Cow Cute!

Saturday the weather was gorgeous so we took a family bike ride to the nearby pumpkin patch to get some pictures of Addison in her costume. She was so distracted by everything else going on that she wouldn't look at the camera (much to mom's dismay) but she was adorable anyway. After pictures we put her back in her overalls to play and then I caught on camera what Addison has loved doing lately...RESTING!

She loves to back up to things and sit down, like a door step, a stair, or even these pumpkins. And she loves sitting on the ground and leaning back against the couch, wall, or even the pumpkins. This peaceful restful love of her lasts about 15 seconds before she's back to running and exploring and finding something else to "rest" against. LOVE HER!

Giving Away More Money!

So I posted a giveaway for a Sam's Club just a week ago and only had four people enter. I hope to have more enter this give-a-way, but either way I'm going to brag about Sam's Club again.

We eat yogurt at our house pretty much daily. Oliver is a yogurt snob when it comes to brand - he will only eat Yoplait. I went to Sam's to check out their new expanded Yoplait yogurt selection at Sam´s Club and was quite pleased. Not only do they offer the traditional three-flavor pack that we are accustomed to, but they also offer 32 oz tubs, other variety packs, dessert Yoplait delights, parfaits with granola, gogurts, smoothies, and trix yogurt. I was quite impressed by all that was offered and, as you can see from the previous post, we are enjoying the yogurt around here immensely!

If you'd like to win a $40 gift card to Sam's Club to purchase your own Yoplait yogurt then leave a comment telling me what Yoplait product you want to try.

For an additional entry, tell me what you, your kids, your neighbor, your dog, or your dreams will be dressed as for Halloween.

I'll announce the winner November 1st at 7:30 am - feel free to enter until that point.

Disclosure: The Sam’s Club gift card, information, and giveaway have been provided by Sam’s Club and Yoplait through MyBlogSpark.

I Can Do It Myself!

Addison has decided that she can do most things herself...the only problem is she still kind of can't!

At least it makes for good stories, great pictures, and most importantly her personal development. We just love this girl!

Oh yeah - and Addison is really into kissing everything! Blowing kisses, kisses her baby, kissing random other children in the Costco parking lot, kissing newborns feet (we have been teaching her to stay away from their faces so she thinks you're supposed to kiss their feet). Yep - we just love her!

Halloween Outfit 1

The YM/YW in our ward put on a Primary Carnival for all the kids every year. It happens on a Wednesday night and there are games and prizes and treats. The whole neighborhood comes and it is a lot of fun. Because we don't have a lot of kids in our neighborhood it isn't very crowded and the youth all dress up and man the games and love the little kids. This is our third year going (and Addison's second) and I think the youth love it more than the little kids!

Addison's Grandma and Grandpa took her to a princess party in September (a cancer fundraiser event) and so she wore her costume again to the carnival. She actually has another costume for Halloween - it just would have been a little hot indoors so we opted for the princess outfit. As it was, she could have gone without the long sleeves because she was really hot!

Oliver and Addison decorated her treat bag and she was ecstatic to put things in and out of it all night long! She didn't eat any of the candy because she doesn't know what it is yet (that's for mom and dad) but she did love putting it in and out of her bag and giving it to her daddy.

Her favorite game to play was the bone toss. The older kids were so nice to let her carry the skeleton hand around with her and interrupt whoever was playing at the time to put it in one of the buckets.

As an aside, I have come to realize that kids are born charitable and considerate and it is their circumstances and life situations that changes that. Every child stepped out of Addison's way, got down on her level to tell her how cute she is, and let her interrupt what they were doing so she could have a turn. Even the four and five-year-olds accommodated her wandering and just loved her. No one was upset when she walked right through the bow and arrows of when she pulled up papers from the cake walk. The kids even shared their treats and prizes with her and wanted her to feel included. I learned more about what the Savior meant when He said "become as a little child". It was a touching teaching moment that was probably not the intended purpose of the Halloween Carnival.

Addison still carries her princess wand all over the house and I love that she has no idea what the Reese's pieces are that she's holding in her hand. Really I do - she'll have plenty of life to eat junk and I love that she still prefers green beans, carrots, cottage cheese, and grapes.

Stay tuned for tomorrow when I post pictures of her in her other Halloween outfit!

Wind In Your Face

We went on a family reunion to Capitol Reef with Oliver's siblings and parents and had a great weekend (there will be other pictures to come). But one thing Addison hates is riding in her car seat. Oliver and I had to drive down by ourselves and we weren't looking forward to almost 4 hours of Addison in the car.

She did remarkably well seeing how she cries driving less than 2 miles to the babysitter's house most of the time.

On the way home I was driving and trying to find ways to keep her entertained and so I would roll the windows down in series and she thought it was the GREATEST to have the wind in her face! She would giggle and clap and laugh and wave her arms and we played the window game for more than 25 miles - AWESOME! This is what got her screaming "GO" and now she yells it at everyone and every thing.

We had a wonderful time on our long weekend vacation and can't wait until the next Family Reunion (with Nick sleeping somewhere else).

Still Remembering - Never Too Late

The tenth anniversary of 9/11 fell on a Sunday. Every year, in anniversary of the attacks, Sandy City puts up a "Field to Remember".

The city puts up a flag of every victim with a small card attached telling their name, where they were when they passed, and a little about their life. It is a touching site.

After all the American flags for the fallen they put up a flag of every country that was effected by 9/11 - even Portugal lost some of its citizens (it's where Oliver served his mission).

We decided to go walk the field after church and spend some time reflecting. I had barely started my freshman year of college in upstate New York when 9/11 happened. We all have memories of when, where, what, etc. of that day and it is good to remember, celebrate, and be amazed the resiliency of our nation. I'm proud to be sister to an air force officer who has proudly served our country since before that time and been to the "sandy scary" places on more than one occasion.

Seeing how we live less than two miles from the Sandy field it's probably an event we will attend again.

God Bless America!

Happy 4th Anniversary

Oliver and I decided to celebrate our anniversary (technically 9/27) by going to the circus (on 9/24). It was phenomenal and really fun. We both went once as tiny kids and neither of us remember going so we decided to give it a go. I have an in to order tickets for any Energy Solutions event so we were able to get discounted tickets with no processing fees (the fees alone saved us $26). AWESOME.

We went to dinner at a dine-o-round restaurant and my mom was staying with us and able to babysit Addison.

If you go an hour and a half early to the circus you can go down to the fairway and see all the animals outside. It is a way closer view of the animals than a trip to the zoo - it was actually really cool.

After touring all the animals we then we inside and were able to go down to the circus floor to watch some pre-show activities. The let the kids walk the tight rope, try on costumes, and the performers even helped them to perform little tricks. They also brought some of the animals out to do stunts and interact with the public. Rosie the elephant came and painted for everyone to watch and we also learned about some of her favorite foods. Rosie's most favorite food is fresh baked bread.

I was actually perfectly content after all the pre-circus fun, but I loved the circus too. It is long (like 2.5 hours) but they had great acts. It was also so fun to see the kids about young elementary school aged that were enthralled, thought the clowns were funny, and were old enough to sit that long. It is something we will definitely take our kids to but not for about 8 more years :)

Winner Winner

I'm giving away $40 soon so hopefully more of my readers will enter. But for the magic of today...


YAY KIRSTEN!

(Just email me your address and I will have your gift card sent to you.)

PS You can enter even if you don't belong to Sam's and give it away as a Christmas Gift - or buy yourself a membership...

Give Back by Buying Pink

This October, by making simple everyday purchases at Sam's Club, you can help support breast cancer education and research. Sam's Club stores began featuring exclusive pink packaging on September 19th on some of your favorite participating General Mills products in recognition of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Oliver and I had a chance to go and check out some of the products that Sam's Club is offering in support of breast cancer awareness as well as check out Sam's Club itself. We are fairly committed to a different big box store but were pleasantly surprised by several things.

- Sam's Club is not crowded (I went once at lunchtime and another time first thing Saturday morning)
- They sell one gallon of milk at a time
- They open earlier than other box stores
- AND they have crushed ice in their fountain machines :) Just sayin'

They're offering several general mills products in pink packaging as well as some yoplait goodness. I personally loved specially-marked General Mills Fiber One 90 Calorie Brownies. YUM!!

Anyway - if you want to head over to Sam's Club and support cancer awareness that would be awesome. And I would love to support one of you in your endeavor. So enter now to win a $25 Sam's Club gift card.

All you have to do is post a comment telling me which of their favorite General Mills products are you most excited to see featured in the Pink Promotion at Sam´s Club?

For a second entry tell me your favorite Addison blog story and leave a second comment.

I'll use random.org to select a winner on Monday, October 17th. Good luck!

Disclosure: The information and gift card(s) have been provided by Sam´s Club and General Mills through MyBlogSpark.

Picking Pumpkins for FHE

Going to the pumpkin patch with Addison would be fun - but she doesn't have the longest attention span. We decided to go to our backyard patch for FHE and pick our very own pumpkins. After a 30 second song, 10 second prayer, and 40 second lesson it was time for the activity part of FHE!

Addison had a wonderful time looking at all the pumpkins and backing up and sitting down on them. She is getting used to wearing her rain boots but it helped to have some extra stuffing of her footed pjs. We sure love how fun she is and how nice it is to be self-reliant! It was definitely a cheaper pumpkin patch experience as well...

The Baby Plays Along

I found a picture of the baby playing too!

Auditioning for Emily

I've been trying to learn a piano piece to accompany our YW for YW in Excellence and it is proving to take more time than I originally anticipated. Consequently, Addison has also been playing the piano regularly. She loves to play while I'm playing and she loves to have her baby play. She also loves to play directly underneath my right hand and try to do what I'm doing. It's awfully cute.

She isn't that familiar with the video camera - but she warmed up to it after awhile (and I figured out how to use it) and showed some of her talent.

Emily - if I promise to teach her to count and read notes - can you move closer and have her as a piano student? PLEASE? You could call this her audition tape...she'll be ready to go in 3 years!

PS I downloaded free .mov editing software that allowed me to clip off whatever portions of the movie I needed to - and it does a ton of other stuff but that was all I really wanted. It's called videopad. And no, videopad doesn't know I exist, I'm just giving them free advertising because it was seriously easy to use and did exactly what I wanted!

Go Beavers - An Equal Opportunist Cheerleader

Addison is an equal opportunity cheerleader.

She loves the Utes because her mom graduated from there.

She hates the Y because it's just the thing to do.

The team she cheers most loudly for is Oregon State. Her Nana and grandpa met there and her Nana is a HUGE fan. Since Addison is an equal opportunist she was more than thrilled to receive an outfit and parade around practicing her cheers and other toddler moves.

She mounted the bench and then coped an attitude on her decent of the driveway.

She did a little stumble and somersault on her assent of the front lawn and she even practiced showing her cute little bum.

She then paraded around the driveway doing a little jig and sharing her vault of facial expressions.

Hail! Hail! Hail! Hail! Hail to old O.S.U. - GOOOO BEAVERS!

Ultimately, she became distracted from her cheer-leading practice, and decided to investigate the state of the fall flowers in our yard. She was quite distraught when I wouldn't let her eat the flowers off the purple blooming bush because they are swarming with end of life cycle bees that are in their mean phase.

After a *small* tantrum she was satisfied to be relocated to a bee-free bush to eat.