(Still having issues with Photobucket and my dear red tones. I thought I had it figured out with Adobe RGB vs sRGB, but I was wrong. Grr.)

My day in photos, minus the few hours spent at home in the middle of the day.

The kids and I went to the apple farm with Aunt Marinda and her boys. To our surprise, there weren't many apples! Apparently there is no way to time when the rush will be, and it beat us this year. Oh well, Connor loved the hayride and all the kiddos liked the playground.





Connor informed me that he was flying to Nana and Papa's house.



We came home and spent some time at the park. Pretty normal stuff. At 4:30, we hopped in the car to head up to Logan canyon to hopefully get some shots of the canyon in all its glory. Disappointingly, we discovered that the canyon would be much better photographed in the early morning, since all the colors were in the shadows by the time we got up. We stopped in Wellsville when I saw some gorgeous light hitting this horse's back, but this guy was so friendly that as soon as I got out of the car, he came over to me to see if I would pet his nose. He was cute.


I was kind of bummed out about not getting any pictures in the canyon, and there was still a few minutes of daylight left, so we decided to explore Mantua. I've always wanted to get up close to the beautiful water there. We drove around, not finding a direct path to the lake (or reservoir, whatever it is), until we spotted a berm that we could get on top of. At first, it was just me getting out of the car, but when I saw this view, I insisted that Anthony and the kids come and see it.


Connor loves any little thing that he can fit in his pockets. Rocks, coins, screws, you know. He may or may not have packed his pockets full of rubber playground material at preschool on Wednesday. I'm admitting no guilt, even though we had a talk about taking things that aren't ours and all the pieces are currently in a Ziploc, ready to be returned.


The hill up/down was a little steep. :)


It was a good day! So sad to see September go!

Busy busy bees!

Man, I feel like we haven't had a moment to breathe in the past few weeks! We moved to a little townhome in Centerville and have loved adjusting to our new home. My parents were the ultimate hosts and were so incredibly generous to share their home with us for the past 20 months! We can't thank them enough!

(I've been having issues with the red tones of my photos being leeched out when I upload to Photobucket. I can't decide what's worse: showing large photos with skewed color or showing small ones with correct tones. Hm.)

Our new place. Isn't it cute?!


After living in a basement for a while, I absolutely love waking up and enjoying breakfast with the sun. It's also nice to have the table oriented so we can all sit and have a meal together!


We drove up the canyon to check out some possible fall portrait spots, and found that they were hard to come by. In order to get this shot, I had to pull over on a dirt road above where the pavement ends up Little Cottonwood, then back the van down it until we reached pavement again. Worth it.




The kids are in heaven having their own bathtub. I bought these bathtub crayons for them last Christmas, and man, are they a hit! If I had had these as a child, I would have NEVER gotten out of the tub!


Since we have a place of our own again, I have been trying to be more domestic. I had grandiose ideas of being just like Jessica Seinfeld on my first try, baking up a storm to hide veggies in my kids' breakfasts. I guess the first sign that I was no domestic diva was that I opted to by summer squash in the form of already-pureed baby food instead of roasting and pureeing my own. Mom fail. And then I couldn't figure out why my batter ONLY smelled like squash, when I was supposed to be making pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. So I got out the allspice and added some, at the precise moment that it dawned on me that in an effort to make the baking steps fair between my kids (they must both have jobs at the same time), I had doubled the squash. I was out of oil, so there was to be no doubling the rest of the ingredients, and even though I know I should have just used applesauce, it was already 8 p.m. I eyeballed some more flour, threw a batch in the oven, and turned around to see that Connor had dumped the entire container of allspice in the remaining batter. Whatever. Spicy muffins, it is.


The beauty of young children is that they totally don't realize it when you mess up! All in all, they turned out completely edible, perhaps even yummy (we'll see in the morning when I whip out my signature spicy squash and pumpkin muffins!) Alaina was so excited, she took it upon herself to set up post in front of the oven and watch them cook. The whole experience wasn't a complete bust, since Connor said at bedtime that the "cupcakes" were his favorite part of the day!

Here's to relearning domesticity!

For Nana

Nana bought Alaina a tutu with matching flip flops and hairbow. It's pretty much the cutest thing ever. The thing is, you take what you can get when photographing a two year old who isn't too keen on the feeling of tulle against her chubby little thighs.


Alaina's working on some molars, so the hand is always in the mouth.


I need to come up with a trick other than bribing her with smarties to get her to smile for the camera. She's never in the mood to have her picture taken!


These two make me laugh out loud. I can just hear our conversation. "Alaina, look at me! Let's take a pretty picture for Nana!" "Noooooooo............"



Sorry, Nana. I know these aren't magazine quality, but I think I captured this little girl who has always had a mind of her own. :)

Connor had his first day of preschool today! We've never left him with anyone other than grandparents for more than a few minutes, so our little family was in for a big shock today. We've been talking about preschool for months now, and only in the past week has he been okay with the thought. Walking his cousin Kimball to the bus stop and seeing Kimball go to school all by himself has helped Connor warm up to the idea.

Everyone needs a "first day of school on the front porch" photo! I was so tempted to take this photo on the front porch of our new place that we'll be moving into soon, but since we are still living with Grandma and Grandpa, I wanted to remember it that way.


Both Connor and Alaina have been head over heels for Spongebob lately. I tend to think that graphic anything (pajamas, backpacks, shoes) looks trashy and cheap, but my kids have forced me over to the dark side. You better believe we've got Thomas and Dora (gag) jammies over here.




Connor insists on starting the van for us anytime we drive someplace. He was so excited to go to school that he ditched riding bikes in the front yard and ran to the van when we told him it was time to go. Here he is in the front seat. Am I a crazy photo-taking mom documenting every second or what?


When we got to the school, Connor was visibly nervous. He kept asking, "Mama and Dada go wif me?" We assured him that we would walk him inside, but then he would have to go to the classroom with Abby, his former occupational therapist. When it was time for the kids to walk down the hall with the teachers, Connor got mad and said, "Me WON'T!", so we walked him to the door of the classroom. Here's where things got a little hairy, and I snuck out with Alaina. Anthony stayed for a second, but then said a quick goodbye. It was a hard walk for daddy from the classroom, hearing his little boy scream and sob. ANYWAY...



We took Alaina home for a nap, and I changed into my work clothes. We went back to the school, and when Connor rounded the corner with his class, WAY down the hall, he could spot me because of my whites. He yelled, "Dere's my mama!", and tried so hard not to run to us. The kids were supposed to walk down the hall as a group, but after trying hard to suppress his excitement, he broke into a run. It was so cute. He said that he liked school and that he wanted to come back on Monday, but he was quick to say, "Me do home now!"

When we asked what he did at school, he said, "Me wash my hands! Abby read me two boots (books)". I think it was a success! Way to go, little buddy!

My nephew, Chris, turned seven last week! I remember being so excited when I got the phone call in my dorm room that Janet had gone into labor! Once again, the Eyrings outdid themselves and unknowingly, subconsciously volunteered to plan my kids' future birthday parties! :)

The party was safari-themed and featured a lily-pad hop, frog jumping races, a glow-in-the-dark bug hunt with flashlights in the dark basement, and a pinata. Thanks for inviting us, guys! It was so fun!