Happy Halloween!

Liane had her first trick-or-treating experience tonight and she had a blast! She was the cutest little fairy you ever did see! We started the night off with dinner followed by trick-or-treating and dessert after. Here are some pics from the evenings festivities (thanks to Aunt Lilly for the amazing pics - you rock!)

Creating Beauty project #2 - COMPLETED!!

Ah yes, a month and a half late, but it's finished and cute! Ok so it's not perfect by any means, but you can see that Liane loves it and that is all that matters... she won't see my mistakes on it and nor will she care one day when she does discover them. It was made by hand and with lots of love and that is all that matters! Yeah it's done!!

More Misc...

Random shots from the past few days...It's Fall and I still have tomatoes growing... well I think they have stopped growing and will forever be green... regardless Liane loves to go to the garden and pick tomatoes
Playing in the leaves in our backyard... I'd say someone has a lot of work to do back here... 1,2,3 NOT IT!!

More playing in the leaves... the bazillion of them

Liane found the bathingsuit drawer and one day thought it was super fun to wear one of my bottoms from back in the day ( ok just so all of you know... like it's any of your business, but posterity might read this one day and I want no rumors being spread about a hoochy grandma... I am long waisted and have a HARD time finding one piece bathing suits so I wear two pieces with a tank on top... ok there! :-)

Liane and Ivy playing with Legos

Grandma and all of her grandbabies! A room with 4 kids under the age of 3 has never been so quiet... thankgoodness for Legos!!

Pumpkin Carving

Fun, fun, fun... I love carving pumpkins! Mostly I love to bake the pumpkin seeds when we are done carving the pumpkins... we got a late start tonight so I will be baking seeds tomorrow. Here are some pics from tonights festivities... by the way, Liane's first pumpkin carving!! The before shot... Salomon likes to tease me that I always have to have a before and after pic... thats just me... I like to see where something started and the process of how it got to be what it is now... Im creating beauty!! :-)
Salomon hard at work!

Liane diggin' in

Ooooh look at the pumpkin guts... good times (well for me at least... she wasnt so sure)

Liane loved using the spoon to dig inside the pumpkin

Checkin' out the finished product... our lil' Jack-O-Lantern!

Everything Liane likes gets a kiss... awww!

Checkin' it out

The "after" shot... the finished product!!

Husband Tag

Ok I totally stole this from someone else, but I thought it would be cute to do... hey I wish the guys did stuff like this! It would be nice to hear sometimes too :-)

1.Where did you meet?
The LIE: the bar (silly we dont drink) The TRUTH: online on LDS Mingle

2. How long did you date before you got married?

We dated 8 months ( we met in May 05, engaged July 05, married Jan 06)

3. How long have you been married?
We have been married almost 3 years

4. What is your favorite feature of his?
His arms - love them, but also the smile he gets when he is really excited or happy - melts me

5. What is your favorite quality of his?
Salomon is a hard worker and knows his responsibility and obligations as a husband/father/provider for our home and willingly and faithfully fulfills his duties.

6. Does he have a nickname for you?
Baby, Wifey, Mi Amor and so many others, but I cant let you in on all of our little sweetnesses....

7. What is his favorite color?
Shoot, I think its blue

8. What is his favorite food?
Ummm Mexican - authenitic - NOT Taco Bell!

9. What is his favorite sport?
He doesnt really like sports - he doesnt watch any on TV (thankgoodness) but if I had to choose one Id say Soccer

10. When and where was your first kiss?
The day we met in person... at the San Diego airport... it was a short little peck, but it was cute

11. What is your favorite thing to do as a couple?
Dance when we have the chance, train for races, travel and play with our lil baby girl!

12. Do you have any children?
1 amazing daughter!

13. Does he have a hidden talent?
He is an amazing dancer!

14. How old is he?
31 - only 4 months behind me

15.Who said "I love you" first?
He did - are you kidding me? I could not say it first - what if he didnt agree??!! Oh the embarassment!

16. What is his favorite type of music?
Spanish or 80's

17. What do you admire the most about him?
His love for the gospel and family and his willingness to grow and change with me for the better

18. Do you think he will read this?
Yes cause I had to ask him a question about something on here and he asked what I was doing and if it was going on my blog... he knows me too well! :-)

I TAG ALL MY GIRLS WITH MEN IN THEIR LIVES...!

Liane's first "real" family home evening...

Ok so I love this church! The church (and therefore most Latter Day Saint families) set aside Monday nights for Family Home Evening ( a time when you gather your family together and spend time with one another - usually centered around a prayer, lesson, activity and refreshments, but every family is different and I suppose what is most important on this night is the family part... spending QUALITY time together!).

Well I heard that there was a new nursery manual that came out and I thought it would be a good tool for me to plan and prepare lessons/activities for FHE geared to Liane's age (nursery is for children 18 months to 3 years old) - Liane is a little younger but I knew that I could adapt the lesson to fit her. The manual is amazing and each lesson comes with a picture to support the lesson and a page you can copy and the kids can color. So fun! The first lesson is "I am a child of God". We started with a prayer (which Liane now knows to fold her arms when we tell her we are going to have a prayer - and sometimes she even bows her head - so cute!) and then sang "I am a child of God". We told her that she had a Mommy and a Daddy and asked her where Mommy was and where Daddy was at which point she correctly pointed to myself and then Salomon and then she proceeded to give us each a kiss... ok lesson could have been done at that point for me... so adorable! We then told her she had a Heavenly Father too and that He loved her very much. We used the picture of a group of children from the lesson to talk about how everyone is a child of God. We followed with a little movement activity and colored the picture together as a family. Liane had fun and we had a BLAST spending one on one time with her - TV, phones, computer, radio off... just quiet family fun time! It seriously lasted about 10 minutes but what we accomplished and the foundation we are setting for her are priceless!

I need to go to the church distribution center to purchase this Nursery Manual, but until I do, I can print the lessons off of www.lds.org for free!! Ok so this is one of the reasons why I am blogging about this... all of you mommys out there (LDS or not) I totally recommend this manual (or any others) to help you teach your children about who they are and how special they are. Religious or not, this manual has lessons that are so fun for the kids and so cute to teach ( yes most lessons are gospel related). What we will be doing (once I buy the manual) is laminate the pictures and keep the one out of the current lesson and talk about it throughout the week to reinforce what we discussed in FHE. Liane may be young but she catches on quickly and I think there is no better time to teach her about her Heavenly Father, Jesus Chirst and who she is... you are never to young for that, and she may get it more that I will ever know. I know as parents we are blessed for our efforts and, well I saw the reward already tonight.

Oh and you can order this manual and anything else online at www.lds.org as well... from the home page click on Gospel Library on the upper left of the screen, and from the pop up box click on Order Church Materials... browse the site - there are lots of great things you can get to help teach your children of all ages!!

More words...

Here are some more of Liane's amazing words!

Jesus (yes she can identify Him when she see's a picture of Him - without prompting... so sweet!)
beep
uh-oh!
oopsie!
baby
boo

She is adding words so quickly!

Pumpkin Patch

Ok so Liane was really sick this week and then I got a cold right as soon as she starts feeling better, but no matter what, I wanted to go to the pumpkin patch today since I knew if we didnt then it wouldnt happen this year. I love traditions and especially the ones that are centered around holidays - so fun to me and brings such warmth. I have always wanted to have my own family and would always dream of the days when we would have our own little family traditions... well here we started one... going to the pumpkin patch. It was a cute little farm in Sandy UT - Farnsworth Farms (and on weekend nights in October they play Charlie Browns halloween movie and pass out apple cider (its a cider mill) for free! Liane was too young for this right now, but you better believe as she gets older we will be adding this to our holiday traditions!) Anyway - had a great time at the patch and Liane got a little pumpkin to take home - of course! Liane scoping out the scene before she makes a move :-)
Mommy and Liane

Liane still checking out the scene


Uneven ground... and the fall...

Wiping off our hands after the fall..

Hugs after the fall... man I love her! Such a mama's girl!

Daddy and Liane - same facial expressions - too cute!

Here is where Liane picked out her own little pumpkin... ok well Daddy picked it out cause Liane just wanted to explore the scene... funny girl!

Me, trying to take a pic of all of us with the patch in the background... why didnt I just ask someone to do it????

Totally not the pic I was planning on, but I like it nonetheless!

Ah finally, a hair cut!

Here is the front of my hair - before (left) and after (ummm... right)...

Here are the before and after of the back of my hair... ok so maybe I could have gone shorter - in the mirror it looks SO much shorter to me! Baby steps. I think it looks shorter in person... and somehow cuter... oh well at least its healthier. ;-)

Creating Beauty #2 (a work in progress)

I have been working on a quilt I am making by hand for Liane's first birthday ( yes I know it passed over a month ago). I was going to sew this with a sewing machine, but both ones I tried to borrow needed work before I could use it, and lets be honest Im crafty and all but I dont have the foggiest idea of where to start with fixing a sewing machine. I kept putting off this project hoping the machines would magically repair themselves, but alas it hasnt happened and I am now sewing this by hand. I had all of our family members write, decorate, sew a message to Liane on a square of fabric and I am putting them together to make this super cute quilt for her. I am almost finished and will post the completed project when it is all done.