First Smiles

This is probably one of my favorite moments with a new baby, the first smile. You pull funny faces, make strange noises, and talk a lot of nonsense hoping that one day all this work will produce a smile from the little blob of a baby. It's so rewarding when it finally happens. Tori started smiling a few weeks ago and this picture is of that first smile. It has since developed into a full body smile. Her tongue sticks out and her legs and arms curl up and it's a flirty smile that says, "Man, I'm cute!" Someday I'll capture that smile on camera. Until then, we'll just leave you with a baby fist bump and say catch ya later.

We have had a good year a lot to be thankful for. A new house, Matt’s stable job, a healthy new baby, our families, the gospel, and I could go on and on. We also, had a great Thanksgiving weekend. We spent a lot of time with family, eating, playing games, and just relaxing. Matt and I also participated on the traditional wishing on the wishbone. Except, the strangest thing happened. Neither of us got the bigger half! Crazy! I don’t think I have ever heard of this happening. So what does it mean? Neither of us get our wish, we both get our wish, or do we have seven years of bad luck now. Well, I just hope that my wish comes true because it was a good one.

Victory!!

So this last weekend was a good one for Utah State Aggie fans. Our football team won their first game of the season!! (Making our record 1-10, but whose paying attention to that?) Matt enjoyed listening to the win on the radio since the game was played in New Mexico. The weekend before that we did head up to Logan for the final home game of the season. It was a really bad game, but the weather was beautiful, the stadium was full (of Boise fans), and we had a good time with Matt's family. It was also Tori's first Aggie game. And of course she slept through the entire game. Now we just get to wait until next year and hopefully our team can win a few more games.

Fall Frenzy

For the first time in her little, short life, Madeleine experienced the thrill of jumping in a big pile of leaves, and she loved it!! Grandma Draper would rake them up into a pile and then with a running start, Madeleine would jump right in. She also had some fun throwing the leaves at people, although her favorite person to throw leaves at was herself. Ahhhh, there is nothing like itchy, cold leaves making their way into any possible gap in your clothes. It was great fun and reminded me of the hours I used to spend jumping in the leaves every fall as a kid. We used to make a huge pile and then jump off our swing into it. We also used to hide in the pile and take turns bringing friends back to scare. I can't wait until we have big trees in our backyard so I can teach Madeleine all of these fun uses for a leaf pile. But that will be awhile. I guess we'll just have to use grandparents houses for now.

Pumpkin Masterpieces

Here they are! Our beautifully carved pumpkins! Matt ended up carving three of the pumpkins by the time I carved my one. I guess that's what happens when a perfectionist carves a highly detailed design. We let Madeleine experience the joy of digging out the guts of the pumpkin and she didn't seem to mind the wet slimey feel of the seeds. So Matt carved the Aggie "A" and the other two faces. Madeleine helped him carve the first face. I carved the Trick or Treat pumpkin and Tori's tiny pumpkin. It was fun to have so many pumpkins to carve this year and we think they turned out really well.