Thanksgiving 2013

I love food Thanksgiving! I've always been in school this time of year so I've been too busy with exams, papers and class to really think about much else. This year I found myself counting down the days until I could devour some turkey, mashed potatoes and of course pie. Ha! 

Just thinking about it makes me want to go back again. MmmmMmm!

This year my mom hosted-my immediate family and my aunt & uncle's family. We had a lot of fun eating, visiting, eating, playing games, eating, entertaining Jayne and eating. :) 

Ok, ok-we really didn't eat that much but slowly but surely we made our way through all the yummy food!

 And of course it was our little minnie's first Thanksgiving. She loved it!

 

She decided to celebrate by sleeping through the whole afternoon and let mom & dad enjoy their meal. She knows how to spend a holiday...and how to melt hearts!

Twas a day well spent. Now I'm off to eat. Just thinking about Thanksgiving does that to you :)

Kaylee = 25

I am a quarter of a century old. How did that happen? I feel like just yesterday I was dancing to Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears in my pink bedroom. Ah, those were the days! Back when texting didn't exist, twerking wasn't even a word, let alone a dance move and it took 5 minutes to connect to the "world wide web". Dang, now I really feel old. 

Anyway, this year we did the usual dinner with the fam and presents with cake afterwards. I feel so spoiled. This 25th birthday of mine did not disappoint! Of course, having our little munchkin around this time made it special too :) 

Braden wraps his presents really well...

 

And Phil made me an ice cream cake (I don't really like normal cake). He's so culinary, and crafty with the chocolate syrup too. Thanks babe!

Thanks everyone for spoiling me rotten! It was great to celebrate one of my best years. On to the next!

The rest of Mum B's visit

We had a lot of fun with Mum B while she was around. She was a perfect house guest and we loved having her here. We shopped til we dropped, ate out at many great restaurants and showed her our daily lives around Provo. Here's a few last random photos from her visit.

The reason she came, to see her son and his first child. They're my favorite people too. :)

Koda loved grandma B! Every morning he'd go down the hall to her room to greet her. He even did it after she'd left...he was a bit confused to find the room empty.

We showed Mum Phil's lab at BYU. This is where the good stuff goes down...meaning: I really have no idea how to describe what Phil does.

We met up with my friend Heather and visited The Peppermint Place which is a candy factory. I loved seeing all the sweets and chocolate...and seeing the prices! We'll definitely be back!

The next few photos are from our walks around our neighborhood with Koda. Like I said, Koda loved grandma. Take him on a walk and you're his best friend I tell you! Anyway, we were glad Mum could be around to see the beautiful fall colors.

view from our front doorstep

Phil and Mum conquered the Y with Koda. They got up on a Saturday morning and made the trek up the mountain. Koda was in heaven...and Phil and Mum were wobbly legged by the time the finished. You can see in the picture above that the Y is quite a ways from the bottom of the mountain. It's a tough hike!

The second to last day Mum was here we had some snow! It was a bit warm so it didn't stick on the ground but she was excited! You can kind of see the flakes in this pic. Good job Utah weather!

Thanks for coming to visit us Mum! We loved having you meet our little Jayne and spending time with you. Can't wait to see you again! 

Halloween 2013

This year we started off our Halloween celebrations by visiting the annual Jack-o-Lantern festival at the Riverwoods. Kids get to dress up and go trick-or-treating from shop to shop. Even though Jayne didn't really know what was going on, we got us her a few candies and had lots of fun admiring all the cute kids in their costumes.

Here's our little cutie!

They had really cool pumpkin displays. This one is angry birds (for you mom!) 

And Despicable Me (for you Leo!)

We had to carve pumpkins this year as Mum B. had never ever carved one. Yup, NEVER! I didn't think much of it until she asked me if I'd done this every year of my life...yep! Can't remember a year that I haven't. Even in Australia we made it happen. Needless to say, she was excited!

Ready to go!

Pumpkin guts! 

  

Both Mum and Phil chose a template from our book. I thought we'd be carving for ages with those templates and these newbies (3rd time for Phil) but they whipped through those things in a jiffy!

Mum did a black cat and Phil did a bat...vampire...vampire bat?...

And the finished projects. Mine is a measly free-hand bat surrounded by our template pros! But Batman did respond to my call that night so it was a success :)

We also went on a walk to a spooky house around the corner from us. Its creepy at night!

Then for actual Halloween we dressed up and went trick-or-treating in my parent's neighborhood. We tried to dress up Koda as a soldier...but the vest was too small and well, you can just see how much he loves the hat from this picture...

He kind of looks like a muscle man! haha!

He just wanted to be super dog instead! I guess even dogs dream of having super powers.

My mom was a warrior

Mum B. was a witch 

Jocelyn was an Egyptian and her friend was an Egyptian cat

And we were an M&M family. 

It was a lot of fun to see Mum in awe of all the trick-or-treaters and loving their costumes. It was such a perfect warm night too!

One neighbor had hot chocolate and a fire to roast hot dogs on. Yum!!

We ended the night at a really cool house that is always decked out for Halloween. Its amazing! The entire yard is FULL of scary stuff. They even had a blow-up dinosaur that was about 30 feet tall!

Even the headless horseman made an appearance

The house and crowd from across the street (where "Thriller" was playing on a giant blow-up screen) 

Thanks for spending Halloween with us Mum B! Made it more exciting to have a newbie around!