We got a tree tag this year to cut down our very own tree! With the help of Malinda and James and their truck, we went up to Heber and found lots of beautiful trees up in the snowy mountains.

Happy Thanksgiving! We had a great day up in Draper with Tommy's brother, Matt, and his family. I decided to try to make my first pie ever after getting a great apple pie recipe from my friend, Stacey. With the help of my little sis, Valerie (who's a much better baker than I am), the pie turned out to be a success. But there ended up being so many delicious pies of every variety at Matt's house, that I only got a couple bites of the apple pie before getting distracted by a heavenly chocolate satin cream pie....mmm...so it's hard to compare.

some of the kids getting ready for the delicious feast

Joy made this adorable fruit medley! She cut out the orange peels and stuffed them with a bunch of colorful and tasty fruit. I definitely want to try making this one myself next! 

Another birthday has come and gone...24, can you believe it?! And, as always, I was spoiled. 

Mary Rose made me one of her special cakes with sprinkles. She's going to open up a dessert shop one of these days!

We've decided to settle down in Utah for the next while (5 years or so), since it feels right with Tommy's job and having family and friends around. So we put our twin home in Springville on the market and have started looking for a house a little further North (American Fork, Cedar Hills, Lehi, etc.). Tommy now works in Pleasant Grove, and we'd also like to be a bit closer to his brother in Draper, as well as SLC. 

But those of you in California...don't move! Because we still hope to someday settle down there (and hopefully "someday" won't be too far away)!

Okay, another gooey blog post:

I just LOVE hanging out with my little Sydney! We do the silliest and simplest things together (singing made-up songs, exploring new things in the house, reading stories, talking with silly voices with her stuffed animals), but it's so fun. I feel like she understands what's going on, and has a budding sense of humor. She laughs and smiles so much, it's hard to feel down at all around her. And lots of times when she's napping or sleeping at night, I can't wait for her to wake up so we can play some more. 

I never thought motherhood would be this fun! (don't get me wrong, there are times where I'm happy to get a break, or exhausted after an extra-fussy day), but I'm surprised how great it is overall.  

The other night we were playing games with my bracelets (sounds VERY exciting, I know....but it was actually a lot of fun!)

And can I just say, it's really hard to video them rolling over...this was the best one out of 13 tries! (and, by the way, I'm going to work on not sounding so annoying in the videos)

I can understand now why motherhood is so fulfilling. We get to experience the discovery of life again through our little ones' eyes! As cheesy as it sounds, it really is so true! It's my favorite thing to show Sydney new things and watch her as she takes a few minutes absorbing this new, exciting world. Even simple things like leaves on a plant, or the mirror on our wall. She's completely captivated. It's like we get to relive our childhood with them, and the world becomes big and exciting again.

(...It definitely makes me want to take her out more, since it's only a matter of time before she's bored of all the little details in our house).

Do you ever have those days where your kid is extremely fussy and clingy for no apparent reason? Where they won't let you leave them for a second, so you have to do everything one-handed? I finally got desperate, with my aching arms and back and a huge pile of laundry, so I had to get creative. Luckily, I was able to distract her long enough with the socks to get some laundry done.

So I've been using lots of positive words about the weather to myself today and acting all bubbly to Sydney, pointing to the window with high-pitched, enthusiastic noises. I'm hoping I can ingrain it into her mind that snow is beautiful and fun, like lots of people in this world must feel. But then we went to drop something off at a neighbor's just across the street and when we got home her little hands and nose were so pink and cold! So how do people do this with kids?

I always hope and expect for a big, exciting Halloween each year. I picture a big party with a cool haunted house, creative halloween finger foods, scary movies...the whole shebang. But every year it ends up pretty low-key. Even after making all the homemade costumes, we still didn't end up doing anything! We didn't even carve pumpkins! But we still had fun, since it's impossible not to enjoy Halloween, no matter what the activities are.

I love handing out candy to the neighborhood kids, since I know a lot of them from primary. They're always so adorable in their costumes. I just didn't like the fact that Tommy would only let me hand out one piece of candy per kid. I guess he was tired of running back to the store for more candy last year when I was handing out handfuls. (Sydney doesn't look like she's enjoying this as much as me).

My sister, Malinda, is an amazingly crafty woman. Whether it's painting, sewing, or making paper mache, she can visualize something, then throw it together brilliantly. So we decided to make halloween costumes for our little ones, and they turned out great! Of course, she ended up doing almost all the work, but I'm still so proud of myself. Hopefully this will jumpstart my sewing skills because I've always dreamed of being a creative seamstress for my kids.

Okay, so I'm actually pretending to be doing something here...