Snapshots from my phone

I won't attempt to date any of these photos, but they were all taken between August and November, 2011 :)

Welcome to the world, little nephew!

He's so cute :)  

Congratulations Kim and Lane!!! 

 He was born today:
November 9, 2011

6 lbs 12 oz, 18 inches long. Born at 2:47pm. 3 weeks and 2 days early.

Update: His name is

Logan Matthew Aldrich

and he has the same initials as Lane!

LMA

Pictures at the Park

We met the Braithwaite's at the park a couple of Saturday's ago so they could take some pictures of our family!  It was pretty brief but it was nice to have someone there to motivate our little gal to smile.  I've had fun editing them and making our Christmas card.  I think they turned out great!

Aaaaand a few of the out-takes:

and the best one EVER!!!

P.S. We bribed her with a slurpee and stopped to get it right after we went to see the brand new library!! That place was nice. If ever you can't find me and Rebecca, you know where we'll be...

Halloween-ey!

Preschool Party!

The ward Trunk-or-Treat

Jorg was jet-lagged and went as a SLEEP WALKER.

Halloween Morning - I took 3 seconds before she came downstairs to hang up this cobweb w/ spiders (we had made the spiders a few days before).  I told her the spiders had spun the web the night before to tell us that Halloween was here.  She thought that was the COOLEST THING EVER!  And that is why she is my favorite child in the world. 

For breakfast, we made pumpkin waffles w/ a chocolate chip face.  You can't really tell, but the waffle was orange and you can KIND of see the face:

She got to decorate it with Halloween Goo (blueberry yogurt)

while we ate, we watched animated halloween songs on YouTube.  (the ones that weren't too spooky.  mostly singing and dancing pumpkins.)

That afternoon, she went trick-or-treating down main street with Jorg.  The businesses were handing out candy.  That's when she modeled for these pictures.  Of course she very rarely sits still or poses for a photo without bribery.  So this was before she got to go trick-or-treating down Main.

My goodness, she is a beauty!  She was so excited to be Snow White!  I thought about getting her a wig, but didn't want to spend the money and she looked so cute as a blonde Snow White.  She was on the look-out for poisonous apples all day!  Luckily, she successfully avoided them!

For dinner we had Stew in a Pumpkin!  It was supposed to be Pumpkin Stew, but I ran out of time to actually cook the pumpkin and she really didn't know the difference. 

I have fond memories of my mom making us Clam Chowder every Halloween for dinner.  It warmed us up before we went out trick-or-treating!  And it was something I always looked forward to.  I'm so happy to have this little family of mine, and that I can make memories like that for them too!

Neighborhood kids started ringing the doorbell for treats as we finished up dinner.  Our candy bowl was almost empty, so we poured most of the candy Rebecca had previously obtained, into a big bowl to redistribute! I had planned to do that sneakily. But she saw me do it and didn't even care! Wow. I guess the process of obtaining the candy was better to her than the actual candy. But not to worry, before long she and Jorg were off to trick-or-treat in our neighborhood. So you see, she still got some candy at the end. What a FUN FUN Halloween!

We LIKE IT!!
 Bonus:  Remember this?!

hard to believe she was ever that small :)  Love those little toes!

New: Leeca (and the cows)

This is a post of 2 new things! 

Leeca - the doll Jorg brought to Rebecca from Japan!  Apparently she is the Japanese equivalent of a Barbie.  She's cute and not as voluptuous as Barbie - which I like!

Lucky girl!

And here are the cows, as seen from our loft window.  Our new neighbors!  They grazed there for a week or so.  It was fun to watch them out there.  But now they are gone.  So they are no longer new.  But...they once were...new neighbors.  (my lame attempt to connect these two topics.  haha)   THE END

Her stories, pet spider, friends, and sleeping

Her Stories and Pet Spider
excerpt from an email to Birgit:
"I came home from running this morning and Rebecca was there surrounded with pillows and blankets. She had her crocodile with her and a bunch of other animal toys around. She immediately reported:
"Hi mom, today is Valentine's day and I am camping with my crocodile. This is our camping spot. And my crocodile lost all his toys. So he had to get some new ones for Valentine's Day. So these are his new toys. He really likes animal toys."
It's never boring with her! I love the stories she invents. We also caught the BIGGEST spider yesterday. She has been carrying him around in a jar and named him....of course, you can probably guess....Sparkles. All her animals and baby dolls and barbies are named either Coffee or Sparkles."

and here's the picture of the scene - funny girl!
(Omi made her that crocodile!!  Check out the super cool pouch for treasures on his belly!)

FREAKY big spider!!!  We kept it for 24 hours before setting it free.

Friends
I was snapping some photos of the mountains and Rebecca's cute friends asked what in the world I was doing?  And insisted I take a photo of them! 

So here it is!

Rebecca, Kayla, and Trevin

Sleeping
One afternoon, she gathered some stuffed animals, categorized them, and put them to sleep on the family room floor.  And then she went schlafend too.  Gute Nacht!

but only "pretended" schlafend...

Little Chef