Shooting

Morgan and I went shooting this afternoon for our weekly date. Oma said she would watch the kids and we went out in the very cold weather. I got to shoot an AR rifle. It was a lot fun, the rifle did not kickback very much, at all. I am not as good of an aim as Morgan is, but I still managed to hit most of my targets.

A Blog Post

I go to Facebook and people's blogs all of the time to see if they have updated anything. If I wrote an update for every time that I looked for news on someone else my blog would be huge. Today I decided to go ahead and write something new here. It is going to be more of a journal entry with random thoughts, rather than a specific post about one thing in particular.


1st. I am super proud of Morgan. He recently had an opinion given for a case he had at the Iowa Court of Appeals. The opinion that the judges gave us wonderful, they agreed with practically everything Morgan said and even quoted  him directly in the opinion. (That is a pretty big deal.)

This case also clarified a law that had no previous case work on it. Morgan got several phone calls from other attorneys throughout the state congratulating him and asking him how he was able to convince the judges. It makes me really proud to see that other people have seen his work and know that it is good.

He works so hard to provide for us and really wants to do his best for his clients. He is a wonderful husband and father and I definitely won the lottery when I married him.

I mentioned before that our old camera was broken on our wild ride down the bobsled ride in Park City. Well, after months of using our phone camera we finally worked up and bought a new camera.

I love it!

The big features that I wanted (and got) was an amazing zoom and panorma picture taking. I got a Sony because they fit that in my price range. I actually bought it off Amazon because they had the best deal for me out there.

Anyway, since I got the new camera I have gotten a little crazy taking pictures.  I'm trying to figure out how it all works. I will take a class to learn more, but it is not until January.

Noelle's Duck Face. (She wants the camera) 

Snack time!

The kids loved the packaging that the camera came in. 

Sweet girl!

Eli and Josh doing the splits. 

Josh, Noelle and I were invited to a tour of the Phelp's Youth Pavilion with a Mom's Preschool group in our ward. It was great (and we didn't have to pay anything!).  The neatest exhibit was a miniature golf course that had different artists and works of art as the inspiration for the holes.

Josh on the Jackson Pollock hole. 

Noelle's crazy hair!

Dress-up time!

That's my cowboy!

Our wristbands were good for the whole day, so we picked Eli up from school and went back to the museum to let the kids play some more.

Eli is being a Ninja. 

Eli and Noelle riding the bus. 

My explorers. 

Josh's Prayer This Morning

The kids are having donuts for breakfast this morning, leftover treats from Family Home Evening last night.  Morgan asked Josh to say the prayer.

The best lines from it were:


Please bless Mom to get over her diet and bless Dad to lost some weight. 

Fun Kids

Noelle fell asleep at lunch today!  It was the first time that this has happened to any of my kids and I thought it was so cute!  She had her 18 month doctors appointment today, so maybe that wore her out.
Here are her stats

Weight: 19lb 12 oz

Height: 31 inches

Head 18.25 inches

She is the 1% for weight, but around 50% for height and head size. Our pediatrician isn't worried since she is continuing to grow and learning as she should be. The nurse thought she was 20 pounds right on, but apparently not quite there yet.


Eli and Josh found out they could wear Morgan's pillow as a hat. They thought it was pretty cool.

Great Date and More

Morgan and I went on a date last night and had a great time.  We doubled with our friends Charity and Carl and went on a Progressive Dinner.  We drove up to Cedar Falls Main Street, parked the car and started walking around.

We decided to go to Toad's for our appetizers and got a big mix of fried foods and played a game of pool.

Then we went to SoHo and had salad and C&C tried sushi for the first time in the form of 4 different Tuna rolls.

For our main dish we went to Pablo's and had burritos then off to Bourbon Street for dessert.

It was fun to try different places and I want to do this again with Morgan in downtown Waterloo.


It was still early after we were done eating so we all came back to our house to play games.  My babysitter Tiona said that she had the best time babysitting...Noelle finally warmed up with her (Tiona's babysat for us several times) and laughed and played and had a good time.

We invited Tiona to stay and play games with us so we played 3 round of Monopoly Deal. I won the first round, Morgan won the second and Charity won the third game.  It was a great date night!



Early Saturday morning we took the kids disc golfing at Valley View Park.  It was 60 degrees by 10am and we wanted to get out. We played 9 rounds as a family then the kids and I went to play at the playground while Morgan played another 9 rounds.


Now that it is Sunday morning I turned on my iTunes and put the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on.  Sadly this is the first time I've turned it on, on a Sunday morning.  Gladly I love it!  It is so nice to have good music, and it is already making today different from other days.  Hopefully this will help us remember why we keep the Sabbath day holy and just help us prepare for church and taking the sacrament.

Inside Fun

 I have been thinking about getting a punching bag for a couple of months now.   My friend Naomi took me to her kickboxing class in the summer and I loved how hard of a workout it was.

Eli and Josh have wanted a punch bag too, so they can practice their punching skills. After months of thinking about it, I found an inexpensive one on Amazon and purchased it with my allowance money. It came yesterday and Morgan set it up in the basement for me.

It is going to be a good way for me to try and stay in shape this winter and a fun activity for the kids to use up all of their energy when they are stuck inside because of the cold.

Noelle was the first to put the gloves on.
Then she did NOT want to take them off to share. 

Josh and Eli are each showing off their muscles. 

Eli is ready to punch!

Noelle found a hat in the basement. 

Josh is going to knock you down. 

Here I am , ready to go. 

Look out for that right hook. 

My mom found this doll for Noelle right after she was born.  Noelle has started carrying it around, calling it her 'bay'. 

Carving Pumpkins

Yes, we actually carved pumpkins AFTER Halloween.  We were going to carve them for Home Evening the Monday before but Eli had a different activity planned. I don't really care too much about carving pumpkins (I make Morgan be in charge) so that was fine with me.

However, this past Monday Josh wanted to 'put faces on the pumpkins' for his FHE activity. Morgan and the boys had a good time doing it. Both boys made their own designs and Morgan cut it out for them.

Finally...

It is finally election day and  I am going to be very happy when it is all over. I appreciate that I live in Iowa, a swing state, so I get to have more access and information from the candidates. But so much of the telephone calls, TV and Internet ads are negative that it gets tiring listening to it all.

I had a difficult time deciding what my votes should be, not only with the Presidential election, but with all of the ballot measures for my area. I wanted to be informed and make the right choice.

I saw the good in both sides of the argument. No one is 100% right or wrong (in my view). I guess the most important thing is to decide what is most important to you and find the person who gets closest to it.

No matter who is elected President today...or next week if we have craziness...I am going to pray for the President that he can rely on the Lord and try to do what is right. No matter who the next President is, he will need out support.

I have kept quiet throughout the election. There was too much negativity throughout the campaigns and on personal feeds. Facebook especially was like a minefield, I didn't want to post anything there. Hopefully you will see this post as what it is, one person trying to explain how difficult it is to vote in today's world.

Halloween

Noelle was a Lion for Halloween 

Eli was a Ninja 

For his School party Josh was a Ninja - but at the Ward Truck or Treat he wore a lion costume with the Ninja shield over it...Making him a Ninja Lion!

Noelle loves to go outside. 

Fortunately, she is unable to open the door yet. 

Eli loves to pose 

Josh loves to eat Candy 

Noelle had a fun time waiting for Josh's Halloween parade to begin. 

Josh as a Ninja with his classmates. (I forgot he wasn't a lion and was confused about how was my kid at first.