Happy Halloween!

Bailee and I did some early trick-or-treating at the park. It looked cold outside so I skipped the vest and put on her coat. It wasn't cold.

There were so many people at the park, Bailee didn't enjoy it. Even the chocolate wasn't enough to make her keep going. We did get a picture of Captain Jack Sparrow and his 'ship' this year though.

After the park we came home and Bailee took her boots off. She refused to put them back on again. When Luke got home we headed out the door for our neighborhood Trunk-or-Treat. Before we got to the door Bailee threw up all over Luke and her costume. So we changed clothes and went down to the church. She really wasn't happy to be there, until she saw Cowboy Sister Amy, her nursery teacher.

It started raining as we were walking back to our car. Bailee really just did not feel good, so we didn't take her anywhere else. The favorite treat of the night was a Hannah Montana candy bracelet. This cowboy was in heaven!

Here's Bailee and Luke dumping the candy out to share and sort. Yum Yum!

Carving Pumpkins

I always look forward to carving pumpkins, and I've been especially excited this year. I wanted to try something new and fun. This morning I realized that we'd run out of time to carve them. So I decided it was now or never.

As soon as I put Bailee up in her chair to help me, she plugged her nose and said "The pumpkin makes my nose hurt, it stinks."

I tried to get her to dig in and help me clean them out, but she wouldn't do it. I finally convinced her to use a big spoon. She humored me for about a minute.

Finished Product

And here are our Masterpieces!

The lights were off when I took these pictures, but my flash was on. Bailee said "I'm making my scared face, turn the lights on please."

Halloween Party

Introducing Cowboy Bailee! Grammy made her this cute cowboy vest.

She even let me braid her hair!

We went to a Halloween Party at our friends house. It was so fun to get together. Tina made some root beer and all of the kids were loving the fog from the dry ice.

Luke even wore a cowboy hat for a costume, and I didn't get a single picture to prove it.

Spooky Cookies

Monday afternoon Bailee and I mixed up a batch of Sugar cookies.

Then after our Family Home Evening lesson we frosted them.

Bailee ate lots of frosting...

We had a ton of cookies when we were finished! Luckily I went visiting Teaching the next day and was able to share.

Don't worry....we kept all of the ones that Bailee did.

Go Cougs...How 'bout the Rebels?

Happy Birthday Grampy!
Today was Grampy's birthday and we took him to the BYU vs UNLV football game. On our way Luke joined the Mtn. challenge. He did awesome! (He also did a 'dance' challenge. We'll have to post a video link when we get it.)

We had our traditional pre-game pizza. Bailee loves pizza, she was so excited.

Grampy let Bailee wear his hat. She thought it was fun to tease us. On our way to the game she kept saying "Go Cougars, Go Cougars." At one point I echoed her and said "Go Cougars." She looked at me and said "How 'bout the Rebels?" We all cracked up. There were a few UNLV fans among us, so Grampy wasn't alone.

Luke's prediction was pretty darn close. BYU beat the Rebels 42-35.

Pumpkins!

Grammy and Grampy grew Bailee 6 pumpkins! Grammy brought some really fun things to decorate them with, no mess! Bailee thought they were great.

Here are most of her pumpkins! We saved a couple to carve in the coming week.

peek-a-boo!

Future Scentsy Dealer?? and Meet Gus!

Grammy brought her Scentsy jars so I could smell the new scents. Bailee loved opening the little jars and smelling them. She would find one she liked and bring it around for everyone else to smell too....

...including her new friend Gus. This is Bailee's new puppy, just ask her. His name is Gus and she loves him.

Bailee likes taking Gus for walks, feeding him treats, and brushing him.

Fun with Grammy and Grampy

(October 22, 2008)
Grampy and Grammy brought Bailee her very own Cowboy Spurs and Cowboy Rope! She was so excited!

We went out to Thanksgiving Point to Farm Country and rode the ponies. Bailee had a blast. She got to ride 3 times, and was sad when she ran out of tickets.

She even spent some time in the slammer....

Ride 'em cowgirl!

Houseguests and the Planetarium

(October 16, 2008)
We had Matt, Jolynn, Brooks, Brayden and Brea stay with us for a couple of days. It was lots of fun to hang out with them. They wanted to go to the Planetarium so Bailee, Moses and I tagged along. It was so cool, I'd never been there before.

All of the kids were fascinated by this machine. It had all different sizes of balls moving around in it.

Here are the kids on the Moon.

And Bailee on Mars.

We won!

(October 14, 2008)
We went to the KSL BYU coaches show again. Same as usual, EXCEPT this time I won something! (If only for a moment) I won a cool BYU flag in the drawing and Luke won a Number 15 jersey. I'd barely retrieved my prize when Bailee commandeered it. It now hangs in her perfectly pink bedroom. :)(She thought it was a picnic blanket!)

Girls Night

(October 4, 2008)
Bailee and I had girls night while Luke went to the Priesthood meeting. I had these little s'mores to put together and thought it would be a fun thing for us to do.

Bailee loved putting them together, and especially loved the 'princess snowman'.

I've always had fun with Bailee, but I'm loving this new stage. She loves to color and stamp and play games, so it's really fun.

Play Date

(October 3, 2008)
Bailee woke up begging to play with Kinley. I told her not today, I know Alyssa is really busy. About an hour later Lyss called to see if we wanted to go swimming. Bailee was so excited! We went to a new place, and it was awesome. The water was 98 degrees! The pool was amazing for young kids and the girls had a blast. It was not easy to convince them to go home.

We bribed them with popcorn. What a treat!

BYU vs UNLV

I didn't make my predition last week, I had a bad feeling about the game before it even started, I didn't want to spread the bad vibe.

This week I hope will be different, BYU and UNLV. I have a feeling this is going to be a old fashion shootout. UNLV has a dynamic offense at time with three of the best recivers in the conference (Wolfe, Flare, Payne). I am sure that UNLV was excited after what TCU did to BYU secondary last week. UNLV also has a big running back Frank the "Tank" Summers, so I really think they will score some points. The big difference between UNLV and TCU is defense. UNLV has not stopped anyone all year, so hopefully BYU and the offense can get on track. They should be able to get on track. Like I said early I expect a high scoring game, BYU is going to have to score some points to win the rest of their games this year, because I think their defense was exposed and will continue to struggle.

BYU 45-UNLV 35.

The Divine Institution of Marriage

I found this article regarding Prop 8 that I wish I'd read myself prior to my last post. It's clear, to me, that the information I received came from this article. However some of the things I understood to be already decided (losing tax exemption, marriages preformed in the temples) haven't been decided but could be affected. The article explains better than I can why it's important to define marriage as between a Man and a Woman. It has facts where my feelings are mostly emotional.

The Divine Institution of Marriage

I am amazed that by my disagreeing with someone's life choice, I am seen as prejudice or a bigot. Just because I don't agree with someone's choice does not mean that I don't like that person. (If that were the case I'd be alienating myself from those I love most) As a follower of Christ, it is one of my greatest desires to be like Him. To love unconditionally. To be kind to all, to be pure, to be humble and to serve those around me.

California's Prop 8, it affects us all.

On Sunday our ward asked for volunteers to make phone calls regarding Prop 8 in California. I'll be honest, my first thought was "We're not in California. Why us?" After some discussion, answered questions, and pondering the matter, this is why. If it passes in California it opens up the door for every other state who wishes for the same result. I've had the attitude that yes, I know same sex marriage is wrong and I know it's a sin, but I'm not going to force my belief on others who feel differently. Well, now I realize that by not standing up for what I believe in, what I know to be true, their beliefs are being forced on me and my children! I will home school my children before I allow another adult, a teacher, to tell them that this is an acceptable and normal practice. Not a chance! And for it to start so young, as the kindergartner in this video? I just am so upset about this. What I've learned is that our church would lose it's tax exemption because it won't accept same sex marriage. That it would be considered a HATE crime for me to teach my children that same sex marriage is not ok, that it's a sin. Why must I tolerate this belief and not have the same respect in return?? I learned that if this fails, marriages in our temples wouldn't be recognized because same-sex marriages would not be allowed to take place there. Is this not against our rights to practice our religion how and where we chose? Every part of this is just making me sick inside. What times we are living in. My innocent little daughter.

On Sunday as we were sitting in Sacrament Meeting, I was feeling so weighed down and sad. There is so much going on around us, and I feel like the wickedness is closing in. And then we had a wonderful lesson in Young Women's and I felt peace and hope return. We read this scripture 2 Ne. 31: 20 " Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life."

What a peace that brings to me. If I move forward with a steadfastness in Christ, things will work out. God is on our side. God will prevail. But, it is our duty to our God, ourselves and especially our children, to stand up for what we believe in! We can not sit by and let the world take it's course and expect to be un-affected. It will affect each of us.

I received this video from a friend and just had a chance to watch it. It interviews a family in Massachucets who is dealing with the consequences of same-sex marriages being leaglized. Please watch it and do your part in protecting your values, your children, and your right to worship how and where you want.

Oh, and yes, we will be making calls to people in California to help get a resounding YES on Prop 8.

Video

Randomness

So even though our garden was late producing, and most of what we planted got eaten by the birds before it had a chance, we have been able to enjoy some of the 'fruits of our labors'. Those are purple bell peppers, aren't they pretty? We've had a ton of yellow squash, and we're finally getting some big tomatoes. We get a handful of cherry tomatoes every couple of days. Yummy! We've also had 3 cucumbers!

Luke finished his HR class through Villanova a few weeks ago. He did amazing! I don't know how he found time to study and still play with Bailee and I. Luke is such a hard worker. We are so proud of him and so grateful for how hard he works.

Bailee and I painted a cute spider for our door. I really did let Bailee paint one of the spiders, and she did a great job! Then she just wanted to paint the newspaper.

Bailee and McKinley got matching strollers for their birthdays, and I finally got a picture of them together. They love to push their friends around, and they love to go for walks down the street.

Notice the cowboy hat. Bailee is known as Cowboy Bailee, at her insistance. She calls herself Cowboy Bailee and has been calling us Cowboy Mom and Cowboy Dad all week. Super cute, unless she throws a tantrum in the middle of the store because I forgot to say Cowboy Bailee.

Speaking of the store, I had to run to Mervyn's the other day to drop off a CTMH order. Bailee loves to walk around the mall, so we stayed awhile. We were walking through Deseret Book and she was singing her version of "I am a Child of God". She stopped suddenly, looked at me and yelled "You are not my mom!" Startled, I said, "I'm not? Since when?" She grabbed my leg and said, "You are my sister. Oh, I'm so glad you're here, Sister." What???

So yesterday I put her down for a nap and went downstairs to work on some stuff. 2 hours later I came upstairs to see if she was awake. She had never gone to sleep! So I told her she could get up if she was ready. A few minutes later I asked Bailee if she had ever gone to sleep. She looked at me and said "That's not your problem, it's my problem!" What a little sassy pants I have. She cracks me up.

Bailee also insists on 'reading scripture power' herself and won't let either Luke or I have a turn. So I say 2 or 3 words and she repeats them. We're reading in 3rd Nephi and one of the guys names is Gidgidoni. Bailee repeated "Get a donought". And of course because we laughed, she kept saying it.

As you can see, Bailee keeps me on my toes and usually laughing. I can't believe how much she has grown and learned! She's such a little smarty pants, and it's so fun to be her mom.

We are counting down the days until Grandma and Grandpa Bulkley get home from their mission! It feels like they've been gone forever! They really don't have much longer. I have a few projects around here I want to finish before they get home, so I better get working!

I keep thinking of a ton of stuff to write about, but I think this is long enough for today.