Happy Halloween

Well, I was debating on whether or not I wanted to take EmmaLynn trick or treating. She is still little and Dan had to work. I didn't want to go out by myself with her. So a co-worker went with me to the mall.... I decided a little too late, I probably could have gone by myself and been fine, just cause EmmaLynn was just too darn cute. Hehehe... Anyway we finally met up a little late most of the stores were out of candy which was ok, cause she doesn't need a lot of candy anyway. She and My friend's step daughter had a good time just being with each other running around the mall.. EmmaLynn kept going up to babies and saying " oh cute" " hi little baby" and other things like that. She is just too funny. One lady brought her baby down to EmmaLynn's level and she gave the baby a hug and the mommy of the baby said give the baby a kiss.. and she gave that baby the sweetest softest kiss... it was soooo cute.  anyway here are some pictures of the night. they are backwards.. the first is the end of the night and the last is the beginning... picture posting didn't quite work the way I wanted it to... 

Hugs bye bye for Alia and EmmaLynn ( princess and angel)
here they both are walking the mall with their buckets. The funniest part was they didn't quite know what to say. So we said the trick or treats and when the candy was put in the bucket they both just stared inside for a minute before they would walk away or register to say thank you.. EmmaLynn was very good at saying thank you.
here they are pulling out candy when we stopped in one store... they just plopped right down.
suckers are her favorite..
beginning of the night at home. not the clearest picture... oh well.. she is still cute as ever.

Sweet Home Alabama

We Took a mini vacation this weekend. We went to visit our friends Laura and Robbie in Alabama. Laura was my Maid of Honor at my wedding. We have known each other for a 6 or 7 years now...We became friends in a very strange way. We started writing e-mails about a mutual friend we were annoyed with, and then we stopped writing and started talking on the phone for long long amounts of time. We seemed to be at the same place in our life and had so much in common...I consider her one of my best friends and someone who really understands me. She visited me last year right after I had EmmaLynn and she helped out. She was truly a blessing and great friend when my sisters couldn't be there to help me. We had a great time just relaxing and hanging out with them.

Here we went to a little Italian designed area they had paddle boats you could ride in. The sun was shining in our eyes not a very good picture but the only one we have with all of us in it.
This is EmmaLynn with her life jacket on.. She was okay at first but she didn't have a good nap and she wanted to actually get in the water. So she got really mad after a while cause it was too cold to get in the water. 
This is how she entertained herself in the car on the way there... She did great for an 11 hour trip. She read books played with toys..
We stopped at a rest stop where she found someone letting their kitties out.. She immediately went over to the kitties and... Plopped right down.

She fell asleep for a couple of hours.
This was another picture of us at the Italian place... It doesn't much look like it here...  

With Daddy

So it was a good trip and lots of fun to get a way.. The drive was absolutely beautiful. We saw cotton fields and lots of viney canopies of leaves and lots of green all around. 

Funny video

She was watching Land Before Time 2 I think... She always makes some comments but when we heard her, we had to get it on video.  The little dinosaurs were in the "sinking sand". She has so much expression. 

EmmaLynn with her new puzzle.

We got this new puzzle for EmmaLynn. She loves to put it together over and over again. It is so fun.

Work, Conference, Work and EmmaLynn as always

The last two weeks have really flown by. I just don't know where time goes these days.  

This weekend was the best in a while. I have to say I enjoyed conference very much. I love the fact I could put EmmaLynn down for a nap and be able to focus completely on the 1st session of each day completely. My favorite part of saturday was watching in between the sessions. I saw an amazing video about President Monson. It really bore witness to me that he was truly prepared and called of God just as was every other prophet. It was such a great video. I hope some of you got to see it as well. What a powerful spirit I felt. I am so grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how it helps me in my life.

We are working on trying to get more pictures of us as a family and not to fill our blog with EmmmaLynn only. Even though she is much cuter than either of us. We figure we should change it up a little. We will do that another day.... :) 

This was a video we took monday. We were playing inside and she was getting cranky. so I asked her if she wanted to go on a walk (with out knowing it was raining) we got out the front door and realized it was raining. I told her we couldn't go outside. She proceeded to scream. So I let her run around on the top deck of our apartments. there was this section that was not covered and as you can see she had a total blast.. she kept saying "splash splash" and "raining" she sat down and splashed and got soaked... It was incredibly warm rain and warm outside so I let her play for a little bit maybe 5 min or so.. little more.... she was very angry when I brought her back inside and it was a struggle to get the wet clothes off.. but when i told her I would give her a bath she calmed down. she slept very well that night. 

A New Kind of Winter Season

I got some pretty cute pictures of EmmaLynn. She now comes into the bathroom when I am getting ready and climbs on the toilet and says "pretties" in the cute little high pitched voice of hers. So I sit her on the counter and proceed. she tries to put the little clip in her hair all by her self. There is only so much we can do with it still cause it is so short still. It is just long enough for us to clip a little brett in her hair and she looks super cute. 

Here she is trying to putt the brett in her hair by her self.  getting into the clip drawer. 
smiling for the camera. 

We have been so excited to be almost to October and we are still super warm here. I can't believe it. It doesn't even seem like it is winter coming on. 

Here she is showing off her shades, and her cute sundress
this one is out on the front deck of our apartment. 

here is a pretty one of her beautiful eyes. 

Now that we are finished with summer. Dan got a job at the same call center I am working at. We work opposite schedules and that way EmmaLynn doesn't have to go to daycare. I love it. I just got finished training  my 3 rd class, and Dan was trained and finish this week with a different trainer of course. So now we have started on this journey to see where we end up in the long run. 

We went to our new ward on Sunday and they are very friendly and welcoming. There are not a lot of young couples in the ward from what I could tell but EmmaLynn loved the nursery, and for the first time in a long time we didn't have to have an overflow to fit everyone in for sacrament meeting. It was quite a change from everywhere else we have lived.  

Today was by far the most comfortable day in Tampa I have ever had as far as weather is concerned. It was about 82 degrees and felt like it too.  The humidity was very low. I could have played outside all day long, unfortunately I was stuck in work for most of the day. 

My new project for the week is to find some good quick and healthy recipes for dinners. I am trying to be more organized about my grocery shopping and I have not been successful. So if anyone has any good healthy quick dinners, I would love to hear about them and have the recipes.

Pictures Updates and More

Some pictures and updates for everyone. 

Above was what EmmaLynn had done in our old apartment just before we left. She was trying to put diapers on her animals. Cute little stinker. 
Above is at our new apartment. there is a lake/pond thing right out back and there are ducks there.. so we can just go right outside and feed the ducks. 
Here she is with a rash she got it right after we moved into  our new apartment. I don't know what it came from.  Some ideas we had are carpet, or the water. We are not sure.. so when it is completely gone we are going to give her another bath and see if it is the water or not. So weird. It could be something different all together.  

And now for the stories and updates. 

The other night I had made Lasagna for dinner. We were all starving by the time it was finished cooking. So I was holding EmmaLynn in the kitchen while Dan pulled the lasagna out of the oven. He set it on top of the stove and immediately EmmaLynn gasps and says " Oh Look at THAT........... Yummy"  It was clear and she said it perfectly she had Dan and I laughing soooo hard.  She is talking more and more everyday, it is so much fun. The things she says are so cute and funny. 

Also since we were able to get settled into our new apartment, we went to a movie together... we took EmmaLynn with us. She was actually really good too. We saw House Bunny... It was a really funny movie. We enjoyed our time there. 

EmmaLynn is now officially 18 months so we can take her to Nursery and leave her. She loves it didn't even frown when I dropped her off last week.  She loves to play with toys and other kids.  She loves every part of Nursery.  I finally got to go to relief society and really pay attention. We had a really great lesson last week. 

Our lesson was about strengthening family relationships though meal, scripture, prayer, and quality time with each other.  Growing up our family didn't really do these things. I didn't have that example to learn from.  I did, however, have the opportunity to live near my sister Eleasha and spend a lot of time over at her house. She has been such a great example to me of all the things we talked about. Spending time eating meals as a family, praying together, reading scriptures together.  I have learned much from sister in laws and sisters alike. I am so grateful to have such great friends in them all.