What came first? The Chicken or the egg...

In our family this little chicken defnitely comes first!

The DMU Halloween party was this afternoon at the school. Then we went straight to the ward Trunk-or-Treat!

Ethan picking up an older "chick"

Our little chick was plumb tuckered out by the time we got to the ward party.

Thanks to my mom and her awesome Halloween packages we had lots of cool things for the trunk-or-treaters to play with at our car. Including 2 bats that really fly.

Clark the cow's sign says, "Eat More Chicken"

The farmer with her animals

A moooving evening. Clark says now that he has worn his costume in the church he is a holy cow. One little boy asked Clark if he could milk him...Clark said no, and then the little boy said, "well maybe because it is Halloween, candy will come out instead of milk." Cowabunga and Happy Halloween!

Rendezvous in Old Nauvoo

Debbie came to visit last week! Yahoo! Debbie is one of my favorite people in the world. We met 7 years ago when we both did the BYU semester in Nauvoo program. One of our first nights in Nauvoo we were having a little dance party, when the song "I Will Survive" came on we both went crazy dancing away. I realized right away we had a lot of quirky similarities and quickly found out we were kindred spirits! We were roommates at BYU, and until this year have lived in Utah. This past summer we both moved away. She is living in Seattle now and I miss having her around!

We have been to Nauvoo together 3 times now since finishing the semester there. Once for the Open House of the temple and then again 2 years ago for Debbie's wedding. Since I am only 4 hours from Nauvoo we had to make a trip back!

Nauvoo was beautiful! I loved the fall leaves. There is such an amazing Spirit in Nauvoo that is totally unique to that place.

The first night we were there we had a chance to go to "Rendezvous," a musical play put on by the senior missionaries. It is always a highlight of the trip to see them sing and dance.

We both had a chance to go to the temple which was amazing! We were in Nauvoo when the temple was under construction. As we drove into Nauvoo along the Mississippi River the temple all of the sudden just pops out! It is an awesome sight (especially to remember that is was originally built in 1841, what an incredible building that would have been back then)!

This is the view across the street from the temple. It is a statue of Joseph and Hyrum Smith that represents their last view of Nauvoo as they rode to Carthage where they were murdered. I love the view of beautiful Nauvoo and the Mississippi River.

Our visit to Carthage Jail.

This is a picture of Ethan in the John Taylor home. I absolutely love this picture because of the story it represents.

When the early members of the church were driven out of Nauvoo they couldn't take much with them. They left behind their homes and most of their furnishings. A few days into the trip John Taylor's 8 year old son wouldn't stop crying because he missed his little rocking horse that was left behind. John Taylor risked his life and rode back on his horse several days in the cold winter weather to retrieve his little rocking horse for his son. The little horse rode on the covered wagon all of the way to Utah. It was kept in the family and eventually returned to Nauvoo. This is the actual little horse. I think this story is so sweet and shows such a tender parent.


We were lucky to be there for the Nauvoo Halloween Festival. There were 300 carved pumpkins lining the street. We remembered helping carve those pumpkins the year we were there.

The Des Moines River Valley Train Ride.

All in all it was such a fun trip! Debbie and I stayed up way too late every night talking, laughing and remembering the old days!

Ethan was such a little trooper for all of the traveling. He is such a good baby!

I think this is the look he gave me quite frequently thoughout the trip...

"my Mom's gone crazy!"

Leaves for Sale! Real Cheap!

HELP fall has fallen on me and I can't get up!



I thought the lawn looked just lovely with all of these leaves. Don't you think it's gorgeous? I was hoping we could just leave it.

21 piles later and I about got the front yard raked. We let it go just a little too long!

Looking at this tree I see this will not be my last day of fall raking.

I really do love fall!

Weekend Adventure

Friday after school we jumped in the car and headed to Omaha to go to the temple. The drive is a little less than 2 hours. We were trying to make it to the 7:30 session (the last session of the day). We got out of Des Moines a little later than planned. Luckily my Nascar gene kicked in! I still don't know how we made it.

Clark's friend Scott from Durango and his wife Danielle live in Omaha. Scott is going to school there. They offered to watch Ethan for us so we could go. It was my first time leaving him with anyone but family. Luckily, we were in such a hurry I didn't have time to worry or be sad about leaving him.

We barely made it on time to the temple. It was an awesome experience. The temple is located right next to the Winter Quarter's visitor's center and cemetery. The temple stands as a tribute to all of the pioneers who gave everything to cross the plains. It is such a neat place in church history. The temple is gorgeous especially the stained glass windows. We enjoyed the wonderful peace that comes only from being in the temple.

It was so nice of Scott and Danielle to watch Ethan for us. We loved being able to visit with them after the temple before heading home. We got home at 2:30 a.m., but it was worth it.

Saturday morning a few friends of mine from the school came over. We went to Howell's Pumpkin Patch. It was in Cumming, Iowa...about 20 miles out of town. I am amazed at how quickly we can leave Des Moines and be in rural Iowa. The Pumpkin Patch is also a nursery, Christmas Tree farm, store, corn maze, and petting zoo. It will be a fun place to bring Ethan again in a couple of years. We rode the tractor hay ride through the beautiful gardens to the pumpkin patch. I hunted around and found the brightest little pumpkin. I just had to have it for a centerpiece for my table. The day was beautiful. It was quite a fall festivity!

The whole crew on the tractor ride.

My little pumpkin, the pick of the patch!

Keeping the ears warm and taking a nap!

Never in my life have I seen more of these stick your head through photo ops than here in Iowa! I really should have passed this one up. Oh dear.

BYU Bad Luck

All season Clark has been dying to see one of BYU's games. We have listened through KSL online...and one game got to see part of it on some random website. Last Thurs. we finally got invited to watch the game at our friend's house because it was on Versus. We were all excited. We even wore our BYU game gear. It was Ethan's first chance to watch a BYU game, apparently he is bad luck. 32-7 was not the outcome we were hoping for.

The girls cooked up a storm during the game. The food was all amazing. I was in charge of the carmel apples, unfortunately I burned the chocolate, but the carmel was mmm mmmm good!

I'm so glad when Daddy comes home!

Ethan gets so excited when Clark gets home from school! He stops whatever he is doing and starts looking around when he hears his voice. His little legs start kicking and his little arms start pumping. He grins so big and usually squeals when he finally gets to see his Dad! It is my favorite time of day too. (I do try to control my leg kicking though when Clark walks through the door).

This is a little video of Clark playing with Ethan, and Ethan loving it!

It is starting to get cold here so last night I thought Ethan should sleep in his fuzzy blue fleece sweatshirt. What a difference 6 months make! This is the little outfit he came home from the hospital in. At that time it was so huge on him...and now not so much.

On an additional note, I am happy to say that the fuzzy blue sweat pants I was wearing in that picture the day after he was born have not gotten tighter on me. What a difference 6 months make! Glad he's growing, glad I'm not!

Food Festivities

Only in Iowa do they decorate the downtown with corn and hay!
We love it!

This weekend we attended the World Food Festival downtown with some friends. An area of downtown was blocked off and several food vendors from different local restaurants set up shop. The vendors were from several different countries. There was also some interesting entertainment...some rockin bands, a little folk dancing, and a man playing a wooden flute. The weather was beautiful! It was an all around great night! The best part was that all of the restaurants had samples of their food for $1. So we tried food from India, Bosnia, Turkey, Korea, and of course some good old American fudge and icecream.

The hit of the night for Clark and me was the sarma from the Bosnian restaurant. The sarma was almost exactly like sarmale (a popular Romanian dish)! One bite and it was just like being back in Romania...the pickled cabbage stuffed with rice and sausage and cooked in a tomatoe sauce, served with a little sample of bread and sour cream. It is crazy how a smell and a taste can bring back a lot of memories. We were fine with just the one taste!

Clark and Ethan with the bite of Romania!

Ethan had a little food adventure himself tonight! He got to try out his new high chair for the first time. We didn't realize how small he would look in it. It was pretty funny.

He also tried a little bite of peas tonight with his rice cereal. Not a fan for the first 2 bites, then he warmed up to it a little. Here is a little video of Ethan eating for his grammy.

Ethan trying peas.

Ethan trying to feed himself. We have to remind him often that he only weighs 18 pounds and that he is a baby...even when he thinks he is not.

Haka Man

Thanks Grammy Tammy for the fun shirt! We tried to get him to stick out his tongue and really look the part...he already has the growling down.

5 F's

Flag Football!

Ferocious!

Freakish Friends!

A Little Iowa Sampler

Iowa has a lot of corn...come October Iowa has a lot of corn mazes. We went to one on Friday for a podiatry activity. Clark carried Ethan in the Snugli. I don't think Ethan blinked once in the maze looking at the stars and the corn stalks.

This is what the maze looked like this year, there were 10 checkpoints and we found all of them.

Clark had a Biochemistry test earlier this morning and was running on no sleep. I think this picture is hilarious. He was exhausted...and it shows.

The second try of the picture looks a little better.

Ethan is loving his new crib. This is how we found him earlier taking a nap with his new buddy.