Extreme Room Makeover

Move over, butterflies and flowers! As our condo is only a two bedroom, Emma will soon be sharing her room with "baby brother". Her room was decorated in girly colors featuring butterflies and flowers on the walls matching with the Pottery Barn bedding. So it was time to make a change to a more gender-neutral theme. I've always loved Classic Pooh (it was between that and a cowboy/cowgirl theme), and was convinced Pooh would be fun this time around. Emma was given a cute Classic Pooh quilt, made by Grandma Di when she was born, I've always wanted to use it, and now we get to. So we began a few months ago, buying fun decorations (Grandma Sue was excited when she found out how we would decorate it, she loves Classic Pooh also and went hog wild buying fun things). We picked out a fun, light yellow color to paint the room, which Grandma and Grandpa Stoddard did a few months ago (they were worried about me inhaling the paint fumes. He he! Paint is not the same as it used to be). My mom and I have done lots of sewing. Well, she's done more than me, as she just wants to get it done, but I've been getting some great sewing practice in. We made pillows for Emma's bed, the quilt for the crib, and we're almost done with the crib bumpers, and curtain. Last weekend, we painted a large tree mural on the wall that fits the Classic Pooh style, and put some Pooh character 3-D wall hangings on it. I thought it turned out really well! Then we hung the rest of the pictures and Pooh decor. Emma loves her new mural, she loves looking at it, even sings songs about it. I love decorating, it's a lot of fun, and I'm grateful to my Mom who has helped me out so much with this project! See for yourself what you think!

A Blue Halloween!

On Halloween Day, Emma and I went to my parents house to help set up for the dinner. We helped make the Haunted Gingerbread House, which was fun. My mom always goes all out, and this year was no exception. Emma and I carved our pumpkins that afternoon. She had a great time pulling out all of the guts and seeds (which she called ‘pumpkin nuts’)! We made a Sleeping Beauty castle pumpkin, and a polka-dot pumpkin. We helped set the table and put up the rest of the decorations for the party. We picked Dave up from work, where they had a mechanical bull outside for their party. I couldn’t ride though, and Emma didn’t really want to, so we just watched for a while. Then it was time to get in costume. We dressed up as the Blue Man Group this year. If you don’t know who they are, look them up, they’re awesome! The makeup took a while to apply, but it was worth it. The first time Emma saw Dave with his blue face, she looked around for the real Dave and yelled out “I want to hold Daddy!” She wasn’t too sure of me, either at first. We painted her face last, Dave was paranoid about her, and didn’t want to get it too close to her mouth and eyes, so we didn’t put nearly as much on her. I thought she looked so sad with all of the makeup applied, and it took her about an hour before she wanted to talk. It’s funny how dressing up does make you feel differently. We went with Jerry, Stacy, Tayla (Dorothy) and Kaison (the Lion) to Main Street in Bountiful for their Trick-Or-Treating. That was pretty fun, but not as big as last year. All of the adults and older kids were like “Woa! The Blue Man Group!” and would make comments on our costumes. But the little kids just gave us weird looks like we were crazy. Dave played some Blue Man Group music on his iPhone which was in his pocket to add to the mood. We tried to stay in character and keep straight faces and not talk a ton, but that was too hard! Try not smiling for that long, you’d go crazy! Emma liked the trick-or-treating thing, she had been talking about it for weeks as we had tried to explain to her what it is and what you did. She always said “Trick-or-treat!” enthusiastically and then thanked the person who gave her a treat. Then Emma and Tayla had a fun time playing in the leaves by the Bountiful Tabernacle after the trick-or-treating for a while. Then it was off to my parents for our traditional Chili dinner. Grammie, neighbor Bro. Schroeder, Amy & Kolby, and my parents were all there. We the chili, breadstick broomsticks, chips and dip from the chip graveyard, and veggies and dip. Then we had dessert, which the brownies underneath the gingerbread haunted house and ice-cream. We played pin the nose on the pumpkin and the ghost dart board. When the doorbell rang with trick-or-treaters at the door, Emma ran to it, and loved giving the kids candy. After that, we were back to the Ryerse’s, where we were going to go visit a few of their neighbors, but it started raining really hard, so we decided to go crash Uncle Brian’s party at his bachelor pad. They had a pretty good party going with Rock Band, food, games, and pumpkin carving. Then we ate pie and watched “Hocus Pocus”, which I fell asleep during. It was a great Halloween, and we’re already planning our costumes for next year, it is only 359 days away!

Halloween Carnival

On the 30th, we went to a Halloween Carnival, at Tolman Elementary, where my mother-in-law, Sue works. We stood in line for the spook alley for about 45 minutes, but it was well worth the wait! Sue was dressed up as the Spider Lady, Aunt Julie as a zombie, Grandpa Dan as Frankenstein, and Uncle Brian as a mad scientist. There were other people as well, like a lady that popped out of an old coffin, a guy in a mask that popped out of the wall, a dot guy, car headlights coming for you with a loud honk, and more. The props, lighting and sound effects were all very impressive! Half of them were Sue’s, as she is huge into Halloween! I swear half of their storage is Halloween stuff. It’s fun though. Emma was holding onto Dave very tight the whole time. She knew her family members, as she watched them get ready and put the makeup on so was used to the idea, but got very scared especially by the face that came out of the wall, and dug her fingernails into Dave. Poor thing! “I don’t like it!” is what she said after we got out. And whenever we passed the entrance of it the rest of the night, she would say “No, I don’t want to go!” But she enjoyed the rest of the carnival events – the fish pond, bean bag toss, cake walk, carnival food, sucker pull, stick the eyeball on the skull, and the duck pond. They had Halloween ducks in a kiddie pool, and when the lady running it said “Go!” Emma started getting in the pool, sticking one leg in before we could stop her. She knew what pools are for and went for it. We dried her off the best we could, and then the game began. Emma won, and got pretty excited about that. It was fun seeing all of the kids dressed up in their costumes. There were some cute ones! That is probably my favorite part about Halloween!

[Insert best witch cackle here]

Halloween is my favorite holiday (besides Christmas, of course, that is a given) and I love all of the Halloween happenings. Of all of the great Halloween events going on during the month of October, I'd have to say Garnder Village is one of my favorite things to do! My mom, sister Amy, and I go every year. All over, they have fun displays of animated witches. Some of my favorites include a witch flying on a bike and some traffic directors, a "witchy poo" in the outhouse, and a witch in training that landed her broomstick into a tree. This year was especially fun for Emma, who liked to spot all of the witches, and says most of them are "nice witches". Last year, she was pretty scared by them, as she didn't understand what Halloween was all about. Besides enjoying the displays, we love the quaint shops in the Village. They have some cute stuff! My favorite store is the Christmas store. Many of the employees are dressed up as witches, so that also adds to the atmosphere. Some of the Halloween stuff Emma saw she said was "Spooky!" We always go to lunch at the Bakery there, which is always delicious, and then to Afton's Candy for some fudge or goodies at the end of our visit. Here are some pictures of our little outing. "Witching" you and yours some very happy hauntings!

Election Time

Just about two weeks, and we'll have a new president. Let me tell you I'm really looking forward to it. Not that I'm excited over who our president will be, but I can't wait for all of this campaigning to be over. The mudslinging, the debates, the empty promises...I'm just so sick of it, and it seems like its been going on forever. And I'm not really super-impressed with either Barack Obama or John McCain (and of course Ralph Nader doesn't really count). I'm really hoping McCain pulls through for the Republican party, though.


As far as local & state officials go, I think there are some great candidates. I was reading through the Utah Voter Information guide the other day to decide who/what I would vote for, as I'm planning on going in to vote early. I've especially been impressed with our current Governor Jon M. Huntsman. (Dave would rub in that I didn't vote for him in our last election, but I really like him. Why doesn't he run for President?) Anyways, I wanted to post this for Adam, I thought he would enjoy it. This is "Super Dell" Schanze's personal statement he provided for the voter guide. He is running for Governor. I could not believe it!

"SUPERDELL is your only choice because YOU didn't file. Huntsman took away your freedoms and taxed you more than any other Utah governor. Springmeyer has admitted he doesn't care about the Constitution. The definition of the word insane is voting for the same people while expecting change. There is no question that Dell Schanze is different.There are only three people on the ballot and SUPERDELL is the only one that is NOT Socialist. If you are unsure, then fill your heart with love, completely open your mind and pray to God earnestly. You can't afford to get this wrong and will be held accountable for your choice."


Are you kidding me? This guy is absolutely crazy! I knew politicians are bad but this is overboard.

Obviously, I'm not a political analyst, but whoever you decide our best candidates would be, do get out and VOTE!

"Take a Picture of It!"

Emma can be kind of a ham sometimes, and let's just say she's not camera shy! Lately, she'll do something silly that she thinks is cute or funny and then tells us "take a picture of it!". She loves to put food in her mouth (like the large globe grapes she stuffed in each of her cheeks to make them look puffy) or just play with it (she gets a kick out of milk moustaches now and loves chocolate pudding), or do "tricks", or anything else she can think of. Maybe we've trained her that way, as I like to take lots of pictures. It is a good reminder though, as we sometimes forget to catch some of these moments on camera. Emma also really likes to take pictures herself, so we have plenty of pictures on our camera of the floor, daddy feet, and other things. She is becoming quite the photographer however, and can aim better now. A couple of weeks ago, when we were over at Katie & Brandon Bill's house, Emma had a little excursion with Katie's camera she found on the table. Katie and I were bringing some stuff in from the car, right outside of her door, and we left Emma in on the lovesac right inside of the door. Emma came out the door, camera in her hands hand, when she said "Smile!" and proceeded to take some pictures of Katie and I. I started running towards her to get the camera, because it was a new one, and I didn't want it to get broken. She took a few, and our faces in the pics are quite bewildered and funny, as it really caught us off-guard. We got a kick out of those pictures, but luckilly, Katie deleted them right after we had a good laugh. Here are some of our favorite "take a picture of it" pictures!

Wrapping up summer!

It is true this is the last weekend of the summer. Bummer. I'm a big fan of summer and we've had a great time this year. But the fall comes and life keeps on moving. We like fall too, but there is something special about summer.

Here are a few pictures of some things we've been doing lately that I haven't gotten up yet... so here's an update:

Our last camping trip was our ward camp out, held in Porter. We really like camping, and this was a good way to end it. The first night, we set up camp, played games, had the worst sloppy joes I've ever had in my life, and a fireside by the bishopric. Saturday, we had breakfast (gratefully, it wasn't left over sloppy joes), and a speaker who is from the pioneer historical society, and then we went to hike part of the Mormon trail. Unfortunately, the trail was pretty steep and rocky, and we thought that might not be the best idea to do that with Emma in the backpack, so we decided to go shopping at the outlet malls in Park City instead. Yep, we wimped out on that one. Emma had a great time playing with her little nursery buds, Maverick Stratford and Ariana Canro.

Emma and I visited the Ogden Eccles Dinosaur Park several weeks ago with friends Katrina & Kyler Mortensen and Emily & Gretchen Haurand. We had a great time! Emma loved the dinos, well, most of them! She had a blast playing with her little friends, digging for dino bones, looking at the large-scale dinosaur statues they have, playing at the playground there, and all of the other things they have to offer...except for the giant mechanical dinosaurs that move and roar. Things that make noise like that don't always go over well with her.

Something we've discovered and enjoyed this summer is the South Ogden Nature Park (we call it the Splash Park). The last time we went this summer, was with a bunch of Emma's buddies. Aiden Mead, Tavin Miller, Cole Duckworth, and Maverick came for a while, too. Yep, she likes those boys! We had a fun time. Emma absolutely loves that place. I had a hard time getting her out of there!

We went to the Utah State Fair a week ago. The first date Dave & I went to was to the state fair, so we make it a point to go every year. This year, we saw Veggies Tales Live, which was pretty sweet. Nothing like a giant Bob the Tomato with bling light-up teeth singing silly songs! Walked around and saw the exhibits and booths. We visited the farm animals. Emma was in her stroller, holding a blanket, and sucking her thumb, as she likes to do, when we got too close to the goat fence and a goat decided her blanket looked pretty good. The goat grabbed it with its teeth and started chewing on it. We had to fight back for it. We saw a show featuring endangered tigers from around the world. That was pretty neat. They were big, smart animals. We were impressed. Of course, we had to try the hyped-up fried peanut butter & jelly sandwich that was so much advertised on the Fair commercials and ads this year. Surprisingly, it was pretty good. I was quite skeptical, but really enjoyed it! Being deep fried and makes any food taste really yummy, and powdered sugar and chocolate sauce doesn't hurt either, right?