Trunk or Treat

For our Trunk-or-Treat and Halloween Party, Troy and I joined in on the golf theme.

In Michigan, everyone decorated the trunks of their cars for trunk-or-treating events. My brother and dad went all out every year with music, lights, foam machines, themes, and even Halloween video presentations. When my brother found out that no one really does that here, he was devastated. I told him that he was free to decorate the trunk of our car if he wanted to. My mom and I were only gone running errands for an hour or so and we came home to find his masterpiece. Jorden had scavenged up all miscellaneous Halloween items that he could find around our house and he quickly came up with a creative display. He even wired a car adapter to be able to hang orange Halloween lights from a golf club on the ceiling. His trunks are usually much more elaborate but he did a great job for what he had to work with.

This is the first year that Blake has been able to understand the concept of trick-or-treating. He was really shy at first about asking for candy.

Then, when he figured out that he was loading up his bag with candy, he lost his shyness and dove right in.

He concentrated so hard on trying to get his candy open. It kind of broke my heart when I had to limit him to one or two pieces after he had worked so hard to obtain it all. For the rest of the night he looked around for his pumpkin bag and signed "more" over and over. Thankfully he forgot about the candy I hid the next day.

Blake won the award for the best costume. He even got a little trophy which you can see he was very proud of.

After the Halloween Party, Troy decided to try to hit things into the trunk of our car.

It looked like fun so I tried too. None of my hits made it very far and I had terrible form. Pregnant people should not golf; the belly gets in the way. Or at least that is my excuse.

Troy really wanted to smash my platinum pumpkins with his golf club.

I convinced him otherwise.

I think we may be Halloweened out and it's not even Halloween yet! At least we have a few more days to gear up again.

Tee Time

We started our Halloween events over the weekend, so here comes the big costume reveal.

We took our little golfer to Gardner Village which has become an annual tradition because of the great fall ambiance spread throughout. It's like a Halloween wonderland.

My mom came out to visit last week and joined us for the festivities. She just can't stay away from her grandson for more than a two month period. She earned a free plane ticket when a spring business trip to Mexico was cancelled because of the Swine Flu craze, so she saved the voucher until now so that she could visit her favorite people in the world.

Blake's other grandma came too. He is just so loved.

He wanted to spend the majority of the time watching the ducks and trying to climb into the river. He kept waving to the passing ducks.

What a sweetheart.

Platinum Pumpkins

A little spin on the traditional:

Troy hates carving pumpkins and Blake is still a little too young to enjoy such an activity, so I took the pumpkin decorating into my own hands this year. They went platinum.

Pumpkin Patch

I asked around to find a pumpkin patch in our area and no one seemed to know of any. Everyone just buys their pumpkins at the store I guess. I had this picture in my head of what the Michigan patches were like; the apples, the cider, the pumpkins, the hay rides...

After some searching, we found the greatest little pumpkin patch. We didn't get the apples and cider, but I wasn't one bit disappointed. It made for a great outing and it was just what I had pictured.

For starters, they had fun tractors to sit on.

A little boy's paradise.

Troy generally dislikes festivities associated with holidays but he was a good sport for my sake.

Another great perk at this place was the corn maze for children.

The corn maze was Blake's favorite part. He kept walking through the stalks instead of on the laid out paths. It was a like a little jungle for him.

We also went on a hayride and enjoyed the fall colors.

 Finally, there were pumpkins!

We started the quest to find the perfect Blake-sized pumpkin.

It was a struggle for Blake to hold any of the big pumpkins.

My pumpkin and my little pumpkin.

Blake kept picking out the random misfit white and green pumpkins. He finally settled on a perfect little orange pumpkin.

Teaching Yoga At Last

I am officially employed. Even though I completed my yoga teacher training in January, my national certification took months to process and didn't become official until May. Then, alas, I got pregnant and was sick all summer, making teaching in the evenings about the last thing I wanted to do. Now that I am very obviously pregnant, I wondered how I could teach a yoga class without looking ridiculous. The solution was so easy; teach a Prenatal Yoga class! This is a class I have been interested in teaching ever since I became involved with yoga, and of course now in my current state it makes perfect sense. So, with a little paperwork, interviewing, and preparation, Granite Peaks School District was kind enough to hire me to teach their first ever Prenatal Yoga class. Luckily, I am in the baby capital of the world, so hopefully I will have a good turn-out.

My class starts in just a few weeks, and I will run a brief 4-week trial session before the holidays. Then I will start up full swing in January and run a few longer sessions (and have a baby somewhere in there). So, if you know of anyone in the Salt Lake area who is expecting and would benefit from this class, please pass the word on! Here is the flyer with all of the information:

Revamping Blake's Room and Alphabet Wall

It's finally done! I have been working on transforming Blake's room into a big boy room since July, throughout all of my other projects. I think I am most excited about this room out of all of the revamping I've done around the house these past few months. I just want to hang out in Blake's new pad all day long.

It all started with the chairs. Blake loved sitting in satellite chairs at my parents' house, so when I found similar chairs, I just had to get them. I could only find the chairs in navy, and since navy didn't match the old décor, the wheels in my head started turning for a total room makeover. Troy even agreed to let me paint the walls which is a big deal for him. I was only planning on painting one accent wall, but Troy didn't like the look of that, so I ended up painting the whole room. Blake and his crib were temporarily moved into the guest room for a week while I painted.

My favorite addition to his room is the alphabet wall. I've been collecting alphabet letters for a few months and I finally finished painting them and hanging them up over the weekend.

Here are some of the other details. I mostly just repainted or added to what was already there. I used a lot of fabrics, ribbons, and papers. I also got a little orange-spray-paint-happy.

I am really excited now that we know that Blake is going to have a brother because they can eventually share this "big boy" room. I think we'll keep them separated until their sleeping schedules are similar, but Troy is very happy that I'm not going to get pink-spray-paint-happy anytime soon.

Proud To Be a Tanner

I was incredibly privileged to marry into a family with a great legacy of service and dedication. This legacy started with a man named John Tanner, who was the first in his family to join our church in 1832. John Tanner was Troy's great-great-great-great grandfather.

Last night, we attended the premiere of "A Treasure in Heaven: The John Tanner Story" in the Conference Center Theater. This 21-minute film will be released on November 3rd to the public, and will document the story of John Tanner, a man among giants in the early days of the church.

John Tanner was a wealthy man with a large family. He loaned thousands of dollars to the building of the Kirtland Temple, saving it from impeding foreclosure. He lost the last of his wealth when the Kirtland Safety Society failed, forcing his family to beg for food as they made their journey to Missouri. When John Tanner was called on a mission to the Eastern States, he went to settle the manner of the temple loan with Joseph Smith. John ripped up the note that Joseph had previously written and told him that he was welcome to the money loaned. Joseph then gave John the prophetic blessing; "God bless you, Father Tanner, you and your children shall never beg for bread again."

That prophecy was amply fulfilled, and the story of this blessing has been handed down and remembered by all of the Tanner posterity. It is often quoted as being the reason for the financial prosperity and success of many of the Tanners. Each of Troy's 13 aunts and uncles display a painting in their home depicting the prophetic blessing given by the prophet Joseph to John Tanner.

John was a faithful follower of Christ. He gave his all to the gospel and the Church. He created a legacy of faith that blesses my life and the lives of countless others every day. This film was a real heart-wrencher for me as I considered the hardships and sacrifices endured by this faithful man, and I increased in my feelings of kinship towards the Tanner family.

The Conference Center Theater's 900 seats were filled to capacity with descendants of John Tanner for the premiere. Even though there are now tens of thousands of Tanner posterity, I was still shocked when we entered the theater and joined with hundreds and hundreds of relatives to honor this great man. Among his descendants were prominent church members including apostles N. Eldon Tanner and Hugh B. Brown, Presiding Bishop Victor L. Brown, Fern Tanner Lee, wife of President Harold B. Lee, and Presidency of the Seventy member Franklin D. Richards.

What also made this premiere so exciting is that Troy's parents and sister starred in the film as extras. The producer tried to cast a lot of actual Tanner descendants. My father-in-law had to grow out his beard for several months to be able to participate. He grew that beard with style in his professional career and during an African Safari. The scratchy, unkempt look paid off because he actually scored a speaking part as one of the members of Joseph Smith's council. It was fun to see our family on the big screen.

One of Those Days

See this angel face?

Not so much today. The day started out with Blake opening the refrigerator door by distributing half of his weight onto the freezer door for leverage. He's been working on opening the fridge door for months, but was not successful until today. This opened a whole new world for him of spreading shredded cheese, grapes, and condiments all over the kitchen floor.

Our next adventure of the day happened when we were returning something at Carter's and Blake refused to sit in his stroller. He doesn't sit in his stroller in general at stores anymore and will barely endure shopping carts. He just begs to get up so that he can run around. I don't really blame him in this instance because there was a LEGO table and other children to play with, but it made my job of keeping an eye on him while trying to browse much more difficult. 

As I was checking out, I kept my eyes glued on him as he slowly made his way towards the open doors, when all of a sudden he bolted for the sidewalk. I immediately ran after him, merchandise in hand, and grabbed his wrist just as he was half way into a parking spot that a car was pulling into. Scary! When I got back to the counter with my crying toddler, the sales associate stated "It's scary when they run off like that!" I responded, "Yeah, especially when the doors are open!" I get it that my child is my responsibility, but why would a children's clothing store leave their doors wide open? That's just asking for a child to get loose and run straight into the parking lot. We had a similar instance in another store, but luckily the doors were closed so I could grab Blake before he got away.

Finally (at least I hope, the day isn't over yet), we had a third incident at the grocery store. Blake was begging for a box of unopened crackers that was in the shopping cart, which I denied him because he had just devoured a cookie that the bakery lady gave him. In his frustration, Blake grabbed the carton of eggs, dumping the entire dozen. It was embarrassing. I'm sure that the naughty days of testing the limits are just beginning, but it just seemed to pile on today, all before noon!

Here are some lessons I learned from our experiences:

1. Buy a child lock for the fridge. I'm not quite ready to let Blake have free reign in that department. He already tears apart the pantry.
2. Obtain some sort of child leash. I used to laugh at the parents and children I saw at the mall with their leashes, but it can be pretty scary when your curious child runs off in the flash of a second.
3. Do not leave a full carton of eggs within the reach of a toddler at the grocery store.
4. It's a good thing I still love this boy so much even when he is naughty.

Finally Fall

We finally had a wave of cooler weather around here. Blake loves that he gets to wear his coat now. We had a wonderful weekend enjoying the cool, rainy weather while watching General Conference and eating yummy food with family.

Blake gets really nervous when I don't immediately shut the compartment that holds my garage door opener.

I'm not sure if it is the fall weather or just the second trimester itch, but I decided that my hair needed a change.

After battling traffic to attend the BYU/Salt Lake Real Soccer game on Friday night, we headed up to the Tanners' cabin for conference weekend. One of the fun things about the cabin is that Blake's Grandma has collected tons of rubber ducks for him to play with in the tub.

We enjoyed some hammock time on the deck in between conference sessions.

It was really cold and rainy outside and I absolutely loved it. I don't know where this desire for cold weather is coming from because I usually detest any sign of fall. It must be the baby.

Blake thoroughly enjoyed himself in his little cocoon.