I absolutely adore my children. It took eight years, thousands of dollars in infertility treatments and tests, and the tremendous heartache of two miscarriages to get them here. I feel so lucky because I know there are many, many women who have gone through more than I have and don't even have two precious angels to show for it. But sometimes, just every once in awhile (actually, a lot more often now that Christian's two!), that proverb about being careful what you wish for comes to mind. :) On Sep. 17th, my little stinker got into my makeup bag! But at least he's a hard worker: he managed to coat his face, the bathroom floor, cabinet doors, bathtub and his baby potty in cover-up stick and liquid eyeliner in 5 minutes flat. He's so smart that he picked the two items that would be the most difficult to remove!

On the 19th, Christain and I got invited by my dad to attend "Real Men Can Cook" for lunch. It's a charity event, held at Ogden's Union Station, where men volunteer to cook up their best dish and you pay $10 to sample everything, with all the money going to the YCC Women's Center. It is so fun to try all the food and such a worthy fundraiser, I encourage everyone to get out to it next year! There was a bunch of my family there, and after the kids were done eating (they were so well behaved that day!), Jordan took Christain and his daughter Sierra out to play on the train they have on display. The kids obviously loved it!

On the way back to our car, Buddy wanted to see this "neigh" and struck such an interesting pose for the picture with it:

On Saturday, the 20th, we decided to try out the brand new Chuck E. Cheese that opened in Layton. First, we had some pizza, and then we started playing the games.

Christian loved one where a light goes around a wheel and you push a big button to stop it. If your light lands on certain spaces, you win tickets. As luck would have it, the first time he played he won 100 tickets!! I don't know if he understood about the winning part, but he sure loved watching it (<---) and pressing the button!

Faith's favorite was, of course, Deal or No Deal, but she and Buddy also loved this half virtual "bowling" game. It was too packed in there for me to get a good shot of it, but you bowl the ball into what looks kind of like a skee ball game, and then the top part is a computer screen which uses a censor to determine what your ball would do from about half the lane, on. Clear as mud? Anyway, it was fun!

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That evening, we thought we would have a quiet movie night and rest from our game playing and crowd dodging day. Tony, Faith and I watched Nim's Island while Christian quietly got into trouble and made a mess. When I got up to make popcorn about halfway through, I found that he had gotten all the pasta out of my lazy susan and had built this great tower. I also found the floor covered in little pasta bits because he had discovered that the box of fettucini was open and that it's super fun to break apart. By the end of the movie, he had unwrapped the multi packs of maccaroni and cheese and had laid out the individual boxes, plus the boxes from his now deconstructed tower, in a 20 foot long winding pathway down the entry hall. At least I got to watch a movie in peace!
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I must have forgotten to get my camera out for awhile because this next pic is from Oct. 3rd. I had just cleaned (Faith's Beta fish) Ed's bowl and Christian was having a ball watching him. He is usually kept on top of Faith's armoire and completely out of his reach because he likes to "feed" Ed crazy things like paper, little toys, food from our pantry, and everything else that he can find that will fit through the neck of the vase.

I actually started taking pictures that day because Christian had gotten out a little elastic band like the one he had seen me put in Faith's hair and wanted one in his, too. I obliged and gave him a tiny pony tail in the back. This was the cutest photo of the bunch, but it's a shame that you can't see his hairdo.

Last Saturday (the 4th), we took a drive up to Logan to see the pretty leaves for Conference weekend. It was raining, and the trees and mountains had an etherial beauty because of the low hanging clouds. Unfortunately, the rain also made it impossible to get a decent picture. We bought some delicious local raspberries from a truck on the side of the road, but Gossner Cheese Factory was out of cheese curd! The nerve!!

When we got back to town, we stopped at the Newgate Mall for some See's chocolate and to let the kids play on the squishy playland.

The kids had a great time, and I had a blast talking to my friend Kim, who just happened to be at the mall having a girls night with her daughter.

Christian was dying the whole time to ride the pay rides, so we finally let the kids do one at the end. I personally think that 50 cents for one minute of being shaken back and forth is totally rediculous!

Tina then called and asked us to stop by her house. She gave the kids and Tony Steeler ball caps that she had gotten from Fanzz warehouse sale for $1 each! She is so sweet to think of us!!! You can see that the kids are also enjoying their chocolate See's suckers in the car. It was a fun day!

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A messy playroom pic as an addition to my ongoing effort, "Keepin' it real":

On Sunday, the kids and I went over to my mom & dad's for the second session of conference and some delicious ham and funeral potatoes. Tony was out in the cold, bonding with his dad and nephew while hunting ducks and geese. Luckily, they didn't hit any :D

Since we were there awhile before the cousins showed up, Faith and Christian collected leaves in the front yard and Faith made this cute "fall leaf crown". Christian made "a huge mess with globs of Elmer's glue on a piece of paper and then threw a ginormous fit while wadding it up and throwing it on the floor when I tried to take it all away from him". See, he's just creative in a different way.

When the cousins arrived, Christian played cooking set with Lily and was so cute "feeding" her with the fork that Jordan asked for my camera to get a picture of it from his vantage point. How adorable!

Later, when we met up with Tony over at his parents', Christain got ahold of my camera. He got cute shots of Tammy

and Tony's dad,

but then the rest of us did what you're supposed to do when a two year old repeatedly takes your picture--make crazy faces!! Here's my wacky fish face,

Tony's "my eyeballs are burning from the flash!" face,

and Tony's mom's menacing toothy grin. I must say, Christian is getting pretty good with a camera!

Faith spent the evening with paper and markers creating this adorable little trick-or-treat bucket complete with paper candy (she's holding the "Smarties" in this picure). She, as I've mentioned before numerous times on this blog, is amazing at three-dimensional art!


Finally, I wanted to include this movie of the kids watching America's Funniest Home Videos. We were watching a montage segment featuring animals, and Faith, as usual, was providing extra commentary and sound effects. Christian was laughing so hard that we had to rewind it and watch it again. I finally got my camera on the third time through, so he wasn't laughing as hard, but still completely enjoying it.