Jack & the new baby

We talked about baby names around the dinner table tonight.

Jack: "If the baby is a boy, maybe we can name him Owen.

If the baby is a girl, maybe we can name her Madelyn.

And if the baby is a horse, it goes out back."

Some December

We couldn't be happier to have Grandma Cathy here in Utah for December. She is so much fun. We look forward to spending Christmas with her and want to wish everyone back East a Merry Christmas. We don't have any snow here. We haven't for almost the entire month. I have to say that I really miss the white, blustery Christmas's back in New York. But only for Christmas. After that, Spring can't come fast enough.

A visit to Santa Claus at the mall. The first time all season Kaitlyn has been brave enough to sit on his lap. :) Great job!

We will try to upload some videos for you Grandma Barbra. Happy Holidays!

Cookies

The day before Thanksgiving, Jack came home with a bad cough. The next day Katy caught it, followed by Julia. So by the time Sunday rolled around, we had a sad, crabby little house. So we stayed home from church, busted out the mini pie rollers and made a double batch of sugar cookie dough :) We had a lot of fun. It seemed to relax the kids a little and brought a few smiles in between coughs. It was well worth the colossal mess.

Out of the oven! Yummy.

We made green, red and white frosting, jammed the frosting gun full and let Jack and Katy decorate. They did a great job!

There are two cookies under all of that frosting.

While Jack and Katy were decorating, Julia helped herself to some food coloring.

And then had the last of the Vanilla Milk. We get this from time to time from a local dairy and it is soo good.

At Preschool the Monday before Thanksgiving, Jack was learning about the letter G, the colors black and brown, Pilgrims and the history of the Holiday.

We love our little Pilgrim.

Kiddos

A few pictures we took this morning for a project we're working on.

Beautiful leaves

Last Sunday we went for a beautiful drive through the Alpine Loop. We started up Provo Canyon and came out American Fork Canyon. The weather was absolutely perfect. We tried to get some pictures of the reds and oranges that are all over Sundace but the traffic was so tight. It seemed everyone else had the same idea we did. We were all trying to soak up these last few warm days of late October.When we got over to the American Fork side, we pulled over and had some lunch. Jack begged Jason to take him on a little hike and the girls and I went on a few little trails we found. It is just beautiful up there. It reminds me so much of New York. It is thick, with trees everywhere and bright, changing colors. The only thing missing was the smell.You can not see these little trails from the road, but once you pull off and start walking, they take you to these remote picnic spots. They are surrounded by big boulders and a few of them had stone stairs to take you up to the table.

I tried to capture the reds that blanket the mountains in South Utah County, but the picture just doesn't do justice. Later that evening I was talking to Evan and it just so happened that he was driving the same Loop with a friend. Unfortunately, we missed eachother.

Surprisingly, we didn't see any British cars. Last year, we spotted one TR6 with the top down struggling to get up those hills. We later saw it by the side of the road. This drive always reminds me of you, Mom. One of these Fall days, we will get to drive it together.

Fall

Last week we went pumpkin picking! There is a local farmer in Springville that puts this together every year. There is a little petting zoo, (complete with a kangaroo) a corn maze for little ones, tractor rides through the pumpkin patch and a pit of dried corn about 10 inches deep to play in. And best of all, its free. We had so much fun. It was just what the doctor ordered.

I was feeling pretty sad about having to leave New York as soon as I did, but doing this brought a smile to all of our faces.

September 16