Dar's Latest Pumpkins

Dar has been pretty busy lately, but has found a little bit of time to relax and carve some more pumpkins. He did these two this last weekend. What impresses me is that he draws the pattern on the pumpkin free-hand by just looking at a picture! Way to go, baby! You rock! Our neighbors all really love the pumpkins and keep asking what we're going to put out next. All the credit goes to Darwin though. I'm not big on pumpkin carving.

Any guesses as to what this one is?

Yoda!!

This one is a little easier to see what it is without it being lit

Darth Vader!

Thanks for making our house look more festive by carving awesome pumpkins, Babe! Love you!

Nerf Wars

Our nephew, Andrew, turned 10 last week and all he wanted to do was have a nerf war so we were invited over to play as long as we brought our guns too. We only got to stay for about an hour so Dar didn't get the chance to get in on the fun for too long. We've all decided we need to go back and do it again.

Allie with her "Happy Birthday" hat on backwards, intent on watching Lilo & Stitch. Her bday was last week too. She just turned 4!

Loading up his ammo

Andrew all geared up & ready to go. We seriously need to get us some of those sweet safety goggles!

Having way too much fun shooting the 10 year olds!

Rachel getting serious

Even 4 year old Allison was in on the war! Go Allie!

Baby Sloane was safe down stairs & occupied with some munchies :) I could just gobble her up!!

Then, yesterday after church Dar & I got in our cozy jammies and decided to have some fun family time of our own with our own nerf war. Dar rearranged our furniture to make us each our own barricade. It really was tons of fun to shoot at each other and I was slightly surprised with my aim because I hit Dar several times with my eyes closed! :) We started taking pictures about 1/2 way through our war. You know that line in iRobot..."Spoon! She just shot at you with her eyes closed!" Yeah, that was totally me yesterday. :)

Loading my gun with more ammo

Happy to be shooting at the hubby ;) I shot him in the forehead at least once while he was taking pictures. Easy target. What can I say?

This was my view of him while he was taking pictures of me. I couldn't resist getting a shot of him with his antennae! It was totally cracking me up, but I do get amused easily :)

He was just as happy to be shooting me. I got pegged in the ear pretty good while I was taking pictures of him.

This one totally cracks me up! I started this shot by putting the darts in his ears...he of course came up with the nose thing all on his own. I don't even remember why he was laughing so hard, but it makes me smile!

I totally won the war. Hands down.

Sugar Kick

I know I'm supposed to be eating as healthy as possible right now, but I've totally been on the biggest sugar kick of my life probably. I've been craving chocolate like it's going out of style. So, last night for dessert I made these little beauties for me and the hubby:
So DELISH!! Totally fun to eat, and super easy to make. You should try it. If you're going for something healthy though, I would stay away from them ;) For this fabulous recipe click here.

New JibJab Halloween

Well folks, you may have remembered last years JibJab Halloween dance, but let's raise the roof for this years!

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Pumpkins!!

D & I had a very nice, long weekend. Thank you, UEA! We got some good relaxing in, but we were also pretty productive too. One of the things we did was harvest the pumpkins from our garden. So fun! I love October!! You can bet that we see more pumpkin carving in our near future!
Fun fact about October 2010: This October has 5 Friday's, 5 Saturday's, and 5 Sunday's all in 1 month. This won't happen again until 2021. I got a text from someone saying it only happens once every 823 years, but it's not true. Check it out here. Still fun though!

Double Digits

That's right folks. Only 99 days left until our due date! No more triple digits! This pregnancy really feels like it's going pretty quickly, which I'm totally okay with :) As of right now, I'm loving being pregnant. People keep telling me to wait until third trimester when I start to feel uncomfortable and achy, but I honestly feel great most of the time right now. And I'm optimistic about our third trimester as well but with this being our 1st we'll see how it goes, right?

I love that D is able to feel baby Aurora squirming around and kicking a lot more. He loves it too, of course. Actually last night I woke him up because Aurora's kicking was tickling and I was laughing so hard. And, go figure, she stopped kicking so hard when he tried to feel her. Silly girl. We're diligently working on getting things in order before our little girl graces us with her presence. It's a fun adventure for us and we're enjoying every minute of it!

I guess in other updates, I went for my 24 week appointment on the 4th, and had my glucose screening test, which I unfortunately failed by a blasted 3 points!! I honestly think it's because I ate lunch at Carrabba's that day (lots of carbs and sugar, but oh, so good!). Thanks again, Bill & Suzanne! It was so great to see you guys! So last Wednesday I went in for the 3-hour fasting gestational diabetes test. Whoever thought of torturing a pregnant woman like that should be slapped! I went into the lab first thing in the morning when they opened so I could eat as soon as possible, but I still ended up fasting for 16 hours straight with just water to drink--SO not cool. After I got home I quickly ate lunch and then felt awful! I seriously thought I was going to pass out--which I've only done one other time in my life, almost exactly a year ago. I could just imagine what D would do if I passed out at home when he wasn't here, so I tried to take precautions and laid down on the floor with my knees up to get the blood back into my head. After a few minutes I felt okay again and finished eating my lunch. I took a nap & felt good as new by the time D got home from work. I was so grateful that I didn't pass out. The last time I did it, it was awful, and I certainly don't want to do it again! And, I'm happy to report that I do not have gestational diabetes, which I figured would be the case. Other than that little episode last week, everything is going perfectly!!

Mad Canning

Over the last few weeks while D has been at work I've been doing some canning on my own. I miss doing it with him (he makes it tons more fun) but I've been proud of what I've been able to accomplish on my own. We did strawberry jam together back in June, which is totally delish!

In August, D & I canned cherry pie filling with my cousin, Martha. D has already used some to make cherry cobbler. Yum-O! Thanks again, Martha!
Then in September I did salsa with my cousin, Alice, and great aunt, Sharon. Last year when we did it I spent the whole day cutting up hot peppers (without gloves) and I definitely learned my lesson. My hands were on fire for at least 3 days! This year I chopped bell peppers and onions most of the time so it was a better experience. It's always fun to do canning with them! Thanks, ladies!
Throughout September I would can tomatoes from our garden as they ripened. Canning tomatoes was the first experience I had with canning on my own. I love fresh garden tomatoes, so it's nice to have our own tomatoes canned and ready to eat all winter long! Plus I think tomatoes are a piece of cake to can, so I'm always willing to can tomatoes :)
D helped me get started with the grapes this last week. We went and picked 2 5-gallon buckets full of grapes on Friday (and only got through about 1/3 of the grape vine). We juiced our first batch on Saturday & I've been working on getting the juice in jars the last couple of days. I'm almost done. Our house has smelled so good the last few days! I think I've been the most excited about the grape juice because D & I both agreed it reminds us of our childhood when our moms would can it. I love the smell of the grape juice & we're planning to drink up our first jar on Thursday to celebrate D having time off for UEA :)
I've done the grape juice with a steam canner and I've totally been converted. We had been using a water bath canner for the tomatoes and strawberry jam, but I'm a total steam canner advocate now! Love it! Thanks to all you wonderful women who have helped us out and given us extremely helpful tips. You know who you are! We love you!!

UVU Adoption Conference 2010

In 6 weeks from today UVU will be hosting their annual Conference on Adoption. The date is Monday, November 22nd. I am honored to be on the planning committee for the Conference again this year, and we have an incredible program planned! Last year was our first time holding the Conference, and we had a great turn out (click here to see my post from last year). Michael McLean was our wonderful keynote speaker, and this year we have 3 great keynotes as well. We are very excited about the program again this year. There are speakers and concurrent sessions scheduled for almost any aspect of adoption you can think of, so there's a little something for everyone!

I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have on the Conference, so leave me a comment! And please visit our website by clicking here. It's still a work in progress but it becomes more and more complete as we get closer to the Conference and it is already filled with a wealth of helpful information. We are charging a fee this year, but it will be well worth it! If you register before November 15th the fee is $19 and after the 15th or at the door the fee is $29. And, in case you're wondering, you can get CEU credits at our Conference again this year. Plus, the registration fee includes lunch :) So mark your calendars and please come and bring a friend! It'll be well worth your time!

*Just a little info here before you go to the website*

Our keynote speakers are:

10:00am -Opening Keynote: Steven Scully, Senior Executive Producer & Political Editor of C-SPAN
12:00pm - Luncheon Keynote: Barbara Smith, ABC4 News Anchor
4:00pm - Closing Keynote: Nina Easton, American Journalist & Fox News Channel Commentator

There will be concurrent sessions going on every hour in between each of the keynotes. Go to the website to download the program and register for the Conference.

Joe Genius - Gravity

We're famous, yet again! No, not really, but another one of our YouTube videos was featured in another Joe Genius episode. This one is on gravity. To see D in our previously posted video of Joe Genius click here. I guess this episode isn't quite as exciting since neither one of us is actually in our video that was featured, but it's still fun to know that Discovery Channel has picked 2 of our YouTube videos to feature in their internet TV series.

This Gravity episode is 9 minutes 11 seconds long. Our video is actually shown twice: at 1 min 35 sec, and again at 8 min 44 sec. It's the guy jumping into the water from a super high tree rope swing. Very cool.

Conference Weekend, Pumpkins, & Tarantulas

I love, LoVe, LOVE General Conference weekend! It's always so nice for us to just sit in our jammies and watch and listen to the servants of the Lord speak to us all weekend. So nice! I honestly can't pick out a favorite talk right now because I thought all the messages were wonderful, but I am definitely looking forward to reading all the talks again when the Conference issue of the Ensign comes out next month! I did love the beginning of Pres. Uchdorf's talk when he asked what the science of tree rings had to do with flying an airplane :) Hilarious. And President Monson's talk on gratitude was great!! The announcement of 5 new temples is extremely exciting & I think we were being dropped some pretty significant hints on missionary work!

Another thing I love about October Conference weekend is getting into the Halloween spirit. I know you're probably thinking that General Conference and Halloween don't really jive, but we have our traditions. Don't judge.

D gutting pumpkins & harvesting their scrumptious seeds

Mmm! Roasted pumpkin seeds!! So delish!

Halloween Mix to munch on during Conference
Thanks again to T & R for the idea a few years back :)

D takes the opportunity to carve some pumpkins during Conference to help him stay awake :)
Here's his Mickey Mouse!

I think it turned out awesome! Good job, babe!

This was my idea, but D was the creator. I prefer to watch him carve the pumpkins than to actually carve the pumpkins myself :)

D snuck some pictures of me re-beading some of my necklaces.

Then, to finish off our Conference weekend traditions, we went for a drive up the canyon to look at the beautiful trees (of which we didn't get any pictures). But on the way to D's parent's house from the canyon, I spotted a tarantula on the road!! I had heard we have tarantula's in Utah, but I never really expected to see one. I'm just glad we had the camera with us!

Also, this past week we've been really working on trying to get some things done and organized while I'm still feeling pretty good in preparation for our little munchkin to make her appearance. One of those things was painting the baby's room. D finished painting Rori's room Friday morning (he had the day off from work...so nice to have a longer weekend with him!). I'll post completed pictures later.

Isn't he such a cutie? I absolutely LOVE this man!!

Couldn't resist this shot. That's pure dedication to doing it right! ;)

The 1st paint strokes
While he painted I read "The Wealthy Barber" to him. I wasn't going to be much help painting, especially with a perfectionist for a husband :) Not to mention, it is a good book. You should read it too!

Thanks for a great, relaxing, but productive & uplifting weekend, Love. You're the best! I'm so glad you were able to feel our little one moving around more this weekend & that she was cooperating so you could! I can't wait to see you hold her in your arms!! You're going to be such a great dad. No questions about it.