Halloween!

Our halloween fun started with pumpkin carving. Cooper got a paw, I got an M for Mizzou, and Brandon's pumpkin rotted, so he didn't get anything except for a smelly pumpkin! I asked Brandon to draw the M on my pumpkin before carving it and he got to work, only when he showed it to me, it was a Y! Ew. I told him to fix it, and he put a B and a U on there! Finally he just carved the M free hand but you could still see the other letters on there a little. Brat.


And these are the owl cupcakes that I made for my secretaries and custodians at school. They were fun to make and they were super cute!

Nik and Katie brought the kiddos down and they were so adorable! As you can see, they were the gang from the Wizard of Oz, and it was perfect for them! They went to our church's trunk or treat and they had the best costumes, by far! Then we went out and went trick or treating in a nearby neighborhood and the kids scored some good treats!





Oh, I was Hermione Granger and I even dyed my hair for the part! I had my friend Becca help me and it turned out great. The box was not the most accurate so it came out more red than brown, but I like it still! Then I made Bran dress as Ron Weasley again, but he wasn't feeling well (we've both been sick, but he's got the worst of it) so he didn't feel like playing the part all that much.

St. George Trip

A couple weeks ago, we headed down to St. George to meet up with Bran's parents. We were only gone about 30 hours, but it was a good trip. Above is the St. George temple, where Brandon's parents were married.

Before we hit St. George, we stopped off at Aunt Kelley's house. She's got a cool little farm and orchard! This is the view from her front yard.







Squirrel!

This is her horse, I can't remember her name, but I got to ride her! Without a saddle and without reins!


They have 3 cows and they really wanted to get close, they probably thought I had food.


And chickens and chicks too. I got to pet this one!

Here's my horse ride...it was really tough with no saddle and nothing to hold onto except the horse's hair!

The horse was eating from the orchard and decided to walk through the trees with me on her back! I nearly fell off!


Feeding the horse was fun, she at a ton of apples!




And this mountain is called "Molly's Nipple" but I'm not sure why?!?! Poor Molly.

Birthdays and Home Improvement

For our birthdays this year, we kept it simple. Bran got Halo Reach and he got me 90 bulbs to plant in our garden. We went to Nickel City for his bday with some friends and I got a sweet wig. We had good cake and Brandon had a Halo party with his friends. Pretty low key, but we were satisfied.

Here's us at Nickel City with the awesome wig that I won.

We decided to go ahead and take control of our front garden. Technically, the HOA is supposed to take care of it, but they are just about the worst HOA on the planet and they don't do anything, so we took out the ugly bushes that used to be there (they were ugly, needed to be trimmed and covered our window) and we put in 2 little ones that we bought. Then we planted 87 of the bulbs in the front, covering the rest of the area. These are just pictures of what it looks like now, but it will be filled with pink, blue and white flowers in the spring!

Cooper updates

Well, our little boy is growing up so fast! He is almost 8 months old now and is nearly fully grown. He is mostly housebroken, but still has accidents. He got fixed on September 10th and had to wear a cone for 10 days! Most dogs hate their cones, but he grew to love his! When we took it off, he wanted it back!

He has a few best friends that he loves to play with when he gets a chance: Frank the black lab, Koa the blue heeler, and Bailey the little tiny Pomeranian/something else I can't remember mix. Bailey is a fourth of Cooper's size, but loves to be slobbered on by him! He also likes "Kitty" the outdoor cat that isn't afraid of Cooper. He has yet to get close enough to actually smell the cat though, but I think he is still trying to figure out what cats are exactly. Aside from playing with his friends, he loves to cuddle, eat ice cubes and peanut butter, take walks, chew on sticks and look out the windows.

Cooper also loves to eat and destroy anything he can. Recently, his accomplishments include: tearing up and eating part of a $10 bill, eating part of a mouse pad, eating and completely destroying our headphones, shattering Bri's glasses (they were plastic lenses), lots and lots of toilet paper (which is kind of funny sometimes), our remote buttons, Brandon's phone is in really bad shape, he ate his puppy teeth ( I had them on my dresser and he got up there and ate them), magazines, and I'm sure there are lots of others! It sounds like we don't watch him, but we do and he will grab something as fast as he can and run off with it! He is really fast and good at running around the couch to the point where it takes both of us to catch him!

Discipline is really tricky for us, well for me actually. Cooper is so good around Brandon...he just sleeps and relaxes all day because he feeds off of Bran's calm energy. And he listens to Brandon when he tells him to stop doing something. He just has to say "hey" and hold up a finger and Cooper stops immediately. When I'm around though, he is really hyper because he feeds off my "constantly on-the-go" energy. And when he is doing something he's not supposed to and I hold a finger up like Bran does, he jumps up to bite it! Totally different worlds!

Here he is post surgery. The day of his surgery he just laid around and was really sad, but then the next day, he was back to his normal self, just with a cone on his head!



And here is a little sweatshirt that I made for him from a sweatshirt I cut up. He seemed to enjoy it for a little while.