Halloween, Thanksgiving and more

So it's been awhile since our last post and we've done some pretty exciting things since then so here goes:
First off, Lydia is addicted to salt. 2 examples. McCall bought a huge carton of gold fish for Lydia. She'll take one and suck off all the salt and then spit it back on her clothes (as demonstrated below). She also loves finger salt. She'll crawl up to you grab your hand and stick a finger in her mouth, once she's sucked off all the salt and nasties off that finger she'll take it out and put the next one in until she's gone down the entire hand. Pretty hilarious!
Thankgiving break! It was awesome we celebrated with some friends from our church. The day after McCall convinced me to wake up at 6 because they were handing out free gift cards (anywhere from $10 -$500, but it was random). So we sat out in the freezing cold for 1.5 hours til we came away with..... two $10 gift cards, kind of disappointing but oh well.
After we were done freezing we headed off to Indianapolis we went to the children's museum where I was attacked by a polar bear...

McCall saw her x-boyfriends picture....

I found the land of my dreams...

We visited the Indianapolis 500 track... which you should never go to if you are not a race car fan, which neither of us are. Was pretty boring not going to lie, but at least we can say we've been there.

While at the Indy 500 museum we decided to take our family pic in a race car. Not really, but that's what it looks like. Even Lydia knew this was a special picture (hands on the laps...)

We were able to go to our first Louisville Cardinals game at the new YUM center! It's a pretty awesome place! We're off to a 8-0 start and nationally ranked! Still not as good as our alma mater though... of course.

This is Lydia just being cute as can be, (probably just pooped her pants)

Halloween: we weren't that creative this year for Halloween, I just pulled out my old football uniforms from highschool and McCall made Lydia's cheerleading outfit. McCall was a little upset she had to be a football player... I kept telling her she would make one hot water girl.

Lydia in her own little world again.

And some pics for the grandparents, these are pretty funny at least to us parents, maybe not to you all.

And here is us in Indianapolis when they light the huge Christmas tree downtown.

The funny part that I cut off was McCall says... Right? at the end, cuz she forgot she was in Indianapolis.

Gatlinburg, TN...Fall Break!

Gatlinburg was so much fun! We stayed in this really nice 3 story cabin up in the mtns with a bunch of our really good friends and had an absolute blast. Now can I just say that this cabin was incredible! It had a movie theater, hot tub, pool table, air hockey, arcade games, poker table... that we didn't use... :) a king sized bed and individual bathroom for each of the 5 bedrooms, a beautiful kitchen and living room... sigh.. It was awesome.

Now for our day and a half in Gatlinburg (since I had to get back to work) we went on two beautiful hikes. Our first was to this waterfall that wasn't very big... the pathway was paved...so it didn't really feel like a real hike, but it was still really pretty. So for our second hike we decided to take on one of the more difficult hikes they had to offer... Chimney Top.... dun dun dun.... Ok, so we were actually going to go on an easier trail but our car didn't end up making it up the mtn side.. .because yes... i forgot to get the oil changed and our car started smoking. SO....... we went back down the mtn after letting it cool off a bit and passed by this trail. It was gorgeous!

The trail head said it would take about 3 hrs round trip, and we didn't want to stay out that long so we thought we would just hike really fast. It was basically all up hill and we did it in 2 hrs! With a baby! It was really fun and hopefully you can see from the pictures we took how steep it actually was. :)



Here is JD hiking up the last cliff to the very tip top of an Appalachian Mtn.. Yes.....sigh... with our child strapped to his back. He actually got chastised by an older lady on his way down for taking lydia so far up... It was actually alot harder to climb that thing than it looks because the rocks were blazing hot to the touch. Yikes!

Can you find ME??

Lydia loved splashing in the water!

Who's that good lookin fella?

We visited the titanic as well..

Hmmm... perhaps the construction workers had their blue plans upside down?

HAHAHAA!!! So we were driving through the town and passed this clever contraption. Drive Thru Ceremony~!!! Now why didn't I think of that. Perfect! :) Oh and for your info we had to give it a try... as soon as we pulled up, a guy popped his head out and said, "Hey you guys wanna get married?" Totally caught off guard by his rapid appearance, the first thing that popped into JD's mind was, "Sure!" So we got married for a second time, only $98. Jk, JD told him we'd think about it.

Missing tooth?

Here are some of are most recent adventures... at the mall. Dates are pretty exciting when you have a kid. McCall and Lydia decided to take a ride with Arthur.

Here's Lydia's first encounter with finger food, everywhere but inside the mouth. And no it's not a piece of poo... it's an avocado.

Chief complaint: traumatic occlusion with a frozen snicker

Prognosis: Good if you live in Kentucky, terrible anywhere else

Treatment: Free but scary and unpredictable unexperienced work at the dental school

Lydia the 1% of her day when she's not crying. Jk. She loves being outstide and eats strange delights constantly.

Where is Waldo?

Well I was going to post some movies of McCall clogging but they wouldn't load, so until next time...

Lydia is CRAWLING!

Lydia has been crawling these last few weeks and also sitting up all by herself. She started crawling at 5 and a half months and has been indulging herself with the pleasure of going anywhere in the house and getting into anything her little heart desires. She is also starting to pull herself up on everything she can, mostly me and jd but still.... :)

Summer Fun!

Hello! We have been able to do so many fun things this summer and we just wanted to share with you a few of them, so sorry if this is a long post. For the one week Jd had off from school, we tried to do something cool every day. Some of these things included going to the zoo, splash park, riding a cool bike ( I forgot the real name of it) See pic below, Dance at a clogging competition, go swimming in a lake, dress lydia up and hike to the Natural Bridge. It was all so fun and doing our little road trip with Lydia made it even better.
p.s. Our videos are being weird and not loading so I will post another blog with all of our awesome videos! Stay tuned because you don't want to miss those, trust me. :)











Oh cute lydia with her new best friend... T... I...Double G....er. TIGGER! She loves this little guy, I swear she has sucked on every limb a thousand times and fallen asleep while doing so. She hates to go anywhere without him. Example A..

So if you all haven't heard.. We got this free sample of hair growth stuff.. actually for myself. Because I swear I am losing all of my hair. But we thought we should try it out on Lydia first. Hmmmm... What do you think. Should I go for it??

Granola Girls Forever!

Mmmmm Nice and Sweaty.

Lydia loved her horse back rides!

She fell asleep in that pouch like one step into our hike.. cool.

Oh... I think the Gorilla wants Lydia as her child. Cute.

SO FUN~

Duck Fun!

So I don't know why it's underlining everything I write.... but I still want to post so, sorry.
The other day we thought we would just go out for some good old fashioned family time FUN. So after visiting a Peddlars Mall, which was AWESOME!! We went to Papa John's Park, it's just below their headquarters. It's a beautiful park with a big pond full of tons of ducks. So we got a cheap loaf of bread and went to feed them. Lydia loved it and we even caught her laughing at the ducks on vidoe.. hope you enjoy.

And I just want to apologize in advance for how annoying my voice is on camera...I even get sick of hearing it....plus those hungry ducks were a lot scarier in person, trust me.

Lydia Loo Who, We Love YOU!

Lately I have been reading a lot about what mothers love most about their little ones, like things they want to remember about them. So as I sit here and read about all these adorable, wonderful things about other kids, I said to myself, "Self. The world should know what I ABSOLUTELY LOVE about lydia too. "

Here are some things I love about you, sweet baby girl of mine.

p.s. She is 4 1/2 months right now, such a cute age... in my opinion.

*She's such a talker... well, can I say screamer. Instead of cooing and giggling all the time, she does more of a high pitched scream when she gets excited or is just on the ground playing. It's hilarious. HAHA... she just did one. Wonderful.

*She growls in this really deep low voice....now who would she get that from?

*She can grab for things and loves playing with all of her toys. And instead of just looking at things... she has to stick EVERYTHING in her mouth.

*She loves sucking her fingers, she'll always have about two or three in that slobber cave of hers at all times. She also loves sucking on mom and dad's fingers as well. It's cute.

*She loves it when dadddy sings to her. JD will come home from school and serinader her with singing and guitar. She just sits there all peaceful, loving life and just stares at him.. it's adorable. (Not like when I try and play my flute for her...she gets fussy after about two notes. Sad.)

*Not to be gross or anything... but lydia has some pretty smelly toots, boofs, whatever you like to call them. I dont' know how such a small little girl can cook up such disgusting odors, but it's something me and JD just laugh about...all the time, it seems like.

*She is such a wonderful snuggler.. so cuddly.

* She gets a huge smile on her face whenever me or jd looks at her..It's so cute.

*She can roll all over the place. She is so close to crawling and she is always in a different spot whenever we look at her, after putting her down to play.

Over all she is the joy of our lives and brings so much fun to our family. We love her so much and feel so blessed to have her apart of our family. Love you LYDIA!

NAUVOO WHO??

Hello! So this is only my second attempt at blogging... we will see how it goes. JD just told me that if I am going to blog I have to be funny... because all bloggers are funny. So with that, I will do my best. (Kelsi, I could sure use some pointers oh queen of funny blog posts. :)


We went to Nauvoo with some good friends from the ward, Meghan, Bryce and Dax and it was basically amazing. Luckily it wasn't too hot. We were also there in time to see the Nauvoo Pageant which was incredible! Along with alot of other show put on by the young performing missionaries including: High Hopes and River Boats, Just plain Anna-Amanda, Nauvoo Pageant and Summer by the Mississippi...spelling??

It was great! Our hotel though was another story.. Just give us a ring if you want to know any details... We could go on for awhile. It was quite fun actually!

But Nauvoo is such an amazing place and it has a great spirit there. JD kept on saying that he wants to live there some day. We visited the homes of apostles and prophets, and my favorite part of each home was when the missionaries would bare their testimonies.. I have to say that my personal testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith was incredibly strengthened and I am so grateful for that. I am also very grateful for all that the saints went through to keep the gospel alive...it absolutely amazes me.


It was such a great experience and I can't wait to go back someday.. here are some pictures from the trip. :)