Hairy Afton

Afton: Mom, am I getting older because I have hair on my arms and legs now?
Mom: (Laughing), Uhmm...yes
Afton: I'm really glad I have hair on my arms and legs.

Hmmm....maybe  we should move to Paris?

Swimming Afton

So we decided to sign Afton up for the swim team this summer. She is loving it. Her team name is the flying ducks. How cool is that? Makes me want to watch, yes all three, The Mighty Ducks. I'm going to totally do the "Quack! Quack! Quack!" cheer at one of the swim meets. :)

Goodbye Chang....

 















HELLO TANNER!!!

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?