Family Time

I've been really bad at posting lately-funny how a new baby does that, at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it. :)

So here are the fall highlights:
-Tanner being born. Can I tell you-drugs are wonderful, especially when they work. :) He was born Sept 18, 8 lbs. 9 oz. and 21 in long. He came out screaming, and not much has changed. JK, mostly.

-Rene and Margaret were able to do a short visit. We went to Cox Farms, hung out and generally had a really good time. Afton loves it when grandma comes to visit!

-Halloween was awesome. Holidays are so much more fun when kids are involved. We were characters from Tangled. Joe was Flynn Rider, I was the "mean mom," (Mother Gothel), Afton was Rapunzel and Tanner was Pascal. We had a lot of fun trick or treating. Afton especially likes the treating part. :)

-Tanner was blessed on the 13th of November. My parents came and visited for the week before. It was a lot of fun-we did chucky cheese, drove through Shenandoah and enjoyed the fall view. Rene and Margaret were able to join us during the weekend and we had a lot of fun hanging out and enjoying one another's company. I am really thankful when we get a chance to hang out with the fam since we don't see each other very often. Afton especially enjoys being spoiled while they are here.

-Joe rolled his kayak in the Ahren's pool and is very proud. He is such a nerd! (but a cute one. Go Mr. Matt Damon!! :) )

-Joe went to Amsterdam for work. It was mostly rainy and drizzly, but he was able to see the sights for one evening. I must admit I'm a little jealous that his passport got stamped before mine.

Family

I've been thinking a lot lately- I know it doesn't happen as much as it used to- but family has been on my mind. I've been blessed with mine and Joe's parents being able to visit for Tanner's blessing. It seems that each child had a theme with each blessing- Afton's talked a lot about temple marriage, Logan's was missionary work and Tanner's blessing seemed to be a lot about love. I love how Heavenly Father knows and loves our children as He gives us glimpses of their potential at such an early age. I am thankful to be able to raise and get to know our children, even when they drive me crazy. As we come upon the Christmas season, Logan has been right there in the front of my mind. I miss him and really wish he was here. Sometimes I look at Tanner and ache for Logan. How messed up is that? But such is life. I'm just grateful that I get to have Tanner and have the chance to know and love him and just hope that his time here is long. Its funny how losing a child can change your whole perspective and bring home what is really important-family.

Babies and more babies

This is a pic of the YW leaders' babies. First baby on the left is Noah, 2 mos old. The middle baby is Ryan, 5 wks old, and Tanner is the last one, 2 wks old. Tanner totally looks bigger than Ryan. What can I say, I have big babies or at least in our ward, I have biggish type babies. Can you really say he's big when others in the ward have 9++ lb babies? :)

P.S. I will add more pics later so stay tuned...

BYU Football 2011

I decided to kick this football season off the right way, with a road trip to watch BYU play Ole Miss! I think my favorite part about the Cougars independence is that they will play out here more.

We drove down to Memphis Friday, then headed to Oxford Saturday morning. We arrived about noon to find this:

There was an abosulte Sea of tailgating, and most of it was with high-class Southern etiquette. It was awesome; the only people who were even slightly impolite to us were students; and most of the rude ones appeared to be pretty drunk. The older an Ole Miss fan was, the more likely they were to be exquisitely polite and thank us for driving all the way down, especially when we told them we drove from D.C.

BYU was well represented at the game.

That was the official visitor's section.

This was us in the cheap seats in the end zone. For being the cheap seats, they were really pretty good, and they were on metal bleachers, so we could make lots of noise stomping. You might have heard the BYU fans yelling "Defense!" a few times; that was us.

The concessions weren't bad, either. They were expensive, but at least one item was worth whatever they could have asked for:


And... a few actual football pictures:




Oh, and who's the goof in this picture?

Summertime Fun

Ok, so I know its been a long time since I posted anything. At least, I can only get better. :) Here are the highlights of our 2011 summer.

-Visiting Joe's family in Wisconsin. Joe could only stay for a few days, but Afton and I were able to stay for a couple of weeks. Afton loved playing with her cousins, aunts and uncles. We were able to meet our newest niece, Sadie. It was fun just hanging out with the fam.





-Joe and I went on the 4th year girls' camp adventure. We went, or I guess I should say Joe went biking and white water rafting for the adventure. (For some reason, the outfitters don't like pregnant women doing these things and I couldn't convince them that I've just been eating too many donuts lately.) Anyways, a lot of the girls had crushes on Joe. It was hilarious. They called him Mr. Matt Damon and heat attacked his tent and such. It was pretty dang funny. Lucky me, Joe likes older and more mature girls. :)

-Cocoa had to have surgery to remove many and many bladder stones. She is much happier now!
-The County Fair. It was a little on the hot side, at least from my very pregnant perspective. Afton loved it- the animals and especially the rides. She loved the merry go round and the flying elephant ride, but she especially loved the bigger kid rides like the ferris wheel and such. We've decided that Afton has no fear when it comes to big scary roller coaster rides.
-Going to the pool throughout the summer. Afton loves the water and would stay at the pool all day if I would let her. She loves to swim underwater and being a mermaid. It was especially nice just being able to cool off in the hot summer.
-Getting some house projects done. Our guest bedroom is now cleaned out where people can actually sleep in it. Yahoo!!We redecorated Logan's room with a cute train and automobile motif. I'm glad it makes me feel like its a new room.
-There was an earthquake in Virginia. It was pretty awesome. It was small scale with minimal damage (we didn't even have anything fall off of our walls.) It took me a little bit to realize we were actually having an earthquake; I mean come on, who has earthquakes in VA? Anyways, it was pretty dang exciting. :)

-Camping out in Shenandoah Nat'l Park. We only stayed the one night but it was so fun. It was the first time I haven't played any jokes on anyone, such as toilet-papering and such, but families were still scared or maybe just paranoid. :) Afton loved camping, especially roasting the marshmallows. She would say, "Here Mommy, let me show you how to do it. You just do it like this" and sticks the marshmallow straight into the fire so its nice and crispy for me. We left after breakfast- something about a hurricane coming in, which by the way turned out to be very anti-climatic.