Where did October go??....

There were MANY fun days this month that I just never got a chance to post until now.

First of all, Derek and I had SUCH a fun night last night. We went to the THRILLER dance concert at Kingsbury Hall. It was 'freaky'ing amazing! I will be posting video of a couple dances. There were a few where I jumped out of my seat. I've been a few times, but I wanted to drag Derek to experience the art of dance :)

Here is a clip of the "Children of the corn" dance. I wasn't familiar with the story, pretty disturbing but awesome dancing!

As we were leaving there were dancers laying 'dead' on the stairs, they were pretty dang freaky!

This was "Witches Night" at Gardner Village that my mom, sisters Pam, Kim, and I went to. We are going to keep it a tradition to go every where from now on. We had SUCH a blast. It was nice to get away and be with the girls and let loose. Oh boy, we were definitely letting loose by dancing our hearts out. They had a DJ blasting awesome music. Here's a picture of Kim and I being such geeks with our dance moves. We were laughing so hard! On our way home from Gardner Village we had the "privilege" of being stuck on the freeway for two hours on the way home. We used that time wisely and blasted the music to sing and dance. Yeah don't you worry, Kim and I got out of the car a couple times to start dancing. We had to keep ourselves entertained. :)

Freaky monster at Gardner Village

The girls!! Look at my mine and my sisters matching witch hats...awesome!

Pam and Kim were a little chilly

The other night we went over to our friends the Ure's for dinner. They were so much fun! Emma and their son Ethan especially had a blast. I think we have an arranged marriage for their future. hahahhahaha!!

We went to the Pumpkin Patch which Emma loved. She LOVES pumpkins. She is always pointing to them and says, "tss"

Does this mirror make us look big?

My cute pumpkin heads!

Emma and I went to Mom and Tot with a lot of the young mom and babies in the ward. It was a costume party. Emma is our little Pebbles. Just you wait to see the whole family in our costumes.

Here's Emma with her friends Ethan and Brooke. Ohh, Emm'a sharing her sucker with Ethan.

For FHE last week we went to a puppet show at the Provo library. We were able to go pet them after...loved it!

Emma loves her b-day present from my friend Jilly. Thanks Jilly. Looks like Emma is trying to feed baby through her eye. She's still learning :) I love watching her hold her baby.

Did somebody say Chuck e Cheese?!!

"Happy Birthday Dylan!!"It was my brother in law Dylan's (Derek's younger brother) 15th birthday on Friday and we all celebrated at the good ole' Chuck e Cheese. We had fun on all the arcade games and collecting all the tickets we could for Dylan's prize. We had to leave before he went and picked out his treasure with the tickets. We were able to get almost 1,000 tickets. GIDDYUP! We all had lots of fun celebrating his birthday. This was also Emma's first time at Chuck's ole' cheese. :) Sorry that just came out of no where. :)

Emma was so excited to see Chuck e Cheese band perform. She loved dancing to it and watching the characters very carefully.

Here's Aunt Britta and Uncle Dylan with little Emma. Dylan was rockin' out with the music. He's so awesome. Emma has such great Aunts and Uncles. Picture worth a thousand words. Emma wasn't sure what to think of the first big truck ride. Then she was fine after a while.

Derek.....

So I am sitting here late Tuesday evening, Derek's gone to Arizona picking up a car for his work. I'm looking at my old journal from single/college years. As I'm reading through it, I've realize how faithful and SO strong I was. I feel like lately I've been consumed with 'life' and that I sometimes really lose focus on what's really important. I need to constantly learn to sit back for a minute and ponder; evaluate my life, evaluate my day.
I need to be better at not comparing myself to others. Since being a mother, I find myself being a lot harder on myself. I feel many inadequacies in so many areas. I just have to remember and recognize how MANY blessings Heavenly Father continues pouring into my life. I need to learn to be happy with being ME. Sorry to go off on that tangent. It's just been weighing on my mind.

As I'm sitting reading through my journal I come across a journal entry that brings such a smile to my face...

April 24th 2005
"....This week has been really busy with ending the semester and getting caught up with things. It's been pretty exciting because there is a guy who is in my health and Institute classes. His name is Derek. I've talked to him quite a a few times; really good guy and pretty handsome. :) Didn't think much as far as pursuing in getting to know him more because he is kind of shy as am I.
On Wednesday we had our last health class together and ended up talking after. (by the way the first thing Derek asked when we walked out of class is, "so...you like nsync huh?" I had an nsync patch on the back of my backpack, yikes.) Talking about what our plans for the summer are. He told me he'll be working and then in July he might be going to Venezuela to visit his mission. I told him I would be working and looking into getting a nanny job back east. We ended walking to Institute together. We had a wonderful lesson in Institute and our teacher Brother Sackett sang, "Peace I leave with you." The spirit was so strong. After his lesson I was thinking to myself, "hmm..I wonder if Derek would ask me for my number?...no he wouldn't....or would he?...no he's not going to.....or is he?, etc......
He was sitting by me and after class was finished he got up to go somewhere real quick then came back to sit by me again. He asked me if he could have my number so we can hang out sometime. WOW- that never happens. I hope he calls me. :)"

Well in case you haven't noticed, he did call me. Two weeks (the longest two weeks) after he got my number, he called. Thank you thank you thank you. The rest is history :)

I need to be better at showing my appreciation toward all my loved ones
I love you Derek. Thank you for being SO patient with me. I think you are more patient with me then I am with myself. I don't know what I'd do with out you. I'm a better person because of you. I love you sweetie!

poopourri :)

Yes I said Poopourri not to be confused with popourri. hahaha. I saw this stuff at Evan's Gatehouse a while back and laughed when I saw it. A while later my friend Liz told me she LOVES the stuff and that it totally works. First, you spray 4 sprays in the toilet bowl before doing your business and all you can smell is the lemony scent. I told Derek about it a while back and he got me a bottle for my birthday and it's AMAZING! So I just wanted to share that. Sorry for the random post. Should I be embarassed?

Happy Birthday to me!

Yesterday was my 28th birthday. Holy cow, 28 years old??!! Are we serious? Anyways. It was a fun day. My Mom and I went out to lunch together which is always fun. Thanks Mom.

Derek was sweet and rented a tandem bike and trailer and we all rode it down from the beautiful canyon. It was such perfect weather. Emma enjoyed herself for most of it, then had had it toward the end. She wasn't liking the sudden dips. But it was lots of fun.
Later we went to my in laws and they sang 'happy birthday' to me and brought out a yummy pumpkin pie that my wonderful mother in law made.

Thank you Derek for the fun day!

"Old McDonald had a farm...."

Yes, Emma and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves at the Farm at Thanksgiving Point. My dear friend Jilly invited us along with her daughter Abby, sister Emily, Em's cute girls, and Mama. It was so fun going around and seeing the cute little farm animals. Emma loved petting and pointing to the animals, sticking her finger in their noses, etc... Loved it except for the part of her fingers getting stepped on by the goat against the fence. SO sad. But, she was ok. Here are some fun pictures from the fun day!

Here are the cute little munchkins all together

I think this was the highlight of the day. After Jilly was feeding the goats, not only was the smell atrocious but the slime that got on her hand from the goat food and mucus was just as bad..if not worse. Well that, plus being pregnant sent her into dry heaving mode. I was laughing (still am as I'm writing this, can't stop) SO hard. Oh Jilly, loved it. Sorry I had to steal this picture from your blog, I'm just so glad your Mom caught it on camera.

Emily tells the goat to back off. These goats were totally in our faces to feed them.

Abby and Emma had fun playing with the little goats. Emma was making all sorts of sounds.

We also took a horse carriage ride. The kids loved it. Emma kept bouncing back and forth and loved watching the horses.

Thanks for the fun day you guys. We had a blast!!

13 months?!!!

Our Emma girl turned 13 months yesterday. We just love her so much. She is at SUCH a fun stage right now. I just love watching her and seeing her personality shine through and she seriously makes us laugh so hard. Last night she started to say "eyes" over and over again while trying to poke my eyes and pull my eye lashes. Then tonight, at Grandma Olsen's house she saw their kitty and flat out said with excitement, "Kitty!" What?! She's never said that before...it was so sweet. Then she said it again. So that's two words in two days.
Words that Emma has learned to say recently are..
"da...y"= daddy and mommy(been saying that for a couple months, mostly calls for Daddy:)
"dnt"=drink
"teas"= treats and cheese
"das"= dance
"tsus"= Jesus (LOVES pointing to the picture of Jesus and saying "tsus")
eyes
kitty

That's all I can think of right now. She has been learning to walk with her toy walker this past weekend. She is so stinking cute. She'll be walking before we know it. Here's a video of us egging her on. I hate the sound of my voice on this, I was just way excited. So please excuse it. :)

We went to Derek's Grandma Olsen's 80th birthday party tonight. It was so much fun being with all the extended family. Derek, my mother in law, and I have been looking through old photos to put in a mini album for her 80th b-day. I was able to put together the album titled "thank you Grandma" The pages were of special moments in Derek's family with their Grandma. She's such a wonderful women and has been such a great example to everyone. It was lots of fun putting it together. All of Derek's family were able to write a letter or note to her for her birthday and it went into an envelope inside the book. I just put up a few pics of some of the pages. Lots of fun! Happy Birthday Grandma Olsen!