the corn maze

Dave and I took the girls to the corn maze at Thanksgiving Point on Tuesday. It was a fun family day. The freezing cold wind tearing through our bodies didn't stop us from having fun. It just stopped us from feeling our ears.

This is a picture of Nezzie wandering in the corn maze—or, as their clever marketing people call it, The Maize.



One of the many draws of the corn maze is their giant, terrifying, alien balloon creature that their clever marketing people call The Creature. Dave took Inez through it despite her loud, kicky protests. I think he thinks that terror builds character. And that being a character architect is one of the perks of dadhood. I'm not sure why Inez didn't want to experience The Creature. It's basically a pitch black, deafening, inflatable haunted house whose entrance is a giant fanged mouth and whose exit is... a long way from the mouth. The silly girl doesn't know fun when she sees it. Or when she passes through its large intestine.



The cow-shaped barrel train was another corn maze draw.



As were the spring-mounted cartoon donkeys.



Not to mention the spring-mounted cartoon hippos (camels?) (aardvarks?).



The look on my face? "I can't feel my ears."



We ran into an cute amish midget couple on our way out. Who knew that homemade clothes could look so airbrushed?



We brought our double jogging stroller so that our pumpkins could sit back and enjoy the bone-chilling gales.



Dave took the girls down a slide in an effort to build more character, but both Inez and Gwen seemed to enjoy it, so he stopped.



...and headed over to the Jumping Pillow instead.



All sarcasm aside, it was a great day and we had a lot of fun.



Our ears, however, did not.

carving pumpkins

Well, we didn't get to carve all of the pumpkins before we crashed. But we did nine out of eleven. Not too bad. We did have Jon & Ashley's help, and Inez's "help" too of course.

Before the pumpkin slaughter

Jon is hard at work

Dave's first

Dave's second

Jon's first

Jon's second

Ashley's

Here's one of the three that I did. The other two are not really photo worthy because every year I feel this pressure to produce a really good Jack-o-lantern (which is totally self-imposed). I get this way because year after year Dave just sneezes and has the best looking jack-o-lanterns. But me? Well, I fret for a long, long time about what to do. After feeling bad for wasting so much time (because everyone else has already carved at least one pumpkin already) I just start carving without a plan. It gets worse as I just keep carving and cutting and cutting and carving, trying to improve what I've already basically destroyed. And the result is horrendous and I end feeling sorry for myself and lack of spontaneous creativity. Oh well. Maybe next year I'll make a good one.

"the cool park"

We had a good day last week. I had to run about a million errands on Friday and as we were driving with our windows down and sunroof open (because I prefer natural air to the air conditioner, unless it's not nice weather of course) I realized how beautiful and warm the day was and that it won't be that way for much longer. So I decided to take a break from dragging the girls around from store to store and make a stop at the park.



Nezzie calls this park "the cool park" and I'm guessing that it's because of the swings. They are pretty cool.




I was so glad that I stopped and gave the girls a break from sitting in the cart or having to stay right by me in the stores. It made running the rest of the errands much more pleasant. Plus I felt like such a good mom, for the moment.

picture perfect

I had to stop on my drive home the other day because the clouds cleared and Mt. Timpanogos looked so beautiful.

for you mom

There was a little girl and she had a little curl,
right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good she was very, very good.
But when she was bad, she was horrid.

My Mom told me that nursery rhyme about a million times when I was little but I didn't relate to it until I had girls of my own.

Well this little girl doesn't have that little curl...at least not in the middle of her forehead.

But the little curls in the back are so cute (except for when I have to comb out her baby baby dreads).

And unfortunately she is learning how to be horrid.

You were right Mom. She is very determined.

our lil' punkin patch

So I'm just going to claim it as ours even though it belongs to Harward Farms. This is the second year we have gone to this little roadside stand down in Springville. We love that they let you go out into the field and pick your own pumpkins. I especially love it because then I can make sure that our pumpkins have really good stems. I am very particular when it comes to the stems on my pumpkins. Dave would probably describe my affininty for a good pumpkin stem differently. I say, to each their own.

Anyway, enough about the fact that the stem can make or break a great pumpkin. We really enjoyed our time at our little patch.

Inez was so sad/overly dramatic that we had to leave because she wanted to play "Ghosts in the Graveyard" in the kiddie maze with some other kids that were there.

But then she got happy when she discovered that she could be the queen of the haybale mountain

Trying to balance and not topple over, pumpkins and all.

We have ten pumpkins. But don't tell Dave because he'll be muttering non-obscene obscenities about me under his breath while we are carving them all.
(But just look at those great stems!)

a little help from my friends

I am in the market for a good, reliable and affordable heart rate monitor.

Does anyone have any suggestions or tips? Any information would be most appreciated.

our space

Someone has a bad case of the mondays.  

Can you guess which one?

an apology to my body

Dear Body,

I am sincerely sorry that I put you through that spinning class last night. I realize that you haven't had that hard of a workout since Gwen was born. However, it was for the best. I think I am more sorry for not having worked you that hard in such a long, long time. I also realize that I need to take better care of you and that the extra pounds you have been carrying around these past few years are even worse than the spinning class from last night. Yes, even worse.

So if you will cooperate with me, I believe it is in our best interest that we continue attending these classes. If we do so, I see a bright future ahead of us. And believe me when I say that I will feel the pain when you do.

You know I love you.

h o ll y

rumbly feet and black eyes

So today Inez and I snuggled under the covers in my bed and we read through The Friend magazine (I always feel like I'm being a really good mom when we read from it). We started talking about the Holy Ghost when she suddenly remembered to tell me, "Earlier when I was watching tv, there was a rumbling in my feet and it was the Holy Ghost." She was SO excited.

Then later she was "playing" the piano and from upstairs I heard her call me twice. She didn't hear me yell back that I'd be right there because then I heard her call out, "Heavenly Father!" After another pause she yelled, "God!" When I came back downstairs she said, "I'm waiting for Heavenly Father" as she held a few heavy piano books in place so that they wouldn't fall. We had a discussion earlier about saying Heavenly Father instead of God because it is more reverent. In her moment of need, she decided to go against what she had just been taught. But it was funny.

Later I found her looking at an old Halloween issue of a Martha Stewart Kids magazine.

She pulled this little subscription card out and excitedly yelled, "Mom! I found an email for you!"


Probably one of the funniest things that she does right now is that upon entering whatever room I'm in she proudly announces, "Mom, I didn't hide anything," or "I didn't squish Gwen" or "I didn't (fill in the blank with whatever she did do)". I'm glad I can have a sense of humor about some of the stuff that she does or she might end up with a black eye (okay, not really but I need a segue here).

Speaking of black eyes...

This little girl (who also enjoys w.w. smoothies) fell last week when I wasn't looking.

I think she fell from her favorite little chair onto a toy to get this shiner. It swelled and bruised immediately. Let me just say that it is not easy to hold an ice pack on a toddler's face. Even if it's a kitty cat ice pack.

(Here's a little snot for good measure)
I'm not surprised that she fell because I am constantly catching her pulling stunts like this.

In fact the very next day after getting her black eye, she fell again and slightly bruised her other eye and the top of her nose.

I'm sure the neighbors can hear her when she goes from zero to red-in-the-face in one second, throws her head back and wails.

But don't worry about me. If someone calls child services for the crying and black eyes, they'll only find us snuggled up, reading The Friend.

a day in our life

Yesterday went down like this:

Woke up feeling rather lazy and lethargic. Talked to Kristy on the phone and made a deal. I had to go workout right then and she would go today(wednesday). I took the girls on a 40 minute walk (the big loop) so I hope you went today Kris! When I got home and put the stroller back in my car, I locked my keys in it as well. Errands were scratched off my list of things to do at that point. I am just so smooth sometimes, it really is quite impressive.

Inez came up to me and said, "Mom look what I'm doing! Do you want to take my picture?" After returning with my camera I had her pose again. I'm not sure why this was supposed to be so impressive and/or picture worthy, but I humor her.

Felt overwhlemed because of this

and this

Trying to get creative for a little craft party that I'm wanting to hold (a.k.a. "stamp camp", but I really hate that name, it's so cheesy).

Decorated for Halloween.


"Do you want me in the picture too Mom?" she asked as she got in front of the lens.

Okay Mom K., remember how last year I found the last one of these guys after Halloween at Roberts or some place like that?

Well, I found them again this year at Tai Pan Trading Co. and bought one for you (you're welcome).

Dave loves this decoration and said to me when we got out our boxes of decorations the other day, "We should get rid of all the decorations that aren't like this and we should only buy this kind of stuff from now on." Hmph. How do I interpret that one?

After getting Gwen down for her nap, Inez and I made pumpkin cookies for the second time this week. A bad thing since it was only Tuesday.
And Liz you would LOVE these.

Inez tried on her new skirt.
She decided that she wanted to keep it on all day because it was good for dancing.

Impromptu dance party(USA)



Danced to this song:



After feeling rested, Gwen rejoined us and proceeded to follow Inez around everywhere.



But got hung up on the chair, climbing up and getting down, climbing up and getting down. Again and again and again.

Then she refocused and followed Inez around again, this time under Daddy's desk to check out the vent where Inez was playing Jingle Bells(don't ask).

After eating some fresh zucchini from our garden (which Gwen loves but Inez won't touch with a ten-foot pole)

we got our jim-jams on. Thanks Aunty Kiki for the cool hand-me-down jammies!

The girls went to sleep without a fight (another prayer answered).

Dave went to work tweaking our blog, but should have been working on some freelance. He finally did, for hours.
And I finally got in a groove and kicked out a few cards. This is one of my faves.


We went to bed at 2am.

Today I am EXHAUSTED and it's time to start all over, again.