Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!! We got back from our trip just in time to go to a school party last night and a trick or treat around the campus with Thunderkids today. As with all three-year-olds, Elia wanted to be a princess. I put braids around her head, which she promptly took down, but she still looked so beautiful.She would look so grown up and elegant... if it weren't for her insistance of Hippo being in the picture! Another note on Elia, it was interesting to see her choosing candy during our trick or treat parade. She loved Smarties and would choose them over Snikers or Reeses (is she crazy?) and when one guy held a tray with full-size candy bars and small pieces of candy, she chose the small candy. It made me wonder when we get the idea that bigger is better. Maybe it isn't. As some of you know, Eric and I have been doing a no-sweet challenge for the past three weeks. It has really been interesting to evaluate treats and say, "No big deal, I'm not really crazy about that anyway." Once I was tempted too far by a Lofthouse cookie, but I just asked Elia if I could have a bite of hers instead of eating my own. Fortunately, she obliged. I feel so much more in control of my sweet tooth and I've asked Eric if after Halloween if he wants to do it again until Thanksgiving!Ethan stole everyone's hearts with his too-cute lion costume. He was a good sport considering I don't think his costume was intended for an Arizona Halloween. I got hot just holding him.

It was a little too big (remember Elia was playing with it a month ago) and inhibited his movement a little, but it fit him surprisingly well. He is really moving all over the house now and is even trying to pull up on things. I am considering using the costume as a movement regulator in the future! Our house is far from "baby-proof" and we're going to have to do something soon!

I had to include Rachel and her too-cute costume. She definitely gets my prize as "most original"! She was a little bird in a nest. Way to go Joy! You are so creative!

Happy Halloween!!!

The end of the hike

Well, we had a great trip and visit to St. George and then Las Vegas. On Friday, we took a trip over to Zion National Park. Elia has turned out to be a great hiker and we took several hiking trails through the park. The leaves were just turning and the colors were pretty. We even got to see a deer on our hike. Elia loved the water at weeping rock...
As well as Dad's binoculars...
She also loved seeing and playing with her cousin Nathaniel and always asked where he was when he was gone to daycare. She pushed him on this little car up and down the sidewalk. I had the hardest time taking a picture then running in front to get another shot. Of course, they were typical playmates, that is, not really caring about a toy until the other wanted it, but they had fun and it was nice for them to spend time together since we really don't see them that often.
After all is said and done, we did about nine hours of long drives. It's nice to be home and not have to go anywhere... besides trick or treating!

A trip to the Grand Crayon

On Thursday, Grampy (Jen's Dad) and YaYa (which is Grandma in Greek) came from New Hampshire for a visit. On Friday, we all drove up to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon or Grand "Crayon" as Elia called it. It really is impressive and could have been made by a huge crayon there were so many colors! On of my favorite spots was this lookout tower at the south east side of the canyon.
We spent all afternoon Friday and Saturday morning there before driving to Page, Arizona where we met my sister and nephew. In Page, we took a trip to Antelope Canyon which was very beautiful. It was kind of windy and we all had to take showers when we got back to the hotel because the sand came down from the top and got all over everything, but it was a great trip.
Our last stop was a visit to the Glen Canyon Dam on Lake Powell. It was amazing going inside. This dam holds back the second largest man-made lake in the United States. It was very impressive. Right now, I am spending the week with my sister in St. George and once again leaving Eric to fend for himself! He does alright at it. I am sad to miss his birthday, which is Friday, but we never celebrate birthdays on the day anyway! P.S. Honey, your present is hidden somewhere inside the house! Do you think you can find it?

Birthday's, a boy and freestyle

Well, my birthday has come and gone and Eric's is a week and a half away! Ethan started sprouting his first tooth as my birthday present (at least we think he is). He has a teeny white spot on his lower gums, but so far, nothing has come out really. He is crawling now and can sit up by himself out of a crawl position for quite some time.
Elia's new development is the crawl. She actually gets her arms out of the water for her freestyle stroke! It is so fun to watch her develop. I can't believe she is only 3! She also loves dancing and can spin for 20 minutes around our living room, laughing every time she falls because she is dizzy and continuing to laugh as she wobbily tries to stand up. It is amazing how long she can go for! Maybe I'll try to post a video of that next time. They are a bit longer, so I might have to edit them.

Life is good though, we have a new sleeping arrangement. Elia is sleeping in Ethan's pack and play in our room while Ethan is sleeping in a borrowed pack and play in Elia's room. So far (for the last two nights) it has been working a lot better. Elia is a deeper sleeper and we can ignore Ethan better in hopes of him sleeping through the night. We'll see!

Look-alikes

So, this is what I do, when Eric's plane got delayed, so he missed his flight back to Phoenix and won't be in until tomorrow morning. I played with a bunch of different pictures. Most said that Each kid looked equally like mom and dad, but a few said that Ethan looked a little more like me and Elia looked a little more like Eric. I tried it probably 6 or 7 different times with different combinations and only got one that showed any difference. I tried to duplicate those results, but couldn't find the combination I used that had Elia looking more like Eric by 5 %. Oh, well, we all know she adores him 5% more! ;) Thanks to Spencer and Katie for this fun addition to our blog:





Now if I could just find out how to put music on! I mention in my previous blog about priorities and using time wisely. This was definitely a moment of weakness concerning that. I guess I'll start tomorrow :)

Scrapbooking, a Mexican wedding, and a visit to Grandma's

Well, we just returned from Grandma's house where we spent four busy days which included one mexican wedding, two games of Settlers, three hours of driving and four sessions of church conference! What a weekend!
I managed to get a few jobs done for my mom like helping to fix her toilet and caulking around her laundry room and managed to break the head of a screw off while trying to put some doors on her bathroom cabinet. Alas, the doors will have to stay off a while longer, though they have been off for probably a year, though this time they might be harder to put back on then the initial project was. It wasn't my fault though! I was trying to be helpful!
We did get to watch the General Conference for our church over the weekend. They have two sessions on Saturday and two on Sunday. We watched over the internet, though we couldn't get the video to work with the audio. So we listened to the English audio link and watched the Spanish video link with the sound turned down. It was an interesting experience because the Spanish video link was a couple minutes behind the English audio link so the choir would be singing, but we would be watching someone still giving a talk. We did hear some great things, especially about priorities and whether the things we spend the most time on are the most important. I love quotes and here is a great quote from Steven Covey. He said, "The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule but to schedule your priorities." I need to do better at that. It is just sometimes a lot more fun to say, scrapbook than clean the house. Speaking of scrapbooks, I am including four of my digital scrapbook pages.












I just started about a month ago and I love it! I don't spend too much time on my pages, but I am happy with them. It is so easy to work on a few minutes here and there:

On Saturday night we went to a mexican wedding reception. We were talking to another couple at our table. They said their son's wedding cost $20,000 and the groom pays for it all! I guess this one wasn't as organized as other ones, but they fed probably 200 people dinner, had a live mariachi band as well as a regular band.


Elia made friends with these two little girls, though one had a broken foot, so couldn't run around. It was nice because it is customary for all the kids to run around the open floor while all the adults are chatting and eating. They had such fun running around that Elia couldn't wait for the little girl to finish eating so they could go play again:

P.S. So everyone can appreciate it, it took my about a half an hour (and that might be an UNDERestimate) to make the layout look right, so ignore the extra little space that look wierd, I couldn't fix them all! That's what I get for branching out and trying smaller pictures!