HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

We have had a pretty busy week, as I am sure most of you have! Monday was the last really warm day of the year here, so Arden, my sister Val and I decided to go to the zoo! We had a really great time looking at the animals and enjoying the great weather! It got up near 70 degrees that day, and today the high was 35. Arden liked the white alligator, the elephants and the bears best. I always liked the giraffes :). We took some pictures of Arden with the turkeys that wander around the Hogle Zoo in honor of Thanksgiving.

We had Thanksgiving dinner at my mom's house (Preston's parents are still out of the country on a mission). We were assigned to bring sweet potatoes and a pie. Preston is the best cook out of the two of us, so he was in charge, but I helped. The sweet potatoes we made were great. We decided to make two pies, and it was a good thing because only one turned out to be usable :).

We had lots of fun at my parents' house on Thanksgiving. It was a pretty small affair (just us, my parents, Val, B.J., Amanda and her husband Matt), but it was cozy. We ate lots of food, watched lots of football, took little naps (all except Arden), and played a little pool on the table downstairs. Thanksgiving is an awesome holiday, I wish we could have it more often!

Hope all of you had great Thanksgivings too!

Bus Obsession

My daughter Arden is obsessed with busses. OBSESSED. I do not use the word lightly. It all started when Preston brought her a toy double decker bus home from a business trip to London. She had it for a while without really treating it any differently than any other toy. Then one day she was happily pulling all my books off of a shelf and she ran across a book about London from a trip Preston and I took there a couple of years ago. She pointed to a picture of one of the double decker buses, and then to her nearby toy bus and yelled "BUS!" I hadn't heard her say that word before and thought she was brilliant for noticing that the picture and her toy looked the same, so I told her (as I often do) that not only is she beautiful, but a genius as well. Little did I know what had begun.

As the days went by, she would return again and again to that London book on the shelf. She would pull it down, flip through the pages until she found a bus, and yell "BUS!" It was cute. Then, whenever we were out driving and we were lucky enough to actually see a real live bus, she would get really excited and shriek "BUUUSSSS! BUUUSSSS!" Soon this led to a regular chant of "bus, bus, bus, bus" when we were out driving around even if she couldn't see one, as if by just saying the word over and over (and over), she could make one appear. The London "bus" book became her favorite book, and I have to tell you I have probably flipped through that dang book about 500 times (I wish I was kidding, but I am not). She has the book pretty much memorized and knows the exact locations of every bus in it (there are 35). About every other page has tape on it, but she loves it so much she even took it to bed once, hugging it like a doll. This has gone on for over 2 months now, and I am beginning to hate buses even more than I did before. (I don't like buses because of some past experiences involving a sleeping bus driver and a couple of sick bus buddies, but those are stories for another day.)

Anyway, I am wondering if anyone who has had toddlers before knows how long this will last? I was hoping it was going to be a short phase, but as the days go by her love of buses only grows stronger :) In the picture above she is happily reading her beloved bus book surrounded by some of her bus paraphernalia.

Need your opinion! Please comment!

Hi everyone! About a month ago my awesome sister in law Jessica took some great pictures of our little family, but I am having a hard time deciding which one I like best to hang up in our family picture corner. The ones below are the ones where Arden is actually looking in the general direction of the camera and at least giving an attempt at a smile. I always end up getting hung up on which one I look best in (am I the only one who is that shallow? :) Hope not). Anyway, I need some outside opinions! Let me know which one you like better of 1, 2 or 3 below:

Yuck, I hate pictures of myself! I guess that is why Arden is all by her cute little self in 99% of the pictures we take. Please put a comment below and let me know what you think. Thanks!!!!!!!!

Trick-Or-Treat

At first we were worried that Arden would never wear her costume for trick-or-treat because the first couple of times we had her try it on she immediately ripped the head part off. On Halloween, after visiting Great-Grandma Wilson and Grandma and Grandpa Haun, she realized that if she wore her costume and said "Peez?" (please), she would get CANDY! That made her much more willing to put up with the costume. By the time we hit the neighborhood "Trunk or Treat" she was a pro! Preston even took her old school Trick or Treating on the next street over, so she (and therefore me) got quite a haul of candy! Halloween is so fun, too bad it is only once a year. Arden still wants to put her costume on and try it out, it is hard to explain why it only works on Halloween.

Carving Pumpkins

We carved pumpkins again as we do every year. This year Arden really wanted to help! Luckily, we all survived with no bloodshed. We did a cat for Arden, just a scary face for mine, and Preston wanted to make a "cannibal" pumpkin.

Halloween Party

We hosted a Halloween party this year for the Zaugg family! We ate jack-o-lantern pizza, had candy apples, and even had a pinata shaped like a witch. All the kids loved to whack the pinata. Arden didn't really whack it, she just touched it gently with the bat. Some of her cousins knew what they were doing though. Her cousin Kaden finally hit it hard enough to separate the witches' body from her head, but the candy inside of the body still didn't come out. Uncle Jason to the rescue! The kids had a great time seeing each other's costumes and of course, getting a jump start on eating CANDY!

Halloween

We had a great Halloween! Arden was a black cat this year. We saw her costume online and thought it was so cute that we ordered it. When it came, however, the body suit was a little too short and the head was WAAAY too big! It would fit on my head. There must be some 18-24 month olds out there with HUUUUGE noggins. My mom tried to make the head smaller, but it was still a little big. Oh well. She looked cute anyway!