Ivy's 2

It's hard for me to believe, but my baby is two years old!

Thankful for Turkey

Wow! I can't believe Thanksgiving has come and gone already!
We had a nice time at Mark's parent's house. There were 16 of us in all and we ate at two big tables in their great room. I'm so glad we have special days like Thanksgiving, or else we'd probably never all get together at the same time.
The food was delicious. And now I wish I would have taken a picture of it. Mark ate three plates full! And I was full after one (but still helped myself to a second serving of turkey and mashed potatoes :)
I don't think I've ever seen Ivy eat so much! Maybe if we had Thanksgiving every day, she would finally gain some weight!
And one last interesting tidbit about our Thanksgiving: Seven people came wearing purple! Not at all planned, so that made it fun.

P.S. Don't mind the huge cold sore on my bottom lip!

Ivy's Before and After

Before picture courtesy of Millie.
New "do" courtesy of mom.

Scruffy Hubby

Mark had a little extra facial hair prior to Halloween in preparation for the holiday. Any respectable Captain Hook must have a mustache right?
However he ended up looking a little less like a pirate and a bit more like a man born south of the border! Good times.
But the look didn't last long. He shaved as soon as the party was over.

Goodbye Dial-up (again!)

In case you haven't heard the good news: Mark and I have upgraded! Yes, it's true: we penny-pinchers will once again be forking out 20 more bucks a months to have DSL. (However Mark did insist we drop our land line to off-set the cost, and use our cell phones exclusively -- blah.) So in honor of the blessed occasion I have uploaded a video. You heard me right, a video (entirely impossible to upload with dial-up!) of my oh-so-sassy Millie (dressed as Indian princess Tiger Lily) and her preschool class in their very first Halloween parade. Enjoy!

P is for Pumpkin

I survived my week as "teacher." But it seriously wiped me out! I learned a lot though, so hopefully it's easier next time around, which (fortunately) won't be until January. (One of the mother's is expecting twins in the spring and so she took my November week and I am teaching her week in March). I don't have pictures of the actual preschool class, as I was too stressed out to think of that. But the kids all had a good time learning about leaves and the letter L (on Tuesday), squirrels and the number zero (on Wednesday), and pumpkins and the letter P (on Thursday).
On pumpkin day, I used a pumpkin as a punch bowl at snack time. That night I had Mark carve it for our front porch. Millie has loving named our jack-o'-lantern Linda. So if you're in town, make sure to drive by our house between the hours of 7 and 10 p.m. to see Linda in action.

Zuri and the Zebras

This one's for you mom, (because the zoo makes for a really boring post since everyone has already been there a gazillion times).
So it only took Mark and I four years to take Millie to the zoo (bad parents, yes, I know.) But making the trip felt much more worthwhile with two kids!
The baby elephant, Zuri, was super cute! Even if I didn't get a great picture of her. When I was a kid I remember getting to ride on an elephant at Hogle Zoo, now you're lucky if you get a good view of one (oh, how things have changed!) Also, I was disappointed that the zoo no longer has lions or hippos! What happened?
One fun story from the trip: Toward the end of our tour Mark and I wanted to take the girls on the train but for some reason thought you needed cash to get your tickets and we only had a credit card (I'm sure they would have taken it, but at the moment we were convinced otherwise). Then as we were about to leave, Millie remembers that she didn't get to see the zebras (because they weren't there when we passed by the first time.) So we headed all the way back to the zebras and the greatest thing happened on our way there. This man stopped us and asked if we wanted his train and carousel tickets! He and his family had to leave and didn't have time to use the tickets. That totally made our day!
And to make the trip complete, we ate dinner at a restaurant afterward. We stopped at Pepperbelly's in Kaysville. (I love that place, and wish they still had one in Ephraim so we could eat there when we go down for visits.) The restaurant was celebrating its birthday and handed out free birthday cake (before dinner even arrived) so of course that's all the girls wanted to eat. Ivy especially enjoyed the cake and must have thought it was her birthday.