mid-week update

Halloween: Halloween was so much fun this year! I went as an angel, Forest went as Jim from the Office, Gracie was a Pegasus, McKay went as a nerd (or Forest's perfect date in junior high) and Alexa was a kitty. The very blonde one is a friend of the girls (and is a daughter of a friend of mine) and her name is Megan. I'm just glad I'm not in this picture!

I walked around for a few minutes with wings on and they kept wanting to be crooked, so I took them off and commented that "We're Mormon, we don't believe angels have these anyway". Gracie was being very cute. Whenever we put a costume on her she makes all sorts of growling noises. I put my sunglasses on her today and she did the same thing, it's very odd but hilarious.

Temple: We are going to the Temple the day after tomorrow! I can't believe it is finally here and that we are all ready to go without any hitches. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop! Knowing me I will forget Forest's suitcase or something trivial. I found out this week that my dear cousin was hours away from home and had forgotten her recommend when she got married! At least if we forget something we are close. I have planned and re-planned, so I think we are good to go! There are so many people coming that I thought for sure weren't going to be able to, I wonder who is watching so many people's kids...

Fort Worth Zoo: I went to the zoo today with a bunch of friends from Church, mostly the ones who read this! We had fun today didn't we? ;) I got some cute pictures but I didn't realize my camera battery was on it's last leg so I only got a few. I'll post them eventually, I am so tired right now that I don't feel like moving from this spot. We walked around so much, I'm sure the little ones that were with us are fast asleep from all of the fresh air!

Random News: We really are going to have a full house in December! Heidi, Mark, Katya, Emma and Toby are all coming on Dec 26th! We are going to have a really fun time while everyone is here. I hope my Mom actually gets to rest during her trip though, it seems like we are so busy while they are going to be here!

wow!

I have a few minutes before I have to leave for work this morning (it's 6:25 am) and I wanted to check what the weather was. It is only 34° outside! In October! In Texas! I am not looking forward to freezing on Halloween this year!

down 4 sizes!

A few months ago I started losing weight out of the blue. Forest and I started eating better overall and I got a Wii Fit but I didn't think it was going to be this easy! I've always had a big problem losing weight in the past so I'm glad this is happening. Most of my clothes no longer fit me and to retain some of them I've been able to find snug undershirts to go under them. I really can't wear any of my old pants anymore, even with a belt! It's amazing to be able to go into the juniors section and find things that actually will fit me. I haven't been able to do that in a long time. I'm glad it's finally working, when it works it keeps me from giving up!

brr!

I am so cold! The longer I live in Texas the more wimpy I get when it finally gets cold around here. It's actually warmer in Detroit right now, so I guess I'm being pretty rational ;)

Next week is Halloween! Gracie is going to be a Pegasus. We put the costume on her last week and she was making these funny growling noises the whole time, like she thought she was some sort of evil monster. It was SO cute. I am going to have my Mom send me my prom dress and possibly go as a "guardian angel". I went as that for Halloween right after I graduated. The dress is pink, so at least I'll sort of match Gracie somehow. Here is my prom picture, purely for nostalgic purposes:

This was taken 12 days before my 18th birthday, I haven't changed much have I? At any rate, that dress has had many good uses. I wore it then, for Halloween, my sister wore it for Halloween and she wore it to my wedding. It cleans up very well and the cut is fantastic. I meant to take it home with me when we were in Michigan last but I forgot about it. It will be nice to finally have it back.

In two weeks Forest and I are going through the Temple for the first time. We are so excited! We got all of our clothing the other day. There were two dresses that I looked at, one was on sale and the other wasn't. As we are first time buyers, we were able to use a 50% discount. I tried on the one that was on sale and it was nice, but when I tried on the second dress, I knew I had to have it. It was twice as expensive (although I only paid 23 dollars for it anyway) but I just loved it so much that it was worth the extra cost.

When we are Sealed in December, we are going to have a full house! My parents are coming on the 21st and Forest's sister looks to be coming on the 26th. I am going to push the Sealing to Saturday as well, which may work out for some who wanted to come. It's going to be a busy few months!

more pictures

I forgot to tell you that I added the other pictures from Celebrate Roanoke to Flickr. You can see them right here.

new new new!

Ok, so I finally broke down and got a flickr paid account. I switched my site back to Blogger. It works nicely. I haven't gotten all of my pictures on flickr that I want. That is going to take me a little bit. So, I hope you like the new template, its so fun!

My living room is all decorated for fall and so many people have been asking me to post pictures of the house, so while the living room is cute and super clean for once, here are a bunch of them!




I just realized Forest's hammer in that last one. That isn't part of my decor ;) I feel like my house is finally my home and I love the way the living room turned out. I'm sad it can't be fall all of the time, this is my absolute favorite decor for the holidays!

celebrate roanoke

Man I am such a slacker lately! Well, today was a fun day so I knew I had to sit down and post something about it.

Every year our great city of Roanoke has a celebration for the members of it's community, aptly named Celebrate Roanoke. They have several vendors giving away free things and information, food galore, fun things for the kids to do, etc.

I walked around with Grace for a while, avoiding the meltdown she sometimes has when her Mom is also with her sisters (she gets very jealous for some reason), although for the most part she was very good, even with the rest of the family there. Dal was off watching the UT/OU game in the morning (and UT won, yay!). On a side note, Forest had a terrible morning because the Cottonbowl (where they played today) is in Dallas, so it took him forever to get to work. Poor guy.

So, anyway, several booths had loads of candy and Grace can't eat chocolate or anything really gummy, so I thought I would try a Smartie. It touched her tongue for a nanosecond before she chucked it on the ground. I didn't think she would like it, but it was worth a shot! There was a huge tent that had several fun things to do, including caricatures, clowns, awesome balloon animals and spray-on tattoos. I was holding Grace to get hers and she looked at me with a look that said "please don't hurt me!". In the last few months every time she has been held still like that it's been so someone could inflict pain on her. She looked very cute with her little butterfly though. It stayed very well too, mine hasn't changed at all and Gracie kept whacking it with her slobbery hand, she must have thought it was quite strange. The older Grace gets, the more fun we have on outings. She finds more things fun and she seems more willing to explore new things, it's great. I took a few pictures, but the only one i have access too right now is this one:

I left my camera at Jennie's house (silly me), but I should have the rest tomorrow or Monday and I will upload them into an album.

Grace turned 6 last Wednesday and Jennie threw her a party at the Incredible Pizza Company, which is like a Game Works and a Cici's Pizza combined. I took Grace on the go-carts and she was beyond thrilled. She giggled the entire time, she was so excited. We played games and games and more games and all of our tickets combined got the girls some really fun things. Gracie also enjoyed the kids rides. I took a ton of pictures, you can find them right here!

I set up a better picture system at Flickr (still debating if I want to bite the bullet and get a paid account there...) and hopefully that won't crash a million times like my gallery was. I would get it perfect and some silly file somewhere would get corrupted. Very frustrating. It might eliminate my need to pay for server space and Flickr is much cheaper too!

We've had a productive few weeks and they have been fun. I have a lot of fun with Grace, as you can probably see. Today we went home and were relaxing and I was watching SNL from last weekend, pretty much just to see the Killers play. Their second song was called "Spaceman" from their new album and Grace just loves that song! She was laughing and bouncy throughout the whole thing. I guess the Dendys have another Killers fan :)