30# Pumpkins

The other day I was at "Sprouts" (my favorite) and saw boxes of HUGE pumpkins out front. At 15 cents a pound I stopped and hauled a couple into my cart. If any of my few friends who read my blog frequent "Sprouts", you know that lots of elderly folk like to shop there as much as I do. Especially re-stocking their fridges this time of year. Normally Sadie gets a lot of attention there, but this time it was my pumpkins. And when I brought them up to the counter I felt like I was buying the prized pig at the fair. People were calling from across the store to see how much they weighed in at. I kid you not. So one was 30 lbs. and the other was 20. Since then, these prized pumpkins have been proudly perched on my porch bench waiting to be carved.

Then skip a couple days later. Sadie wanted to wear her pumpkin hat and it hit me that she was also a 30 lb. pumpkin :) So I thought I'd share these pictures of our little cutie-pie.


Sometimes she gets really mad when she can't have something she wants. Then she says "I don't love you mom." Or "I won't hug you ever!" But as soon as I say "Oh, that makes me sad Sadie, I just love you so much" she quickly says "Actually (which contains a whole lot of sounds she can't say) mom, I do love you". It's so very sweet :) Love my baby.

Mom's 60th

Miranda had the brilliant idea to have a surprise 60th birthday party for my mom. Then between the 5 of us, and the help of a few dear friends back at home, we brought the idea to fruition. And it was a beautiful thing. My wonderful mother (who 'didn't know what she did to deserve this') was worth every second of planning plus 100 times more. She had a great night and felt our love and that was what we were all hoping for. And the icing on the cake, so to speak, was that she was completely clueless about the party!
I posted most of the pictures on Facebook so I just wanted to add these here that were made poster-size for the party. I thought they turned out cute. Thanks to John, Dana's cousin for the photoshop extras :)

I feel incredibly blessed to have been born to my mother.

Crazy Hair Day

Out of all the different themed "half-days" (and there are many), this is the favorite around here.
I was so happy Emma agreed to go really crazy this year.
Which has never been a question with the boy.But Em's was the showstopper. I loved it!
And Holly's was a little more cute than crazy in the end but still fun to do.

Question: guess how long Holly (who's already in "half-day" K) goes to school on "half-days"?
A: 1 hour and 35 mins. Lots of learning happening that day!

"smoosh-kin" turns 6

A few days ago we had a little birthday girl at our house. No, she's not quite that little anymore, but I just love that sweet picture of her :)It's not the "party year" but had a little family celebration at CEC.
And the kids all had a great time. It's been about 3 years since we've been there so Holly and Sadie didn't really remember it.
Then we had some cake with cousins Friday, the next day.
Hope your birthday wishes come true little angel! We love you SO much!

The Great Salt Lake

Since we were up in Utah for conference weekend, we thought we'd go for the gusto and drive up to Salt Lake afterward. My best friend/roommate from BYU days lives up there now and she had a full basement downstairs for us to stay in.

Well this was the plan anyway. In reality, Dana was more spent than I've ever seen him, and he had lost the desire to extend our trip another 4 hrs northward. In his words he 'just wanted to sleep'. So it was a dilemma. But you know, I just hate that feeling of regretting something later and eventually we agreed to stick to the plan (although I did carry a sense of guilt with me for the rest of the trip for kind of being the convince-or as I watched Dana hobble around temple square).

Janette (the friend), suggested we avoid the crazy parking near the temple, park a few blocks away, and take the free-for-downtown-SL tram. This girl is smart and savvy and as a side note the world's greatest hostess. The kind that has a little present (with a bag of toffee peanuts inside) sitting on the bed for you as you bring in your bags. And that makes sandwiches for your family on your way out. But even better was having the chance to talk and laugh until 3 am again.

The tram was a hit.

Temple Square is Be-A-U-tiful!
We visited the Visitors Center which was more like a museum. They had exhibits about the building of the Salt Lake temple. They have a to-scale model in front of the actual temple so you can see what it looks like inside. You can see both the temple model and the actual temple in the background in this picture. It was so cool!
It was so inspiring to be reminded of the sacrifices that the Pioneers made to build the temple.
Brigham Young

PB & J a la Janette


Our sweet girls :)
I was kind of dreading walking out of the temple grounds because usually you're inundated by "anti" picketers. But instead, we got to walk down the middle of these young adults singing and they seriously sounded like angels. It was awesome.
We saw a couple taking wedding announcement shots here so we copied them.
Next we went into the Joseph Smith Memorial Bldg. Dana's great grandpa used to work there when it was called "Hotel Utah" many years ago and I'm pretty sure he meant his great-grandma there too. So it has some special meaning. We were showing the kids the elevator because he fell down the shaft once, and then that lead to someone asking to take a ride in the elevator, which led to one of the kids pushing the top floor button, which led to quite a beautiful view.

This vent may have been the kids favorite part of the day. They have brought it up several times since.

2nd runner up was probably the revolving door :)
We had so much fun up there! We drove back down to Cedar City that night. Well I drove and Dana slept- poor guy. We stayed with Miranda who was also a great hostess but more in a loving, sibling, right-at-home kind of a way. The kids had so much fun playing with her and Bubba her fiance (that word remind anyone else of Seinfeld besides me?). Thanks guys! We love you :)

Our trip sort of took a downturn thanks to this huge downpour on the way home. We got stopped (like no movement at all) for like 2 hrs outside of Vegas on our way towards the Hoover Dam.
Due to flash flooding.
Then when we finally made it past the Hoover Dam years later, we got pulled over for having an expired registration which took about half an hour for the guy to look it up and see that yes, it was renewed, but we hadn't received our sticker yet. Thanks dude.

But we did have a lot of pretty skies to look at on our extended drive home. And I was counting my blessings that we didn't have a screaming baby in the car.
We counted 6 rainbows. (which didn't look as great in pictures as in real life. so don't look for one in this picture)
And totally soaked up the fresh rain smell and the Arizona air that was substantially cooler than we left it.
Happy to be home again! And happy we didn't miss the 2nd half of our vacation :) Well me at least. Dana could feel differently.

(P.S. I Love Fall)

St. George

Pre-marathon there are 2 things that NEED to be accomplished. Dana carb loading- which entails eating at every pasta place in town (if we must we must), and going to the EXPO where you get your number, etc.
Then we usually work in a few extra activities. We walked around the temple, Eli got his Halloween costume, and we found this cute old fire truck that the kids loved outside a really cute shop. And we had some nice quality time with Dana's mom and dad. Fun for us, and extra special for the kids.

3 good men :)

I'm grateful our kids have such good, loving grandparents. What a blessing!

Dana's 5th

Some people write symphonies.

Some people run marathons.

Others of us eat egg McMuffins and watch marathon runners run. And if you're going to be the latter like me, I highly recommend being at mile 24 when you do, because for some reason an egg McMuffin has never tasted better. Maybe it's a self-preservation thing, I don't know.

But back to hero-of-the-hour. Dana is awesome. He got a new PR for the 5th time even though St George was 30 deg hotter than last year. My back was dripping sweat as I stood and watched the runners pass. We arrived a little early and met up with my cousin's ward's water station. For mutual they hand water and Gatorade (and later added diet coke?) to the runners.

Eli, being the tenacious little guy he is, was all over that action. And was pretty thrilled when the first runner grabbed the cup from him. And I don't know if it was that his cups were lower down than the teenagers but I would say he was definitely the most popular water holder.
It wasn't long before all the kids joined in and it was great because they loved it and it kept them busy while we waited. And they really were helpful.
About 45 mins after we got there, the 3:20 balloon pacer dude ran past. This was Dana's goal and I started to worry when he wasn't with him.
But then 5 mins later.....

I guess this guy was surprised to see some girl taking his picture :) But at the time I was only looking at Dana dumping water on his head and trying to get a vibe from him on how he was doing.
And the vibe was- "this sucks".
But he chugged along to the finish and got 3 hrs 25 mins- 5 mins later than he had hoped. However, he was very happy with his time because he's never pushed himself so hard before and had the sense of doing his very best.
This is how we found him- feeling sick and unable to stand. And he had been already been recovering for like 2 hrs. But he was in good spirits and we were all happy to get into some shade and relax.

Emma loves how all the St George marathon medals are different because they're cut from granite. And this girl loves nature, and rocks fall under that category.
We came to him for a family photo.
Todd is Dana's cousin and I just love his wife Susan. I'm so grateful we get to share our marathon adventures together.
Yes that is a wad of ice cream in Holly's hand. The highlight for the kids is the free concession the runners have access to after the race.
And lastly to Five Guys. Dana's parents and 2 of his siblings and kids came down to watch him this time. It was a little more tricky coordinating schedules but made it extra fun too.
So as we were leaving Susan and I were discussing whether or not we'd be back next year as the boys limped around saying they'll "never do that again". But we've realized- it's kind of like childbirth. You forget the pain. So we'll see! Great job Dana!

More trip photos to come soon...