Tis the Season

Hooray I'm finally caught up! Last week we got our tree, it was a long search because I refuse to pay $35 + for a tree.  But, we finally found a lovely tree for a decent price (thank you boy scouts and the nice guys who loaded it and tied it onto our car).  It was so cute to watch Aliya get so excited about all the decorations and everything this year!  She can't wait for Santa and even sat on his lap at the ward party the other day (I know, I was shocked!) So, we are all decked out and ready for Christmas, now if only my shopping were done :)  Merry Christmas everyone!

Fall Fun & Halloween

We have LOVED having our awesome back yard this fall. Aliya especially loved playing in the leaves.  It was so cute to watch her really experience and enjoy fall this year.

We decided to paint our pumpkins this year rather than carve them so that Aliya could participate more.  We all had a lovely time, but unfortunately forgot to take pictures until it was all done.  But here are a few and Aliya in her costume. She LOVED trick or treating this year and I think she's asked if we can go almost every day since then til now.

Summer randomness

So, I'm getting tired of playing catch-up so this is going to be a random post of the assorted pictures I still want to post but haven't so I can actually get on to something current!  So, to begin, my baby turned 3!  I can hardly believe what a big girl she is! We had a lovely day, Daniel's Mom and John came down and our friends Jamin and Ta and their sweet girl Serenity all came to play with us.  We ate pizza and cake and then went swimming at the rec center.  It was awesome.  The only bad part is that the pictures didn't turn out so great, but here are a few.

Aliya and her new trike and helmet!

Birthday cakes, she picked these of the the ones I showed her online and they were super easy

Yum yummy!

Birthday dress

We were able to spend some time with my sister Heather and nephew Michael during my training and the trips back and forth.  This was labor day, we went to the park and had a lovely time despite the cold. Miss you guys!

In all our packing Aliya loved playing in the boxes, especially when Daddy would carry her in a box.

Hogle Zoo Trip

In August we were trying to do many things in Salt Lake before we moved, we managed to do most of them.  One was to visit Hogle Zoo.  So, while my sister was visiting we made a day of it and had a lovely time.  Amusingly enough Aliya's favorite thing was not any of the live animals, but a giant metal statue of an Elephant.  It has motion sensors in it and when kids sit on it's trunk it "sneezes" a small spray of water.  She didn't actually want to get close to it but loved watching the other kids get sprayed.

Aliya's main attraction for the day

Aliya and Auntie Bella hatching

Auntie Bella, Aliya, and Mommy riding the train

Swimming Pool!

So, we discovered that Aliya needed a swimming pools when one day I had put her in her swimming suit to play with water in the back yard.  We were putting water in a bucket and letting her play in it, well she was playing and I was reading.  At one point I looked up to find her standing in the bucket trying to splash.  That was when I decided we needed a pool :)  She was so cute and so much fun to watch with it.  Here's some proof! (Apologies for the sound on the video but it was too cute!)

Wheeler Farms May Day

So, as a continuation of my catch-up posting....one Saturday in May we went to a place called Wheeler Farms in Salt Lake for their May-Day Celebration.  It's an actual working farm in the city, it's owned by the city and they do all sorts of demonstrations and things. We saw all the usual farm animals, watched a sheep get sheared, and had a lovely time. We timed it perfectly because it started raining just as we got to our car to go home.  Here are a few pics.

Aliya and the Princess who was at the farm.

Aliya in an old fashioned play house.  She LOVED it! I think we were there for half an hour, and she still wasn't happy about moving on.

Aliya and Mommy riding a tractor 

Portland Trip

Wow, so I can't believe I didn't post anything all summer!  We actually managed to do quite a few fun things despite my crazy schedule and training for work.  So, here is a brief re-cap of some of our exploits!  I'm going to break it into a few posts so it's not sooo long. 

  First things first, in May I went to Portland for my little sister's graduation from art school.  I wish I had taken more pics of her amazing work, but sufice it to say that she is amazingly talented and if any of you have the means you should commission her to make you something.  She does metal- smithing (sorry Bella, not sure how that's spelled etc.)  so she makes statues, jewelry, pretty much, she's amazing!  I had a blast but it was strange to be away from Aliya and Daniel.

My lovely sister Elisabeth and the lovely silver teapot she made!

Me, Aunt Patty, and Elisabeth at the tea party

Elisabeth and her thesis work, I wish you could see it better

Me and my beautiful sister Elisabeth (yes I'm the older one, really)

My family after the graduation from left : Quest, Mom, Elisabeth, Me, Dad.

Cannon Beach, the pic doesn't do it justice

New JOB!

Wow, I am so excited! I just found out today that I got the job! For those of you who haven't heard anything about it, I recently interviewed for an assistant store manager position with Wal-Mart and today we found out that I got it! So, we will be moving (again) to Twin Falls, ID in a couple of months.  I will be in training at the IF store for about 6 weeks and then 2 weeks in Twin and then I'll be official! I feel so blessed, we have been waiting for a break like this and, just well yay! I can't even put it into words right now! We were jumping up and down and dancing around the house we were so excited!  Just wanted to share the good news!

Happy 5 Years!

Just wanted to tell the world how much I love my sweet amazing husband! I am a day late with this post, yesterday was our 5 year anniversary, but we will be celebrating it today though.  So many wonderful and difficult things have happened but we are still happy.  Our love has grown and I am so blessed to have Daniel for eternity. I love you babe!

  

Artshow, Easter, Etc.

So wow it has been forever! This post may be a bit long so I can catch up. Last month Daniel had one of his paintings displayed in the Statewide Art Competition here in Bountiful. We are so proud of him! He didn't win a prize or anything but he was excited just to be chosen for the show out of 300 some odd applicants.  Below is a picture of his painting entitled "Praise to the Man".  Let me know if you "get it".  I totally saw it but probably just because I watched it take shape.  Our parents had a hard time "seeing" it so I'm curious as to what other people see.  I wish you could see it in person, these pics don't really do it justice.

Easter was fun, a little disorganized as the sleep-deprived Easter bunny forgot to find the baskets til the morning of...then decided we should hide eggs in the yard only to open the curtains and find snow on the ground!  Argh! Luckily 2 year olds don't notice that the baskets magically appear later in the day, or that we waited til the snow melted to hide eggs in the late afternoon.  Aliya got an awesome new toy for Easter, called my pal Violet.  It's a leap frog toy and by connecting it to the computer you can teach it to say her name and what her favorite things are! So cool and she loved it! She wouldn't even turn it around for me to take a picture.  It says things like  "I love you Aliya.",  "My favorite food is strawberries.  Is that your favorite too?"  Adorable.  I highly recomend it, (they have a green one for boys.)

Also for Easter I decided we should make some cute sugar cookies.  It didn't work out all that well from the start but we had fun.  Daddy was sick so Aliya and I started getting out the ingredients and getting ready.  I got out the step ladder and let Aliya help pour things into the bowl, I asked her to put the softened butter into the bowl and she reached out and grabbed it, of course coming away with a ton of butter on her fingers which kind freaked her out "you need to wipe it Mommy!"  but it was hilarious!  Then once we get all the ingredients into the bowl I realize we don't actually have Easter cookie cutters, only christmas ones, so that's what we used. We finally got them all cut out and baked, (burning the first batch a little) the second batch was perfect...until  I managed to drop them while taking them out of the oven into the crack where the oven door closes.  So funny now, but so not at the time.  Aliya ate about 4 cookies while I was trying to push the cookies through the crack with a spatula and the clean them out of the drawer under the stove.  In the end a basically good time was had at least by Aliya.