Jedi McKayla

McKayla does really well with her speech now. I was very worried about it for a long time. She does not confuse the "I" and "me" parts of her speech like some small children. However, she does talk like a Jedi using the famous Jedi mind trick. I'm not sure where she gets it from. She has not seen any of the Star Wars movies. She will ask for something. "Mom, can I have friends over?" I will tell her not right now or not today. She will then reply "But, you want to let me have friends over. You want to mom." This Jedi talk is very prevalent though out the the day. Lots of time "I" want to give her a drink, or play ponies or give her a cookies. Sometimes the Jedi talk works, and I wonder if her power will grow as she gets older. She has not yet begun to talk like Yoda.

Below is a tribute to Star Wars done at the Pumpkin Walk we went to on Halloween.

The Dentist

McKayla went to the dentist today. This is the second time in her life. She did pretty well. She allowed them to use the little mirror to count her teeth and she allowed them to brush about 2-3 teeth. I don't think she liked the taste of the tooth paste. Anyway, next time she will have all of her teeth cleaned. The dentist said her teeth look good and to keep up the flossing. McKayla said that she liked that dentist.

The Dawn of the Next 4 Years

Okay, the election is over. I am glad. I will admit that I did not vote for our current president, but as a family we are now ready to support our new leaders. To be honest I didn't really feel like there was a candidate that represented me. I feel we are not really a government of the people, by the people, and for the people any more. I feel that the amount of money spent on the campaigns are an example that only the top few percent of Americans can even run for elected office. I feel sad for this. I feel that there are Americans that might do a good job as president, but they can never afford to run. Okay, off the soap box.

I am hopeful for the next four years. It will do no good to grumble and complain about what has happened during the election or the past years. Rather, as a nation I hope we can come together to heal our nation and lead it in a way that is prosperous and pleasing to our Heavenly Father. I hope to make a better America for my children, and I hope that the new leaders of our nation

will sincerely try to do this as well.

To close I will post a picture of what we hold dear:

Splish Splash

Our local library is so cool. They have lots of programs throughout the year to encourage reading. The last one they did was a family reading program. If you read 40 picture books to your kids then you received a family swim pass to the Aquatic Center. McKayla insisted on reading about 10 books per day because she really wanted to go swimming. This is a big change for her. Well, we went last night. The pool was cooler than expected. I think I was expecting it to be the same temperature as my brother's pool down in SLC. His pool was about 96 degrees. It was nice. This pool was cold compared to that. The girls had a good time. We swam for about 40 minutes. They both had blue lips, and were shivering. McKayla found a kick board at the pool and played with that a lot. Ariana floated around in a little tube thing. I think she might have had more fun if she could have splashed more. McKayla told me that she had fun and we should go again next week. I don't think we will. However, the girls slept really well last night.


We bundled up Ariana after we got done swimming. She was cold.


McKayla always tries too hard to smile. I try to tell her to relax and nothing happens.


Here is Chad and both girls entering the pool. Notice that McKayla is getting in by herself.

A Card Survey

Below is a picture of my Christmas Card. It is a prototype. Any suggestions or comments? I will do the mass production soon and finish them by December 1st. These were quick and easy to make. Our family letter is on the inside.

New Program

I borrowed a computer program from my mom this weekend. I'm not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, it does some neat things like black and white photos. On the other hand, I don't know how to work it and it saves things in really odd ways. I had about 150 photos that I wanted to play with and it took me a couple of tries to figure out how to save them. All in all, I think I can learn to love this program if I just play with it some more. Below are some pictures that I played with.

This is me on Halloween.

My brother Jake and McKayla.

Ariana

Spooky

On Thursday night we carved our pumpkin. McKayla picked out the pattern and Chad and I carved it. Ariana ate some pumpkin and McKayla wanted to play with the knives. We also made home made dough nuts. We didn't get a picture of this because Chad was carving while I was baking. They were pretty good. We used a really simple and fast recipe. I think if we would have planned to do this a head of time, we would have made them the right way. Maybe next year.

Sunrise on Halloween morning. Looks like its going to be a bootiful day.


We ate green eggs for breakfast. McKayla was a little hesitant to try it, but after the first bite, she decided that green eggs were okay.

When you are three, Halloween starts as soon as possible. McKayla was ready to go by 8:00am.

For lunch we had hot soup and sparkling cider in our goblets. McKayla thought this was a lot of fun.

After lunch we drove to Shelley to see the pumpkin walk. It was very cute and I took a lot of pictures.

This is a real pumpkin that Ariana is sitting on. Wow.

After the pumpkin walk we came back to our house to work on cake balls. This recipe sounded fun and simple. We crumbled the cake, added frosting, and then stuck them in the freezer to harden.

Ariana was a pink leopard. I'm not really sure how she felt about this, but at least she was warm. She would not keep her gloves on.

Chad was an executioner. Cute huh.

McKayla said that I was a beautiful scary. Everything came off with only a little scrubbing. I am very glad. I don't want to be gray yet.

Finally we were ready for trunk or treating. This was a safe, quick and easy way to get candy. We were there for about 15 minutes and McKayla got plenty of candy.

Last we decorated the cake balls. This is were we ran into some problems. We over heated the chocolate that we were suppose to coat the balls in. Instead we just threw some frosting on the top and called in good.

This is what they were suppose to look like. Not so much, huh.