Spooktacular Season

I love October. Everything starts cooling off. Pumpkin spice smells are okay and more than welcome to come out again. It's baking season. And on and on. And we've had a great October.

Another great thing about October is Halloween. I love Halloween. The decorations, the spookiness, the costumes. It's always so fun. Plus, lots of candy is involved, so. . . .

Here are some of our Halloween-y adventures:

We went to the pumpkin patch last week. I didn't even know until this year that there was a PP here. I wish I had known last year. Oh wells. We went with our neighbors, picked out some pumpkins and then carved them.

One of Lish's coworkers is a big Halloween fan (who can blame him?), so we went over to his house to check out all his decorations. He's going to teach me how to make those headstones next year. I know you're jealous.

Then we found out the college was doing a Trunk or Treat last night (the night before Halloween), so we moseyed on over there to get our Trick-or-Treating on. It was so fun to walk around with Yale and have him say oh so quietly "Trick or treat." When we practiced at home, he was never that quiet or shy about it. Silly little shark.

Tonight we went to our ward's Trunk or Treat, then headed to our friend's family's house for some delicious soup and scones, then did some Trick or Treating around our neighborhood. It was so fun. Yale got tired of walked towards the end, but loved holding out his pumpkin and loved showing people what a shark does. (He puts his hand on his head, pointing up like a fin, while saying, "Da na, da na" and then growls while doing some shark bites. If you haven't seen it yet, please ask him to do it next time you see him. It's pretty great.) 

Marathoning

One of my stepmom's friends says she tries to do at least one hard thing every year. That's a good thing. And I've decided to try my hand at it. In 2010, I gave birth. That was hard. In 2011, I ran not one, but two half marathons. The first one was so hard, the second was just hard. Now it's 2012, and I ran a marathon. A full 26.2 miles. And it was hard. Training was hard. And I did it.

There was a group of people I started running with down here during my training and they pushed me. They helped me get faster and more confident in my abilities. I ran with one of the girls in the group for the first 12 miles. Then we split off and I was by myself for the next 11 miles. I felt pretty good until about mile 18 or 19 and then my legs started really hurting. Around mile 21 I started getting tired and just wanted to be done. My dad jumped in at mile 23 and ran the last 3 miles with me. That was awesome. It was refreshing to have some fresh legs to help keep me going. And to have someone talk to me to get my mind off the burning. Such a welcome distraction.

The last mile was soooo long! My dad warned me of that. Before he split off he pointed out a girl to me that I should try to pass, because I was running at a pretty good pace and I had been passing people for the past couple of miles. I felt like she was so far ahead of me that I couldn't do it, but I tried and I passed her as we were rounding the last corner before the finish line. That pumped me up, along with the crowds of people cheering, so I just started picking up my pace more and more and by the end I was sprinting. Or at least I felt like I was sprinting. I'm so glad that I finished strong. I think that's what made me the happiest. I finished at 3:52:43.

Such a great experience and I have so many people to thank for supporting me through the months leading up to it. But most especially Lish. He was so patient and understanding of my schedule of waking up at 4 in the morning and napping in the afternoons, massaging my feet after my long runs, being with Yale during those many hours, and making sure I was eating and drinking enough to keep myself sustained.

I can do hard things. Especially with so many people helping me, I can do very hard things.

We Go Chasing Waterfalls

Here are some pictures of waterfalls. Naturally, Yale is in them, because, as you recall, he loves waterfalls. (Do you like how many commas I used in that sentence? I know. I's gots skills!)

Yale Madness

I call this "madness" only because this post is all about Yale. It's MADNESS! If only you could hear how I said that in my head, you would understand that I'm tired. And when I'm tired I get silly. In my head. Outside my head I just get droopy eyed and quiet. And sometimes silly.

Anywho, I love the personality this little boy is packing. He's hilarious and is always making us smile. I wanted to share some of the things he's been doing, partly for your entertainment, mostly for me to have record of it.

Yale loves waterfalls. No, he LOVES waterfalls. I think he has to see one everyday. Seriously. We look at pictures, watch videos, drive past them, drive to them so we can get out and look. Lish even bought him a little waterfall for his room. He calls them "wateefall." He knows where they are when we're driving around town. Obsessed. If he wants to see one and doesn't, he starts whining, "Wateefall. Wateefall." I guess they are pretty cool.

Yale loves jumping. He's crazy. We want to put him in gymnastics. He did a somersault the other day. Not just a roll. A somersault. I was pretty impressed. He also loves swinging on things with his arms. He'll even jump to something with his arms out, grab on and swing. Like I said, he's crazy. He also climbs or attempts to climb on everything. He's our little monkey.

Yale loves to talk. He's been talking on the phone lately. Like, actually talking on the phone. Lish or I will be talking to a family member, and we'll give the phone to Yale so he can say hi, and he'll take off with the phone and just talk. Most of it is still jibberish, but we just nod and it satisfies him. I love when he talks to us and we're sitting on the floor. Sometimes he'll look at us very seriously and say something in Yale while getting right in our face and wait for us to reply. Who knows what Lish and I have agreed to? If Yale remembers, he may be sorely disappointed that we aren't pulling through.

Yale loves colors. We go to toddler time at the library every week and they have a book that reviews colors. Yale yells, (I know, we asked for that when we gave him the name) "COLORS!!" As the teacher is going over the colors, Yale proceeds to yell them out. It's a good thing the other moms think it's cute. Otherwise I might be a little more self conscious.

Yale loves waterfalls. Did I mention that already? Because he does.

Yale loves helping. And I love that he loves helping. When he spills something, he's willing to wipe it up and then throw away the wipe. He understands where he can make messes, and more importantly, where he can color. He'll point to the following while saying, "Wall color? No. Table color? No. Floor? No. Orange sheet? Yes." We put an orange sheet over our coffee table and that's the designated coloring station. Yale knows this. Although this evening I noticed he colored on the floor. I pointed to it and said, "Yale, did you color on the floor? Are we supposed to color on the floor?" He already had a wipe in his hand from cleaning up some spilled milk and said, "No," while trying to quickly wipe off the coloring. Little stinker.

Yale loves blastoff. Yes, I wrote that right. Last night I said, "Yale, let's count how many toes you have." He got down to count his toes and started pointing to them, saying, "One, two, six, seven...one, BLASTOFF!"

Yale loves Baby Presley. I started babysitting our neighbor's baby last week. She had to go back to work and wasn't excited about any of the daycares she found, so I jumped in and offered my services. It's all worked out so far and for that I am grateful. I was worried about how Yale would do with another baby around (she's only 3 months) and me splitting my attention with another little human. The first couple days took some adjusting. Now he loves it and is so sweet with her. He gives her head bonks very gently (this took some practice, much to Presley's dismay and we applaud her patience). He tries to give her her binky or help me when I'm feeding her. He tries sharing his snacks with her. Yesterday I had her sitting on the floor propped up against a boppy pillow and she started getting fussy. So I sat her up so she could see what was going on and Yale ran over and sat behind her so she was sitting between his legs. Then I leaned her back so she was kind of resting on Yale and he got the biggest smile on his face. He just put his head on hers and sat like that for a couple minutes. It was really sweet. He'll be a wonderful big brother someday.

I wish I could remember everything else I wanted to write about this little guy. Right now I can't. There will be a sequel to this post though, I guarantee it.

Lici Visits Yale

I no longer feel like my life is super exciting or noteworthy. I know, how can I think such a thing? Every day with Yale is exciting and noteworthy. It's true. I'm just having too much fun to take time to write about it.

Anyway, we had a bunch of family come down a couple weeks ago. Scott, Karen, Maggie and Lici all made the trek down here. Maggie was spending some time in Utah while her husband finished his internship, so to break up her time a little bit we invited her to come down here. We had so much fun with everybody, and while it was a house-full, we loved the time we got to spend with our family.

Beach Babies (or Toddlers)

We had the opportunity to go to California right after our visit with the Bryans. Lish's dad owns a house in Huntington Beach, and we were invited out for a week. It was awesome! I told Lish on our last night there that vacations with kids aren't very relaxing (for those of you with kids, I know you're shocked to find this out!), but we both felt relaxed and rejuvenated and refreshed and all those other re words. It was just what we needed, and just what Yale needed.

Yale had so much fun playing at the beach in the sand and in the waves. He became an excellent swimmer (aka, not afraid of the water and even went under a couple times). He saw a bazillion airplanes and plenty of helicopters. He was outside a lot. He had his cousin, Lici, there by his side almost the entire trip. He had no furniture to climb on and fall off of, nor did he have any trinkets to break. It was a perfect vacation for him, which means it was a perfect vacation for me and Lish.

We are so grateful to Mitch and Bev for hosting us and for having patience during Yale's screaming and yelling periods. We are so grateful for the chance we had to go out there and spend time with them.  And we're so glad we got to spend a couple extra days there with just Mitch. It was a great way to end a great trip!

Florida Friends in Utah

I've got some catching up to do, but I'll split them into a couple different blogs so you all have something to look forward to. I know, I'm very thoughtful.

A couple weeks ago we had some visitors and we were so excited to have them here! Jen, Trevor and Stokes came over from Tallahassee. They were out in Utah for a family reunion, so they just extended their trip (or cut their other trip short, I'm not quite sure) so they could come down to St. George for a few days. Trevor's brother came down as well because he had never been to this part of the country (southern Utah, he's been to northern Utah). It was so fun to have them here. We went into Zion, the Grand Canyon, Snow Canyon, and just played around here for a day.

We were busy. It was lovely.

It sure made me miss Tallahassee. I guess not the city, but the people. There are some good people there. If you ever get to go, feel lucky. I sure love those friends of ours and can't wait to see them again!