Seriously?!

One of the latest Groupon deals: Lighted Fleece Slippers... seriously?! People buy these for real?!?!!

Catch-up; Halloween & Other Fall Fun

To begin with... I realized we haven't even posted anything about our garden plot we had in the Village all summer! Here is a picture of our bounteous vegetables! We planted tomatoes (grape and big beef), bell peppers, zucchini, peas, and green onions. It was so fun and each year we learn a little more on how best to plant, cultivate, and eat our vegetables! We got our moneys worth from the grape tomatoes alone, partially because of how expensive they are in grocery stores. I think I brought peas home once because Otto would eat them every time on the way back to our place. We had zucchini growing out of our ears (made nearly every dish I could think of and gave some away), but we still love it! I'm pretty sure one of our big beef plants cross-pollinated with one of our grape tomato plants, making a sort of roma-looking variety. I don't know much about cross-pollination, though, so I could be lying. :)

It was lots of fun & we look forward to having a garden again (hopefully sooner rather than later!).

Now to fall festivities. I just love this time of year!

At the pumpkin patch...

Eric picked this patch especially for the line-up of tractors & Otto LOVED it!With our pumpkins

Making & decorating sugar cookies...

Halloween - Otto was Woody from Toy Story & had a blast! On Halloween he even trick or treated with another "Woody" and just loved it; he kept saying to him, "Come on, Woody! Let's go!" Sorry to the family who felt obligated to trick or treat at a few houses with random strangers just because their kid was super excited to see another Woody.

Here he is with his buddy before Halloween at a trunk or treat, laughing it up.

He noticed she had a tail and kept chasing around after it. Hilarious!

Insights...

There is so much to update! We moved from the Village & haven't had the internet until recently, so there is much to do. Stay tuned for pics & other joyous stuff! For now, I just wanted to be a little introspective.

This move has been hard on me. Probably harder on me than it should have been. I knew it was coming, I knew there would be changes, but I think I resisted it. I have been thinking a lot about the power one individual can have to change those around him/her and how that effects that individual. I started out trying to meet people in our new place, but feeling horribly awkward and out of my element. Eric seemed to take it all in stride, but I was just annoyed by people around me which didn't really encourage me to break out of my selfish coma to see what surrounded me. I just kept complaining about things and closing myself off more than I should have. I don't remember exactly what kicked me out of this state, but something did. Probably someone who showed a bit of extra kindness and interest. Or I probably reached my "low" and got sick of it finally.

Anyway, my point is that now, after I've wasted a whole lot of time (as far as meeting others and serving others goes, although it was a good introspection time for me), I'm finally getting accustomed to life outside the village, in a regular ward, with my husband working a regular job, doing the somewhat monotonous things I do everyday with the challenges and rewards I enjoy every day. And really, life's as good as you make it. It really is! And I have nothing to complain about; I've been blessed with so much! If you want to know more, ask me. I'll probably tell you.

Blogger posting problems

Blogger wouldn't let me post! Every time I'd push "publish post" there was no response, regardless of text only posts, pics, or whatever. I was talking to one of my amazing brothers about it and he suggested trying Mozilla. I don't really know why I never thought of that because I used to have to do that all of the time at work... Mother's block, I guess. Regardless, I have a few posts that will be coming soon now that things are figured out. *Sigh*

Remember to look through the last few posts... they were the saved posts that I finally got to work.

Otto is 2!

Otto had his birthday in June and we decided that since we will be moving, we would do a friends birthday party to celebrate his happy day. We combined with 2 other June birthday boys in our court, which was a lot of fun and Jenni (the mom of the 2 other boys) was great to work with! Here are some pics...

The amazing Thomas pinata Jenni made!

The kids enjoying the pinata... none of them dove in after pulling the strings to open it, but instead just sat there admiring it or opening 1 piece of candy. It was hilarious.

One of the birthday boys - turning 3!

Otto, the birthday boy - turning 2!

The third birthday boy - turning 1!

The train cakes that Jenni made!

The rice krispie treat, fruit, and frosting dump truck that Eric made!
(Otto loves trucks!)

More fun pictures!(Otto's never really had a sense of what a "personal bubble" is, has he?)

Thanks buddies!

After the friend party, we got together with family members and celebrated with a BBQ and presents at Aunt BriAnn and Uncle Derek's house.
He was spoiled with MANY more gifts (which he adores, even still!) - thanks everyone.

The amazing "Otto's Trash Truck Service" cake that Sarah & Brian made!

He loved it! Thanks to everyone for coming and celebrating with Otto. He loves you all SO much!

Eric's Graduation

Thanks to everyone who supported Eric in his schooling and on his big day! It was fun to celebrate his accomplishments with you!

New Mormon Messages

There are some great new Mormon Messages on You Tube;

- Watch Your Step

- Moments That Matter Most

Let me know what you think!

Eric's Final Presentation - April 22nd

For details on Eric's Final Studio presentation, go to this link. It will be at Trolley Square on April 22nd from 5:30 to 7:30pm with awards and remarks at 6:30pm. Hope to see you there!

The Longest Week and a Half

I'm fully expecting the next week and a half to be the longest yet in our marriage. Eric's finishing his final project, which he will present to a jury on April 18th. He will then just have a few little things to do before graduation. This week he's been focusing on his drawings and he hopes to focus on his model next week. Last night he was working on it in the studio at school until 5:30 or 6:00am. Then he came home and slept until 9:30am and got up, got ready, and went back to the grind. He's gradually eliminating sleep during the night. I think that will be the norm until the night of Apr. 18th. Then he'll crash for sure. But at least he'll be done - we can't believe it!

Conference

Latter-day Saint General Conference was last weekend and I just love it! I love being able to hear words from modern-day prophets and apostles. There is always something I need to hear that applies to my life and the concerns/worries/thoughts, etc that I have had of recent. Fortunately, I caught a few pearls of wisdom (I loved Elder Oaks' talk on desires... see/hear/read it at http://lds.org/general-conference/sessions/2011/04?lang=eng). Unfortunately, Otto is a bit busier and constantly distracting. I'm not gonna lie... there were a few talks I wished I heard more of. In spite of his busy behavior, when a speaker or prayer would finish Otto would say "Amen!" and then continue whatever he was doing.

During the Saturday afternoon session, Otto randomly said, "All done" when he felt like it was time to turn off the TV and stop watching conference. So, I decided it was time for Otto's afternoon snack (he's usually more focused when food is involved). I sat him in his high chair and gave him his snack. He then looked up when a member of the 70 was speaking and immediately folded his arms and bowed his head. He waited a few seconds, said "Amen!" and looked up to see that the general authority was still at the pulpit. He immediately refolded his arms, bowed his head, waited a few seconds then said, "Amen!" Heedless of my comment between prayers that the general authority wasn't praying, Otto repeated this about 5 times until he kind of just gave up on it. It was adorable. We love him so much and in spite of his busy, energetic spirit, are so happy to see that he catches onto things that we try to teach him.

Otto & Friends

Anyone who knows Otto, knows that he's a social bug. He LOVES being around other people. He loves learning from others, watching them (so close he's in their faces sometimes!), being the center of attention, etc, etc. So, here's a little feature of a few of the wonderful buddies he has the pleasure to be around often enough for me to snap an occasional photo (which I need to be better at!).

Playing with towels from our bottom kitchen drawer...

"Oushide!"

I love how all three of these guys are looking in different directions, discovering their own little worlds!
Not a glamor photo of Otto... just getting up after joining his friend on the floor.
"Social time" at the gymnasium of our church building on a cold day...

So, here's to all of the little kids who make it possible for Otto to be thankful for his friends (and possible for him to list them one by one in prayers or wake up saying their names or walk around the house begging to play with one, or all, of them...). Thanks to those not pictured, too! Thanks for being so fun!

Spring Fever

"I've got the madness... I've got cabin fever!!! I've got it toooooooooo!" Name that movie and you get a prize... :)

This warm weather has been a nice break from the bitter cold we had a bit ago. Unfortunately, I don't think it'll last much longer - the news reported snow beginning this evening. I guess we'll have to start bundling up to go "shouside" when Otto requests it. *sigh*

Fun with talking

Otto is beginning to get better at talking and is getting a larger vocabulary quickly. So, before it gets better and I begin to forget, I just wanted to share some of the fun things he says/used to say;
- "ga!" which means, "grandpa" or "grandma" (which is now "ga ka!"or "ball"... not sure how the two are connected
- "die!!!" (with a wave) which means, "Bye!"... I keep worrying our friends with English as a second language will think, "why does he keep yelling that to us as we leave?!"
- Eric taught him that when a truck goes in reverse it goes "beep, beep, beep" and then when it stops it goes, "cshhhhh" (the air brakes stopping). So now he does it when he's walking in reverse as well as when he's playing with his trucks. SOOO cute!
- "gurt" for yogurt
- names (Aub-ah for Aubrey, Syce for Bryce, Ash for Charlotte, Ad-uh for Aida, Gee-yun for Jillian... and more)

Dance & animation collaboration Story

Dance and animation collaboration produces stirring viral video. Here's the BYU story on the animation and dance collaboration, if you're interested.

Thought of You - by Ryan Woodward

Check out this video from You Tube...

Love it! So beautiful... but then again, I love to dance. They did a great job combining animation and the emotion of the dance.