We had a great christmas break and were glad to see LOTS of family and also some friends! We started our trip by DRIVING (20 hrs.) to Lakeside, Az. (Josh wanted to "investigate a business opportunity there) We stayed with Josh's sister and Millie had a blast playing with her kids! Not only did she love the kids, but was obsessed with their cat- she named her new stuffed cat "Pumpkin" after Sarah's cat!

Mill and Sarah dressed up in animal costumes and jumping on the tramp

A few days later we headed up to Provo (add another 9 hours to our driving total) We were so happy to wake up the next morning with a thick blanket of snow covering everything. Mill thought snow was just about the best thing she'd ever seen!

Since we were spending christmas in Ut. we had to make the treck up to Temple Square to see the lights. This is one of my favorite things to do at christmas!

We took Mill to see Santa for the first time! She got a kick out of it, and so did I! I wasn't sure if she'd want to sit on this strange man's lap... but, oh yeah, I forgot, no one is strange, or a stranger to Millie. She LOVED it! I had bought all her presents by this time but hadn't ever thought to ask her what she wanted because I thought she wouldn't really understand/care... but turns out she wanted Santa to bring her a Kitty, a dog, and some suckers! had to make a quick last min. trip to get those :)


Bowling on christmas eve. Mill and I were on a team. Having Millie on my team and therefore getting to use this little bowling device probabally helped me score alot more points than I would have on my own. ha ha.

Mill's pirate costume I got for 99 cents from little tykes.


Went swimming in the awesome lehi indoor pool. We don't have any indoor pools (or outdoor for that matter) here in memphis so we have to squeeze in swimming when ever we get a chance!

Mill went to "Monkey Island" (in Lehi) and had a good time playing with Grandpa! Monkey Island just has a bunch of blow up slides and stuff to play on. We thought it was totally great because it was $5 for mill-- but parents/grandparents are FREE! you can stay as long as you want and you also get a free otter pop (which helps when you are trying to bribe them to leave)

Hope you all had a merry christmas too!

What we've been doing

I really have no excuse as to why I haven't done a post in forever... You know how you do a few fun things, and then get overwhelmed, and just don't post. Then that cycles on for a long time till you end up making some attempt to show that you have actually been doing stuff the last few months?

This is all the way back in the end of Sep. Mill and one of her best buddies (our back yard neighbor) swimming. I just love how she grabbed his goggles and wanted to wear them the whole day.

My Sis. Kelly and cuteie Ollie came out in beg. of October. We had a great time, and after a couple days of getting used to each other the kidd-o's really liked each other alot!

K. and I made these doughnuts from BHG (October) magazine. Easy, and YUMMY!

Trip to the pumpkin patch!

My friend from H.S., Bonnie, lives in TN. too so she came for a short visit. I kinda think her girl and my girl look a little alike

Mill's thing for October was making cookies, or making cakes. Every morning right when she's get up "Mom? make a cake?"

Just a cute little childrens garden area

After several times of "just missing" wicked we finally got to go. It came to memphis and was GREAT!

Josh went to Florida for a "conference" but apparently had enough free time to get a surf lesson from his friend/classmate John.

Millie has a thing for "Bicycle Helmut's". Don't really know how that got started. She doesn't have a helmut though, so she'll get her little plastic shopping basket (that came with plastic food in it) and put it on her head for a helmut! Love it!

I really missed fall after 3 years of lame memphis falls so I took a trip to utah for a few days. One day I went with some of the Girls I used to coach on a fav. run in the provo canyon. So pretty!

While in UT. we celebrated Mill's birthday with my family- this is a bad photo of a sheep cake (from family fun mag. )

We of course had to take our annual "Fall Sisters Trip to Gardner Village"

Mill's birthday present. She was/is obsessed with slides/climbing so we splurged and got her one of these.

Bad photo: Mill's birthday with giant cup cake cake (again) and some mini cup cake pops.

This past year has been a bad year for running, but I decided to run the Race for the cure anyways... My grandma passed away this last year and she'd had breast cancer so it was fun to support the cause and do it in memory of her. there were 19,700 runners- somehow I came in 4th female. Same as last year.

Our halloween costume, Mill was a little harvest fairy, she had a orange tutu that you can't see very well, but she looked adorable- oh, and my new hair cut. Lindsey cut it while I was in provo. took off about 7 in!!!

At the zoo- mill really likes the animals, but equally loves being able to run all over and be crazy.

Southern college of Optometry 5k- we both ran :)

We got this new and it's been super fun because then when one of us is running, the other one can pack up millie and bike along. She likes it ALOT better than the running stroller!

It's getting cold outside so we get bored... but she loves this "crazy hair" now

Our Thanksgiving meal. We had it at our house, had one of Josh's classmates over. It was such a great thanksgiving! it was our firs one "alone" and it was SO fun to be able to plan our own dishes, and have a good time making them all! we had some good stuff- but the pulling the neck out of the turkey experience was not so great.
again, getting cold outside, we get bored and creative. Millie's Cinderella doll started swimming in my glass of water. Then all of millies people from her manger scene wanted to swim, so we had to get a bigger swimming pool, then we even had to add a 3rd pool. By that time it just looked so fun, so millie insisted on putting on her swimming suit and swimming with them... she was sitting in the bowls and trying very hard to imerse herself in the water.

A week ago Josh ran the St. Judes Half Marathon. Millie had a good time tracking him all over town and met up with him after he finished. He won. surprise surprise, and ran a time of 1:08.0

so, there you have it in a nutshell. Hope you are all having a great christmas season so far!

Halloween dinner!

I LOVE Halloween foods! Each year I cannot resist making a few fun things for the special day!

Breakfast:

spider web eggs: (martha stewart) Add a bunch of blueberries (frozen) at the same time you add the eggs. boil 10 min., take eggs out, crack with spoon, and return to pan- put in fridge (still in water) to cool down to desired temp.

Saturday Night Dinner:

Mummy Dogs

Carrott Fingers (kraft)

Devilish eggs (martha stewart)

Sunday Night (HALLOWEEN) Dinner!

Candy corn Jello (martha stewart- only I'm going to just make mine in solid layers)

Breadstick bones (Kraft?)

Bat meat pie (Meat Loaf) and Ghost potatoes (martha stewart)

Dessert:

We have to bring cupcakes to the ward trunk or treat, so we're going to try these 2 out:

Brains (martha stewart)

Witches feet (BH &G) boots made of tootsie roll.

Made thse fingers for a halloween party this week- only take about 10 min. from start to finish

Happy HALLOWEEN!

Halloween Owls

My sis Kelly came out to visit a couple weeks ago (I'm way behind on posting so I'll probabally post on that a bit later) we made these cute owl pillows! We saw a photo online of some like this and created our own. Only took a couple hours.

1. cut out pattern of desired size (we used some type of upholstry valor, the original used cordoroy but we didn't have any on hand)

2. top stitch felt eyes, and beak

3. iron edge of wings under and topstich them in place (I like to stich 1/4 inch from edge of wing and then press under along the stich- helps the press look nicer)

4. sew right sides together

5. Flip, and stuff

6. hand sew on feet.

nose awareness

This photo was taken in the "china" that I spoke about below. I'll probabally get in trouble from someone for such a picture... so sorry, but it was just so funny. I was taking pictures of her because she was trying to hug him but then all the sudden she started picking her nose (she is at the phase where she is figuring out she has a nose that she can stick her finger up, and there are boogies inside! ha ha)

China Baby

Millie Loves 'Mulan' For awhile she wanted to watch it everyday (which didn't happen but it didn't stop her from trying.) We got this little chineese outfit when were were in china a couple years ago and she has finally grown into it. We put on her 'Mulan cloths' and She loved it!

At the Zoo there is a "china" area, it is enclosed with some chineese architecture, and is decorated with chineese things inside... they have pandas and some other chineese animals. When we go there I tell her "we're going to the China part", and then I told her "Mulan lives in China" so then on our way home she was telling me "Mulan, china, live!" so about a week later we went over to our neighbors and our neighbor, trying to involve millie in a conversation, asked "Where's your house Millie, where do you live" and millie instantly replied "China!"

Delta Fair

We went out to the "Delta Fair" last week. Got a chance to rub shoulders with your typical southern fair go-ers..saw some good mulets and stuff. Josh and I were a little dissapointed that they had cancelled the rodeo and osterich racing, but I'm sure Millie was happy that she didn't have to sit though them!

Mill's first Merry-go-round ride.

They had a bunch of big tractors you could go sit on

The only event they hadn't cancled was this Banana Derby. These little monkeys would sit on the dogs back and they would race around the race track...

Brave Girlie. Pretty positive she'd try to pet any animal that got within her grasps

well, lets be honest. I was a little bit upset about this fair (pay $10 a ticket, then all the events are cancled, pay $3 more for all the rides, pay to see the "worlds smallest woman" who turned out to be a just a midget sitting on a little couch ha ha! I have seen the T.V. special on the real worlds smallest woman and that sure was not her!... ANYWAYS...) The shining star of the Delta fair was the deep fried goodies. Josh got himself some deep fried oreos and I chose a DEEP FRIED TWINKIE! so good. Warm, sweet, fattening, sprinkled in powdered sugar. May sound grose, but I tell you, you would love it! (they also have the deep fried candy bars but twinkie was to hard to pass up. ha ha.)

Helen Trip

Josh had a short break before beginning the next semester so we took a little trip to Helen Georgia. Helen is a small town at the base of the smokey mtns. (surrounded by state parks) it ws re-done by a german architecht (about 50 years ago) to be a old German style town. Lots of little shops, antique stores, authentic restaurants, and other cute little things to see and do.

We visited Helen's "Cabbage Patch Babyland General Hospital" and saw the birth of a Cabbage Patch! (I loved cabbage patches when I was little, so this may have been as much for me as it was for Mill. ha ha)

This is a Shop/restaurant that had it's roofs covered with grass and the goats would hang out up there during the day! (see the goat just to the R. of the 'goats on the roof' sign?)

We read about this place online and had to make a stop. Delicious boiled peanuts. Josh had been telling me about boiled peanuts for years, but this was my first real experience with them.

The highlight of the trip for Mill was this Lolly pop from "Hansel and Gretel's Candy Kitchen" to bad it was broken when we opened it up!

baby Ollie

Kelly, this is specifically for you. Millie really liked Baby Ollie's 'bob movie' from your blog. She will randomly say "baby owie; Bob" but then when I started asking her what baby Ollie said she started telling me "me-a- ha" or "boo-a-ha" and then "Bob" I have no idea what "me-a ha" is, but she uses that same word every time I ask her what baby ollie says, so it must mean something! ha ha.