Photo Shoot for a Fake Dog

Last year for her birthday, Natalee got a Fur Real Friends dog named Cookie.  Cookie is so lifelike, we sometimes forget that she's not real. (kidding) Natalee loves her and treats her like part of the family, and in all, she's a pretty good dog.  She requires very little clean up and costs nothing to feed. If we get tired of her yapping, we take out her batteries.  It's probably a good alternative to having an actual dog. 
Anyway, a few weeks ago I was loading pictures from my camera onto the computer and came across what looks like an amazing play session.  Yes, Natalee did a photo shoot with Cookie.  There were no less than 50 pictures, maybe double that, but I picked a few of my favorites to share here.  Natalee is so funny and imaginative and it makes me laugh every day.  

Please do enjoy: Fake Dog Photo Shoot

I wish you all could have been here when Natalee went through the pictures with me.  On this one she said, "I really like the lighting here" like she's all professional and did something fancy on purpose.

 

There were several shots with Cookie and hand written notes.  

This one says "Gone Fishing" and she's got a Barbie fishing pole in her mouth.

 

Presenting the Cookie Winter Wear Collection

Here's Cookie, perfectly accessorized and apparently ready for Hanukkah.

 Cookie with a Cookie

This one is probably my favorite.  Cookie is wearing swim goggles and Nat found some random sea animals to pose her with.

I'd like to take a second to thank Cookie for being such a good model.  It's not easy to
photograph animals, so it's helpful to have a cooperative subject. 
I love the little surprises I find on my camera.

All the Festivities Know as Halloween

PHEW!  We made it!  The past couple of years it seems like Halloween is a month long event and it's kind of exhausting.  I can't imagine how people with more kids do it. 

This year Natalee decided she wanted to be a Veterinarian.  This was a pretty easy costume to put together and I was very happy that I was able to convince her to go less extravagant. 

Our first activity of the month was our Activity Days Halloween Party. We made a craft, a candy necklace, played a game and ate donuts off a string.  I think everyone had a fun time and it was awesome to see all the girls in their costumes.

Activity #2 found us at the annual neighborhood carnival.  So much fun, but so many people and 

 Oh yeah, Natalee and I Kareoke singed.

Activity #3 was a visit to "Scary Hill."  Our little water park/fun center does a $7 deal in October with several activities.  We've never done it before, but decided to give it a try this year.  We really had a fun time.  Here's Nathan and Natalee on the Haunted Hayride.  This is my new favorite picture.

They had skeletons in all kinds of funny poses and situations.  Here are the skeletons on the tubes and lounge chairs.  Our other favorite was a skeleton in a bathtub, skeletons picking cherries and a skeleton that ran a tractor into a tree.

 I didn't know ball pits still existed.  This little Miss was pretty happy that we finally found one.  She didn't want to leave and I wanted to dip her in hand sanitizer.

This is some blasting game that didn't work very well.  It reminded me of Buzz Lightyears Astro Blasters at Disneyland, because you were shooting at targets and each other to score points. However, the targets weren't recording any scores and half the guns were broken. It was kind of a let down. However, Natalee had no clue what it was supposed to be like, so she just had fun pelting us with balls.

I won our golf game, which is noteworthy because I never, ever, win golf.  The score was

Mom: 56

Dad: 72

Nat: 98

Natalee was bummed that she didn't break 100, even though she claimed to know that we were going for the lowest score.  The above photo is my hole in one.  Also noteworthy - I don't think I've ever had one before. The course was so cute with all kinds of Halloween touches.

 The Rock Wall was a bit of a challenge for Nat, but she finally made it all the way to the top. She got to be the only kid in the bounce house.  She thought it was so cool for about a minute until she realized that it's more fun with more people, so she talked me into going in.  That was embarrassing.  I couldn't stay upright and kept slipping on my socks.  When I came out, I felt a little drunk.

 We might make it a tradition to go to Scary Hill!

 The Saturday before Halloween, Nathan took Natalee to an event in Farmington that was sponsored by Radio Disney.  I didn't go so there were no pictures, but she came home with so much stuff.  She won a pair of fairy wings and wanted to change her costume.  I'm mean and told her she couldn't change this late.  She wasn't too upset and said she'll just use them next year.  She's so agreeable like that most of the time.

Ah, the pumpkin carving.  The guts are my favorite part! Really, I want to know where this tradition started. Who knew that hollowing out a giant squash and putting a face on the front and candle inside would be so much fun.  We held Natalee off until the Monday before Halloween so that we wouldn't have moldy pumpkins and they actually turned out pretty cute.

 

We let her decorate this pumpkin at the beginning of the month so that she'd quite asking when we could carve the others.  I think this picture is so funny. She's got the crazy eyes!

This year was the first year since Nat has been in school that they've had school on Halloween. Her school did a costume parade. It was a little overwhelming, but Natalee was so happy. 

Finally it was time for the main event.  Nathan went as a Panda Bear to his work function earlier in the day and he was a good sport to put it back on to Trick or Treat. This was she could be a Vet at the San Diego Zoo, which is her greatest aspiration in life.

This was taken about 2 hours before November 1st.  It's so much work, but so much fun.  We really did have a great month of Halloween fun!

Sparky

This little dog has caused quite the problem at our house over the past several weeks.

 

It all started in August, when I took Natalee to The Disney Store on an outing.  She loved looking at the store and all that it had to offer, but then she saw this dog.  Sparky, the star of Frankenweenie, a movie I thought looked really strange and had no intention of ever seeing.  Luckily for me, she was $8 short on funds to buy said dog, so we left the store empty handed.  I kind of thought it would die there, but no such luck.  On the way home, she proposed a business plan of sorts to me, detailing jobs that she would do in order to earn the money.  I actually thought this was pretty cute and would be a good learning opportunity, so I agreed. Well, it took a few weeks, but she managed to do it.  On October 6th we went back to the Disney Store with all the money and were ready to buy Sparky.  Well, as (bad) luck would have it, they were out of Sparkys.  Oh, it was a sad day and I felt so sad for her.  She was kind of trying not to cry, which made it even worse. I asked when they'd get more in and was told Tuesday, so we decided we'd call and get them to hold one. Since she was so sad, I said (in a moment of weakness), "We'll go see the movie."  That seemed to appease her and we went on our way.  On the following Monday, we saw the movie - so weird - and buying Sparky was all she could talk about. Also on Monday, I had a code for free shipping at the Disney Store, so I tried to talk her into just letting us order it.  She wasn't 100% convinced that it was the same thing, so we couldn't place the order. I called on Tuesday and was told that they had not gotten any Sparky dolls in.  Then she was sad all over again. However, the lady told me that they might come in the next day, but if they didn't we could order it from there, and they'd give us free shipping.  On Wednesday I had to go to work, so we left and thought we'd take one last stab at buying the dog, and if not, Natalee agreed to let them ship it to us.  Well, we were in luck.  They had some on the shelf and after quite the ordeal, we had our Sparky!

She's so happy, she's smiling in her sleep.

Autumn 2012

It seems like school started and the Autumn has been a blur.  We've actually had quite a wonderful September and October.  The weather has stayed nice and Natalee is loving the 4th Grade.

DADDY DAUGHTER PARTY

On September 18th we had a Daddy Daughter party for Activity Days.  It was quite a lot of fun. The best thing about my calling, hands down, is getting to serve in it with my daughter.  I love being able to plan fun things for her to do and teach her to apply the principles of the Gospel at the same time.

Anyway, at the party we played Minute to Win it games.  They had a gumball relay, had to wrap their dads in toilet paper and stack dice on a tongue depresser.  Afterwards we had treats and it was a fun night!

 PUMPKIN PATCH 

A few posts ago I put in a photo of one of our pumpkins.  One day in September Nathan decided it was time to pick them.  He and Natalee harvested our 4 pumpkins and took them to the front yard.  Then they pulled all of the dead stuff out of the flower bed, bound the old corn stalks together and made a cute little fall display.  People foolishly think that I'm the one that decorated it, but they are wrong.

 

OUT WITH THE OLD

This is out with the old, but I don't have a picture of the new.  When MarKey moved, she gave us her couches.  Our couches were getting old and worn out after 13 years of use, so we were very grateful to have something newer.  Since we didn't have time to do anything but move the new ones in before we left to help them move, we moved the couch into the back part of our dining area and the love seat just through the front door.  Then when we got home and they sat there while we tried to figure out what to do with them.  My dad has a friend who needed a couch, and he was willing to come and pick them up.  So we sent them away.

This isn't a great picture, but Natalee was all excited to get rid of the couches until she realized that meant they were leaving our house.  She started to cry and cry.  Sometimes she's a little too sentimental.

 CONFERENCE & A BIRTHDAY PARTY

We had the opportunity to have Mom, Dad, Dallas and Grandma Camp at our house for General Conference.  It was just a few days before Dallas's birthday, so we celebrated that too.  Between sessions of Conference we went on a treasure hunt to find all his presents.  

One of our stops was the park to feed the ducks.  

This duck was a baby and Natalee kept trying to feed him and keep the bread away from the other ducks.  They are more experienced bread grabbers, and no one can accuse ducks of being really great with manners, so all too often, he was left with no bread.  When we finally got some to him, he ran away from the group as fast as he could go. It was so cute.

 Natalee loved having someone help her color.

 PUMPKIN PATCH PROFESSIONAL EDITION

There is a nursery by our house that does a hayride and pumpkin pick for children in October.  It's free with a donation to the food bank, so we went, stood in the giant line, took a scary ride through deep mud and got to pick a pumpkin.  Every now and then, you run into an advantage to only having one kid, and this was one of those days.  The line to get on the wagon was forever long.  I suggested that we leave and that was not a popular suggestion.  The wagons were only coming about once every 20 minutes and it was kind of cold.  So when the lady at the front told a group of 6 that the wagon only had two spots, I yelled "I HAVE TWO!" and we were able to get on. Sometimes you gotta take the advantages you have.

Nat couldn't decide between a short fat pumpkin and a tall thin one.  I'm kind of a mean mom and made her decide quickly before the wagon left because I was tired of waiting for a wagon.

This picture doesn't really highlight their differences, but Natalee wanted a picture to remember the one we didn't get.

 And finally, in all of his spare time from his most busy time at work, Nathan is teaching Natalee to play chess.