like mother like daughter

So we're in the process of packing... as in ive only packed 2 boxes (not like we only have 2 weeks till we're out of here..... yikes!)

anyways yesterday i was cleaning off Dulany's knick knacks off her dresser and saw my little music jewelery box i got as a kid. I totally forgot about it and on the inside is a little ballerina and when you wind it up it plays a cute little song...I instantly knew Dulany would LOVE it. So I showed it to her and she carried it around all yesterday and got really upset when I had to put it away when she went to sleep. She was dancing to it and wanting to help the ballerina twirl which was a no no... but it was too cute.






oh and on a little side note with extra pictures. we got our bouncer back from kaylee and she knew exactly how it worked. she went and got baby, put her in the straps and turned on the music and vibrations... haha well, hopefully this means she'll be a good helper whenever we have another kid.

Trick or Treat!

Dulany lOVES halloween! more like dressing up in her ballerina costume. she asked for her costume every morning and refused to get dressed if she couldn't wear it.
She did pretty well with the trunk or treat (last year she wouldnt do it)
and then trick or treating last night she did well as long as houses didnt have too many decorations (witches and ghosts) and if they did she would back up and say "SCARRY!" and was actually really scared. it was kind of funny, but sad at the same time. Tom of course LOVED it cause that meant she would grab onto him for dear life.

here are pictures!

here are some from the trunk or treat on saturday:








and these are the ones i took before going out last night. - she just wanted to keep dancing!









Hope everyone had an amazing Halloween!!

so i have this pregnant friend...

and i asked if i could take her picture...

My friend Page from my ward is pregnant with her first baby in December. I've been wanting to try out taking pictures of people actually wanting their picture taking (posing as opposed to candid shots at bridal showers/dinners, etc).... im in no way im saying im a photographer, but i think i did pretty well with her pictures! it was a little experiment as we like to call it.

here are some of my favorites and for all of the pictures - click on my facebook link https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.784903831204.2241283.193304858&type=1&l=3430ae7694

Family Update

as of late:

Tom is still in school. 2 days a week (and the occasional saturday) he goes to school down at WOU and every day he goes to the high school and observes in the classroom for half the day. He has also started helping with SATs/ACTs and athletics to make some extra $... he is also a happy man because it is football season. he has been getting tickets to the OSU games so he's been able to attend quite a few (including the last BYU vs OSU game where i got to go as well!)

Me - um. nothing... how sad is that.

Dulany - she is getting too big! talking and talking and she keeps getting taller it seems. Its quite sad! she loves her "baby" still but now she acts like its her actual baby (not just a comfort toy). she tucks her in to sleep, feeds her and reminds her that she loves her with "i love you baby" and lots of kisses. its cute. Maybe this will be good training for when she gets a brother or sister whenever that happens. She LOVES letters. we had the ones for the fridge but forget the fridge. she wants to play with them everywhere and she loves to name each of them. She knows them all and she's even starting to call out letters as she sees them on signs and shirts and what not. Too cute!
also - she has gone poopy on the potty 3 out of 4 days! (she did friday, saturday and today, monday) she usually goes in the morning but she didnt yesterday. im not sure if its cause we were at church and she grasped the concept that we do it on the potty now or if she just didnt have to go cause she waited to go while at grandmas house way later that night. But its pretty successful. Although, she sees the poop in the potty and it makes it "dirty or gross" and she doesnt want to sit on it for the rest of the day.... so we have to work on that.


anyways, here are just a few pictures. not a ton has been going on but she has been wanting to be in forts and things so she's been using her little "crib" as she calls her little bed thing and making forts on the couch with it. The other day she was so well hidden andi had to get some pictures.

relief!

So some of you know that we've been on a waiting list for subsidized housing here in mcminnville. Basically if you're a student and dont have any income, then you have free rent.

that would help - ohhh since we've moved here but especially now. We've been on the waiting list a year to date. We were told it was a 6-8 month waiting list... well come july - we're still way behind on the list. september, still behind. I called last week and they said they were moving someone in the first week of november then there were 2 more people ahead of us.

i was pretty disappointed. I was like well, there was our hope of getting in before Christmas.

then today my phone rang, and it was the apartments and i was thinking, oh theyll just ask if we're still interested.... and they did. But then asked if we would be interested in moving in NEXT month! i was so excited i was shaking. no joke. We went in and had to reapply to get up to date information and she told us that we were applying exactly a year to the date. How funny.

i dont know how we got in so fast after we had just heard the bad news. But i am so happy and grateful!! and im really excited to get out of this apartment and have a YARD in the back. These "townhouse" apartments have a sliding back door to grass (which we havent had since being here!) and even were just remodeled on the outside and the inside!

so now we're just in the process of getting paper work done and background checks done. SO excited!! November 18th we will be in our new place (and even a new ward)!.

"ahhhh..."

papa is known for taking off the grandbabies shoes. He takes them off and then says "ahhhh" and rubs their feet. Dulany learned to do it about a year ago and everytime someone would take of their shoes (or she would take off hers) she would sigh "ahhh"

Ayla was over the other day and she pulled off her sock and rubbed her foot and went "ahhhh" - it was hilarious (at least to us!) cause she learned it early!

so i got it on tape, and you in t his video you can tell Dulany and Ayla are best friends!

videos galore

i finally figured out how to get the videos onto youtube.. after much trouble with blogger and youtube.. holy cow.

anyways, these are videos from the past week or so.

her current favorite song to sing is twinkle twinkle little star..



she also sang it in this video - but this seriously cracks me up cause she must be missin her Cousin E...





and she has possibly the cutest giggle. cracks me up!
this is when she was watching barney - obviously something funny was going on!

The Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday the family headed over to the Pumpkin Patch since Julie and Alex were in town. It was the opening day and we figured it would be cold and rainy but it only sprinkled on us a little bit and it was a good cool 65 degrees... we got lucky! Tom was busy taking his LSAT test when we went and came to join us later with Aunt Sessie. We had a really good time and Dulany LOVED it. I'm annoyed cause my camera died right before she went down the BIG slide! Oh well.. i LOVE fall and this made me even more excited for halloween and carving pumpkins, etc.

oh. Dulany picked out a baby pumpkin which was actually a goard and it looked like a christmas ornament so she called it a "chrismiss punkin"... but the stem broke off after we bought it (for 50 cents) and she was heartbroken. she doesnt even like it anymore and goes around saying "it froken"... poor girl! she is obsessed with "punkins" now. its hilarious! (im wondering if she'll stick her hand in the goo this year when we carve pumpkins!)

ok ok, here are the pictures!






















and we finally got a few shots of our family (This never happens, and of course, couldn't even get a normal shot! haha oh well, good enough!)