November has come and gone...

We have been very busy and also forgetful. I failed to bring my camera with me anywhere. So silly of me. I just wanted to make note of the events so I wouldn't forget.

Early in the month of November we traveled up to Dayton, OH to visit my brother Ben and family and help out a little. His wife, Bonnie had recently had surgery. We needed a good excuse to get up and visit anyway. Justin, of course couldn't make it. We had a great time hanging out and playing with cousins. Wes stepped it up a notch while visiting and went from scooting on his belly to crawling on all fours.

We came home to regroup before we headed south to Amy and Bryce's for Thanksgiving. My parents were able to come out and Ben and Bonnie also drove down. Justin, of course, couldn't make it. Although I didn't have a camera, my mom took over two hundred pictures. It's nice to know that I may some day get some of them. It was soooooo nice to be around my family. I really do love living in the south (hot summers aside), but it is unfortunate we don't live close to Grandma and Grandpa. We ate up every minute of it.

It's nice to be home now. We missed our daddy like crazy. We are all decorated for the holiday season and settling in for the wonderful busyness of this time of year. That is until our next road trip...

October Update

Sorry about all the new posts. It's been a busy month. I just wanted to make sure I posted all of these events. Happy Holidays!

5K Pumpkin Run

I've been wanting to participate in this 5K since I moved to White House. So on the morning of October 3rd, I went and registered. It's been a loooong time since I ran a race and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I wish I could report a time, but something happened to the timers and they didn't have accurate time. I did run the whole way and probably finished somewhere in the middle. My favorite part: my cute family cheering for me and the start and finish.

Longer Out than In

Wesley is Nine Months Old!!

Wow this guy is getting tricky! In a matter of a few days he has learned to go from laying to sitting to pulling up and cruising and climbing stairs. It amazes me how quick babies change. I can't even begin to express how I love this little man and his seven (almost eight) little teeth. His smile and laugh light up my life. I am completely enthralled when he is trying to figure out something new.

He claps his hands, waves hi, and holds his hands up over his head if you say, "Wes is so big." I can't get enough.

Sats are as follows:

• Weight - 20 lbs (about the 50th percentile)
• Height: 29.5 inches (about the 90th percentile)

My Three-Year-Old

It's so hard to believe my little baby girl is getting so big. She is so full of new discoveries and learning so much. Izzy loves to pretend to be someone or something else. Wes and I must play along. Her favorite characters are princesses, ponies, some sort of baby animal, and Dora. I think she is only Izzy 20% of the day. Heaven forbid I call her Izzy when she is pretending to be someone else.

Newborn

One

Two

Three

We had a My Little Pony celebration for her birthday. She had a few little friends come over and we painted some ponies and ate pony food. She received some fun gifts. Mostly they all just played. Little girls are so cute together.

Justin's grandparents came over later that evening for cake and ice cream. My favorite part of her entire birthday was this:

As soon as we sang to her, she stuck her face in the icing and went to town. I have no idea what made her do this, but it cracked me up.

By Car or By Plane

Justin had a Anesthesia convention in New Orleans from the 17th to the 20th. I wasn't so excited about being home without him so we dropped him off at the airport and I drove to Amy's in Georgia. It was seriously the best visit. We played with the kids and relaxed together. Bryce stayed with all the sleeping kids one evening so Amy and I could go clothes shopping together. It was the best!! I LOVE shopping with my sis. Here's a few picts of the cute cousins playing together:

Halloween Festivities

HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM MY LITTLE MONSTER!!

We started celebrating Halloween last weekend at our AWESOME ward Trunk or Treat. For the past two years a family in our ward has hosted this event. This year they had a bean bag toss, pop the balloons with a dart, potato sack race, three-legged race, hay ride, haunted trail, Halloween tattoos, pumpkin painting, a huge bonfire with hot dogs and marshmallows to roast, and chili cook off. It was so well planned and super fun. There were some really great costumes and really good soup.

I'm pleased to say that our family won the "best family costumes" award. We were dressed up as Captain Hook, Wendy, Tinker Bell, and a Lost Boy.

The next day Izzy and I headed to the 3rd annual haunted house decorating party. Justin and Wes couldn't make it.

We all got sick this past week, so we didn't carve pumpkins until Halloween day (sorry no pictures). Isabella did love trick-or-treating and loved being Tinker Bell. She was so proud of the "pixie dust" in her hair.

Lost River Cave

Justin had one of his rare weeks off last week. However it was only like five days because a seminar he needed to attend happen to fall on his days off and he also picked up a moonlighting shift. So between that and all the blasted rain, we didn't do much of anything.

We decided to attempt a visit to the great state of Kentucky and this place my friend told me about, The Lost River Cave. I planned everything oh so carefully, packing lunch and working around naps, only to find when we got there that the water level was too high and they weren't doing cave tours.

So we did something Justin and I only dreamed of as kids. We bought a bag of dirt and panned for rocks and fossils. It was loads of fun! I honestly think Justin was more excited than Izzy. When we got home they worked together to identify all their jewels.

Isabella's exploding imagination has her being a new favorite character every day. This day she was Dora. That is why she is wearing the back-pack.

My dude!

Even though, we couldn't go in the cave, we were able to hike down to the cave and look in. This area is beautiful.

We also hiked through the mud to see a few butterflies flying around a butterfly house.

Our other big accomplishment of the week? We got our family picture taken (Izzy is 7 months in the last one we had done.)

Izzy just saw this picture in an ad on the computer. This was our conversation:

Izzy: Mom, you want that car?

Me: Not really, why do you want to it?

Izzy: When I get bigger, bigger, bigger and I can drive.

Me: Really? Go tell your dad.

Yeah that's a little scary. Don't worry, this camaro comes in at just under $31,000. A really great choice for a teenager, don't you think?

Give Me A "C"

C - for camping, that is.

It's a little embarrassing to admit, but in the almost six years Just and I have been married, we have never been camping together. It's a little odd considering we both enjoy it so much. Well, enough is enough and we took advantage of the two days off Justin had over Labor day and headed out. We were joined by the Carter's (thanks guys for the good times).

We ended up at a little family camp ground in the general direction of Georgia so Amy and Bryce wouldn't have to drive as far when the headed home. We pretty much got rained out for dinner and couldn't light a fire. We ate at Zaxby's. We were able to start a nice fire and roast some marshmallows. Except for Wes scooting all over the tent, we slept pretty well. And then it rained some more. We packed up our tents pretty quickly and Bryce cooked us breakfast under the hood of his car. We ate lunch at McDonald's. I think Izzy might be a little surprised when we actually go camping to find it doens't generally involve eating out.

We especially enjoyed our little canoeing excursion and playing red-rover with our cousins.

Amy took more pictures on her camera. Maybe she will post them on her blog.

09/09/09

Nine is the atomic number of fluorine.

It is 3 times 3 and hence the third square number.

Nine is a composite number, its proper divisors being 1 and 3.

Nine is the highest single-digit number in the decimal system.

A polygon with nine sides is called a nonagon or enneagon.

A group of nine of anything is called an ennead.

In base 10 a number is evenly divisible by nine if and only if its digital root is 9. That is, if you multiply nine by any natural number, and repeatedly add the digits of the answer until it is just one digit, you will end up with nine:

2 × 9 = 18 (1 + 8 = 9)
9 × 9 = 81 (8 + 1 = 9)
121 × 9 = 1089 (1 + 0 + 8 + 9 = 18; 1 + 8 = 9)
578329 × 9 = 5204961 (5 + 2 + 0 + 4 + 9 + 6 + 1 = 27 (2 + 7 = 9))

Important Buddhist rituals usually involve nine monks.

Ramadan, the month of fasting and prayer, is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar.

The car number of the 1988 NASCAR Nextel Cup championship-winning team, when Bill Elliott won the title. He used this number again from 2001 to 2003. Kasey Kahne has driven the 9 car since 2004. (that's for you Becca)

The number of innings in a regulation, non-tied game of baseball.

The San Francisco 49ers are sometimes referred to as the "niners".

Nine Lives Cat Food got its name from the legend that a cat has nine lives.

In classical music the curse of the ninth refers to the superstition that a composer who writes a ninth symphony will die soon. Beethoven, who left his Tenth Symphony unfinished, is regarded by the superstition as the first victim of the curse. Among nineteenth-century Viennese composers, neither Franz Schubert nor Anton Bruckner finished nine symphonies. Gustav Mahler attempted to avoid the curse by naming the work after his Eighth symphony Das Lied von der Erde He then wrote a complete Ninth Symphony, yet his Tenth was unfinished at his death.

In music theory a ninth is the ninth note of a musical scale or the interval between the first note and the ninth.

Bands with the number nine in their name include Sound Tribe Sector 9, Nine, Stroke 9, Nine Days, Nine Inch Nails, Nine Black Alps and Alice Nine.

The Beatles released a song called "Revolution 9" which appears on The White Album (more properly known as The Beatles); its principal vocal feature is a voice repeating, "Number nine...number nine...number nine..." John Lennon, the primary composer of "Revolution 9", also released a solo recording entitled "#9 Dream. Also, George Harrison released a solo recording and a song both called "Cloud Nine"".

"Love Potion No. 9 originally performed by The Clovers in 1955. Love Potion No. 9 was a 1992 movie starring Sandra Bullock and Tate Donovan.

In the American western folk ballad Oh My Darling, Clementine, Clementine's 'shoes were number nine.'

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (sometimes abbreviated DS9), is a science fiction television series rooted in Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek universe.

Nine justices sit on the United States Supreme Court.

The word "K-9" pronounces the same as canine and is used in many U.S. police departments to denote the police dog unit.

Someone dressed "to the nines" is dressed up as much as they can be.

Ninth Avenue is a major avenue in Manhattan.

In Middle Earth, there are nine rings of power given to men, and consequently, nine ringwraiths.

The nine muses in Greek mythology are Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Erato (erotic poetry), Euterpe (lyric poetry), Melpomene (tragedy), Polyhymnia (song), Terpsichore (dance), Thalia (comedy), and Urania (astronomy).



Anything else you want to add about the number nine?

My Jogging Buddies

Izzy - She is the best partner. She notices all the birds and hears all the crickets and is sure to tell me about everything she sees. If only she would forgo the practice of asking what every single one of her fruit snacks is shaped like, especially when we are going up a hill.

Wes - You couldn't ask for a better partner. He pretty much chills in his chair. His main goal is to get on Isabella's nerves by touching her and trying to steel her fruit snacks.

My double jogging stroller - For those of you who don't know, my exercise of choice is getting out for a jog. It has been increasingly hard to do since Wes was born. I'm super excited about this recent purchase. As the weather cools off, I'm hoping to do a lot more jogging.

P.S. I know it looks like my kids are dressed for colder weather. The outside thermometer said it was 60 degrees and for some reason that seemed "cold" to me. I dressed up Wes and then Izzy thought she needed her jogging clothes. Don't worry, Isabella's jogging outfit is a My Little Pony one. The ponies name is Pinkie Pie in case you didn't know.

Utah Peeps

We were able to visit with lots of people on our trip to Utah (I know we've been home nearly a month). I so wish I had pictures of everyone. If you are listed without a picture, sorry.

First it was great to see so much of my extended family at the weddings and Bennett reunion.

Grandma and Grandpa Shimer, Aunt Bobby and Jennica, Aunt Sharon, Aunt Nelda, Aunt Kim and kids were all there from my mom's side. Thanks so much for carrying Aubrey's wedding on while we were all so sick. It had been way too long since I had seen some of you. It was short, but great.

From my dad's side, Uncle Wade and Aunt Jana and all their kids+spouses and grand kids (loved hanging out with you guys), Uncle Steve and Aunt Karla and all their kids, Deon and Lisa (so glad that you came up from AZ, so sad:( your kids didn't), Uncle Dee and kids, Aunt Norma. What a great time! Loved our game of Nertz that we attempted to play.

All the Bennett Cousins at Aubrey's wedding

We were able to spend some time with Justin's family.

Sis, Amanda. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to play hostess.

Nephew, Alex. He was so cute with Wes.

Nephew, Benjamin. I seriously wanted to bring this guy home with me. He is so stinkin' cute.

Justin's Grandpa and Grandma Wilson.
We also got to hang out with Justin's dad + girlfriend one evening. He set up this big bounce house for the kids and they made us dinner. It was great. We were able to go with Justin's mom and Lynn and see the Hill Air Force Base Museum. Thanks for the great idea Joann!

I really wish I had a picture, but I was able to go out to dinner with my former rommies, Tiffany and Emily. We had some great years together at Utah State. It was so fun seeing you guys and meeting your kids even though dinner was a little crazy. I love seeing you fulfill your role as mothers. I can't wait to see you again (Jensa, next time you better be there).

Finally, here are a few pictures of my family. Time went by way too quick while we were there. It always does when we get together. I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving.

Dad really wanted a picture with his "identical" grandsons.

My sis Amber and hubby Brian with Wes. Thanks Mamers for letting us stay at your house and watching my kids! I love you!