Time Out for Women

I have been looking forward to going to Time Out For Women for months.  I got the opportunity to work the event which was nice since it came with free tickets!  A few weeks before the event Amy decided to fly out and attend with me!  Since I was volunteering I had to get to the venue really early.  Amy was a good sport and came with me and just hung out while she waited for me to be done with my responsibilities.

Rich was a good sport to take care of the kids while I was gone Friday night and all day Saturday.  (And it was a busy weekend... Fall Festival, a Boy Scout merit badge clinic, and a flag football game!)  There were so many good messages shared over the 2 days--and I'm so glad that Amy was there to enjoy it with me!  It was fun to have Amy here... even if it was short!

Happy birthday, sweet Lydia!

Oh, sweet, silly little Lydia.  Where do I even begin?  Lydia loves her big brothers and tries her best to keep up with them.  I'm sure that she picked up on making silly faces from them.

She has also started to say their names and likes to make them laugh.  She loves playing at the park in the morning but often thinks that she needs to follow the boys to school.  She has a mind of her own and knows what she wants.  I'm sure she thinks she is big and yearns for the independence that her brothers have but the difference is that they won't run into the street at the playground or wander past mom's invisible boundaries.  But thank goodness Lydia still loves to cuddle.  I can't get enough of her snuggles or even just the way she touches my arm as I sit next to her on the couch.  Life just wasn't complete without her in our family.

Since Rich was going out of town on Sunday we decided to celebrate a day early. It's hard to believe she is 2.  Time needs to slow down just a little bit. Lydia loved opening her gifts but her brothers were in much more of a hurry than she was.  She really was content to sit there slowly ripping off the wrapping--the boys, not so much.

 It was fun to get her some more girly toys--which she loved.  She has had fun wearing her new dress-ups (from Grandma) and jewelry.  And carries her ballerina bear (from Aunt Amy) all over the house.

We also got her a Little People house which turned out to be a huge hit!  I find her playing with it all throughout the day!

After presents we did cake.  Lydia wasn't quite sure how to blow out the candles so it was a good thing she had some helpers!

Happy birthday sweet girl!

Pumpkin Patch

After looking at the calendar we realized that this past weekend was going to work best to head to the Orchard for donuts and pumpkins.

Our first stop was apple cider donuts before the line got too long.  This is my favorite treat in the fall.  They remind me of apple picking when I was growing up.

Everyone had a fun time in the straw maze.  The boys all said it was better than in years past.

Then we picked out our pumpkins!  We always seem to go at the end of the season and there is not much selection.  But because we went so early this year there were tons!  The boys had a hard time picking the "best" pumpkin.

All the boys helped Lydia get a small pumpkin for herself.  And Henry was so sweet to hold her hand while they looked!

Once we filled up the wheelbarrow we headed out.  We had a full Saturday ahead of us!

We had to grab a quick picture with the tractor... and we will be back later for a tractor ride around the orchard!

Rose Garden Fairy

I went outside to take a picture of all our roses to show my mom.  I didn't realize that Lydia had followed me out with her fairy wings on!  It just seemed perfect to have a little fairy in with my roses.

Scenes from Conference Weekend

We love General Conference weekend!  It is so uplifting to listen to the Prophet and other leaders of our church for an entire weekend.  This is a little of what conference looked like at our house this year.

(Between sessions outside getting our energy out.)

Lydia just thinks it's awesome to take a thousand pictures with our phones.

Lydia Lately

Lydia is just so cute that I have a million photos of her that I've never posted about!  So here is a big photo dump of Lydia and hopefully I can keep up from here on out!

I just love her little hair like this.

And she just knows how to pose for the camera.

She and I love to have matching toes.

She loves when her toes are painted.

She likes to fill up her grocery cart and push it around upstairs.

And she has so much fun riding around on Aunt Rachelle's little tractor.

This was just adorable when she tried on my shoes after church.

And she's pretty good at playing by herself when the brother's kick her out of the bedrooms.

She's such a happy girl most of the time but I don't often get big smiles like this.  Plus, she's wearing this color of green that reminds me of my Grandma Allred.

Sometimes she just needs a break and finds a shady spot to sit and rest.

Lydia loves to read and be read to.

Her hair is finally long enough to try some fancier hair-dos.  I just need more practice.

Alex's primary teachers (the Hale's) called up one day and asked if we'd like a desk they were getting rid of.  Lydia is our little artist and sits at the desk for long stretches of time just drawing.  I love it!

She can get pretty silly too... like when she walks around with things on her head (just like her brothers used to.)

For my birthday the boys bought me Connect Four.  One Sunday during our family meeting we looked over and realized that Lydia had sorted the colors and was only putting red into the board!  Pretty smart!