iPhone Pictures

This first picture is actually one I forgot to put on the previous post. It was taken on New Year's day after spending a day bicycling we enjoyed watching the sunset on the beach.

Bryan's family. Kristee, Sandy, Dave, Bryan and Andy.

The rest of these pictures are ones that I forgot were on my iPhone. I love having a phone that can take pictures because when I'm out and about it's so convenient.

During our stay in CA for Christmas, my sister Janet, my sister-in-law Iris and I took our nieces to the movies to watch "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel". The little girls were so cute throughout the movie. They sat there eating their popcorn and sipping on their straws. At the end of the movie while all the chipmunks were singing and dancing Adah started dancing on the the rails they have in front of you if there isn't a seat there and Alyssa started singing to the music. It was pretty funny! After the movie we had them pose for us to capture a lot of cute pictures with our phones!

Alyssa, Adah, Makayla and Kamely

Kamely, Adah, Alyssa and Makayla

Alyssa was playing with a chap stick and wouldn't hand it over!

The girls posing with the Chipmunks. Alyssa would not turn and look at the camera. She was too distracted and is actually trying to push Kamely away so that she can have a better look at Alvin...lol

I love this picture. They all just randomly held hands. My sister is leading them to McDonald's to get a Happy Meal. It's so cute oldest to youngest.

The cousins had a great time together during the movie, after the movie and in the food court. It was so cute to see them chasing each other laughing and just having a great time.

Before we left to CA for Christmas I would randomly take pictures and send them to Bryan since he was gone for a while.

Here's Alyssa playing in a coin-op play bus.

Alyssa and I after church one Sunday.

Alyssa after I picked her up from Nursery which she absolutely loves. She is always so happy when I pick her up and her teachers say that she is great and so lovable. They say she is so sweet to everyone and that she loves doing everything. They also make the cutest projects to take home.

This is Alyssa during our flight to CA. Can you tell that she loves "My little Pony". Luckily these last couple of days she's preferred "Monsters Inc" and "Robin Hood". It gives us a little break from the Ponies. :)

Have I ever mentioned that Alyssa has this thing for toothbrushes? Well not just toothbrushes but anything pertaining to her teeth (toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss). Its so weird but it's also great for us because she LOVES brushing and flossing her teeth. She walks around with at least one toothbrush in her hands. The only problems so far with this fetish is that sometimes she uses our toothbrushes or she takes them and we can't find them...lol

Here she is having a good ol' time in the bathroom at Grammie's with her toothbrush. We just bought her a Dora toothbrush about two weeks ago with Dora toothpaste which she thought was so funny. She couldn't stop smiling.

About a week ago a few of us from my ward took our kids to the Sweet's Candy Factory. It was actually very fun. The kids loved it! My 2 yr old even loved it! I thought maybe she'd get a little bit impatient, but NO, she walked along the entire tour. Every time we pointed out a machine that was making candy she was very interested. It was really neat to see how interested she was and how well she payed attention. It also helped that every time we arrived into a new work area to look at a new machine they gave us candy to taste. How did they know that we would love candy??

Almost towards the end of our tour Alyssa turned and looked at me and said, "Mami, mas candy". Just then we were given some taffy candy...yum. Perfect timing! They knew Alyssa needed more! And at the very end of our tour they even gave us all little bags with MORE candy!! It was AWESOME! Oh and we even got to wear hair net thingys. Not once did anyone try to take it off. They even made baby Beckham wear one and he's only about 3 months old with no hair. It was very adorable though. It fit him perfectly! It was actually a beard one...lol

The kids standing in front of the door. No pictures allowed inside :(

I had to include this picture because I thought it was very cute. My friend's daughter Ayda was asking for my phone because she wanted to take a picture. So I told her, "how about I take a picture of you." She liked the idea and so I took this picture of her. Its really dark, I know, but it was so cute of her. Alyssa was in the back ground wondering "what are you two doing". ;)

Lately we've been looking around at furniture which is so fun, but also very exhausting. Every time I go I have to look at furniture for our living room and kitchen and Alyssa's bedroom. When we moved we decided to keep her crib down and graduated her to a toddler bed which is basically her mattress on the floor. It was perfect for her because at the time she was still learning to stay on the mattress and not end up on the floor, but now she consistently wakes up on her mattress so we've decided we better start looking for a bed.

Here's Alyssa during one of our shopping trips. She loved this little chair. As you notice with the basketball chair next to her she also enjoyed putting it together and forming a ball.

Here's a video for you to enjoy of Alyssa. Its not the best version of her singing the ABCs, but you get the idea. I love the end of this video because she was talking really loud that it was sooo cute to me. Every time we ask her to repeat something she says it in a whisper so this is why the video is funny to me... enjoy!

December Fun

So here is our huge December post! I've been lucky to

be able to get the Internet at work and therefore blog these last two Sundays. Brace yourselves for a lot of pictures, but you should be used to it by now. I just love pictures. They tell the story all on there own.

These are the last pictures that we took while we were in CA for Thanksgiving. My last day there just happened to land on Dec 1st so I decided to include these pictures in this post. :)

We actually used the following two pictures on our Christmas card!

Alyssa received this little dog one day when I took her to the ER. I had to do some work stuff so don't worry it wasn't a sick call visit. While we were there one of the nurses gave her this little dog and ever since then its been her favorite. We make sure to take it with us everywhere now just in case she needs something to comfort her. She even sleeps with it and its so cute! She totally hugs it! Also during Thanksgiving after two years of her short life she decided that she wants a blanket as well. So now she also has her favorite blanket that comforts her as well.

Alyssa getting kissed by Abuelita.

Dayna's Birthday Surprise

Since my good friend Dayna did not blog about her OWN birthday I decided I'd include it in my post! Her husband surprised her by giving her a night out with the girls. It was such a great gift for her!! I'm not going to lie it was even like a gift to all of us! We haven't been able to hang out much lately due to busy schedules, so this was perfect! It was great to be able to get together and celebrate Dayna's birthday. Bryan was still out of town so Nate was even sweet enough to watch Alyssa for me!!! Oops I don't think I ever mentioned that Bryan was out of town for like 6 weeks, I'm serious!!! FOREVER!! He was gone on business and life without him was hard but Alyssa and I managed with our friends' help! So back to Dayna's birthday...

Here's the birthday girl holding one of her birthday goodies!

Venna, Reese and Dayna hanging out while dinner is being

prepared!

Maria cooking a delicious dinner!

Reese was really into the dessert Venna was eating. She was totally eyeing it

and I think reaching for it too...lol

All 5 of us sitting down for the birthday dinner.

Later on that night we had so much fun playing a game and you'll never guess which game it was?? Twilight Scene It!! Of course Dayna and Venna beat Maria and I, but that's OK it was still fun. And the fun didn't stop there! The game was followed by a movie and I know you won't guess which movie?? OK, maybe you will, NEW MOON!! All of us had actually seen it already except for Dayna. And even though watching it a second time was exciting all on its own, knowing that Dayna hadn't seen it was great because that just added to the excitement!! I'm glad you let us celebrate your birthday with you Dayna, It was so much fun!!

Decorating for Christmas

The next day when we got back from celebrating Dayna's birthday I was feeling kinda down and I thought maybe it's because Christmas is coming up and we are not ready for it at all. So Alyssa and I decided to start decorating for Christmas, which I originally wasn't planning to do because we were going to travel back to CA in two weeks. So I put on some Christmas music and got all our decorations out, which aren't many and had a lot of fun with my little girl. We danced and sang to the music as we worked.

Here's Alyssa having fun!

This was so cute, Alyssa grabbed both sets of beads and started using them like pom-poms at one point.

She learned how to open the string attached to all our ornaments and put them on the tree. She loved it! We really had a lot of fun!

Bowling

Bryan came back from his business trip for a few days before he had to go back and we were lucky that he was here and able to attend my work's Christmas party. All the doctors in the the ER always give the staff a Christmas party at Fat Cats. They rent out the whole place to the ER department. It's very fun. We enjoyed a great night of bowling and music. We also enjoyed our free meals from Costa Vida!

Alyssa's first time in bowling shoes!

Alyssa walking around dragging her blanket behind her.

Bryan won a free ER trauma T-shirt for hitting a strike as one of the Doctors passed by!

Alyssa's first time bowling!

Christmas Eve

I finally joined Bryan in CA on Dec. 22. I was very excited to be back with him since he was gone forever, minus the couple of days he came home. I was also very excited to be able to spend more time with our families!! We spent Christmas Eve with Bryan's side of the family. We had a great dinner prepared by my mother-in-law, we enjoyed playing catch phrase and a movie. It was a great Christmas Eve.

Here are some pictures of everyone during dinner.

Alli

Andy, Avery, AJ and Amy

Mom and Dad (Dave and Sandy) and Austin.

Janel, Bryan and Alyssa

Our niece Avery's birthday is on Dec 23rd, so we always get to celebrate her birthday on Christmas Eve! This year Amy baked cupcakes so that we could decorate them. It was really fun watching the girls put sprinkles and letters and a lot of fun yummy stuff on the cupcakes

Amy putting the candles on Avery's cupcake.

The birthday girl!! So SWEET!!

Avery blowing out her candles!

Family

Mom and Dad (Grammie and Grandpa in Alyssa's case)

I was looking at all the pictures on my camera and I just cant believe that I didn't take any pictures while we opened our gift exchange gifts on Christmas Eve!!! I seriously couldn't believe it considering how I am with the camera. I did get one picture though. Here's Avery opening her gift, but I honestly I can't remember if these are her Christmas gifts or Birthday gifts. Now that I look closer at the picture I think these are her birthday gifts! Oh well!

Christmas Morning

We woke up Christmas day and took our traditional Christmas morning picture. Alyssa wasn't too thrilled because she wanted to play with her "Little People" bus that she unwrapped on Christmas Eve. You can see that we were hiding it behind Bryan. It's poking out just a little bit on his right side...lol
We enjoyed a great morning listening to Christmas music and eating breakfast. Oh and also had a great time opening our gifts. It was very fun to watch Alyssa open her gifts, she seriously loved all of them and she is so good at unwrapping now!! You know, it was actually really exciting watching the grown-ups open there gifts too. The suspense before every gift!! Aaaahhh!!!! :-D

Dad opening one of his gifts!!!

Mom opening one of her gifts!!!

After opening gifts with Bryan's parents we headed over to my parents' house. My mom cooked up a feast for everyone...tamales, posole, ceviche, capirrotada, chumpurrado, bunelos....etc. I probably spelled some of those words wrong! All my siblings and their families were there. So we enjoyed great times hanging out and socializing!

Right before we opened up gifts we asked all the little girls to sit down so we could hand them their gifts one by one.

Alyssa opening one of her gifts. And YES our niece in the background got a New Moon Lunch Box!! She loves Twilight. Of course she has never read the book cause she's only 6, but her and our 5 yr old niece love the movie, crazy!!

The four girls watching as its Kamely's turn to open a gift.

Zane's 1st Christmas! He was really good at opening up those gifts. It was so funny that while opening his first gift my brother held him over the bag and he pulled out all the hangers with the clothes all by himself!! Very strong!

Javen was our sleepy guy this Christmas. He slept while all the other kids opened their gifts. So later on that day he got to open all his gifts at once instead of having to wait his turn ;)

Some of our family members watching the kids open gifts.

Alyssa received the "My Little Pony" movie for her birthday back in October from her Tio Gerzain. Ever since the first time she watched that movie she was an instant fanatic. She can watch that movie a million times a day if we let her! When we went home for Thanksgiving everyone noticed that she loved the ponies because she always carried around the 2 she got in her happy meals from McDonalds. So for Christmas what did she get? 5 more ponies!!

It was hilarious how after she opened her 1st pony she would not take her eyes off it while opening her other gifts. If anyone made any move towards it she was all over it!! It was pretty funny. Here she is with all 5 of them. She couldn't even hold them all but she would not put them down in case someone else wanted to get them. When she did finally put them down she gave them to either Daddy or Mami to watch over them...lol

The last two years our nieces Makayla and Kamely have always performed Christmas songs for us. The difference this year was that they both had guitars to play. Tio Gerzain bought Kamely a guitar last year and this year Makayla got one from him too! They are just a crack up to watch!! Their performance was nice!

After watching her cousins play the guitar, Alyssa thought she should get a shot at it too! She is SO CUTE!!! I love it!

My brother Rafael and I chillin' on the couch after all the presents were opened.

My brother Gerzain and I.

Family picture on Christmas Day.

Jungle Place

One day Bryan and I decided to take Alyssa to this kids place, called "The Jungle." Its kind of like a Chuck-E-Cheese. Anyways, Alyssa really enjoyed it. She wouldn't leave the area made for children 4 and under though. I tried taking her to the big play area and she just would not have it. She was able to play in the ball pit, a tube maze thing, a play house and kitchen and get on a mini merry-go-round!

Our little Mozart! The entire time we were at Grandpa and Grammie's house Alyssa loved climbing onto the piano bench and playing the piano. It was so cute because she wouldn't just bang on the keys, she actually would sit there and play and sing along as well! Amazing, seriously!

After busy times, Bryan and Alyssa relaxing.

New Years Eve

On New Years Eve we went to my brother Juan's house for a party! There was so much yummy food there!!! We enjoyed time socializing, eating and listening to music before we had to go.

Here's my mom with 3 of her grand daughters.

Bryan and I

Alyssa loved playing in Makayla's kitchen.

My brother Gerzain, Zane, Bryan and Alyssa.

After the New Year's party we headed to Santa Cruz just in time to celebrate the arrival of 2010!! We stayed up with Bryan's family playing games. Alyssa even stayed up!!

These pictures are kind of backwards sorry. Later on on New Years day we went down to the beach and enjoyed a beautiful sunset. We walked around the cool beach and Alyssa actually ran around!

Grammie, Alyssa and Me.

Sunset pictures.

What is it with kids and sand? They just love it! They especially enjoy eating it! We were trying to get a family picture and Alyssa wanted to play with the sand...hahaha. "Mami put me down".

Alyssa did a quick CHEESE for us!

On News Years day we all went on a bike ride to the Boardwalk and around Santa Cruz. It was very fun! The smallest kid helmet available did not fit Alyssa too well so after a while we realized that we weren't going fast and and we were no longer near any cars so we just took it off so she could enjoy the pretty views.

Bryan, Alyssa and his brother Andy.

I wish I had the picture of all of us on our bikes to share with you, but I think my in-laws have that picture on their camera :( oh well! It would be a cool picture though cause lets see there were 7 adults, 2 children, and 3 toddlers all in a train of bikes...cool!

Nathan and Crystal's Wedding

The Saturday before I came back we were able to attend my mom's dearest friends' daughter's wedding. Did you follow that? I love these people! They have always been so good to our family! The reception was beautiful and went by so fast that I didn't get a chance to get a picture of Mr and Mrs Casper, but luckily I stole this picture from Crystal (The beautiful bride).

The Bride's Family. Sandra, Crystal, Nathan, Karina and Frank. I can't believe I taught Karina in Primary!!! She's all grown up now and in College, yikes! Where has the time gone? Love that girl!

Us at the reception!

My parents at the reception.

Right when we were getting ready to leave Alyssa decides that she wants to dance...lol.

Sunday

The following Sunday we were blessed to be able to attend THREE baby blessings!! All in the same family! Our good friends that we've known forever, now who are practically family, all had babies weeks apart. Aida had her little girl Kaylani in November and her sister Leslie (who is the pregnant one in the pictures from the previous post at Frances' wedding) had her baby boy Jacob a week later and then about 2 weeks later their sister-in-law Jenae had her little boy Lathan!!! So they were able to bless all three on the same day! It was truly a great experience!

After the blessings we went and hung out at my parents' house.

My brother Juan and me.

And a final picture of Bryan and Me...hahaha!

Then I came back to our own home and continued life as usual!! :) Bryan came back a few days after me for good this time!!! YAY!!!

I just remembered that I forgot something in this post, but I've run out of time so it'll have to wait till next Sunday!! Enjoy our great Christmas vacation post!!!

Busy November

MICHAEL AND FRANCISCA'S WEDDING

We started off November by making our first move as a family!! It was very tiring and not fun at all but luckily we have awesome friends and great ward members that helped make the process better. YES, we finally moved into our very own home! We didn't even get to unpack before we were off for a weekend to attend the wedding of a good high school friend. We were only back in our hometown for one weekend and we drove the 24 HOURS round trip, but it was worth it. The wedding was amazing. Frances, my friend, looked so beautiful and happy. I'm so happy for her. They got married in the city in a cathedral and had their reception also in the city.

Michael and Francisca

Bryan and I outside the church

My sister and I

Frances and the bridesmaids. All theses girls are close friends from high school except her new sister in law (second from the left) and her own sister (last one on the right). It was great seeing all of them again. I think I'm the only one that doesn't live near by anymore :(

During the reception... A few pictures with the girls. It was a fun reception and it brought back so many memories. High school was a great time. These crazy girls ;-) really made it a blast.

(Gennavi, Gennavi's son Jay-Jay, Jasmin, Me, Janet (my sis), Janet Segovia, and Leslie)

Janet, Frances and me. Frances has the happiest, perfect smile! She was glowing and of course looked perfect!

The girls taking pictures like back in the day. We loved it, and had so much fun always posing for the camera. (Me, Janet, Gennavi, Frances, Janet S., Jasmin and Leslie)

Making crazy faces for the camera is always a must with the girls! It's so much fun!

Showing off a little leg. Most of us would not show more than a little above the knee...lol but yes this picture is so Janet S....lol...crazy!

ADAH'S 3RD BIRTHDAY

Also that same weekend while we were back in our home town we were able to be there for our niece Adah's 3rd birthday party. It was great to enjoy this time with her and my family! Since we aren't around much we haven't had the pleasure of being around during any of Adah's previous birthdays. I especially feel bad that Alyssa misses a lot of time with her cousins and family. :(

Here's Tinkerbell Adah!

Alyssa walking up to the pinata as my brother Hector hands her the stick. My other two brothers Juan and Rafael were holding the rope to move the pinata around.

Alyssa couldn't quite hit it by herself so Tio Hector helped her. So Cute! :)

Here's our niece Makayla swinging at the pinata.

This is our niece Kamely.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Tinker Adah!

I'm so glad the timing was just right to enjoy a great birthday party for our niece with all our family there and also an amazing wedding all in one weekend!

THE A- TEAM

After the birthday party we went to visit Bryan's brother, Andy, and his family. It was a short visit so we couldn't really hang out much, but it's always so nice to go to their house and just relax with them for a bit. Alyssa always loves it there too. She enjoys playing with the girls, especially her cousin Alli, who is so good to her!

When I went to go check up on them this is what I saw! It was tooooo cute!! Alli was reading too.

Alyssa and Alli absolutely loved it!

Later Avery and AJ joined them.

After that wonderful weekend we came back home to unpack a little bit, but not very much. Due to work and school and everything in between life gets a little crazy. Luckily, like I've mentioned before we have amazing friends that are always so sweet and willing to help. One night they surprised us by making a visit just to help us unpack and get a little settled in. I am so grateful for them because that was really huge. That night we were able to get so much done and I was so happy that finally Alyssa's room was clean and the second bedroom was manageable :) It was also great just getting all of us together again. It feels like life's craziness takes over and we never get together as much. So that was very fun!

THANKSGIVING WEEKEND

Back for Thanksgiving week. Now this was such a great trip just for the very fact that we have not spent the last 3 thanksgivings with our families and this year we were able to enjoy thanksgiving dinner with family! YAY!!

Alyssa taking her first lesson of golf!

Grandpa brought out these really cool magnets and they had a great time playing with them!

After playing with magnets Alyssa got to snuggle with Grammie.

During our second visit in one month we were also able to celebrate our nephew AJ's first birthday! He is just adorable! Just look at that little face looking at that candle...so cute!

Alyssa accidentally got cupcake frosting on the table and decided it couldn't go to waste....lol. YUM it tastes just as good as on the cupcake.

TURKEY BOWL

On Thanksgiving morning my friend Jasmin got a group of friends together to enjoy a nice game of football. Well almost nice, they did suffer one casualty. One of the players accidentally ran into another one and suffered a major mouth injury :( I had left by then, but Bryan told me it was not good. After having surgery and being on a liquid diet for a bit, it turned out fine, poor thing!

Splitting up into teams.

OK, break!

My Bryan getting ready to throw the ball.

THANKSGIVING DINNER

Our little family enjoying Thanksgiving at my brother's house.

The four girl cousins eating their Thanksgiving dinner.

Alyssa, Me, my sister-in-law Jen with my cute nephew Zane.

Brother and sister, our niece and nephew, Makayla and Javen.

My brother Juan and his little guy Javen relaxing after a big dinner.

My Brother Gerzain with his little guy Zane.

My sister and I at the end of the evening.

It was a great Thanksgiving day!! It was nice just to be with everyone on my side of the family. Unfortuntely for us, Bryan's side of the family decided to travel last minute to Sourthern California to spend a nice Thanksgiving with his sister's family. We missed them, but that's ok. We know they had fun. Maybe we'll catch them again for Thanksgiving in a few years :)

TIME WITH ADAH

During this visit we were able to spend one evening with my brother Hector's family. It was so funny to watch the way Adah acted around Bryan. She kept wanting to play with him. It was so cute!

Adah and Bryan

Silly Faces!

These two little girls were being so cute that evening.

Cousins

BRYAN'S 30TH BIRTHDAY!!!

For the first time in 5 years Bryan was able to spend his birthday with family. Lucky for him it was his 30th birthday. It is just crazy to think that he is not in his twenties anymore. Where did the time go?? His birthday landed on the Sunday after Thanksgiving this year so we enjoyed a birthday party with family, pizza and chocolate cupcakes shaped into a football.

Here's Bryan's football cake. I forgot to take a picture before we started passing it out, but luckily I remembered in time to still catch the "Happy 30th Bryan!" part.

Alyssa helping daddy blow out his candles.

The birthday man having a great time!

Hilarious how Alyssa always gets frosting all over her face when eating cupcakes!

Girls cousins

The little girls were trying to guess Bryan's age. It took them a while. I guess they can't really comprehend someone is old enough to be in there thirties. It was pretty funny.

Bryan's side of the family was still in Sourthern California from Thanksgiving, so unfortunetly his brother's family didn't make it to his 30th birthday party. But luckily after making the 7 hr drive back, his parents made it! YAY!

Bryan with his parents. I think I might have caught Dave and Sandy while they were eating, sorry guys!! But this was the only picture I had of them three ;)

So there you are everyone. A summary of our lives in the month of November! Hopefully that didn't bore you too much cause December and all our Holiday pictures should be coming soon!

I already miss all our friends and family back home just thinking about it :( but we do have great friends out here which makes it all better :) well almost all better ;)

Fall Time

I know that it has been a really long time since we last updated our blog, I'm so sorry!!! Our lives have been so crazy and busy these last 2 1/2 months. Besides our lives being hectic we also HAVE NOT HAD Internet since the end of October which is another reason for the blog break. I just couldn't get myself to download photos onto my computer and try to find a place where my laptop can pick up the Internet. If it wasn't for our phones I don't know what we would do. That's how we get online these days. Today I'm finally blogging because I realized I could, from my in-laws house =)

So FINALLY here is an update of our Fall!!!

We loved fall this year. It was so much fun having a two year old that really made us enjoy the beautiful season. She loved being outside and we always tried to be outside. We took a few walks/hikes in Provo canyon (I think those pictures are on my other computer back home, sorry guys), we went to the park a lot. I finally discovered an amazing park that was so close to our apt, but it just never grabbed my attention because I thought it was on two very busy streets. But it turned out to be a blast. It was huge and you couldn't even really notice all the cars driving by when we were having so much fun. Overall it was a great time for us to be outside and enjoy all the colors!

Here's Alyssa on the slide getting ready to go down.

On our walk back home the 3 of us stopped and enjoyed the huge piles of leaves everywhere.

Thanksgiving Point

One Saturday we decided to take Alyssa to a pumpkin patch but instead of the pumpkin patch alone we ended up at Thanksgiving Point. It was great; well the weather wasn't great but it worked with us for as long as we needed it to. There was so much for Alyssa to do there. She just ran from one thing to the next. I'd have to say though, that her favorite was probably the horse and carriage and reading time with the Pumpkin Princess.

Right before we left Alyssa wanted to get onto the carriage again, but this time Daddy went on with her.

Daddy and Alyssa watching the pig race. YES, they had little pigs racing each other. I felt so bad for them because they looked so little.

Alyssa and I on the Cow Ride. Everyone that knows me knows how short and tiny I am and I have to say that it was not easy sitting in that thing. It was SO small! I don't know how other parents handled it...lol

After the cow ride it started pouring rain really hard so we decided to do something indoors. We decided to go inside the 3-D tent and see what it was about.

Here's our family. It was pretty cool, but it was Alyssa's least favorite =( She doesn't like closed off spaces like that.

After Thanksgiving Point we stopped by our friend's house. Here's Alyssa and their son. Alyssa wanted to ride his bike and he wanted to push her...hahaha

As many of you know Alyssa loves anything Disney. Our friends had this cute little Halloween hat and of course Alyssa found it. It was so cute to see that she kept trying to put it on and finally I helped her with it and got this cute picture.

Pumpkin Carving

Carving pumpkins is always so much fun! We were so excited to do it this year especially because we knew Alyssa would love it.

Here we are with our pumpkins. Yes I know mine looks a little funny, but I like to think that it had personality. I swear it felt like the timer on our camera took forever and I was really trying not to blink and hence my eyes look like they are going to pop out.

Alyssa helping daddy.

Me helping Alyssa while she takes a break to drink her milk...lol

Final Results

Janel's Pumpkin

Alyssa's Pumpkin

Bryan's Pumpkin

I wanted to use the Disney theme for mine and Alyssa's and Bryan wanted to carve a classic pumpkin.

Ward Halloween Party

We really enjoyed multiple bowls of soup at this years Halloween party. We had so many different kinds; it was amazing! For those of you that don't know I LOVE soup...any kind...well almost any!! We also had a great time with the contests and seeing every ones' cool costumes!!

Doesn't Alyssa make the sweetest, cutest Snow White?!!

Family Picture

In case you can't tell we're Dopey, Snow White and Grumpy.

I made mine and Bryan's costume. I just think it's hilarious how well Bryan can frown. He cracks me up!! I ran out of fabric for Dopey's hat, so it was totally tight on my head and made my head look small...hahha

Trick-Or-Treat

Trick-or treating was so much fun!!! We haven't been for who knows how many years now. And this year we had the perfect excuse...a 2 year old!! We went with our friends the Creeks whose daughter is about Alyssa's age. They've been good friends since birth. They were both absolutely adorable! Ayda dressed up as Cinderella so they were perfect together, the two princesses.

Just before heading out. Ayda and Alyssa.

Oh my gosh, these two girls are super cute!! Love Ayda's face, that little girl cracks me up!!

So I had to post this picture because I found it absolutely amazing how well Ayda and Alyssa did trick-or-treating. We showed them what to do at 2 houses and after that they ran off ahead of us to the next house ready to knock on the door and with a huge smile on their face they said "trick- or -treat"! THEY ARE 2!!! And they understood and loved it!! Most 2 year olds and even 3 year olds don't really get it, let alone love it like these two girls did. They really are something special =)

The Creeks and Bryan...We had a great time watching our daughters enjoy it. They gave us many laughs!

The End

"We are tired, ready for pizza"

Oh wait I almost forgot to mention that, YES they did eat some candy afterwards and what was the results you may ask? Two little girls jumping on the couch and super hyper!

Memories we will always cherish! Happy Fall!

(Thanksgiving and Christmas coming soon...)

Cat Ranch

Bryan had a friend from work invite us to their Ranch in Southern Utah one weekend and we had a Blast! As always I took a WHOLE lot of pictures. So brace yourselves!! My camera ended up dying so I ended up using my phone at the end.

Our first ride that weekend on the ATVs. Getting a tour of the beautiful scenery.

Alyssa's first ride! Don't worry Bryan was really careful and going slow.
Here's John teaching his daughter Elise.

We weren't actually riding it right here. I was just letting Alyssa play.

We walked around the Ranch looking for horny toads. Check out Alyssa's grip on Bryan's hair...lol.

Alyssa loved this little stream they had running through the Ranch.

Alyssa really enjoyed sitting in this car. Here she is eating her fruit in it. I think Kiera was about to run off.

Bryan, Alyssa and Elise swinging.

She wasn't too sure about having me away from her because she doesn't really sit on the big kid swing yet.

There was this black bird that kept flying into the garage and here's Alyssa chasing it.

I needed glasses to ride the ATV so I used these that were at the Ranch and Alyssa thought it was so funny to wear them.

The kids loved these animal pillows that they keep upstairs. Kiera and Alyssa watching "Beauty and the Beast" after dinner.

The cattle that were around the Ranch. We walked all the way up to them so Alyssa could get closer but then they took off.

Scenery pictures, hope you enjoy them cause it was so beautiful.

This is Christine in the picture. I love this picture because you can see the land and the trail we were on really well.

Alyssa exploring while eating a cracker.

She found this particular pile off dirt that she just loved. She threw herself down and started digging into it. She even got mad when I lifted her so we could get back onto the ATV.

More exploring pictures

Like the big sunglasses??? haha...they aren't mine!

A toad John found as we were riding along. Skyler's holding it.

We wanted to see if Alyssa would hold it. Elise is trying to hand it to her, but that didn't go too well. Alyssa didn't really know how to hold onto it and it jumped off.

It was a great weekend get away! We loved their Ranch and all the exploring we did around it! One night Bryan and everyone else except for Alyssa and I and Elise went searching for frogs in the water when it was pitch black outside, how fun! I didn't go cause it was late and Alyssa was tired. During the entire weekend Alyssa just ran all over the place. It was great cause there was so much room outside for her to just go. John's family was great! The kids were awesome with Alyssa! Did I mention that the food they cooked was AMAZING!!

GREAT TIMES!!

THANKS GUYS!!

2 Yr Doctor Appointment

On October 7th I took Alyssa to her 2 yr Doctor's appointment. I have never taken pictures of Alyssa at any of her previous appointments and afterward I always wonder why I don't, cause I usually take my camera everywhere and take pictures of us doing everything. This time unfortunately I forgot my camera again, but luckily I have my phone which works great too. So I FINALLY got pictures of her at the Dr's. Most visits usually go about the same. Here are Alyssa's Stats:

Weight: 23.8 lbs- 10%

Height: 34.5"- 75%

OFC: 47 cm

So basically she's a skinny long girl, but really she looks tiny to me all around =-)

I do have to say that I think its so funny that every time I take Alyssa to the Dr and they see that she's in the 75 % for height they have to make a comment about it because they look at me and think, wow that's weird...hahaha. Two comments, (nurse speaking to Alyssa) "Oh sweetie, I bet your genes will catch up to you", (nurse speaking to me) "Does she have a tall dad?" They usually say them joking around so its never rude...

Alyssa always gets a little nervous when I first lay her down to get her height measured. Notice the tear? She'll kind of whine and want to cry but it goes so fast that it doesn't give her time to really get scared.

This was a reality shock...my little girl's first time on the big kid scale =-(
Just waiting for the Dr to come in. We read some books and explored the room.

Now waiting for the nurse to come back in and give Alyssa her shots. Alyssa could not stay in one spot anymore. She was all over this room!

The bribe before the shots.

Ouch!! Aww :..-( right after her 3 shots!

All better, enjoying her bribe!

I can't believe how cool the band aids are now and they stay on so well! Where were these when I was little?

Looking at her cool band aids.

Ready to go home and away from this horrible place...lol =-)

"But at least I got a lollipop from it"