Happy Halloween!!

Sophie was Minnie Mouse for Halloween and I must say that she was the MOST ADORABLE Minnie I have ever beheld. See for yourselves...







Since we didn't have mouse ears for her, we substituted pigtails instead. I couldn't believe how old she looked with her hair up like that! Where is my baby?? She has also just learned to smile (kindof) when you ask her to smile for you -- some of these are her "smile." Sooo cute!

Go Tall Girls!

Just have a couple cute pics to post (ie. show off). We went to the doctor today and found that Sophie is in the 93 percentile for height - go tall girls! I was a complete goober mom and left my wallet at home, so when we got there not only did I not have our insurance cards, but I also didn't have a way of paying for our co-pay. It was one of those I-feel-totally-100%-idiotic-and-there-is-no-way-of-making-this-situation-look-less-
bad-than-it-is-can-someone-please-take-pity-on-me? moments. Thankfully, the staff DID take pity on me and they were really nice about it. Sophie was still seen by the doc and I called with our insurance info when we got home. Hooray!

So there's our story for the day.

Now on to the pics!!

Sophie's new favorite place to hang out is the bottom shelf of the bookshelf. I found her here with my cell phone just chatting away with probably someone in China or Indonesia.




I totally SCORED on some new winter clothes for Sophie at a Children's Place outlet last weekend. It was so wonderfully awesome. The total opposite of my moment in the doctor's office today. :) One of the things we came home with is this leopard onesie. It cracks me up - I love it!! Sophie looked so cute wearing it that I even let her get into the CDs in the secretary while I tried to get some pics. How cute is this????






And that's all folks. Till next time, when I post Sophie's Halloween pics (speaking of cute!...)!

Welcome Home, Melissa!!!

Melissa came home from her mission in Italy last week and we decided that we just couldn't NOT be there for the big homecoming! Esp since we live so close now! So we cruised on south to Cali, braved the fires and stormed the house, taking everyone by surprise. We had a good time surprising each family member as they arrived home from school, work, etc. :)

My mom had the brilliant idea of having us all wear chef hats to the airport to welcome Melissa - no way she could miss us with those on, eh? :) So we put on our best Italian chef faces, took plenty of posters and waited anxiously at the bottom of the escalator till Melissa arrived! It was a very happy reunion - SOOO great to see her again!! Welcome home, Meliss!!

Waiting at the airport for Melissa to arrive...!! ps - how AWESOME is my poster?? I was SO proud of this masterpiece. :)

Melissa comes off the escalator and sees us - what's a girl to do when your family is all wearing chef hats??

Mom and Dad rush the return missionary - they got to her before the rest of us did. :)
Mom, Dad and Mel

Sibs - minus Nath -- where was he when we took this??

Melissa and B-to-the-ryce, as she calls him :)

Happy Family! We missed you, Marse!

And, of course, the painting wall! We have one wall in our house that gets painted for big occasions - or for no occasion at all, whenever someone feels like painting. Jake and Linds, I believe, were mostly responsible for this work of art:


We're so glad to have Melissa back and that we were able to see her get off the plane - Welcome Home, Mel! See you tomorrow!!

ps - I can't not mention the fires in this post since they were such a part of our trip. It was absolutely CRAZY driving home and seeing so much smoke and burnt land - much of it still smoking. Thankfully, things got better while we were there and my fam is in a safe spot, but we could still see blazes over the hills at night and lots of ash falling pretty much all day long. You held your breath and ran for it when going from car to house - good times. I was feeling very sorry for the toll road employees who had to sit right there in the middle of it all, with just a little dust mask for protection! The good part of the fires is that school was canceled two of the days we were there, so it was family party all day long! My mom sent me this pic - it was taken last Tuesday at a lake a few miles from our house. Yikes!!

Male Bonding

My twin brother Cris and I returned from our two year missions to find our younger brother Jamie, who had just spent two years in a house with 5 sisters, craving some good old fashioned male bonding (AKA wrestling). It just so happens that I left a kid brother and returned to find a young man, with the muscles to prove it. A combination of his new found strength and my mission "halo" left me feeling quite certain I didn't want to regress into big-brother vs. little-brother wrestling matches. I think I managed to hold out for a week.

Fast forward 8 years and I find myself in the same situation. I've only sporadically seen Jamie over the last 4 years, partly due to his mission and mostly due to his going to school at BYU. You may recall that I am now earning my MBA at BYU, so we find ourselves in close proximity once again.

I'm fairly convinced that Jamie spent the last 8 years physically preparing for this reunion, while I've just been resting on my laurels (i.e. any intimidation that may remain from the good old days). As a result, the most frequent comment I get is - "Did you lose more weight?"

Enough background. Conference weekend, Jamie's girlfriend came out to visit from Boston. Seizing on the moment to demonstrate how his 8 years of working out had paid off, Jamie insisted on a wrestling match. Lisa quickly joined in and pushed me off the couch into the fray - and then sat there taking pictures.

I got crushed.

We love Jamie

Conference Weekend

Conference weekend is always so much fun - especially this year because we got together with our good friends Josh and Allison and their daughter Kate, who is one month older than Sophie.

Seeing that we've moved to "Zion," we also had a chance to actually go to Conference - a first for both Lisa and I. The LDS church has what we call General Conference every 6 months where the leaders of the church spend 10 hours over two days speaking to the worldwide membership. I have only ever seen it on tv via satellite (it's broadcast live). But we had great seats for the last session on Sunday - only about 100 feet from the rostrum.


One of the perks of our new location is that Conference is broadcast on local tv and radio stations. Since we have neither, we spent some time at home listening over the internet. So many options! Sophie surprised us by taking a 3 1/2 hour nap on Saturday afternoon, this picture below is right after she woke up and joined us listening to the last talk.

Happy Birthday, Marci!!!!

aRGH. Blogger is being ridiculous right now and I can't set this up right... BUT, Happy Birthday, Marse!! Here's to great sisters! I REALLY wish that I had a scanner right now b/c the ghetto camera style that I'm trying to use to get some of these pics online just isn't working. Just imagine some of our other good times along with these gems. Happy B-Day!! We are super-dee-duper excited for your construction project, too! Whoopeeee!!

birthday cake and sprinkles - and a killer round of skeeball,
us







COMING SOON TO A MAILBOX NEAR YOU!!!

What Did YOU Do On Your Date Night??

Super Baby!

These pics are especially hilarious if you know that one of my sisters always ties a blanket around her shoulders when she gets up from bed in the morning. Bryce tied this blanket around Sophie's shoulders the other morning right after she woke up and we thought it was too cute. Obviously, Sophie is less than thrilled to having a flash go off in her face before her eyes have even adjusted to light..., but here she is! Our Super Baby!!

Anniversary of a Happy Day

Hard to believe it's already October 9th again! Bryce surprised me with roses this morning and a card that only my sweet Bryce is capable of. Happy Anniversary to my Love! Here's to many many more!

Our Gutsy Gourmet

This afternoon Sophie found a roll of toilet paper and kindly decided to bring it to me after only about 2 yards were unrolled (I figured that was pretty awesome compared to what the unrolled damage could have been). After handing over the remaining roll, she promptly set to work:

1. Shredding the 2 yards she'd unrolled,
2. Placing the shreds ever so neatly in a soup pot pulled from the kitchen, and
3. Stirring the paper shreds to a nice appealing consistency.

Voila, Toilet Paper Soup!!So proud of our budding little chef!

Later this afternoon Sophie and I were having fun with some of my old scarves. Looking at this picture, I'm not sure how I refrain from just eating those cheeks all day LONG!

And now, faithful blog readers, ta-ta for now! Time for this blogger to hit the sack!!

And the Celebrations Continue!

On Sunday the birthday celebrations continued since, as it turns out, I was born on that day! My dear Bryce went above and beyond all expectation and surprised me in more ways than one. First, some very dear friends from Boston showed up to celebrate Boston-style (aka we had this enormous breakfast and laughed our way through the entire meal). Bryce made his signature lemon-blueberry muffins which were, of course, to die for. Matty concocted this French toast that will go down in history as the best French toast I have ever had, and Melyn whipped up some killer scrambled eggs. I didn't know they were coming, so Bryce made sure I was ready and when they showed up it was a party!

Party people!! Jodi, Matt, Melyn, me and Bryce!

Melyn, Jodi and the OJ

Bryce and Sophie show us just how much sugar was in the breakfast we happily consumed

Awwwh, I love these guys!

After breakfast, Bryce revealed the big birthday surprise that he'd been dangling above my nose the last few weeks. I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT, but he gave me a Bosch mixer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! People ask me why I love this so much, and I suppose a lot of it has to do with the fact that I grew up with one and so that's what I'm used to, but oh... they are SUCH a dream!! It was all I could do to not jump up at that second and start making something, anything!! What a thrill!! Thanks Bryce!!!

And here it is... ta-da!!

Later that day, after church, we had a big family party with birthday celebrations all around! Katy's birthday, my birthday, Bryce & Cris' birthday... And we're only getting warmed up! Betsy's birthday is later this week - hooray! More party people...

Katy and I pose with The Cake. YUM.
Can't go wrong with mint choc chip ice cream, Oreos and hot fudge! Also, the 2 represents Katy's age and the 9 represents mine. :) Let's not age dear Katy before her time!

Sophie with one of her favorite people = Aunt Betsy!

Cris, Tanner and Renee -- watch out, Betsy! :)

The incredibly beautiful bouquet the girls gave me! Thanks again!!

Bryce and Cris' thoughtful siblings wanted to make sure that they (esp Bryce) had a BYU shirt they could call their own! Cris happy as a clam with his! Bryce.... trying to come to terms with being Fully Invested. Go Cougs!!!This picture makes me laugh everytime I look at it - how awesome is Renee here??
Bryce is holding up cards that Katy made to represent the date she is sending us on - dollar movies, Malt Shoppe and a surprise. Got to make sure Bryce has these classic experiences! Thanks you, everyone!
Other fun that evening included turning Betsy into a chair. Katy shows us how comfy she is to sit on, while Sophie tries to figure out how on earth she did that!

Well, that's about it, folks. All in all, it was a wonderful weekend. Thank you to everyone for the calls, cards and birthday wishes! Hugs to you all! xoxo