Bathroom Break!

My Little Cupcake

The Coffee Shop over by Joe's Farm Grill makes really good desserts. Cameron has said they make the best pie for awhile now. Now I can add that they make the best cupcakes too. They were almost too pretty to eat! Abbey had a hard time sharing the pretty pink cupcake!

Rock Band Obsession

Tim forced me to let him buy rock band when we were shopping at Target on day. Yeah, he really had to talk me into it ;) We have been having a lot of fun with it since. So far we have had Carrie and Johnny and Heidi and Jeremiah over to play with us. This game is addicting... and worth every penny. I have to send a shout out to Lynn and Julee for introducing us to this game.

MoO mOo PaLoOzA

My wards Mom and tots sent an email about going to the Superstition Farm (just down the road from our neighborhood), a working dairy farm. It was held Friday and Saturday to celebrate 30 years of cow milking business. Seeing that I am a lucky wife of a night shift working husband... I had Tim come with all of us women and kids. I knew it would be too fun to pass up... It was. There were cows, horses, ponies, donkey, goats, chickens, bunnies and turkeys! Along with hay rides, horse/pony rides, feeding the animals, pumpkins, hay maze, good food and free milk!

We started off by seeing the new little baby cows. Some kids even got to feed them bottles, they are so cute when they are babies.

Then it was straight to the first horse that Abbey could find! We got to feed and pet the horse and goats along with seeing all the other animals. The miniature donkey was another Abbey favorite thanks to Shrek!

Next was a ride on the ponies. Abbey rode Gracie and was soooo excited. I tried to point out that there were big horses across from us that we could ride (you know, trying to save five bucks by having just one ride instead of both!). But she was so focused on the ponies right in front of her that she didn't even notice me! This was her first real ride on a pony that wasn't mom and dad on all fours! She wasn't scared one bit. In fact, she wanted me to go away and not follow with her... so independent! Ab's really got into the ride with Ye haw's and Giddy ups!

When the ponies slowed down and before she even got off she spotted the big horses across the way... here she is pointing to them.

So since I was a horse lover as a little girl, and knew it would make Abbey's dreams come true, we went on the big horses too. I had fun riding with her, but must admit felt a little unsteady on the horse. It didn't help that Abbey didn't want me to hold on to the horn with her and our horse was a little jumpy. It was worth it though, we were filmed by a channel 12 news guy and after the ride he asked Tim and me to answer a few questions for him. Our interview was grossly edited (as we knew it would be!) but we made it on the 6 pm news! Kind of embarrassing! Here we are getting on for Abbey's first horse ride.

Abbey wanted to ride the horse with the pink, she mentioned it the whole hour we waited in line. Thank goodness we were able to!

After our horse rides, what better than some free cold chocolate milk?

or plain for dad!

Before heading out I took a few fun pictures of Abbey. Here she is on the tractor... she loved how the seat bounced.

What a great day for a little animal lover, look at that tired and satisfied look on her face! We all had a lot of fun.

Carb Addict

Our son, at 7 months old, is a carb addict. Abigail never really liked bread as a baby! So its a nice change to have Michael like bread. He will gum a piece of bread for ever! We discovered this at a restaurant... it kept him happy for a long while. That is until it would slip out of his mouth and land where he couldn't reach it!... Don't worry, he still loves his veggies and fruits!!

Mauling Aftermath

I noticed that the photos of Mike's mauling last Monday didn't look that bad... but it was. These were taken the next day, Tuesday. It was like he knew I was taking evidence of his wounds... I love his sad face in them! The scabs are about gone now, but I think there might be slight scarring for a while. "How did he get those?"..." Oh his sister mauled him!!"

Its Nice To Be Home

I missed this little girl. She brings a lot of personality in our home. David and Tricia, aka Papa and Gamama, dropped Abbey off at home last Wednesday afternoon. She was really excited to be home with mom and was in a really good mood. In fact, she was in such a good mood she let me take some fun photos of her. She had finished going to the bathroom and pulled her tights up over her dress. It was too funny and cute. But mostly I enjoyed her hamming it up for the camera... very rare.

Abbey Language

We all know that Abbey has her own language. Lately she has been trying very hard to have real conversations... her vocabulary just isn't there yet. And the things she does say can be really hard to understand. But it is really cute to listen to her! Can you understand what she is saying?

(this was conference weekend, after we saw the neighbor's horses and were driving back to Tim's parents to put Abbey down for a nap)

Let me translate for you... she mentions that the horses are not to get out, she tells them bye and to go to sleep (sleepy), she says she is going home and tells us about feeding the ducks, she says she loves mom (mommies), she says she is going to take a nap and go to sleep (sleepy) so mommy can go on a date! (I don't know how she got that idea!, maybe because I was telling her that she was going to stay with Grandma and we were going to go home?!? - a date?)

To feel like what I have said to her has sunken in... I always end with "Okay" and wait for her to tell me "tay." She has gotten in a very bad habit of telling someone something and then saying "tay!" I think we are going to have to put her in some speech therapy... she didn't qualify for the free therapy the state gives... so does anyone know of any other programs?

Conference Weekend

We spent Sunday conference up in the cool pines at Tim's parents house. We stayed Monday and got to play a little longer in the fall weather. And an added bonus, Abbey stayed with Grandpa, Grandma, and cousin Bode until Wednesday!

Here are the highlights of our trip...

*I was the one to drive the whole way there... you may not think this is a positive, but driving means that I don't have to entertain, reach, grab, change movies, and pick up lost/dropped items for the kids (unfortunately Tim didn't get to sleep as planned;)... it was great to just drive for once!

*Homemade cinnamon rolls upon arrival to Tim's parents house! Tim's mom, Heidi and Lee made cinnamon rolls Saturday and the left overs were delicious!!

*Visiting Tim's Grandma Beverly in Show Low. It rained/hailed while we visited between conference sessions! Grandma Bev has a little dachshund dog that Abbey loved to give toys to. Bode and Abbey covered that little dog in stuffed animals to the point where you couldn't really see the dog anymore.

*Dutch Oven cooking. We weren't able to go up to Greens Peak to listen to conference and dutch oven cook as planned (it was snowy up there). So instead David, Jeremiah and Tim dutch ovened outside in the back yard. Biscuits, gravy, raspberry jam, and apple dessert!

*Enjoying conference talks, I especially loved Elder Uchtdorft (Saturday session) and President Monson's (Sunday session) talks. They seemed to give me peace and the strength to keep trying to do my best in this world. Oh, and the talk about Unity was really interesting too... was that Eyring? (We were driving in the car at the time and so I can't remember who was talking)

*Playing Settlers and Rock Band! Jeremiah won once again!! (I think a settlers game between Andrew Horne, Jeremiah Joncas and Jared Williams would be a very intense and interesting game!) Rock Band was a blast, everyone got involved in it at least a little bit. Tim's parents, David and Tricia sang, and the kids even got to bang on the drums! We stayed up a little late with Heidi and Jeremiah to open up new gigs and gain more fans for our band.

*Picking a pumpkin, zucchini and raspberries... well, Bode and Abbey ate the raspberries right off the bush in the backyard. Tricia has a garden and grew some pumpkins and really big zucchini. Abbey got to pick a pumpkin and we ended up taking some zucchini home... along with this really big one... zucchini bread anyone?

*Petting the horses across the street. This started off a little scary. Ab's and Bode (I'm thinking mostly Abbey) decided that they weren't going to wait for the adults to get there things together before taking off down the street to see the neighbor's horses. And once the adults got half way down the street to catch up, Abbey decided she was so excited she climbed through a hole in the fence to be up close and personal with the horses. In fact, she was so excited she didn't even notice Dad, Mom and Grandma, running and screaming frantically for her to get out! No harm done though, Ab's still is in LOVE with horses. We went back a second time after lots of talks about not going over to the horses without a Mommy, Daddy or Grandparent. I think we made a little girls dreams come true by letting her see a real horse so close up!! She takes after me :)

*Eating Lunch at the park and feeding the ducks. Five dollar pizza at the park is the best way to go! The ducks were a lot of fun to watch too. I think Abbey ate as much of the bread as the ducks!

*Mike's near death experience... this scared me more than the horse ordeal! Note to new mom of two kids. If your older child is not use to taking naps in the same room as your baby... don't trust them to handle the baby's fussing well. I assume that this is what happened with Abbey and Mike. I think Mike was fussing and Abbey wanted him to stop. She tried stopping him by scratching the heck out of his mouth and face! I never heard Mike crying but heard Abbey yelling for mom. As I ran in... Abbey was telling me Mike was crying. I found that she had thrown the heavy quilt and pillow in his crib, which thankfully wasn't on him. I pull it out and then proceed to turn Mike over, who was on his tummy. That was a scary sight. He was red and had a swollen face. Semi dried blood was on his nose and mouth. He seemed like he was beyond that upset crying... you know, where they are hyperventilating, look red, sweaty and worn out like they are about to pass out! After much examination and time for the redness and swelling to go down, it was obvious that Abbey had scratched him on the left side of his mouth/cheek and right eye. I felt really bad and so did Abbey. We had another long talk, this time about not hurting Mikey and getting Mommy or Daddy when he cries. She kept giving him hugs after everything had calmed down.

*Saying goodbye to Abbey and Bode. David was really smart to get the kids distracted with the four wheelers and jeep while mommies and daddies were heading home. They both were a little sad while we were packing up... but by the time we were pulling out... they didn't even care or notice (Abbey actually told me to "go away!").

*Visiting with Great Grandmother, Grandma Jeannie and Grandpa Don. We met at Great Grandmother Marj's house. It's always fun to see Grandmother's pictures of family and of course Missy White Cloud (her white, long haired cat that was Carrie's before we moved to Georgia back in 97!). We went to eat at the restaurant that use to be the Matta's. It was really good Mexican food and the company was great too. Grandma reminds me a lot of mom. They had a close relationship and share the same silliness!

*Visiting Mom's grave. It was after we ate and therefore dark, but I wanted to see if her flowers had grown. By the light of the headlights, it still looked really nice and fresh. There were some sort of greenery that had popped up. It didn't have any flowers on it and I don't know if it was the wild flowers we planted or the bulbs. But someone had left some sort of necklace on her grave. I thought that was nice, but kind of surreal.

*Late drive home with out Abbey in the car. It was a pleasant and very quiet drive. Its funny how after you have two kids, the second seems so much easier to deal with. We hardly noticed Mike in the back, he was really good and slept the whole way home... probably getting very much needed rest away from Abbey!