November Travels

Looking back on November, we did A LOT of driving. That meant a lot of stuff was going on!

My nephew decided to be baptized, so we were able to attend that which was really special. 

Mom and Mike were still visiting and going between my house and Jessica's, so we tried to spend as much time with them as we could.

They had so much fun with this bundle of joy.

They were here on Veteran's Day, so we went to Olive Garden to celebrate.  This is what they ended up doing at the end of dinner.

So that's what you can do with a little piece of bread and a grandma to entertain a 2 year old.

That next weekend, my sister and I with our two kids (her youngest) went down to St. George for our Grandpa Ab's birthday party.  It was good to see all the family there.  A couple of my uncles surprised Grandpa by coming to the party.  It was also very interesting trying to get the two kids to bed in the hotel room.  Kayla wouldn't stop talking to her cousin even though it was way past both of their bed times.  Silly girl.  Jessica and I ended up playing games in the hallway outside our door, listening to them and waiting for them to fall asleep. Overall the trip was a lot of fun.

While I was down in St. George, Brandon was in Bakersfield, CA going to a film festival there.  His romantic comedy movie that he directed got in to that film festival and won an award! Yay! Hopefully this will mean we get more recognition and maybe even distribution!  

Then as November winds down, we're off to Colorado for Thanksgiving!  Brandon considered that vacation a success because he was able to spend an entire day in his pajamas.  So I guess I shouldn't wonder why Kayla likes to wear pajamas all day too... Anyway, we had yummy food and great company.  I'm so thankful for such a great and loving family for Kayla to grow up in.  Kayla had fun playing with her grandparents, and we had fun relaxing.  We didn't get to stay as long as we wanted (we kept trying to find excuses to stay), but it was a comfort to know we'd be there in three weeks.

I just want to list a few things I'm thankful for: 

• my husband for being the most amazing spouse ever! 
• Kayla for being the sweetest daughter, she just makes my heart melt
• all my family and friends for being so loving and fun
• my warm and comfy home
• my testimony and the knowledge that I will see my Daddy again
• my Savior for all He did and still continues to do for me
• my Heavenly Father, who knows me and loves me despite that knowledge

Happy Thanksgiving.  It's good to remember what you're thankful for, especially during this time of year.

October Projects

Wow. I didn't realize that I haven't posted since September.  So much has been going on, but I should have been updating here. My apologies. Let's see if I can give an update for the last 3 months, starting with October.

I turned 27. Just saying that makes me feel old, but not that old. :)

We went to Idaho to visit Clark, Lonnie, and MaKenna for General Conference weekend.  We heard a lot of good things from the leaders of the Church, and, like any family gathering, had lots of fun, ate good food, and the girls loved playing together.  Now that they're getting older, they're having a lot more fun together. This also means not as much supervision (keeping them from accidentally killing each other), but still keeping an eye on them so they don't destroy the house together. 

So this is what they did instead.  If you can't see what they're holding, it's our Kindle Fire HD.  It has become Kayla's Toy.  We recently put a case on it so it can handle a toddler and survive.  I love it (both the case and the Kindle).  There's a special app for kids where the parents can select which apps they can access.  She can't make purchases or surf the web without the parental password.  She knows that's her app, and she goes right to it when she wants to play. They're also coming out with a lot of good apps for kids.  She's learning and it's easy to clean up afterwards! 

The girl's other favorite past-time together was to play with the Daddys. Here's one example.

We love getting together so we can have moments like this.  Can't wait until we see them again!

The last time Mom and Mike came to our house to visit, they offered to buy us a new toilet in the upstairs bathroom as their Christmas present to us.  So we decided to redo the entire thing since we have to take out the toilet anyway.  This took up a couple weekends, but it was so worth it! So here are some before pictures:

As you can see, the people who painted the poo-brown color couldn't take the time to remove their towel hook thing and paint the whole wall...they painted around it.  It took Brandon 10 seconds to remove it and a good half hour of sanding to try to get the pain levels even before we started painting.

And the after pictures:

I think this is the only room in the house that really feels like us.  One room at a time...

We also took family pictures. We love taking pictures in the fall with all the variety of colors.  We went to the park behind Walmart in Orem.  It was a great location! We were only there an hour and we got so many good shots! One of our friends in our neighborhood took them.  She was great!  Here are just a few of my favorites (it was REALLY hard to narrow it down):

And the month doesn't end here!  There's still Halloween!  I decided to make our costumes this year, and with the help of my mom, they looked amazing!  Since Kayla has been into fish this year and we did a fish-themes birthday party, we decided to extend the fish theme to our costumes.  I became a jellyfish, Brandon a sea turtle, and Kayla a little rainbow fish.  I crocheted Brandon's and Kayla's hat, and it took me 3 tries to get her hat size right!  We also decided to have a Halloween party this year.  So here are some pictures of our party and costumes.

I had a lot of fun making all these yummy treats!

Mom was a bunch of grapes,

I think this was the best picture of the fish hat.

Thinking back on this month, October was REALLY busy, but we got a lot done.  I love spending time with family and we were able to do that a lot.  And the next two months are just as crazy but fun! Stay tuned for more HoStories.

Kayla Kuteness

This month has been a bit on the insane side, so I want to post some of the fun, cute things that have also happened this month. And of course this all about Kayla because she is what makes life so cute and fun.

First, we got Kayla a new bed.  It's a bit on the princess side, but since she's my little princess, I love it for her.  The best part is that she seems to love it, too.  

I found a blue comforter for the bed that works great! It's actually one I already own but flipped over.  We put all of her stuffed animals at the end of the bed (since she only takes up about 1/3 of the space), but they've slowly gravitated towards her side.  She now sleeps with them all around her, and I think she is perfectly happy that way.

I think the best part of this bed is that it's so versatile.  It's supposed to be a princess carriage, but since it's metal, you can interpret it to be just a bunch of swirls.  We're planning on making this room an under-the-sea theme, hence the blue tulle (from my wedding!) and the blue comforter. We'll eventually bring Amanda over and she'll help us put fish on the walls.  We'll see how long it'll take us for that to happen.

My Little Miss is turning into an independent little toddler.  She likes to do things herself.

Like drive.

Read books.

And wash her own hands and feet.

Sometimes she'll let me do her hair but most of the time when I ask, she says no.  And because of this, her hair kept getting in her face.  So I had to cut the bangs.  This was my first time, and I think I did a pretty good job!

Every once and a while it'll look like this: (nice and even)

But most of the time, she's running around and messing with her hair, so it'll look like this: (less nice and even). But it's still the same cut!

And when she's super nice (and mostly distracted) she'll let me put it up. She's watching one of her favorite movies, Monsters Inc., on the computer and playing with the other hair clips.

She's my sweet girl, and I'm so happy I have her in my life.  She certainly makes it interesting! She's been so cute saying "please" and "thank you" without my prompting her to, and she's a big advocate of sharing (when she wants to anyway.)  If she has something, she feels like you have to have it too and visa verse. Most of the time, it's super cute. I love it!

She helps me get my exercise by wanting to go to the park almost every day.  Her favorite thing there are the swings, so I get more exercise pushing her.  This last trip she decided to play with them a little differently.  

She's trying to do the underdog trick I do when she's in the swing.  That's why she goes back and forth with it, counts, and then runs away from the swing to run back to it. I love how she gets distracted by every little thing, but when she remembers, she gets right back to the fun she was having before. It's amazing watching her development.

I love her so much. She's such a blessing in our lives.  She loves her friends and family.  She loves talking to her grandmas on the phone and Skyping with both sets of grandparents.  I love that Brandon has the opportunity to stay home with her in the mornings so she can get to know him (she's totally a Daddy's girl).  I love that we get to be a forever family.

End of Summer, But the Fun Doesn't Stop

The end of August was a whirlwind of activity, I'm not quite sure if we got a chance to breathe or not. Besides all the craziness Brandon usually does for film, he also wanted to host a neighborhood BBQ on the 31st. He didn't just want to do a lunch or dinner BBQ, oh no, he wanted to do BOTH! A friend from the ward provided the meat for dinner and we did hamburgers and hotdogs for lunch. It turned into an all-day event.  The turn-out was good and we had a lot of fun times.  But the craziness didn't stop there.  Brandon had the crazy idea to set up Rock Band in the back yard so we could play when the sun went down.  We had a surprising number of people stay so they could do that.  I'm glad it turned out, but I'm sorry for all the neighbors who wanted sleep that night...I had fun, but I'm glad it's over (until next time).

On top of all that planning for the BBQ, I was planning with Katherine for our annual HoBo birthday party for the twins (Kayla and Amy) the next day (Sept 1).  We decided to do lasagna and french bread and have family bring side dishes.  I think it turned out really yummy.  I was so full I almost didn't have room for the amazing cake Katherine and I made! It was Katherine's idea to do a flower, and we both thought doing cupcakes would work really well. I think it turned out fantastic!

Katherine bought the dresses so they could match. So cute!

If you want to see more super cute pictures, Katherine put some up on Facebook. I just love these girls so much!

Yesterday was Labor Day, so Brandon and I were both off work.  We decided to go to his grandparent's place and swim in their pool. Once she got used to the water, she had a lot of fun playing in it.  Eventually I'm going to teach her how to swim; then she'll be our little fish.

Grandma and Grandpa had some friends over, and they brought their new puppy.  She was so friendly! She came right up to us and started sniffing and licking us. (The licking may be due to the salt water from the pool).  Kayla instantly fell in love with her.

In addition to this crazy, fun weekend, Brandon got a new calling in our Ward.  He's the new Elder's Quorum President. It's the same calling that gave Brandon's dad his peppery hair.  I think it's a very selfless calling.  Brandon will be fantastic.  I think it's going to give us a lot of opportunities to serve and love our neighbors more.  Brandon's charitable nature has already blessed our family, and I think this will open up the windows of Heaven and bless our lives even more. 

Birthday Girl

As we did last year, we decided to go out to Brandon's parents in Colorado to celebrate Kayla's birthday (I feel a tradition coming on) that was last Tuesday (the 13th). We left Friday afternoon and got there early Saturday morning. Mom was super awesome and let us sleep while she woke up with Kayla every morning. Saturday we went shopping at Macey's where Mom works while Grandpa played with Kayla.  They had so much fun together! She's finally old enough to really have fun with her grandparents. I don't think she missed us at all.

Sunday we had a bunch of family over to have a birthday party for Kayla.  Here's a picture of the decorations Mom set up (she's so awesome!)

And here's the cake she made and I helped decorate. It was so much fun to do!

Kayla kinda freaked out when we started singing "Happy Birthday" to her but calmed down when we started opening the presents   She got a bunch of cute stuff.  Thanks everyone! And thanks to Aubri who took a bunch of super cute pictures for us. We were Skyping with Amanda, so we couldn't use Brandon's phone to take pics.

We got her the tricycle. I think she's going to have a lot of fun with it, whether she's riding it or pushing it down the street!  She got Grandpa to "ride" it while she pushed it. It was really silly and cute to watch.  

We also got her a picnic table that we found at Kid-to-Kid (awesome place to find kid stuff), but we left that at home to play with.  We can have it outside or inside, and there's plenty of room to have her friends sit with her and play (or eat).

We had so much fun, we just didn't want to leave. Kayla loves her grandparents so much! We can't wait to see them again.

After we got home we got invited to go with some friends to Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City on Saturday.  We loved it, and Kayla had so much fun watching the animals. Half the park was closed due to construction, but the parts we did see were awesome.  We saw the polar bear swim and play in the water and then get a nice back scratch when he got out.  I think Kayla especially liked the seals. She called them fish, but they were going so fast in the water, I don't blame her!  When she gets a little older (and the park's done with construction) I think we'll go again. We had so much fun!

Summer Fun

There's been so much going on that it's been hard to sit down and write about it, but I'll do my best.

June was a pretty crazy month.  Brandon and I got asked to be leaders for our Stake's Youth Conference.  We got a little "family" that we were in charge of.  I didn't realize how much work we had to do before the actual Youth Conference even started.   Luckily, our Stake is only about an 8 block radius so we didn't have to travel too far to contact our kids.So we organized a little party for our "family" so they could get to know us and us them.  It turned out to be a lot of fun.  After all the meetings, paper organizing, packing lists and permission forms distributed, it was finally  time for us to pack and go to Youth Conference!  (We couldn't take Kayla with us, but luckily my mom was available to watch her while we were gone.)

It started out at the Stake Center with a Carnival of Life activity.  There were a lot of misgivings about how the kids would take it (for those who've done it would know what I'm talking about), but I think they were just fine.  The Stake leaders handled it very well so that the kids got the point of the activity: it was centered around Christ's Atonement and its power to save us. After lunch we got on the buses and headed down to Manti.  We were set up in tents and then went down to the Manti Pagent after dinner.  That was a really cool experience.

The next day we drove up to the church's Heber Valley campsite.  It was up in the mountains, so it was much cooler than down in the valley.  We were put in cabins: Brandon with all the other male leaders in one cabin next to the boys, and I was in the cabin with my girls.  We went on a sunrise hike (luckily we didn't have to be there for the sunrise, otherwise we would've had to wake up at 5am), did some service, and generally had a fun and spiritual experience.

Here's our family:

After Youth Conference we did a little mini-family reunion. These are really awesome kids.

While we were off having fun with older kids, my mom and some friends of ours were having fun with Kayla.  Mom watched her for a couple days until she had to go down to St. George to visit with her dad. So Adam and Ashley played with Kayla for a day.  They went to the aquarium in Sandy.  Kayla loves fish, so she had a lot of fun there. We'll have to take her ourselves sometime.

Right after Youth Conference was the 4th of July.  We hosted a BBQ at our house for my whole family.  My mom and Mike were in town visiting everyone out west, and we wanted to make a centralized location for everyone to come visit her.  (One of her brothers came all the way down from Washington to see her.) So we found out that we can host a party of 50 in our back yard.  We also learned that we get absolutely NO shade at 4pm in July.  Things got a lot cooler by 6, though, so it wasn't too bad (I hope!) for everyone.  The food was good; the company was fabulous, and I know my mom had a lot of fun.  

Before everyone left, Brandon got some fireworks and set them off on our driveway.  We learned that Kayla does not like fireworks.  She huddled in my arms the whole time.  And these were the fountain fireworks! Not even the really loud ones! My poor little girl. The kinda funny thing is that Brandon recorded it on his iPhone, and Kayla keeps watching it and says "fireworks!" so I think she'll get over the loud noise and enjoy them when she's older.  Our neighborhood also shot off a lot of fireworks that night, so we got to see them all over the place.  It was a good night.

A couple weeks later, Brandon and I were able to go on a date! Yay! A wonderful family in our neighborhood loves to watch Kayla, so they took her for an evening while we went up with another couple to Salt Lake City to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir perform at the Conference Center. It was the Pioneer Day Celebration, and they had Lindsey Sterling and Nathan Pacheco perform with them.  It was really awesome.  Nathan Pacheco has a beautiful voice, join that with MOTAB and it was AMAZING.

At the end of July there was a wedding!  Emily Bobo is a Bobo no longer!  So, my family had to get together again to celebrate this awesome day.  My brother, Clark, and his family stayed at our house while my mom flew out here again and stayed at my sister, Jessica's.  The morning of the wedding, we were invited to a wedding breakfast up in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.  We dropped off Kayla at Jessica's house where the babysitter was and headed up to Salt Lake City.  The breakfast was awesome and we got to see what kind of man Emily was hitching herself to.  He seems like a really awesome guy; they're going to have so much fun together.  Then we walked around Temple Square until the sealing that afternoon.  It was my first time at that temple, and the little that I saw was beautiful. It was a beautiful ceremony.

Later that night was the reception at the Capital Building.  They set it up in the rotunda.  It's a beautiful building with marble everywhere. We got some nice family pictures from it.

Since most of my family was in town we decided to get together for a BBQ at our house on the weekend.  It was a perfect day for a BBQ: cloudy and cool for July.  Unfortunately before we were able to cook the hamburgers we had a bit of a scare.  Kayla scratched her eye and we had to go to the doctors.  So we left my family at our house to eat food while we went to help Kayla.  They checked her out and found a nice big scratch right on her pupil. They gave us a prescription gel to put in her eye that would numb the pain.  The worst part was holding her down while we did it.  We then had to go to the doctors the next day to see if it's healing.  We went in and it was completely healed. Eyes heal fast! It hadn't been 24 hours and the scratch was all gone.  I'm so grateful that she healed so fast. It's the worst thing in the world to see your baby in pain, and there isn't much you can do to help but hold her.

Besides that little adventure we had a lot of fun with Clark, Lonnie, and little Makenna.  Kayla loves her cousin. They had so much fun together.  Kayla was asking for her all the time. So cute!  

And that was our fun-filled June and July.  On to August where the fun doesn't end!!!