School Days, School Days...

It's that time, folks. Morgan's preschool days have officially begun. She had a sneak preview over the summer with a couple months of the summer session, so she already knew her teachers. So, yesterday, she just walked right into the classroom. I got a picture in the car before school, but didn't get a picture at school until after class! Nonetheless, here's Morgan's first day of preschool.


In the car with her backpack (She asked me what was in it. I told her nothing, but she brought it anyway.)

Morgan in the classroom.

I'm going to have to work on Sadie's naptime now. She's trying to do just one nap a day, which is nice, but she wants it to be at about 10:45. Preschool gets out at 11:15, so Sadie didn't make it home yesterday. We'll keep working on it...

To Provo We Went

We spent the last few days in Provo, UT, visiting some old friends from our Wymount Days. We had a lot of fun. Overall, the trip went well, if we could just erase the last 45 minutes of it. Our flight back to Denver came in early, and instead of finding a different gate, we sat in the plane, on the tarmac, for 45 minutes. The pilots and flight attendants wouldn't let us leave our seats because "momentarily we will be arriving at the gate."
Needless to say, after we got off the plane, Morgan was overly excited to ride the train in the airport. Our walk from the plane to the Denver Airport train went something like this: Morgan on Daddy's shoulders, singing, quite loudly, but very cute--"I've Been Working On the Rail Road..." I am surprised that she knows all the words. She sang it completely through about 3 or 4 times.

Here are some pictures from our trip.

To start the trip, I dropped my glasses as I was packing.


So, Tyler and Brian helped me "fix" them for the weekend. (Don't worry. I ordered new glasses today and they'll be ready in a week.)
Morgan got to have a sleepover at Untel Tyler's house.Sadie joined the party, too.

Brian surprised me with roses for our anniversary. So sweet!

And, the girls made sure to get into everything that they shouldn't in Alie and Tyler's apartment--including the stereo and DVD player.

We had dinner with Brian's old roomie, Brent, and his wife, Nicole. Here's the view from their front lawn. (Sorry, it's a terrible picture)

Sadie and Hailey practiced their music...

...while the kids played with chalk...

...and the dads pulled out an old tree stump.

We barbecued with a bunch of old Wymount friends,

and the kids played in the yard. (Here's Kathryn and Juliana, or is it Juliana and Kathryn???)We took the kids to the Bean Museum on BYU campus and Morgan LOVED it! For anyone who hasn't taken their kids, it's FREE and very enjoyable.

Brian and the girls tracked down a cougar at the museum. (And, Morgan got a new BYU t-shirt. This one's pink!)

Sadie mastered the art of climbing stairs--up and down.

And, Morgan and Miles blew bubbles at the side of the house. (Funny story--all weekend, Morgan was trying to hold Miles' hand and he didn't want her to. I guess she finally settled on sitting next to him.)

We had a blast! Thanks, Nordstroms for letting us stay at your house! Thanks, Alex and Tyler for letting us borrow your car! Thanks for letting us visit, Guymons--I can't believe we forgot to take pictures! We will always have great memories of Provo...

Happy Anniversary!

I couldn't think of anything cute and creative do do for our anniversary, so I thought I'd share some of Brian's greater personal photography moments. He loves to hold the camera in front of us and snap a picture. While they never turn out great, I guess this is us!

Dating (May 2003)

Newly Married (Jan 2004)

BYU Graduation (April 2006)

When Morgan was born (June 2006)

Sometime in 2007

Someother time in 2008

And, the most recent, on a date mini golfing a couple weeks ago, 2009.

Brian, your cheesy smile may not have changed much over the years, but I love you--Forever and For Always. Happy 6th Anniversary!

2 BIG Milestones!!

Look who's walking! I didn't get to go to Sunday School OR Relief Society, but Sadie mastered walking in the hallway at church today! Pretty big girl! I'm so excited! Plus, maybe she won't eat off the floor anymore! (Yeah right, who am I kidding--this is Sadie. Would she ever turn down food?)

Here's a video to enjoy. And, yes. She really did just pick this up in a day. She took about 5 steps on Wednesday and hasn't again until today.

I promised 2 milestones, so, on a lesser note, here's the second. It's still pretty cool.

Brian's been anxiously awaiting the "big day" when the Pilot reached 100,000 miles. In fact, he did some geeky calculation/prediction about when it would happen. I made a guess last night and happened to be right on the money. Literally. My prediction was exact.

So, after I took the sitter home, I pulled into the garage last night, came in the house and told Brian that we'd hit 100,000 miles at church tomorrow. He asked why I thought that and I told him we had 8 miles to go and that's about the distance to church.

So, as luck would have it, here's when we pulled into the parking lot before church:
(Oh, and for those of you in AZ, TX, (all the hot places), that is the correct temperature at 12:45 p.m. A gorgeous 76!)

And, as luck would have it, here's what it was as we pulled out of the parking lot at 4:15 p.m. Oh, and also the correct temperature--not quite as nice, but still very tolerable. So, we were so, so, so, so, so close to hitting it on our way to church, but didn't get it until our way home!

(If Brian had had his way, we would have circled the parking lot a time or two before church and been a few minutes late. But, we were on time.)

This Morning's Tantrum...

...was all because Morgan didn't want Mommy to have any of these:

And, before 7:30 a.m., everyone within a one-mile radius got a lovely wake-up call--a 3-year old screaming at the top of her lungs: "No! Mommy can't have any blueberries! Nobody can have blueberries! They're my blueberries! I won't share!"

Hopefully, the closed windows and door to her bedroom muffled it a little bit. We haven't been chased out of the neighborhood yet.

Oh, and we all somehow managed to get blueberries on our pancakes this morning.

On the Phone

I just got this on video the other day and thought it was adorable. Morgan's been using her imagination to talk on the phone about her baby. My favorite part: "He's this (hold up fingers) months old." Translation: today, baby is 10 months old.

Enjoy!

Crash!

3-year olds, steep driveways, and 1-year olds in a stroller should never be combined.
Poor Sadie!

For Great Grandma Ginos

My grandma loves to send the singing Hallmark cards for special occasions. Morgan's built up quite the collection in her little library! Most recently, she sent one for my birthday. To say the girls both love it would be an understatement. Thanks so much, Grandma!

Here's what Sadie does when I open the card:

And then, when she actually gets the card:

And here's what happens when Morgan tries to take a turn and Sadie's not done yet:

It's a good thing we have several of these cards!

The Office

Last night, after the girls went to bed, we finally painted the second coat on the last wall to be painted in the office. It's only been 2 months, but the office is officially painted! Our home remodel project is D-O-N-E!! Yay! (However, pictures will have to wait, because I can't decide where I want the furniture, so all the decorations are on the floor, along with all the books for the bookcases. Definitely not deserving of a picture.)

Anyway, I have digressed. Back to the real reason for this post.

Morgan woke up this morning, anxious to see the new paint on the wall. Now, remember, it's the second coat, so to the untrained, 3-year old eye, it looks as though we did nothing. Nonetheless, she went into the room and exclaimed, "Oh! It looks beautiful!" With the biggest smile you've ever seen. I guess our paint job was professional enough for her approval.

Thanks, Morgan. You're adorable!

Look Who's Growing Up!

Over the weekend, Sadie decided to start using a fork for more than just banging on the table. Pretty impressive considering we haven't given her many opportunities to use silverware!


She also decided to start standing on her own. Her favorite place currently to stand up is in the bathtub. There are some cute pics, but for modesty reasons, they won't be shared. So, here she is standing on her own on the bed.

Way to go Sadie! Such a big girl!