HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

FROM TYLER

TARA (it's a tree with lots of different colored leaves, get it?)

GEM

AND LEVI (I helped him paint it, he was napping.)

Lyrics of the Day

Tyler and I laugh every time this song comes on our ipod. Is it really that hard to write an inventory of what is in your bedroom? Though, to be perfectly honest, I always thought he was saying "window" but it turns out it is "winter". I guess that is a little more deep.

House
written by Elton John & Bernie Taupin

This is my house, this is where I live
That is the winter, those are the trees
I can hear them breathe, this is my bed
This is where I sleep, that was the dark
Those are my dreams, they belong to me

What a talented baby

Levi's big new thing. He is basically amazing at getting his hands up to his mouth, unfortunately we don't want any thumb suckers around here, and so I am doing everything I can to suppress this new talent.

I'm just so crafty

A while back at Target I found a deal I couldn't pass up. It was a 200 pack of brightly colored blank cards with matching envelopes for ten bucks.

Since then I have found that I enjoy making home-made cards. Well they are homemade inasmuch as I have my cutter machine cut something out for me and then I glue it on there.

The cards on the right I made for a small gift for a game night. But I didn't end up going so I will just save them for next time.

Disneyland

You all must think we pretty much live at Disneyland, well we pretty much do. We know when we move back out to Utah that our Disneyland vacations will be few and far between so we are trying to squeeze in a lifetime's worth while we are out here. We know that when our other kids look back at Gem's scrapbooks they will all be mad that Gem has pages and pages and pages of her with us at Disneyland. It just isn't really fair.

Anyway this time we went with our best neighbors. We didn't take a lot of pictures because we were to busy having fun, and because their were other grown-ups there Tyler and I got to ride two big rides! Everyone had lots of fun, and Gem couldn't believe that we were at Disneyland with Lizzy and Mimi and Rachel.

Lyrics of the Day

As I find that music is such a huge part of my life, I have decided that I will start posting lyrics of the day, until I don't want to. Don't be mislead by the title, I won't actually be doing it every day (probably). It just means on the day I post it those are the lyrics for that particular day. I'm not sure how long I will do it. I have a long list of potential song candidates. But I imagine that at some point I will get bored of it, but until then here are the lyrics for today. I don't really know what the lyrics today mean, but that's not really the point, is it?

From "Birdhouse in your Soul"
By "They Might be Giants"

I'm your only friend
I'm not your only friend
But I'm a little glowing friend
But really I'm not actually you're friend
But I am

Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch
Who watches over you
Make a little birdhouse in your soul
Not to put to fine a point on it
Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet
Make a little birdhouse in your soul

3 Months Old!

Today Levi is Three Months Old!

He likes to do 2 things.

1-Talk to Mommy

2- Jump

Baby Games

Levi is basically tons of fun. My favorite game to play with him I affectionately named "Standing Baby, Flying Baby". Without going into too much detail, there are two parts to this game. In each part I assist Levi to either stand or fly.

That got me thinking the other day of a funny bit by Dave Barry ( I think he is the funniest humor writer of all time), which I decided was worth sharing.

Traditional Baby Games

HERE COMES THE BABY EATER
Place your baby on the carpet, face up, then crawl around on all fours and announce, "I'm so hungry! I could eat a baby!" Then crawl over and gobble up the baby, starting at the feet, and periodically raising your head and shouting, "Great baby! Delicious!" Babies love this game, but you don't want to play it when other grown-ups are around, because they will try to take custody away from you.

ATTACK OF THE SPACE BABIES
Lie on your back on the floor and hold your baby over you, face down. Move the baby around in the manner of a hovering spacecraft while making various high-pitched science fiction noises such as "BOOOOWEEEEOOOOO."Feign great fear as the baby attempts to land on the planet Earth.

A Symbol of our Unbreakable Love

Tyler's tungsten wedding ring broke yesterday, after more than four blissful years of matrimony. Tyler claims it is because he flexed his finger.



We don't know whether we should consider this a dangerous omen. I decided to take quick action by purchasing a new ring, before Tyler was overcome by the swarming masses of eligible young women.



In my quest to solidify the physical tokens of our marriage covenant, I decided to go high class, I purchased the "Stainless Steel Laser Notched Design Spinner Ring". This stellar purchase from Overstock.com almost broke the bank at $21.97 (including shipping).


We can't wait to reaffirm our vows when the USPS man delivers the package to our mailbox, in five to ten business days.

Dancing Three Year Old

Yesterday afternoon I "babysat", an eight and nine year old in the ward. Really it was awesome, because I didn't do anything and they played with Gem. At right is the "Sleeping Beauty Castle", the 8 year old made for Gem. Gem loves to do whatever people tell her too, so she was in heaven with her older friend who made sure that Gem always knew what she was supposed to be doing.

pumpkin excess

Our concert was super fun! Mind you the usual highlight of my week is when I do singing time with ten two-year-olds at church. But it was still really awesome. Colbie Caillat even made an appearance to do their "Lucky" duet. It was really interesting because he only played five or six songs off his album, and all the rest were unknown songs. But despite that he kept everyone's attention. My personal favorite song he sang was called "What Mama say" basically the entire song was a list of things that Mamas tell people to do. Hilarious!
Here is Levi sporting, what his uncle Steve, would call "the art of seduction" pose.

Today we went to a book sale (HUZZAH!), and then we went to a pumpkin patch. Unfortunately we were dressed for fall weather, and we all thought we were going faint from heat. Weather is still weird here.

Not to be outdone by Levi's stellar pumpkin performance, Gem also wanted to give the pumpkin a whirl.

Later in the evening, Gem connected with the pumpkins on a deeper level.

A New Post

Monday night we attempted to go to the pumpkin patch for FHE. When we got there they were already closed, their website said they were open until "dusk". I think "dusk" is a vague term that really means "whenever we want". So we had to find something else to do for FHE because we had all already gotten in the car. We decided to let Gem go play in the little kiddie playground at the mall. When we got in the mall Gem put her hands on the glass railing thing (we were on the second story), and she turned to Tyler and said "If I'd falled off this, we'd all be sad." Tyler agreed.

This morning during bath time Gem asks"momma we a go to a red store today?". To translate that means she wanted to go to Target. I think it means I go to Target to much, because I was, in fact, planning on going to Target today. So I was able to answer her in the affirmative.

I needed to go to Target to get three things: cards and envelopes, socks for Levi, and pipe cleaners. One hundred dollars later we were back in the car. I just really can't go shopping, I go in with a list and then I justify all my wants while I am in there. Such as tennis shoes for Gem, and a new mop head for me.

However most of that money was spent on a new outfit for me. Because Tyler and I are going on an actual date tomorrow. We are going to go see Jason Mraz!!! (For another story about that see the next and last paragraph of this post). It has been a long time since we have been on a real date and I decided that I would splurge on a new outfit. Usually my shopping goes like this, I let Gem play in the kiddie playground at the mall for a half an hour and then I spend 5 minutes looking at the clearance racks at Old Navy. If something is more than $3 (approximately), then it is off limits. But today I really went for it, I actually bought a pair of pants that was a big twenty dollars and wasn't even on sale. That's right I just went crazy.

So tomorrow Tyler and I get to go on our date. Hooray for our best neighbor ever who is willing to watch my three-year-old, and not-even-three-month-old along with her own three kids! A few weeks ago I saw an ad in the weekend paper for a Jason Mraz concert. So of course I went online to get to tickets. And to my horror the tickets had been on sale for quite some time already. So our seats are ok, but if we are going, I want to have the best seats. So I was a little put out and immediately went to all my favorite bands websites and signed onto their email lists so I would never be caught off guard again, and next time he comes around, oh, believe you me, we will be in the front.

Just a Video of a Baby

I LOVE MY BABY!

He is too big for his 0-3 month clothes, I am not sure if he even had time to wear all of them. And his 3-6 month clothes are all too short, but we are wearing them anyway because I feel he should wear at least each outfit once, otherwise the kindly gifts of others would have been in vain.

Conference

We had a good conference weekend. On Saturday morning when Gem first started watching all the women in the tabernacle choir were wearing white and when they started singing, she asked me "Are they angels?". It was pretty funny. We put up her tents to play in, to keep her occupied for as much of conference as we could. It worked reasonably well.