where we are right now, actually.
- The Amazon (everybody should read "The River of Doubt" about Teddy Roosevelt's exploration of a tributary to the Amazon. It's really good).

4 things I currently need or want
- my old body back
- a new car that fits our two carseats more comfortably that also has 4WD and doesn't cost a fortune and doesn't use an insane amount of gas.
- The complete set of "As Time Goes By," a british TV show that I want, even if it owning it means I have the same entertainment preferences of a senior citizen. It relaxes me :)
- A clawfoot tub and a lifetime supply of bubble bath.

4 people I tag (yes, I'm keeping this to four as well!)
- Anna
- Leah
- Mom
- Heidi LaPerle

Baby pictures!

My friend Irene, a talented photographer as you can see, took these pictures of Elliot at 2 weeks old. I was going to say that Elliot has already changed so much in just a few weeks, but when I thought about it, she looks about the same :) Maybe a little bit fatter. We're trying out different nicknames for her: Jelly "Ellie" Bean, Butterbean, Piggy piggy and Grunt n' Toot. Sometimes Mike also looks at her, shakes his head and says "house full of girls," but I don't think that's a nickname necessarily! We are all head over heels in love with Elliot, Avery wants to hold her constantly, or push her in the swing, or change her diapers, or carry her carseat. She's a good big sister. The other day Avery did something helpful like get a diaper for me while I was changing Elliot, and I said "Avery, you're such a big helper." And she replied "Yeah, I'm a big SISTER!"

Along the lines of Avery saying stuff: last night she was playing pretend with some of her toys and she had the one toy say to the other "Honey, I can't get you breakfast . . .the doctor just took Elliot out of my tummy." (ha!). Believe me, Avery gets breakfast every morning and often to exact specifications!

And I can't resist writing this tidbit: Today we were driving and singing in the car and Avery says "want me to sing the Avery song? Wanna hear it? Okay." (she proceeds to sing a made up song). After she finishes I ask her what her song was called, she replied "It's called, the wicked witch is dead and the wicked witch is you!" Hmm. Too much Wizard of Oz methinks :)

Enjoy the pictures!

"All by myself . . ."

I've been so spoiled the last few weeks with help from my mom and then Sandy, Mike's mom. I think last night was the first time I'd washed a dish in two and half weeks :) Sandy and Monte left yesterday and now is the true test of whether I can be a mother of two without live-in assistance! How do all the rest of you do it?!

Here are some recent pictures. . .