trick or treat...

what a wonderful halloween! It was very low key, and not very eventful, which made it wonderful. Like I said in my post before, Jake has been very busy, and Ashlyn and I haven't taken the time to do much without him.

So all we ended up doing to celebrate was attend our ward party, and watch some spooky movies. Our ward party started out with a bang - one of the haunted rooms had a smoke machine... ended up setting off the smoke detectors and the fire department came and crashed the party for a while.

Ashlyn had a wonderful time. She enjoyed the corn bread and chili dinner (without the chili), the children's parade, and the trick or treating... except for the scary dark rooms... we avoided those...

I think my little miss schmutz has already forgotten about the little bag of candy she has collected, since she hasn't asked for any of it so far today. I am just as glad that we didn't go out trick-or-treating... it has been nice and warm celebrating all indoors this year!

Happy Halloween!

We hope everyone is having a wonderful halloween holiday! Jake's midterms are next week... so that has cut down on our festivities; and since halloween is on sunday, the only thing we are doing to celebrate is going to our ward's halloween party tonight.

But, to help get us into the halloween spirit, the Little Miss and I made pumpkin cookies today. Ashlyn is becoming such a good little cook. She would much rather eat the dough than eat the cookies after they've been cooked... I wonder where she gets that from?

And, while I am not watching, my dear little miss will try to come up with her own recipes.

But, hopefully the party will be fun tonight, and Ashlyn will have a memorable halloween experience.. mom will have a relaxful night.. and dad will get enough studying in (since, there is no thing as too much studying)

Aren't ducks suppose to fly south for winter?

Not when you have the sweet set up these ducks have! No worry for food.. there are always a half dozen little tots running around throwing bread.

This is a fun little pond to go to. There are always lots of hungry ducks to feed. My little miss schmutz had a lot of fun throwing the bread into the water and watching the ducks fight over it.

We brought a lot of bread, but Ashlyn was very content to stand there, break the bread up, and throw it to the ducks for over an hour. It was a great morning to just relax and soak up the sun.

To Little Miss Schmutz' Grandparents...

She's still as cute as ever!

Here she is singing the ABC song to her babydoll after her bath. She was so gentle and kind to her baby. Even after we were all done getting ready, Ashlyn still remembered to put her baby to bed. She is such a sweet little girl, and loves to be kind and nurturing to anyone, or thing, smaller than she is.

We're Back!

We are alive! And doing quite well. I haven't had much to blog about lately, but have, finally, taken some new pictures since we've gotten back.

We definately can tell we are back in Washington! It has been off and on again rain, clouds and sunshine ever since we have gotten back. So, on the sunshiny days (usually afternoons) we try to head out doors as much as possible, and have already visited our favorite park quite a few times.

These pictures were taken after a fun (and successful) mall shopping trip with Amber! We headed over to the park for a little while before the girls had to leave. I was hoping to get some cute pictures of the three girls together, but they decided to play "the game".. in which.. you run away, and scream, every time you see a "mom" with a camera out of the bag.

Its so funny to watch, but does make getting a picture difficult.

We are so happy to be back! Things are going a little more smooth this time around, and it does help that we know a little bit better how things are suppose to be going.

Our little miss has blossomed so much this past summer. She is happy to be back in her nursery, and goes without a problem (which is wonderful since she would not go AT ALL in utah).


She also has picked up the ABC song, and will burst out singing it when-ever and where-ever she pleases. It is too cute.


We miss everyone in utah.. Ashlyn still asks to go find everyone.. but has started to understand that they are all very far away. Hopefully we can come back soon! But just know that we are enjoying Washington, and happy to be here!