Dance Dance!

Mike and I went to a party last night and showed off 

our best dancing skills.  Take a look.

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House Hunting

With Mike only having a couple more months of Law school, we decided we better start looking for houses. This is the one we found:  

What do you think?  With 250 rooms, 43 bathrooms, an indoor pool and bowling ally, two libraries, and a view of the smokey mountains, what more could you ask for?  Actually, we went on a mini vacation this week to the Smokey Mountains.  This is one of the places we wanted to go before we leave Nashville.  We left Monday morning and came back Tuesday night.  When we woke up Tuesday, it was snowing in Gatlinburg, TN and the road we wanted to take into the Smokey's was closed so we detoured and went to Asheville, North Carolina to see the Biltmore.  The biggest house in the United States which you see above.  It was a lot of fun to see and was already decorated inside for Christmas.  George Vanderbilt owned this house and Mike just happened to be wearing his Vanderbilt sweatshirt so he got a lot of questions.  It was very pretty and was a lot bigger than we were expecting it to be.  After touring the house, you could drive around the grounds where there are six gardens, a winery, and a farm.  It was a great little getaway.  

The leaves in Nashville are still pretty green.  Those that are changing are dull in color so we were excited for this trip.  I had to take advantage of it while I can since this will be my last year experiencing fall (which by the way, is my favorite season) and mountains/hills.  We didn't realize the Smokey's were so big!  The leaves were beautiful and so colorful.  The pictures don't do it justice. You can't see a lot of the hills in the pictures.  The town of Gatlinburg was cute and just like a mountain town.  It was a lot colder than we expected so that made it difficult for pictures and doing things outside.  We tried to stay inside when we could.  We went to the Aquarium and to a mirror maze which actually turned out to be a lot of fun.  It is dark in the maze except for lighting on the ground.  At one point Kyia saw me and started running toward me and ran right into a mirror.  It was actually my reflection she saw.  We had a lot of fun in there and it is surprisingly harder than it sounds.  And thanks to Mr. Mapquest (Mike) we were able to see a few animals while we were driving also.  A big elk, a grey fox, and raccoons.  Somehow on each trip we go on, we end up taking a detour because Mike knows a shorter, faster way.  This "shorter, faster way" ended up costing us 3 hours but we saw a lot of pretty areas we wouldn't have seen otherwise.  We had a great trip and are so glad we went.  Since it was so cold, most of the tree pictures are taken from inside the car.  On a side note, on our trip Brooklyn starting laughing and has slept through the night two nights in a row! :)

Trick or Treat

We had our ward trunk-or-treat last week and it turned out to be a lot of fun. It was supposed to rain that night so we weren't sure how much trick or treating we would be able to do but we seemed to miss all the rain.  They had games and yummy food and then came the trick-or-treating fun.  Kyia remembered from last year just what she had to say.  She is excited to go again in a couple days.

  Our cute little bunny!

We gave Kyia her choice of costumes and this is the one she chose             because she could have a hat and a telescope. 

Kyia's dentist had a Halloween party with a petting zoo and several little games.  I am all for going to as many Halloween parties I can just so their costumes get used more than once.  Kyia had a great time and loved all the animals until they tried to eat her hat.  

Kyia and I made a gingerbread house for Halloween.  This one was really messy and the black frosting dyed your fingers for days but it was fun and she loved putting the candy on the house.

Here is the finished house.

Pigtails

I wanted to see how long Brooklyn's hair really was so I tried to put it into pigtails.  They look like little bug antennas but I thought they were cute.  I noticed though, while her hair was in pigtails, that it's starting to lighten to the color of Kyia's.  I thought this might happen since her eyebrows and eyelashes are really light.  Kyia's is actually starting to darken a little bit.  A very little bit but you can tell when you look back at pictures from when she was younger. We like the color of Brooklyn's hair now but it looks like we are going to have two little blonde beauties.  

Sleeping Beauty

This is the only picture I got of her playing this (she was also playing dress up) but she played it all week and even talked her Uncle and Aunt's into playing with her.  She would fall over after pretending to prick her finger on a spinning wheel and someone would have to kiss her to wake her up, just like sleeping beauty.  In this case, you don't know who the "prince" was so several people had to try before she would wake up and they had to kneel just right, like the prince in the movie.  You had to kneel on one knee and very slowly lean over to kiss her. Then you would switch and she would be the prince.  She is quite the character.  It was pretty funny and very nice of her Aunts and Uncle to play so many times.  

Back to the real world

For the past ten days, we were able to go visit family in Wyoming.  We had a great time with everyone and time seemed to go by so fast.  It was a nice, relaxing trip for us.  Kyia and Brooklyn were taken care of and played with the entire time so I had a lot of time to just relax.  It was a bit strange not having to worry about your kids after doing it everyday but I was happy for the break, especially since Brooklyn was extremely fussy one day and I was sick another day.  I was so thankful for the help.  Mike's mom even took Brooklyn for the night so i could get a full night sleep.  It has been awhile!  Thanks so much Debbie!  We had Brooklyn's blessing while we were out there and it was great to see all our family.  It was a very snowy day that day so it meant a lot to us that people would travel to come to her blessing.  Mike's family had a luncheon for everyone after the blessing with some really good food!  It was a great day.  

We also had a wedding while we were out there.  Mike's Aunt got married so we kept pretty busy the week before the wedding setting up decorations and preparing food.  We were all exhausted by the end of the week but everything turned out great.  Mike was also able to go hunting with his Dad and brother twice.  He used to go every year when he lived in Wyoming and hasn't been very often since he left so he was very excited for this trip.  The first time, they didn't get anything but came back very sore and worn out.  They went again a few days later and ended up getting a 7-point bull elk.  It was huge! Mike was glad we left when we did so he didn't have to help cut it up.  

We are so glad that we were able to go visit.  Kyia is about bored stiff now that we have left.  She is the center of attention there and has 7 other people that will play whatever she wants to.  She also had a lot of cousins her age that she was able to play with so she was in heaven.  We miss being close to family but hopefully we will be able to go back soon.  Thanks for the great trip!

So Grown Up

We had an old computer that we were going to try and sell but decided we would keep it as a spare computer instead.  We set it up and showed Kyia how to use it and now she can't get enough of it.  She is so excited that she has her "own" computer to use just like Mommy and Daddy. She feels like such a big girl.  She has picked up pretty quickly and loves nick jr.  and disney games.  With Brooklyn being extra fussy these past couple weeks, I haven't been able to spend as much time with Kyia as I would like so it has really come in handy to keep her from getting too bored. (She is wearing her usual daily attire in this picture.  She has to have her Snow White outfit on.  It is the first thing she grabs in the morning and wants to wear it wherever we go).  

Fun with Stickers

Kyia got some stickers in the mail yesterday. Brooklyn was on the floor and I left the room to get something. When I get back, this is what I found.  The joys of an older sibling.