Fun stuff from November

Kaitlyn has some great morning hair. I think she could win prizes, it’s that crazy. Hum, maybe I should send a picture into bed head and she could be the spokeswoman, spokesbaby? Anyway here’s a cute picture of my favorite bed head.



Kaitlyn had so much fun painting her pumpkin at the beginning of November, I thought we should just paint. She was VERY upset that paint goes on paper and not your face. She flatly refused to paint the paper. I think she thought it was like makeup.




So, I’m going to toot my own horn for a min. Back in the beginning of the month when I thought we weren’t going home for Thanksgiving, I was a little panicked about making a turkey, I had never even roasted a Chicken. So I decided to start out by trying a Chicken. We had the missionaries over for dinner and I made a chicken with real gravy (my favorite part) and mashed potatoes. It was so yummy! I’m so proud of myself. Now I know I can do it and won’t be so scared when it comes time to make my own Turkey. Here’s a very proud me with my Chicken.



So Emily has been working very hard at crawling, all month long. Poor girl, she just can’t figure out the hands. She works so hard on it everyday. It’s very cute and sad at the same time. It usually ends in quite a few tears of frustration. If you look closely you can see the tears and frustration.





Emmy cuddling with her daddy, they are so cute!



The girls being silly

We have a two year old!!! Happy Birthday Kaitlyn!

Kaitlyn turned two on Tuesday the 27th. Because we had just returned to Wisconsin around 1am Monday morning, we didn’t do a huge birthday party for her. She did however, have a great birthday. Tuesday morning she got to put on a birthday outfit from Grandma D, and then we headed over to play group. She had a great time playing with some friends and they even sang Happy Birthday to her. Mom and Emily were in the next room getting shots for Emily, so we missed the song.  Afterwards we came home and had lunch and naps. Then Kaitlyn got to help mom make cupcakes! She thought it was so fun. Mom, was a little stressed trying to keep things going. She also got to help make dinner and eat some olives, which she LOVES.



Doesn’t she make eating olives look like heaven?



When Ryan got home from work, we ate some dinner and then opened up presents. Grandma sent a box over, and I had fun wrapping them all up. Here’s Kaitlyn with her b-day presents.



After that we packed everyone in the car and drove to Prairie (45 mins.) Ryan is ward mission leader and our branch has just started a Tuesday evening study session. Branch members bring their friends and they can ask questions and find answers. Well, this was the very first one, so we all went. Kaitlyn’s nursery leader and probably her favorite teen in all of Wisconsin was there, so she was in heaven. She got to play with her before it started. While they were having their meeting Kaitlyn and I went and frosted and decorated the cupcakes. She found some salt and pepper in the kitchen area and decorated her cupcake. She didn’t think it tasted to good. Lol, live and learn. She did like putting the real sprinkles on the cupcakes, but I had to keep hiding the salt and pepper because she really wanted to put it on her cupcakes. Oh well. The missionaries and teenagers that were there that evening really enjoyed the cupcakes, so did Ryan, Kaitlyn, and I. They also sang Happy Birthday to Kaitlyn, but she wasn’t very happy about that! Here’s our cupcakes. Yummm, they were good!




I didn’t have the camera that night, but we didn’t decorate all of them, so she got to do it again on Wednesday. If you look closely you can see her fingerprint in the cupcake.



Her favorite part was eating the sprinkles afterward



And the customary frosting covered face birthday pictures, she’s definitely not as messy this year.




After that we stopped at Wal-Mart to get her a fish. Unfortunately that Wal-Mart didn’t have any. Oh well. That meant Kaitlyn got to celebrate two days in a row. So Wednesday we packed up the girls and drove to Platteville to get her birthday fish. She really had a good time, and especially liked holding her fish.







She liked getting to pick out her fishies. She got two, since they were like 18 cents, and because she is now 2.
In a sad note, today one of the fish went belly up and went down the toilet. It was a little sad. I was pretty nervous about getting a fish because when I was younger we babysat somebody’s fish and it too did not last very long. I couldn’t even watch when Ryan got rid of it. Partly because I felt bad for my part in it’s shortened life and also because I didn’t want to see an animal in my toilet. I have an irrational fear that one day something will be in there and touch my bum. I didn’t think seeing a fish would help. Lol, I know I’m crazy.
So there you go. Kaitlyn is now 2. How crazy is that!

Happy Thanksgivin!

It’s a little late, but oh well. We had a very good Thanksgiving this year. Ryan told me way in advance that we weren’t going to be able to go home for Thanksgiving. As it got closer and closer I got more and more bummed. I’m just not ready to do the holidays on our own yet. Well Ryan’s dad was flying in from the Philipines (he’s been gone for 6 months) the day before Thanksgiving, so I thought it would be great to go and surprise him! Well Ryan couldn’t argue with that, and every thing worked out at work so we were able to go to Texas!! Yea! Why hadn’t you heard about this before? I usually post if I’m going to Texas. Well we decided to surprise EVERYONE for Thanksgiving. The only 2 who knew were my mom and Ryan’s sister Katrina (because she was coming from out of town). We left Tuesday evening and drove all night to get to Texas in the morning. We drove through Des Monies and stopped at COURTNEY’S to take a short rest and visit. (Sorry all you Des Moinians, we would have loved to have stopped at every ones houses! But we couldn’t) We went to my mom’s first. It was about 7 or 8 in the morning and we just walked up and rang the doorbell. My Dad answered and he just stood there shocked for a minute then said, give me my grandbabies with a huge grin. Then Jace came out to met us and Jessica came racing down the stairs. It was so cute. We got to go up and wake up Kurtis and Tiara who were both excited to see us. I can’t believe mom was able to keep it a secret from everyone, but she did. Good job Mom! Ryan and I went to bed while the girls stayed up and played with Grandma and their aunts and uncles. Later I heard quite a few Kaitlyn stories from while we were sleeping. She was making up for all those hours in the car by…lets call it exploring. She was into EVERYTHING. Good thing mom and dad were sleeping. :) Mom D (Ryan’s mom) left to go pick up Ryan’s dad around 3 and we went to the house soon after she left. Ryan’s brother Shawn was home and saw us before we could even get out of the car. He came running out of the house and practically tackled Ryan. Then Ryan went and hid the car while we waited for Mom D to get back. While we were waiting Shawn called Mindy (Ryan’s sister) and came up with a reason for them to come over. We waited in the door way until they came in. Mindy was very surprised too. Collin and Cameron (Mindy’s boys) were very excited to see their cousins., Austin too- he’s the baby. They had fun playing until Grandma and Grandpa got home. Grandma’s reaction was THE BEST!!! I got all the family members reactions on video tape, but hers was definitely the best. She Screamed, she was so excited, and then Emily started to cry. It was hilarious! I might send it into Americas Funniest Home Videos. I’m gonna have Ryan put it up on our blog. After that we went out to eat and meet Katrina and her husband there. And finally after dinner we went back to my parents to surprise Julia (my sister) who had arrived while we were gone. Unfortunetly she had already found out. It’s so hard for young girls to keep such a big secret, they did try though. Julia tells about it HERE. The rest of the weekend was filled with yummy food, family, black Friday shopping (wahoo!) and great fun. It went by WAY to fast. I wasn’t ready to leave when it was time to go, at least I knew we’d be going back for Christmas. I didn’t get very many pictures, but I did get these. This is Emily and Kaitlyn with their Aunts (my sisters) Tiara and Jessica.




I want to apologize to all my friends in Texas, we would have loved to visit everyone, maybe set up a party or something, but we didn’t want to spoil the surprise. I will get something together for Christmas. I want to see everyone’s babies and bellies!
On the way home we were very blessed. We stopped in Des Moines again to stretch our legs and visit Sarah and her family, so we just missed a HUGE accident outside of Debuke. We saw it on the news the next day and there was a mother of 3 who didn’t make it. So thanks to the Hastings (and everyone else, who I know would have loved to have us stop in!) for letting us relax for a few minutes and helping Heavenly Father keep our family safe. We did however have to sit in the traffic and after 45 min of not moving we turned around and found another way home. We didn’t get in until 1 am, I felt so bad for Ryan who had to go to work the next day.
That was our Thanksgiving, how was yours?

Bunch of random thoughts

Guess what I just found out about! Google reader, it is so cool. If you don’t already know it’s a site that checks all your friends’ blogs for you and tells you which have new posts. It’s FREE and really nice. It has already saved me a ton of time. Lol, maybe now I’ll actually put new posts up, instead of just looking at everyone’s site. Maybe, we’ll see.

So, I wanted to post about my anniversary. Ryan and I have been married for 3 years now. So crazy, it seems like much longer and much shorter at the same time. We have been there for each other through a lot all ready; moving to Iowa, what we affectionately call my CRAZY days (I was on the pill, I will NEVER do that again!), three years of law school, which included, getting engaged, getting married, getting pregnant (way better than being on the pill!) having a baby out of state on vacation (surprise! Here come Kaitlyn!) Ryan having to fly back to Iowa for finals (and missing 2 weeks of his newborns life, that sucked!), getting pregnant again (yea), having a baby (Ah, Emily always so calm, just like the delivery) me being in and out of the hospital like 6 times in 3 months (I think I was WAY over stressed among other things) then having a baby blessing and graduation (yea! Good job babe!) and getting ready to move to Wisconsin all at once, moving to Wisconsin, Ryan taking the bar, Ryan passing the bar (YEA!!!), and Ryan starting to work for real (yea!), and now looking for our first house. It’s been a busy, crazy, wonderful 3 years. I love my husband so much! I couldn’t have done it with anyone else.
Ryan you are my rock. You’re amazing, funny, a great husband and father, incredibly good looking, have a strong and wonderful testimony, and protect and take care of me and the girls so well. I love you so much.
So our anniversary was October 16. We actually got to go on a date!!!! Yes! That is a rare occurrence for us. Ryan got off work really early, so he came home and spent the afternoon with me and the girls. Then we all went out to dinner together at a really yummy Chinese place in town, then we came home and got ready for our date. The girls stayed home with a babysitter and we went to a movie and then went shopping together. We almost had the entire theatre to ourselves. Two other people came in just after the movie started, I was a little bummed, but decided we could share. Darn it. Lol, just kidding. We both really had a nice time. It was great to go out and spend time with my family and then get alone time with my husband. It was a great anniversary.

Well lots has been going on. Here’s some more fun happenings at the Dalton home! Emily is officially sitting now. She is so cute and growing up so quickly! She wants to crawl so badly! I wouldn’t be surprised if she did it before Thanksgiving. So a while ago Kaitlyn had an …um, lets go with adventurous day. When I went to get her out of bed that morning she handed me her poop. What is it with this kid and poop? I don’t know. So I had a wonderful mess to clean up. Then later in the day I was in the living room and Kaitlyn was in her bed room playing, I thought. All of a sudden I heard the sond of the toilet seat opening and hitting the back of the seat. Normally we keep that door closed, well for this reason! So I heard that and thought, oh crap, and ran as fast as I could. This is what I found:



She was so proud of herself too. I barely got her in her room and the door shut before I burst into laughter! An entire box of tampons in the toilet, who would have thought that. Lol, gotta love kids. I’m just glad it was something I’m not really attached too. If it had been a Stephanie Meyer book getting wet again, I would have lost my lid! Oh, the adventures of my Kaitlyn. She certainly keeps me on my toes. So I recently rearranged the girls room, and when I did we found something pretty cool in there.




Yes that is a light switch with in Kaitlyns reach. I don’t think I could have bought her a cooler toy. She loves that she can turn the light on and off whenever she wants. Even if that’s during an Emily diaper change. Oh well, if it keeps her entertained and is safe, why not.

For this one you have to know my sister Julia. She is awesome. Her and I are actually just like Kaitlyn and Emily. We are the two oldest in our family and we are spaced the same apart, 16 months. I’m the older one. Anyway, growing up we have always teased Julia about her booty. We got this adorable picture of Emily. And I have to say, Aunt Julia, I think you have some competion!



Latley Ryan’s been stnding Em up and shaking her booty while singing I’ve got an Aunt Julia booty, Aunt Julia booty, Aunt Julia booty. It’s so cute and funny! We love you Julia!
Julia is also a really good cheerleader (well maybe not at the moment. I don’t think you can do a back flip while pregnant!) so I was playing with Kaitlyn and started teaching her how to do the cheer lift (sorry Jules, I don’t know what it’s really called). Kaitlyn loves it and she looks like a cute little cheerleader. I guess both girls are going to get something from their Aunt Julia.

P.S. Happy Birthday to both my sisters Julia and Mindy who had birthday's last week. We love and miss you both!

More Fall activities

We went to Vesperman farms a few weekends ago with the playgroup I go to. The playgroup is though the city so they have lots of fun activities. It was on a Saturday so Ryan got to come to. There was pumpkin carving, a hay ride (without the hay), a pumpkin patch, animals, corn maze, making scarecrows, and roasting hot dogs. We didn’t’ do all the activities, but we had a nice time. Kaitlyn loved being outside and especially the animals. Some of the kids there started feeding a lama grass. It was pretty fun to watch. Ryan was so excited to be right there with the animals too. When we retire, I think he would love to live on a farm or a ranch. He just loves animals so much, and so does Kaitlyn. Here’s Kaitlyn helping Dad feed the Lama. She really wanted to, but got scared. Eventually she did it and then loved it and didn’t want to stop. It was so cute.




And this animal has four horns! I thought it was pretty crazy.



Kaitlyn



Emily, she was not very excited about this.



Our family on the “hay” ride



Kaitlyn loved it, especially when a Dog came up and ran next to us



The girls and I with a pumpkin. I was pretty disappointed with the pumpkin patch. It was just pumpkins thrown on the ground, and most of them were gross. We ended up not getting one, because we already had some at home.



All in all it was a nice time. Great to get out of the house and be outside with the family.

Grandma Dalton sent a Halloween package and inside was this cute Halloween outfit for Emily.



We love getting packages in the mail! We just got another package from Grandma D. Grandpa D is in the Philipines for work right now, and Grandma D went there to spend time with him. They sent all sorts of fun stuff from there. I got an AWESOME salad bowl set. They are each individually made out of wood and they are gorgeous! We miss you Grandpa D. and are so excited you’ll be back when we come home for Christmas! Yay! My mom also sent us a pakage. Kaitlyn got a new blanket and one we left when we visited, but her favorite was two cute little dolls that were in there, and of course the Yogos! Mom sent me some books to read too. I love to read.

The girls and I got to do lots of things for Halloween this year. It’s just so much more fun with kids. On Friday I got their costumes out and tried them on them to make sure they fit, and then decided to run up to Ryan’s work to visit him and show off our beautiful daughters. All the girls in our office just love our girls. They love it when we visit, infact when they do special lunches at the office they invite the girls and I to come along too. We’ve been very blessed to have Ryan work at this firm. On Tuesday we went to playgroup and got to go dressed up there too. They had lots of fun Halloween treats that people brought in. It was lots of fun. Then on Wednesday we had Library time and the girls got dressed up again. And then finally Wednesday evening we went trick or treating. I almost missed it because where I grew up you don’t start until about 6 or 6:30. When Ryan got home from work at 5, he asked aren’t we going trick or treating tonight? I said yeah, probably in an hour or so. I had just put dinner in the oven and wanted to eat first. Well Ryan told me all the trick or treaters were already out. Infact most are done by 6:30! Good thing he came home! We quickly got the girls dressed and reaced outside. Kaitlyn LOVED it. How cool is it that people just give you candy! I think she remembered the easter egg hunt (we used the same bag that night) so when she saw the bag and the candy, she knew it was going to be a very fun night! We just went around our block, but still got a good a mount of candy. Ryan would have loved to go to all the houses, but Emily was getting cold so we called it a night. Here are the girls dressed up. This was before Library time, wich was good because after trick or treating Kaitlyn’s cow was covered in candy!






And the girls with Dad at the office



Kaitlyn loved her cow. If you pushed the nose on her tummy it mooed. Great. She loved it so much she insisted on wearing it on Thursday too. After that it was COVERED in food, so I hid it in the laundry. I hope it all comes out. I was pretty proud of myself, our costumes cost nothing this year. I bought Kaitlyns at a garage sale before she was born, and Emily’s was from a baby shower that my dads work gave him for her. She was an Elmo Cheerleader. I love the irony that we live in the Cow state, and I bought a cow costume before we even thought of comming here.
We live near the fire station, so we stopped there, and they passed out glow in the dark necklaces! Kaitlyn loved hers. This was her playing with it in the house.

I've been tagged (a few times)

Four Things about me. This is just for fun

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Cinemark movie theaters –mostly in studio eats, the little café inside
2. Dominoes- for a whole 3 days
3. Primrose daycare and private school, and one in Des Moines. Both times working with 6 weeks up to 1st grade
4. Pasar- afterschool program for the Plano School district, working with k-5

Four places or more I have lived:
1. Lima, Peru
2. Quito, Ecuador
3. Seville, Spain
4. Mexico City, Mexico
5. Rexburg, ID
6. CAmpinas, Brazil (and I had three areas that I lived in on my mission do those count?) :)
7. Provo, UT
8. Des Moines, IA (that I miss so much)
Ha Ha, I wish. That was my friend Lisa’s list. Here’s me:
1. Logan Utah –born-4 and for a year of college
2. Plano Texas (Dallas area) 4-20 minus one year in utah
3. Des Moines Iowa – for 3 years of law school
4. Lancaster Wisconsin- current resident

Four Places I have been on vacation:
1. Utah
2. Nauvoo Illinois
3. Florida, honey moon
4. Minnesoda- twin cities, got to see the mall of America!

Four of my favorite foods:
1. dessert, I’m really liking pies right now
2. pumpkin, pretty much anything pumpkin
3. carbs: bread, noodles ect.
4. pretty much anything I didn’t have to make

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Anywhere but my messy house (that is how I feel most of the time)
2. Texas
3. Des Moines
4. someplace warm with a beach, and a full time on call babysitter and Ryan on vacation, no work

Four things you would have changed about your wedding day:
1. Better photographer, my guy left us and went and shot another bride! And he did cooler locations with her, just following her around snaping pictures, and he left the reception early.
2. RELAXED and dances more. Our line was forever long, I didn’t even get any food or the special drink I had my Grandmother send up
3. Found a video photographer
4. Had a separate day for Bridals

Four baby names you love (boy or girl)
1. Logan Daniel
2. Parker (Ryan doesn’t like this one cause it’s the name of the town my parents live in, but that’s not why I like it)
And I’m not sure for girl names, I already have 2 great ones
3. Emily Elaine
4. Kailtlyn Fe’ (pronounced Fay, it’s Portuguese for faith)

I LOVE looking at all the cute pictures of fall activities. Everyone’s kids look so cute! I’m WAY behind on blogging. Aren’t I always? Oh well. Life here is crazy one day and mind numbingly boring the next, such is the life of a mom. We are doing well though. We’ve started looking at houses and that is really exciting/stressful. I love looking at the houses and seeing the different floor plans and ways to decorating and thinking about the different things I could do to improve the house. Or, I guesss I should say the long list of things I could give Ryan to do to fix the house. He keeps telling me to give him projects, one of these days he’s really going to regret it! Lol, oh well. It’s also frustrating because our price range and what I want are a little different. Go figure, the more expensive houses are prettier. There are a lot in the reange we want to spend, but most need a lot of work and don’t have room to grow. We plan on having lots of children, so having room to grow is important to me. Even if it’s not finished yet, I don’t care. Well I could go on and on about houses. I just feel bad for our poor realator, she didn’t know what she was getting in to when we walked into her office. Oh well. I’m going to post a bunch of pictures from this month (wish me luck! I hope the my internet will coroperate!) and quick explanations, hopefully you’ll get an idea of life in Lancaster from the last month.
My brother Andrew, that just left for his mission let us borrow his Guitar hero game while he’s gone. Ryan was SOOO excited. For the first week or so he’d play on his lunch break. He almost always comes home for lunch, (which I LOVE!) so he’d play a little bit and then go back to work. To funny. I even played a few times, Ryan is way better though. Well Kaitlyn thought it was supper cool and wanted so bad to play too. My favorite was she would stand next to dad and dance with him. So cute! Here’s her looking supper cool!




Kaitlyn loves to help out. Sometimes she really is a big helper and other times… She loves to help put away the dishes (so cute!) but doesn’t understand when I’m loading that I don’t want her to unload. She likes to help put the laundry into the dryer and close the lid, often before I’m ready. Lol, she’s great though. Her favorite is to help with Emily. As soon as she hears Emily I hear her, Emily! Emily, bottle. That poor girl doesn’t even have a chance to get hungry. Kaitlyn just loves to feed her. And she gets really mad if I don’t let her feed Emily her baby food. She does a pretty good job, just have to make sure she doesn’t shove the spoon in to far! Here’s Kaitlyn helping feed Em



For FHE at the beginning of the month we carved and painted pumpkins. Kaitlyn LOVED the painting part. She looks like a real artist. She was very serious about her work. I loved it!





She was very sad when it was time to come in. She did not want to put her pumpkin on the porch. Here’s the finished product, our pumpkins on the porch.



I finally go Kaitlyn’s hair up into pig tails, I was pretty excited! She officially no longer bald! Unfortunately Em is losing all her hair now. They’re switching places.




More to come soon, I hope!