Happy Halloween!

Sara chose her costume this year, it was between a crocodile and a horse and she wanted to be the horse. She wore this costume everywhere for a few days.

We thought tricycling to the cemetery would be a fun Halloween thing to do.

Look Mom, my shoe levitates at the cemetery!


Then the next day we tricycled on a new trail they have built by our house, once again, in our horse costume.

Then on Halloween day (in Utah County) we carved our pumpkins and put them out.

This one was our favorite.

This one we noticed later looks like they "Y" on a BYU flag, it was supposed to be a scary bat. Oh well.

Going trick-or-treating.



She got the hang of it really fast. She would go up and knock by herself and say trick-or-treat and when they'd open the door she said, "Hi, how's it going?". Too funny! Also we went up to one house with a guy dressed up like a werewolf and she was too afraid to go up to the door. He said, "Come get some candy" and she said, "No, that's OK".


This was the giant hail storm that was coming. I got concerned as we were walking and hearing thunder and watching this wall cloud approach, so I ran home and got the car to pick up Dan and Sara. I'm really glad I did.

Here is a pic I took of the hail all embedded in the horses head when we got home.

Sara got home and enjoyed the spoils. The first to go was Skittles. I'm pretty sure it's the first time she's ever had them.

Now she and Dan are having a blast answering the door and playing Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor loudly over and over.

Munkey Update

We have so much fun around here that it's hard for me to keep up with it on the blog (that's my excuse anyway). Well it's true. Dan and I can't imagine how much more joy we could possibly get from Munkey unless we squeezed her.

Last week we saw some of Munkey's friends Noah (3) and Aaron (1). They came over to our house and we went to the park. I was amazed I got all three car seats in my back seat, it was not easy, we had to work to get the door closed. Now I know that I can fit them, NOT that I'll ever really need to have three permanent car seats back there!

The look on little Aaron's face in the middle is priceless!

We also had Marison (1) and McKinley (3) over quite a bit as their Dad was injured in Afghanistan and their Mom went to DC to stay with him during his recovery. Munkey loves hanging out with these girls. They always come up with creative stuff to do. This time it was tent sliding.

Also, the slide got turned into a water slide this summer with a splash pool at the bottom.


Munkey has taken to helping us in the kitchen. She pulls up her own chair and likes to push all the buttons on the various choppers and processors and whatever else she can get her hands on. She always likes to say very insistently, "I do it".

She loves to brush her own teeth. We give her the toothbrush and let her go to town and she'll stay in there for 10 minutes brushing. This is definitely one of her "I do it" tasks. Then we just have to spot clean when she's done.

Her Nanna has taken and liking to sending her really amazing cards. Munkey has taken a liking to receiving them and opening them with haste. Here was a really cute Halloween one she just got. Thanx Nanna!


On windy days and because all the days here are windy, we still do some tricycling. She is a maniac on the trike, she can go for miles. Dan likes to say he is proud she got his cycling legs.

She helped me take a pic of this jumping spider and she was screaming really loudly at it, "Cheese, Say Cheese!". I think it worked, you can see he tried to smile with his green lips.



Happy Halloween!

Stuff we did this summer

It's been a busy summer here but we've had fun. Here's a photo blog of stuff we did.

Munkey's two friends in our neighborhood, Marison and McKinley come over to play often. We took them on a short hike up to Escalante Cross and then to play at the Spanish Fork Reservoir.

Pictured below, Marison and her Mom Angeline. Munkey calls Marison "the baby".

Then we had a tea party (not a political leaning) (and we used water).

We also got to hang out with our other friends Camilla and Aaron.


Next we went to Lagoon with Daddy on Novell day. It's probably the most fun we had all summer. I think Daddy maybe even had more fun than me.

Riding trains makes Daddy happy.

I went on my first real camping trip this summer, to Electric Lake and then again Meteor watching with Grandpa.

This is me trying out sleeping in my new sleeping bag.

Here we are camping at Electric Lake. I took my first ride in a Kayak, we paddled the length of the lake and I even fell asleep once.


My favorite part was playing in the tent though.

We also went camping with G'pa and Kepi and looked at the moon and stars.


Next we hiked through Timpanogos cave. There were some tight spots and it was pretty dark but Daddy helped me through.

Daddy always gets surprised in caves.


We also had fun this summer when we stayed at home.



Here are just some pics of my cuteness.

Artwork, I did it myself.



Also this summer we have done a LOT of reading. We go to story time at the library once a week and we load up on books. I have started music class too at Daddy's music school. Hopefully we will get some pics of those events to post soon.

Munkey hikes and Potty time

A short video of Munkey hiking with her "backpack".

She likes to "play potty" and likes to read her potty book at the same time.

Munkey and Daddy sing

This one is just Sara singing Frere Jacques in French thanks to her Granny Kepi who taught us the words :

Sassy Munkey

Munkey telling everyone how sassy she is...

Lockdown

Hi Everyone,

Just FYI, I recently locked Munkey's blog because I was getting some strange hits on it that I didn't feel comfortable with. I hope that I remembered to invite all the family members back.

I've got a lot of Munkey stuff to post that I'll have up soon!

Proud that we did it!

I decided to try to leave Munkey at the Gold's Gym day care for the first time last week. I was really stressing about it because it's the only place she's ever been left that wasn't with family and I was worried about how she would do. I was trying not to act too stressed out about it around her though so she wouldn't pick up any anxiety from me.

As it turns out, it was what I would consider a nightmare day to have left her there. There were 40 kids in a room the size of our living room, so much screaming and crying that I couldn't hear the person talking that I was leaving her with. I felt even worse leaving her in such chaos. If I were left in that kind of situation as a child I probably would have just died.

I sat down in a chair in the room to fill out some paperwork and Munkey was clinging to my leg at first but then she just wandered off into the chaos. She headed right for the play kitchen, a particular favorite toy of hers. I left for my workout and she didn't even look up or try to see where I was.

The whole workout all I could do was wonder what she was doing and if she was OK. I made myself stay and workout for the whole hour even though I wanted to go rescue her and myself after 10 minutes. When I went to get her, it was still loud and chaotic but she made her way over to me, being followed by two other little girls she had made friends with I guess. Munkey wasn't in a hurry or a panic for me to grab her, she looked as if she had been having fun. The lady watching them said she did fine. I guess all my anxiety was for nothing.

The next few days afterwords, every time we drove past the gym she would say "Go play children" and point to the gym. It was a good sign that she really did have fun.

Today I took her again, mid-day so as to avoid the morning rush. It was much better, only about 12 kids in the room this time. I went early thinking that I would sit in that chair again and let her wander off on her own instead of just dumping her over the gate abruptly. I walked in and she ran right for the gate, when I opened it she ran for the play kitchen and some girls came over to see what she was doing. She never looked back as I was signing her in and she was happily playing with toys and friends when I returned in an hour.

I'm glad that she does not seem to have inherited my dislike of crowds and especially my anxiety around crowds of children (which is actually much much better now, if you can believe that). It makes me happy for her that she will hopefully not have that kind of anxiety to deal with in her life. I love that she seems to like all kinds of different situations and groups of people. She is definitely more like her Dad this way and I am thankful for it.

Baka-la

We were making baklava the other night and Munkey kept trying to say baklava. It was really cracking us up, so of course we had to get the video camera. She was doing it for about an hour and then as soon as you get the camera out, she needs coaxing of course. Also she was saying coriander the other day when Dan used it in a recipe so we wanted to get that on tape for nostalgia.

Growing up on fast forward

Today Munkey grabbed me by the hand and led me to the toilet and pointed to her pants and said "off". Maybe that's a good sign she's getting ready for toilet training. I feel completely unprepared for it so I hope she is easy to train. I would say that this is the first parental duty/challenge that seems daunting to me for some reason that I can't substantiate.

Also she has been picking out her own clothes. She is very concerned with colors and tells us what colors she wants to wear. Last night we took down all the PJ's out of the closet and let her pick the one she wanted to wear. She seems to love having that kind of decision power and it's also good because she gets to practice saying her colors.

Another thing she does is tell us the days of the week. She doesn't get them right yet as far as matching the actual calendar day but she likes saying them and guessing.

Lastly, she is growing up so fast, the things she does surprise me daily. This is probably because I'm not used to be around children at all, so I learn as she learns. Today we picked out her favorite book to read, "Peter Rabbit" and she pointed to the cover at the word "Peter" and pointed to the letters "ete" and said "ete". Pretty cool I'd say.

Free at last, not what it's cracked up to be

Munkey climbed out of her crib today for the first time.

She didn't even open the door to come get me but I could hear banging around in her room. I think she was trying to climb back in. When I went in her room to check on her she was feeling a little guilty. She was looking at the floor with her bottom lip sticking out and murmuring while pointing towards the crib, like the crib made her do it. I put her immediately back in the crib because it seemed like that's what she wanted and she laid down with out even a single protest and went to sleep.

I think the whole incident freaked her out a little and wasn't quite what she had expected. Now I guess we'll see if she gets over it and keeps escaping or if we can squeeze out another few months of nocturnal captivity.

A horsey named Jimbo gets his hair did and other funness

Munkey has been a busy girl lately. This week she got to help us re-pot the tomato plants. She thought playing in the dirt was really fun and she insisted on being the one to fill up the pots. She was really careful and didn't even hurt the tomato plants.


She has also been really busy with a salon styling set that Nanna got her. It has a hairdryer that really blows air, a curling iron, brush, fake lipstick, and bottle of perfume that she says is shampoo. She is really into it, she has been shampooing, brushing, and blowing any hair she can get a hold of all week, then applying curl and lipstick. Here are some of her victims and these are their stories, their names have not been changed:

Horsey named Jimbo gets a shampoo

Then we blow dry and style


Next, Jimbo gets his curl on

Then, because this ain't no cheap salon, Jimbo gets a snack

And his teeth brushed

Munkey and Jimbo share toothbrushes

Next victim, Me. Wash, rinse, repeat.


This is the last thing the victim sees

Also, I made her this really cool rainbow poofy pillow that she likes to sit on and plan her next blow drying assault


Whew, we need some down time, it's been a long day. Munkey loves watching people cook. She loves Emeril Live. She points and says things like, "pan, spoon, onion, pasta". She really gets into it and you can't peel her away.


After a long day like this, she is super tired....