Halloween

We had a fun filled Halloween weekend this year! On Friday, we attended our Ward's Halloween Party, where Grace dressed up as a princess and colored and trunk-or-treated (of course, she thought taking candy from people's buckets was pretty great), and we all mingled and ate cupcakes and other goodies.

Here's sweet princess Grace:

Then on Saturday we went to a friends for a low-key Halloween Party, where we ate chili and hung out. And after we put Grace to bed, Travis and I carved our pumpkins (don't be too impressed--they were patterns; but I did think they turned out pretty good!).

Travis' haunted house pumpkin:

My pumpkin patch pumpkin:

And today (Halloween itself), we decorated Halloween cookies with Brandon and Rachel and the kids and handed out candy to the trick-or-treaters. All in all, we had a great Halloween weekend!

New posts

Once again, I've fallen behind in my posting, so scroll down to find my new posts on:
*"An Evening with Richard Paul Evans"
(and then below "All About Grace")
*"Grace's New Ride"
*"Sunflowers," and
*"Patterson Farms."
Thanks for stopping by! =)

A Night with Richard Paul Evans

So a couple of months ago, I saw a flyer for "An Evening with Richard Paul Evans" at our local library and I thought "Hey, I've never read any of his books, but my mom loves him; I should go to this in honor of her." Well, fast forward a couple weeks, and I've decided "Might as well read one of his books so I have something intelligent to say if I talk to him." So I got a copy of his first book, "The Christmas Box," from the library and loved it. Anxious to read more, I then read his "Christmas Box Miracle," and then "The Timepeice" and "The Letter" (the other two books in the Christmas Box Trilogy). As you can probably guess, by the time the event came around, I was a devoted fan, and was now very eager to meet my new favorite author!

It was a great event!
First, RPE (my nickname for Richard Paul Evans =) ) took our picture so he could post it on Facebook (there were about 200 of us fans there, and if you go to his fan facebook page, you might just be able to pick me out of the crowd in the picture he's taking here!).


Then RPE talked for an hour and a half about his journey as an author, things that he's learned along the way, and his upcoming works. After that, he did a quick Q&A (and I got to ask him a question!).


And finally, we headed to another room for the book signing.
After RPE signed my books (one for me, one for my mom), I got a picture with him...

...and since the girl who took our picture didn't like it, I got another!


I loved getting the opportunity to meet and talk with RPE. He was very genuine, and was really great with us fans. His books are truly inspired, and I'm so excited to read more of them!

All About Grace

Since it's been a while since I've done one, here's a post all about our Grace.
Grace has gone through a language explosion this last month, both in spoken word and in signs.

She can now say:
mommy
daddy
me
doggy
bye
hi
car
home (she'll even go to her stroller or the door and say "home" as in "lets go home now!")
cracker
cookie ("cu-khe")
please ("deese")
sky
baby ("bebe")
banana ("nana")
Jesus ("dedus")
Carter
Bobby
hot dog
ball ("ba")
cat ("dat")
go
cold ("coh")
cool
beep
outside ("sie")
slide ("slie")
bubble
boy
girl
potty ("py-ee")
boo
lala (singing)
ra-ra ("rubber ducky")
woof ("ff")

And she can now sign:
please
more
baby
ball (like more)
boy
girl
monkey
deer
dog
cat
wolf
fish
juice
eat
swim
flower
brush teeth
cracker
bird (by sticking her finger up her nose)
cookie
sad
sleep

She can also point to various body parts when asked (on her, but also us), including:
nose
eyes
head
ears
tongue (she just sticks it out when asked actually)
teeth
belly button
toes

In other news, she now has 16 teeth and long hair (past her shoulders). She loves to drive her "cozy coupe" car, dance, read, sing songs with mom and dad, be chased, play outside, climb, watch signing time and online music videos, blow on her food, blow kisses/kiss her toys, give hugs, and dip her food in ranch (she's my daughter all right). And now that I've boasted about her extensively, here are a few videos of her dancing and being incredibly silly! =)
(I like to think that she's breakdancing and doing "thriller" moves in the 2nd and 3rd ones personally. =) )

Grace's New Ride

We got this Cozy Coupe car for Grace for Christmas, but after realizing that we wouldn't be able to take it to Idaho with us, and seeing how much she LOVES Rachel and Brandon's kid's car, we gave in and gave her present early today! She was SO EXCITED!!

She just kept pointing at the box and saying "Car! Car!"

And if that didn't tell you how she felt, the look on her face in these pictures would do it--pure joy. =)

Now she loves to say "bye!" to us, then happily get in her car and drive off, honking her horn and turning the key as she goes. We just love our little driver! =)

Merry early Christmas Grace!

Sunflowers

I took these pictures out at Patterson Farm's as well, but since that post was already chocked full of pics, I decided to make this post just of my fun sunflower pictures. Enjoy!

Patterson Farms

Today, we headed out with Brandon & Rachel and the kids to one of our favorite fall spots--Patterson Farms. We loved our time there so much last year that we just had to go back!

Here we are outside the Farm's little country store, where the fun begins:




Then on our tractor ride out to the farm:


We love Patterson Farms because it has SO many great things for the whole family, like SLIDES:


(including their famous 50-foot slide:)



(Trav and I took turns sliding down it with Grace, who is a BIG slide fan!)

TRACTORS:

(I love the look on her face, like "Look at me riding this tractor all by myself. I am pretty hot stuff!")

PUMPKINS:

(Grace givin' em a little love pat:)

(And with her pumpkin vine walking stick--pretty ingenius, huh?)

STILTS:

(This is one of my favorite things at the Farm. Here Trav and I are in a race, seeing who can make it to Brandon first. =))

(Trav struttin' his stuff:)

(I'm proud to say that my stilt-walking skills have greatly improved since last year =).)


SILLY PHOTO OPS:

(Don't we make a cute pumpkin family?)

CORN MAZES:

(In the kid's-size corn maze:)


(Grace thought playing hide-and-go-seek and peek-a-boo in here was super fun!)

(In the full-size corn maze:)

(This is me with a "V" for "victory" for completing the corn maze this time!)

TEE-PEES:

and SANDBOXES:

(If you look closely you can see Grace's mouth bubble. She's actually quite the accomplished bubble blower. =) )

So you see why Patterson Farms has become one of our fall family traditions? And we can't wait to go back next year!