Sunday, September 30, 2007

Pumpkin Carving

I never knew pumpkin carving could be so much fun until Allie and Matt Mcfarland introduced me to it this weekend. I also never knew how dang good I can be at it, jokes! But really doing these fun pumpkin carving patterns on a website http://www.pumpkinglow.com/ the final product made me feel like I was really good even though I had plenty mistakes and was made fun of the entire time for how thin I made my pumpkin. I was happy that Matt wasn't feeling the "pumpkin carving bug" as he described it, so that I could have him there to coach me through my hard times and I couldn't have done it without his encouragment thanks Matt - he was the only one who believed in my pumpkin before the candle was lit and the lights were dimmed. jokes! I was actually pretty intimidated being with Erin, John, Allie, and Matt who are all pumkin carving pros. They were nice to help me along For those of you have seen Allie's blog sorry I didn't have a camera so I'm just using all the same ones from hers. Here are a few pictures of the masterpieces in progress......Even though we were all out to have a good time, we took our work seriuosly and really got into it, there was no messing around


I was a first timer to this pumpkin carving art, so they advised me to really scrape the inside out and make it thin where I would be carving.... and thin is exactly what I did. I went a little extreme with the thinness which took a whole lot of skill working under such conditions, but I managed despite the mockings I took for it. When my pumpkin was lit and lookin good John even attempted to accidentally roll mine off the counter cause he was so jealous with how it turned out. jokes!!

Everyone's pumpkins turned out so good, it was really fun to light them up, cause its hard to tell how good it will look until the light is behind it. If you leave a comment you've got to put in your vote for your favorite of the 4 pumpkins

pumpkin #1

Pumpkin #2

Pumpkin #3

Pumpkin #4

Monday, September 24, 2007

Obsessions

Sorry, this is a long one
I feel like with a new season comes new excitment and brings out new emotions. Even though I hate winter, I must admit I feel a sense of excitment with the first snow (the only time I get excited for snow). With fall the first feeling of crispness in the air renews me and I get excited for a change in season and activities that follow. I've also noticed in the past couple of weeks I have developed some obsessions.......















1. I've loved my runs and bike rides in this beatiful weather. I think I've taken Kamaile and Emmy on bike or rollerblade rides to the park at least 3 times a week cause it is one of my favorite things to do in this kind of weather. Kamaile gets real excited for our rides too, which always makes it more fun for everyone.




















2. Since Aaron started his night shift again I decided I needed some kind of project to keep me busy at nights so I don't scare myself crazy. I've taken up a new hobby, sewing, which I thought was near impossible for me to ever like or do on my own without someone constantly over my shoulder helping me in every way possible. Thanks to my sister Jenni who let me borrow her sewing machine just to see if I really could like it and actually do it. I decided to try out some matching dresses for Kamaile and Emmy and looked what happened.......... so, I got a little too carried away. I actually did get quite a bit of help with the first one and then was too scared to try a new pattern on my own, so I just tried adding my own little things to make them different somehow and to be honest I was extremelly happy and proud of how they turned out (as long as you don't look too closely). I've already made 4 sets of dresses (here's 2 of the sets) of the same pattern, matching skirts for me, and a couple slips. Its almost becoming too obsessive, I need to cut back. Thanks to Jenni for letting me try it out, so Aaron can get me one for Christmas. (I hope)


3. Jenni and David also introduced me to Colbie Caillat, I feel like she is the girl version of Jack Johnson. She is my new favorite singer. Aaron got me her cd, Coco for our anniversary, so every night as I'm sewing I listen to it over and over in fact I'm even listening to her right now. Just watch her Bubbly music video once and you'll be hooked. If I knew how to do a playlist on my blog I would put it on - everyone has got to check her out.

4. BYU and Bingham football. I absolutely live for the football games each week. My brother Justin is the kicker for Bingham (my high school) and is having a phenominal season. He was the Deseret News athlete of the month and he broke the field goal state record a couple weeks ago and I can't even tell you how excited I was. I really get into the games, sometimes I feel embarrased for myself by how into them I get. We have yet to make it to a BYU game but with my family so involved I feel like I basically get a play by play recap just being around them during the week. Hopefully Justin can hook us up when he plays for them next year.


5. Peaches, Plums, tomatoes, squash, corn - the fall harvest. Even though we don't have a garden or fruit trees we have benefited from many others who do. I became too obsessed with the peaches and plums , my digestive system took it pretty hard at times, but I still just couldn't stop. Both Kamaile and I probably ate at least 10 peaches and probably the same of plums every day. We only gave away one of these boxes and managed to take care of the rest. I love peaches!!!


6. I've always been obsessed with cereal and probably will be for life. I have to have my nightly cereal treat before I go to bed. I try to limit it to one bowl, but then there's too much milk so I have to add a little more cereal and then I put too much, so I need more milk, it's a vicious cycle that I can't control. This past week all of my favorite cereals were on sale, so of course I stocked up on over 50 boxes. It is a major obsession that I just can't get enough of.


Aarons has his obsessions too:


1. Can't wait for season 4 of Lost to start (not until February) he thinks about it constantly and tries predicting what the next season holds. He loves watching clips from previous seasons just to keep it fresh in his head.


2. Checking out all the new movie trailers, he knows every movie that is out at any given time and what ratings they got.


3. Checking the mailbox a couple times a day




4. He would play ping pong all day every day if I was willing or if he could find someone else to.


5. Coming up with new career paths especially ones that will get us to Hawaii.


6. Buying and reading books, mostly church, historical, science, biographies. He loves learning through books, documentaries, tapes, or magazines.


7. Making family videos with all of our pictures and home videos for anniversaries, birthdays, new years. They are always really fun to watch.




8. Playing with his girls


9. loves to tease me about my blogging yet he's the one obsessed with checking the blog for comments

10. Obsessed with Jack Johnson and has been since before we were married. It is a rare thing to find him listening to something other than Jack.


Kamaile's obsessions:


1. Everything "hurts" I go to brush her hair or teeth and haven't even touched her yet and she says " hurts" or I go to pick her up from nursery or off of the playground when she doesn't want to come and she says " no, hurts" of course she says it plenty loud to get everyones attention.



2. "Fa Fa" (Maleficent) she talks about fa fa all day some moments she is "scarey fa fa", other times she's "nice fa fa" and sometimes she is even "funny fa fa". I think she is going to be fa fa for Halloween if I can figure out the costume.


3. Her "B" (binki) I don't know how I will ever break her of it.

4. Her birthday presents- little flinstone car and playset

5. Getting together with the cousins. I can never mention anything about the cousins before a nap or she will not go to sleep. She gets so excited to do anything with the cousins.


























6. Singing - I have to sing 6 specific songs every night before she goes to bed and when she takes her nap. She sings gibberish all day long as she plays with her webbles and animals. One of her favorites to sing is Happy Birthday, she does this little routine with lining the webbles up to sing happy birthday to them on a regular basis, lots of times she'll put hats on each of them and won't start until everything is just the way she wants it. She was a little camera shy in this one, but I sure love the way she emphasis the "you" to make sure the webbles know she's singing to them.




7. I think this picture and her belly explains this obsession- she loves her food and has since day one.


8. Obsessed with sleeping with a ton of junk in her bed (includes about 10 stuffed animals/dolls, 4 blankets, fake spider, 2 balls, a million hair things, books, cars) I am constantly trying to get rid of some, but if she catches me or if she seems something in a different spot she immediately stops what she's doing and puts it back where it belongs. Because all the junk takes up her whole crib, she is never in a comfortable sleeping position.


Emmys obsessions


1. Milk



2. sleeping


3. exersaucer


4. she is now obsessed with sitting up.....yeah!


5. Dirty diapers

Monday, September 17, 2007

TOP OF UTAH MARATHON


Yeah! I finished the marathon alive! There were many moments during training and the race when I thought I was going to die and have to give up, but somehow I survived and actually for the most part really enjoyed it. The first one I did wasn't too bad, but the last one I did when I finished I told Aaron to never let me do a marathon again cause I was on the verge of blacking out and was in way too much pain to ever go through that again, but I did make a goal to do a marathon inbetween each pregnancy, so I couldn't give up on that, so I decided to give it another try. With each marathon I got a little faster and I knew I was close to qualifying for the Boston Marathon, so I was hoping to drop a little more time again and I did it! I was so excited about my time of 3:33, the qualifying time was 3:40, so it was cutting it pretty close, but I pulled it off somehow. I don't know if I'll actually ever run the Boston, it would be cool, but just to know that I got that time was a big accomplishment for me. It made all training runs woth it. I'm so glad Erin Wardle and Aarons brother, Spencer did it too. It was so much more fun with them! The drive up and the freezing cold wait in the bathroom line was actually fun cause they were there. We didn't stick together for the run, but it was nice just to know that we were all in it together.

Some of my favorite moments of this weekend were when I thought I was calling Summer to tell her that we were at Olive Garden just waiting in the parking lot and proceeded to have a conversation of 1:40 to someone who was not Summer, when nobody answered after my long ramble I realized they were no longer on the phone. David went to talk to Summer and Mike and found out Summer hadn't had her phone all day.......ummmm. When Mike asked me if I stopped to say grace during the race, when actually he asked if I stopped to take breaks along the race. The runner who tried making friends with everyone along the race yelling "YOU'RE A LEGEND" and "there's a book in a bag at the end of the race, read it, its the Book of Mormon.. YOUR A LEGEND!" "Listen to General Conference...YOU'RE A LEGEND! " he did tell me I had nice calves, so I couldn't totally think everything he was saying was ridiculous...jokes! I could hear him from so far away, I always kind of love having wierdos like that on a race cause it kind of distracts you from what you are doing for a while and its just funny. It really was a fun weekend.


We got to hang out with Summer and Mike who just had a new baby, Quincy. Thanks Summer and Mike for letting us stay there! It was fun to ride down and hang out with Jenni and David and there boys, I'm glad ya'll came, it wouldn't have been the same without ya!




It was so nice of Aaron to watch the girls all morning, especially since Emmy doesn't really take a bottle. It was a little risky to be gone from her for that long, but luckily she was fine, but it was nice of Aaron to be willing to watch them while I did this even though there was a good chance she could have been screaming for a couple of hours ( I think that was a good motivator for me to finish ).

Kamaile loves her Uncle Spence, so it was fun for her to hang out with him this weekend. We're glad you made the trip out here Spence. Hope you had fun.













Spencer didn't do a whole lot of training but he still managed to finish no problem, that is amazing to me, theres no way I could ever do that. He's even talking of what one we're going to do next



I love that Erin did the marathon, even though we never went on any training runs or didn't even run the marathon together because she would rather listen to her music than talk to me I just love Erin so I'm glad we both did it!

Thursday, September 6, 2007

California, always a good time




We just got back from California. It was Aarons cousins wedding in San Francisco/Oakland area. We had so much fun! The wedding was absolutely gorgeous. I love weddings, its always so fun to see a couple so happy, in love and oblivious to everything but each other. I got to meet a lot of Aarons extended family for the first time. Aarons grandma made it possible for everyone to be there, even the families from Maryland, so it was like a big family reunion. We always have such a great time when we go out to California, his 2 aunts really know how to host a huge group. I always come home from those trips being sick of food (a very rare thing for me) because every meal has appetizers, huge yummy main course, and a delicious desert. Plus the food is all fancy stuff that I've never tried and probably never will try again unless I'm out there, so I eat until I can't possibly stuff another piece in (I must have gained at least 10 lbs. in those 5 days). Plus they totally spoil Kamaile and Emmy with attention and presents. I couldn't believe that even with all these people coming in town and the wedding going on they still remembered Kamaile's birthday and our 1 year old nephews birthday. We had a little party the day after the wedding with tons of cake and presents - it was so nice. I was hardly ever holding Emmy, between all the baby lovers out there she got bathed, changed and held all the time, it was a nice little break for me. Kamaile had a great time between swimming at the hotel with her cousins, eating food non stop, opening presents, playing at the parks, getting a lot of attention, and having lots of people around all day. Food, people, and playing - those are all of her favorite things. I also had some of my best runs in a long time. My brother-in-law, Spencer, and I went for one of our training runs to get ready for the marathon in a week and a half, it was way better running with someone, I know I wouldn't have gone that fast by myself -thanks Spence. There were some other great trails up in the hills that I was obbsessed with. All around it was a great vacation!

The adorable couple, Nate and Lauren. Doesn't she look beautiful! He might look familiar to some of you, he is an actor and has been on Burger King and Home Depot commercials

Uncle Harvey and Emmy looked great in their purple and pink outfits. You should see him bust a move on the dance floor, he really knows how to "square it up".

Great Grandma and Kamaile,

she is so great with kids and babbies!

She made it possible for all of us to be there,

thanks Grandma, we love you!

Happy Birthday to Nolan, Kamaile, Christine! Happy Birthday to you!

Kamaile loved running around with all the cousins at the wedding

Aunt Kathy & Carolyn with all the grandkids

When my mom brought us home from the airport Jodi and her family were waiting to throw Kamaile a surprise party. They had the house all decorated cute and she had made this fun smiley face cake. That was a really fun surprise for Kamaile even though she had just woken up. Her favorite present was "fa fa" (maleficent)