RIP

So.. Amy neglected to post our most exciting news. Natalie is officially off the binky/pacifier. We had been talking about it and then one night last week I was studying late at school and I got a text from Amy saying she took away the binky. Natalie only cried for 5 minutes and then went to bed. The following times she went to bed she only asked for it, but didn't cry. We were expecting a lot harsher transition, but Natalie proved she is even more perfect. Personally, if she would have cried I would have given her binky back in a heartbeat Luckily Amy is the enforcer. Natalie keeps growing up it sucks!

Catching Up

We were very excited to get to St. George for the break expecting nice warm weather, but instead we were greeted by cold snowy, that's right it snowed on Christmas Even in St. George, weather. Natalie was already for it though with her cute hat.

Natalie got pink cowboy boots from my grandma, as you can tell she loved them and wouldn't take them off, she even wanted to wear them with her pajamas!

On Christmas Eve my family has a program where we sing songs, act out the Nativity and have fun. Natalie enjoyed the piano the most as you can tell. She is playing it with Grandpa above and with her cousin Josh below.

With a little prompting Natalie agreed to do her part of the program, act out the Primary Song, Once There was a Snowman, this is her melting.

Right before the night's festivities we had dinner and Natalie insisted on having all of the cups she could find, crazy girl. After we spent a week with my family in St. George and did lots of fun things, like riding horses (apparently our camera did not make it to that event) and we also got to go to the park, on the one nice weather day while we were there to play tennis and Natalie loved the slides we went up to visit Patrick's family in American Fork. The highlight of the trip for Patrick was skiing almost every day we were there. I went with him one day, we had a great trip.

Lynsey, Patrick's sister, and his Dad eating lunch during our ski break.

Patrick and I at the top of the mountain waiting to go down. While we were skiing the weather got progressively worse throughout the day, this picture is right before lunch as the sky grew darker. It got windy, but overall it was a fun, adventerous day, Natalie got to stay with Grandma and eat her favorite Cafe Rio quesadilla for lunch.

Sorry a little out of order, but this is us before we started skiing for the day.

The sweater Natalie is wearing in this picture has a funny story behind it. Patrick's sister Lynsey gave it to her over the break, the funny thing is that it was hers, she bought it at Banana Republic and accidentally dried it, the sweater shrunk enough to fit Natalie, crazy huh? Well the moral of the story is, if the sweater says don't dry it, DON'T, but we love the sweater, thanks Aunt Lynsey.

The apron Natalie is wearing came from my sister Nicole, doesn't Natalie look cute? She is so helpful in the kitchen these days and loves to cook.

Sorry this post is kind of all over the place, and more pictures to come, I can't figure out what happened to the ones of Natalie opening her kitchen and I also have some from Christmas morning, sorry it has been so long since we posted, we will try to be better.

Miller Brewery Lights

So we decided we wanted to see some holiday lights, and we found out the Miller Brewery has weekend tours of the factory that include a light show. It was pretty cool, plus we got free lemonade. I got a sweet polo that has a miller light logo on it in a raffle, I will be wearing it often let me tell you. Patrick got an insulated sleeve to keep his cans cold. It was actually pretty cool, recommended for all of you that live in Milwaukee. I would say the show is about ten minutes long, and I think they said it has over 200,000 lights. Anyway, way cool, pictures of us freezing will be uploaded later, this video is taking way too long to upload. I am going to bed.

Fall: Not the Season

Natalie has developed a huge obsession with the word FALL. She won't go down the stairs because of "fall." If we are holding her wrong she yells "fall." Anything that she pushes off the table she yells "fall" as she is pushing it off. Fall, fall, fall she won't stop, seriously stop on by you will here it at least once a minute. I have been trying to teach her the word truck, for obvious reasons jk. Well here are some pictures of 10% of our recent adventures; more to follow of Diana and Lynsey's visit and thanksgiving.

This is Natalie unfolding all of our laundry because she lost a toy and was stressed about finding it.
This is Natalie and I on the Milwaukee River Walk, more pictures later on.

Natalie loves her hot chocolate, so much that she dumped the whole thing on amy seconds later. I laughed my head off, but Amy was mortified. She claims it was her first time being embarrassed in public by Natalie. Personally, making it 19 months without an public embarrassment is nothing to complain about.
Natalie and Amy in a phone booth on the river walk, apparently it smelled of urine. Notice they shut the door, must have liked the smell?
Amester and Natalie on a bridge.
Natalie
For all you older people who read our blog, I bet you can't guess who that is? It is a Bronze Fonze, I personally don't know who he is, but if it were up to me a statue of Homer would have been in place of Fonze.
Natalie is petrified by him, she does not like the fonze.

Natalie and I with a cool little tug boat in the back ground on the river walk.
Natalie has this obsession with cleaning out her toes whenever we take off her socks. At least she will always have clean feet.
Here is the leaf plow for all those who thought I was lying, it does exist.
We took Natalie to the Children's museum here, and Natalie loved all the golf balls that they have there. Basically everything they have there runs off golf balls, so those of you who know Natalie well she had the time of her life.
Natalie at the Chicago temple, we were able to go down after tests. Amy and I switched off going in it was great fun. Except I forgot that the state of Illinois makes you pay tolls the second you enter Illinois. Amy and I NEVER carry cash, but we were able to scramble up enough for the first toll, but I had to run the second because no cash. They let you pay online within 7 days of missed toll so that was good.

Natalie still loves her rootbeer for those of you who were wondering. It is snowing like crazy today, wish I could go skiing.

Halloween! Monkey style

Fall is here



There are millions of trees here in Milwaukee, our streets are lined with trees. To collect the leaves here all you have to do is rake them into the road and they have a snow plow looking thing that drives through the streets shoveling away the leaves.

This is just the beginning of the leaf drop our trees are still loaded with leaves. Regardless, Natalie loves playing in them, and throwing them in the air.

This is our sweetheart Natalie in her monkey costume, she loves it. We wanted to get her a butterfly outfit but she wouldn't have it. When we tried it on her she sat there looking at herself in the mirror and laughing. She, however, will not wear the monkey hood that goes with it.
She also loves pumpkins.

Trick o' treating here is kind of weird. Each city has certain hours of the day that they can trick o' treat and they were all on Sunday afternoon and they only last three hours. You also have to register your kid to trick o' treat, and pay. Messed up I know. Luckily the med school does a trick o' treat and Natalie loved it.

This is Natalie and Patrick walking through the portion of the medical school that looked like Candyland, everyone was dressed accordingly it was way cute.

Natalie only allowed candy in her bucket, some lady put some halloween stickers in her bucket and she promptly took them out and said "no" to the lady. Geez, to all of you who don't know you only give candy on halloween, Natalie even knows that.

Natalie loves stealing her dad's ping-pong balls that he has in his backpack, if she doesn't have enough hands she'll just stuff them in her mouth.
Natalie on our front porch with her pumpkins.

Natalie throwing rocks into a stream at a park near our house.

Oh and for all of you in places other than Wisconsin, I hope you are enjoying the cold weather. Here it is in the high 60's sunny and beautiful, and everyone told me it was going to be cold in Wisconsin, please. St. george doesn't even have that so why would we move there?

Taking Wisconsin by Storm

My family was here this last week and it was so much fun.  We packed a lot of fun Wisconsinite activities into a week.  We also spent WAY too much time sitting around and letting Natalie get spoiled and be the center of attention, by the time she left I had no idea how I was going to be able to entertain her while she got used to normal life again.  I was relieved to find out that she adjusted rather quickly and is now back to normal and can entertain herself for awhile without asking me every minute for Ada, Daddy (grandpa) and mommy (Grandma).  We had so much fun while they were here and can't wait until we see them at Christmas.  Also I am horrible with pictures so even though we did a lot, we did not take pictures at every activity, so here are some of the fun things we did.

These next pictures are of the day my family had Natalie while I was at work.  She had a great time learning about the business that keeps Milwaukee afloat--Miller Brewery.  She loved the free pretzles at the end of the tour.  


We tired her out with lots of activities through the week and by Friday she was so tired she fell asleep during the tour of this cool old mansion right in downtown Milwaukee.  It is called the Pabst mansion, and it was beautiful, a great example of old town Milwaukee and the amazing architecture they have here.

After the exciting morning at the mansion I stayed home to try to get Natalie to take a nap while my family went hiking and experienced the beautiful wildlife and fall colors of Wisconsin.  Yes the following pictures is of wild turkeys roaming around the hiking trails. 

Saturday led us to explore a little further south of Milwaukee and get out of the city to explore the Jelly Belly factory, cheese stores and the outlet stores.  It was a fun-filled day with lots of free samples of Jelly Bellies, yum!

Sunday morning we went and showed my family Lake Michigan.  It was a windy day, as you can tell from Natalie cuddling with Grandpa on the rocks.  Also to add excitement to the day Natalie lost her shoe among the rocks on the lake, thanks to brave Uncle Adam we were able to get it back after he crawled between the rocks and got sprayed by the very cold water.  Adam to the rescue again.


  We did many other things the week my family was there including seeing the Medical College and hositals, watch BYU lose in the student lounge at the college (we don't get the games at home), tour Sprecher's rootbeer factory, and go to the park (a lot).  Patrick also survived his crazy test week and we were glad when the weekend came and he got to have fun exploring Wisconsin with us.