I love a cute little town

I really love quaint unique places. San Juan Capistrano is just that. Little houses turned shops cute restaurants and even a petting zoo. We had a great time there.



Kira truly almost smuggled this thing home in her purse.
This about sums up my life.
Deacon and a goat about his size.
Curt picked a guinea pig to match his outfit.
Deacon was in heaven petting all the animals.
Kira kept showing up with new crazy creatures.
Me and a couple goats.
Deacon would just demand which one he wanted to hold.


All in all a great little town and a great time.

This is Halloween

This is the Halloween that never ends! I am ok with that because we have had a lot of fun. Deacon was very into wearing his costume and growling. We did lots of fun things. Safe to say Deacon had a excellent halloween. Deacon and Will were trying to make baby Van happy, I think he mostly just wanted to bust out of his tight costume.

I think this picture speaks for itself. My apologies to Darrin Shaw for having to take this picture of my spandex butt up close and personal.

Deacon and his preschool teacher Miss Dana. He loves her. She is awesome and he is love love loving preschool, hurray!

And my favorite picture of the moment is the one. I can not handle how adorable he is. I told him his face painting was amazing and he said "NO! It's awesome!"

And I will leave you with this awesome photo of these glasses he got at preschool, perfect.

Guilt wiped away with some cookies

Maybe other moms do not have a problem with this but I do. I have set all sorts of expectations that no one cares about except me. For some reason I felt like I had to get or make just the right costume for Halloween for Deacon. I do have fun picking them out and I am sure next year he will want to be something completely opposite of what I think is clever or cute. This year was stressing me out. Today I was by myself and decided to run to Old Navy just to see what they had. A couple weeks ago at this 5K Deacon got his face painted and loved it. I saw this tiger costume and got a great face painting idea. I bought it brought it home and Deacon was in Heaven.
We spent the evening growling practicing trick or treating and most importantly making Halloween cookies. I let Deacon get right into it rolling out the dough and using the cookie cutters. And best of all he did it all in his $10 costume.

He was so happy and kept saying " I wanna do another project" All the while singing songs from The nightmare before Christmas.

The frosting was another highlight for him. And he especially loved the "sprinklers" or sprinkles.

The moral of this Looooong story is that sometimes I need to cut myself some slack and make some cookies. It sure made me happy to see him run wild in his costume and beg to wear it to bed. Happy Halloween!

Youth Conference 2010

The whole Gang, I was not super stoked about being responsible for these girls on the side of a huge mountain.
This prank the girls played the last night was hilarious. Just picture all these glow sticks in the pitch dark doing the robot, pretty good.
Daren thought we did not make enough BBQ beef, we showed him by making him eat all the leftovers out of Dave's Bare hands.
The goofy face picture.
Me and Chrissy. Love her.
Snowbird was so beautiful, the location could not have been more perfect.
This was a team game that made for some excellent pictures.
Can you believe I hike up that whole huge mountain? Whew!
Thank heavens for Lindsay who blew up this air mattress not once but Twice (after I left the cap open whoops!) for us to sleep on. Love her.
I conquered my fear of falling to my death of a ski lift.
I made sure to document my near death experience.
The YW who were there on top of the mountain.
Us on the tram on the way up. Talk about claustrophobia. I guess I have something with heights.

Youth conference was so awesome, I went in thinking I would have some fun but it was SO FUN. We camped up above snowbird and it was beautiful. We shared a campsite with a mom and baby moose (thought my Grandpa Orme would like to hear that!) and tons of wild flowers and flowing streams. It was the perfect setting. One night at 11:00 pm we hiked to Cecret lake and it is now one of my favorite things I have done, ever. I was so proud of all the kids that were able to come, they were so great. I loved staying up waaaaay to late every night with Chrissy Lindsay and Mary (I missed you Holly!) I am lucky to serve with people I enjoy so much.

The Cabin

Isaac and Grandma with the kids at Big springs.
I love this picture because it really depicts the dynamic between Deacon and Will. Will adores Deacon and thinks he is so funny, look at him laughing at whatever nonsense Deacon is up to.
Speaking of Will, he is at the best age, so funny and cute and usually always in a good mood.
The kids playing and eating some grapes.
Deacon at Big springs.
This is my favorite hour I spent at the cabin. It was a huge rainstorm and The kids all cuddles up to me and Deacon falls asleep, that never happens.
This also never happens, Isaac and I sitting next to each other at meal time. It is a long standing tradition that we sit miles away from each other at meals, we broke barriers that weekend.
This is at the paint pots, which for the record are not awesome.
The kids getting a little impatient waiting for Old Faithful.
One morning I went running and Deacon was sad when Lesley and Amelia told him where I went and he kept saying " I wanna go for a run!" So for the rest of the weekend I would take him outside for a run. He would walk for a minute and then say to me "Lets go for a run!" run for thirty seconds and then say " I a good runner! Lets walk today. We can run amorrow." Pretty cute.


A highlight of my summers is visiting our family cabin in Idaho. Pulling in to the dirt road always makes me happy. This trip to the cabin was even better because the Scots came! It was a mad house jam packed with fun. I was so glad I got to go and had so much fun laughing and hanging out with my family. Especially loves almost making Amelia pee her pants from laughing so hard.

Bon voyage!

Is it just me or does everything in my life revolve around cupcakes? I guess that is not such a bad thing! My mom had a little party for my brother Walker tonight since he leaves this week for China to study mandarin for five months. So excited for him! My cute niece Bailey helped me make some cupcakes for the occasion, we thought the Chinese flags were a nice touch. Seems like we are always seeing you off Walker- have a great time!