It's official...we have a house!!

Yup, it's true. We put an offer in on Saturday and we heard back this morning--it was accepted! Woo hoo!
It's not quite done, but is getting closer every day! We plan on moving in around Jan. 10 (or maybe a few days earlier).
It is in a new neighborhood on the northeast side of Houston. We'll be closer to Dan's current office (15 min. instead of 30), but further from my parents(30 min. instead of 15).
It's definitely a house we will need to grow into--it's got 4 bedrooms and 3 1/2 bathrooms and we've only got furniture for half of that :). So come visit--we'll give you a nice empty room to stay in.

It's official...we have a toddler!

Megan started taking an occasional step or two around Nov. 4. She's been improving little by little, and on Wednesday started doing 8 to 10--or more steps! She will surprise me by coming around the corner from the hall walking--but she drops to a crawl when she sees me watching. It's so cute to watch her try to figure out walking on different textures and attempt doorways that have a little step. We can't believe how big she's getting! Enjoy the proof :)

Megan's favorite quiet time spot--her little book corner. She loves "reading" to herself and REALLY loves being read to.


Getting ready for church. We'll get pics of the whole dress this Sunday we hope--this is just the bow, tights, and bloomers.

One Whole Year

We can't believe our little girl is already 1! She is quite a character now and loves to tease us. She loves to be tickled, read books, and play outside and she tries to climb into the fridge and dishwasher whenever she notices they are open. She can say "Mama", "Dada" (sometimes), and I really thought she said "book" the other day. We found out this week that she loves dogs so we're working on "dog". She also loves to wave at any care that goes by.
She now has 7 teeth and weighs 19 pounds, 5 ounces and is 28 1/2 inches long! What a big girl we have...

Has she grown? Same outfit, same baby, one year apart!






Hospital Picture:


Bring on the cake


Get rid of this thing, I've got to concentrate!


Ooh, that looks good...


Yummmmm.

The Big 2-9

My wonderful husband turned 29 on October 27! We were spoiled because he had 2 days off he needed to use so he took his birthday and Megan's birthday off last week. As an early birthday present for Dan, we left Megan at my parents' house overnight a few Fridays ago. We loved being able to stay up late to watch Letterman and Leno and we especially loved sleeping in. Megan did great for her first sleepover--thanks Mom!

On Dan's birthday, we headed out to Brenham, TX--home of Blue Bell Ice Cream! We toured the factory and got to sample different flavors at the end. We all loved it--especially Megan since it was the first time we'd let her have ice cream. I picked white chocolate almond, Dan got caramel turtle fudge, and Megan got Snickerdoodle. All of them were delicious! We had lunch at a little diner there before heading back to Houston.

We had a family party for FHE that night at my parents' house. Dan's bday is the 27th, our nephew Zach's is the 28th, and Megan's is the 31st. We carved pumpkins, played pin the nose on the pumpkin, and had pumpkin squares (Dan's choice) and (of course) Blue Bell ice cream.

I'm pretty sure Dan enjoyed his birthday. He really is the best husband in the world and is a great dad too. I love you Dan!

Megan saying Hi! from her favorite spot in the kitchen--the fridge


The birthday boy and Megan enjoying some ice cream


Me, Megan, and Bessie the cow


Megan and Dan

Mother-Daughter Campout

Our stake has a mother-daughter campout every year and I loved going to it growing up. It was fun to go this year with my mom AND my daughter (and sister-in-law and nieces). It was Oct 24-25.
The weather was perfect--cool enough to enjoy a fire but not to freeze at night. Megan loved being outside and drove me crazy trying to keep her from ingesting every rock, leaf, and twig in her sight. She slept pretty well and was happy as long as she wasn't stuck in her "cage" (pack-in-play) for too long at a time.

The lake near our campsite. We camped at Brazos Bend State Park which is famous for the alligators that call it home--but we didn't see any :(.


Megan and Chloe in their play pens while we set up camp. Megan could hardly stand it!


Megan and I just before she fell asleep.


Megan and Hailey--do you see the leaf in Megan's hands?


Megan and Granny


The girls from our family (plus a few friends): Me, Amy, and Mom (and Margarita in the background), Megan, Chloe, Ana (a friend), and Hailey

New Toy

We're getting ready to head out for the Stake Mother-Daughter camp out in a few hours. I need to go pack but wanted to post a few pics of Megan's early birthday present from Granny. She LOVES it.

Visits and Visitors

It's been a busy week but we've enjoyed most of it (we are pretending the BYU game of last night didn't happen...sad...their first loss in Megan's lifetime).

Megan had fun last Saturday with all the space left when we moved the coffee table to watch the BYU game.


Sunday we got to Skype with Dan's parents and his sister Heather. We are so glad Dan's parents got a webcam so Megan can see them more often than every few months!

We got to visit with a family from the ward for FHE on Monday, Megan did great and slept the entire time. She had her first tastes of spaghetti for dinner Monday and she LOVED it. She ate about as much as I did.

Yay! spaghetti face


We noticed a yucky visitor last Sunday in the form of a roach...gross.

So we called the exterminator and he came on Tuesday. But his spraying led to the sighting of one more little friend. And this one was still alive. I hate (HATE!) roaches. I was tempted to go hide in my bedroom for the afternoon with Megan and leave it to Dan to kill, but I overcame my fear and grabbed Megan (I couldn't leave her on the floor where the roach could possibly get her) and squished it with one of Dan's shoes. Then we flushed it. Sweet success.

Let's see. Oh! We visited the Children's Museum on Wednesday for playgroup--they have this "tot spot" filled with toys and balls and mirrors and play areas. Megan loved it. I'm ready to buy a membership. It's only about 6 minutes away from our apt and we could definitely go more often.

Megan loved those cylinders--she would stand behind them and push them all around the room.


We went over to another ward member's house on Wednesday for dinner and games. Megan did not fall asleep there like we hoped she would, but she was happy for the most part so we had still had a good time.

We had a playdate with Kat and Kaden on Thursday. We went to Chick-Fil-A and I remembered why I loved going there in high school. Yummy. And it's very clean. I think it's my favorite fast food place.

Thursday night we witnessed the unraveling of our Cougs...hopefully they will regroup and be back to their usual winning selves by next week. We did have fun watching at my parent's house despite the outcome. Megan got to open a birthday present early. It's a scoot toy and a walk-behind toy all in one. She loves it. My mom has the picture so I'll post them later.

Today Megan and I met Dan for lunch. We got to check out the Tunnels--the underground part of downtown Houston. We had lunch down there and then got to see Dan's building and office.




He will be moving to a new office in a few weeks and will miss working downtown but is excited for a new experience.

Welp. Big gulps, huh? See you later!

A Quick Tag

I was tagged by Michelle--I'm supposed to open my 4th folder of pictures and post the 4th picture, so here it is!

This is from a family reunion with my mom's family in July 2007. One of my aunts took this picture and the date in the corner is wrong. That is a lovely picture of me at about 24 weeks along and includes Dan, my grandfather and his wife, my mom, 2 aunts, many cousins and cousin's children.


I agree with Michelle- this is a low stress tag. So I tag Kat, Jamie, and Mom...but only if you feel like it and have time :)

Fall Time

It finally is starting to feel like summer might be over down here. It's been nice in the mornings and not too hot in the afternoons. Megan and I have been going for walks on the bayou trail almost every day. I'm really enjoying getting more time out of the house.
And we still swim occasionally but it's getting a little chilly (you know, when the water is only 80). We swam between conference sessions last Saturday. Megan didn't mind the cold water at all. What she did mind was that I wouldn't let her just walk wherever she wanted in the pool. She just wants to be independent!
The past four days Megan has suddenly returned to longer napping! Yay! I don't know how long it will last but I am loving it.
Well, we are enjoying October so far and are looking forward to Dan's and Megan's birthdays in a few weeks. We can't believe our little girl is almost one. She's quite the cruiser and crawler but isn't taking steps yet. She has such a happy and silly personality and she makes us laugh every day. She's an easygoing and fun kid. What can we way--we like her!
I hope all of you are enjoying your fall time as well!

Megan likes feeling dizzy.

Cute leggings...


New PJs. I love how her legs and arms look so skinny and then her belly just sticks out.


A preview of her Halloween costume. Look familiar? Yes, it IS the same thing she wore last year. But this year it fits.


Her Halloween outfit from Granny. I love the polka dots.

Thank Heaven for Little Girls

I tend to be consumed when I have a project to do. I can work on something for hours at a time and not worry about eating or cleaning or anything else. I've learned to be a little less focused since Megan was born--she doesn't take kindly to being ignored for an entire day.
So, this project took me TWO afternoons instead of just one (and neither Megan nor Dan missed any meals). I printed these pictures a couple of months ago and wanted to do something cute with them to put up in Megan's room. After spending the morning at a mall play place with my mom, sister-in-law Amy, Amy's 3 kids, and Megan, I stopped by Hobby Lobby to get a frame and scrapbook paper for the background.
My sister-in-law Ali is a fantastic digital scrapbooker and has done some cute pages that have a similar vintage black and white feel so I decided to go with it.
I downloaded the font for the sayings from dafont.com (my new favorite site)and looked at some vinyl lettering sites to find a saying I liked.
In all, the paper, glue, and frame cost less than $9. Pretty cheap for a cute project. The frame was marked down because of a dent (good luck finding it!) so that helped keep the cost extra low.
Anyway. I love (LOVE) how it turned out. And I'm kind of sad to be done already. I think I need to do projects more often; I really enjoy them.

The finished product:


What Megan does while Mom is consumed:

Amber and Dan's Excellent Adventure

So we originally planned to leave for Utah on Sep. 13 at 10 am. As the week wore on and Ike bore down on Houston, we started to get a little nervous. Nervous enough that on Wednesday morning, Dan asked his boss if he could leave a day early and I changed our flight from Sat to Fri.

Then on Thursday morning, mandatory evacuations were issued for many coastal areas. We were not in an evacuation zone but during Hurricane Rita 3 years ago, evacuation orders led to thousands of people getting stranded in terrible freeway traffic. So I began to worry that we wouldn't be able to get to the airport on Friday. So I changed our flight to Thursday night, packed for Dan, and we got to the airport 6 hours early just to be safe. Thankfully Bush IAH airport is huge and we had plenty of shops to walk around in and lots of options for dinner. The time passed quickly and we got off just fine. Megan slept most of the flight.

Friday and Saturday we just hung around Bountiful, helped Dan's parents get ready for the farewell, and spent time with family. Saturday morning we did a 5K walk/run (for us it was a walk!) with Dan's home stake. Saturday afternoon we cheered on our Cougs to an awesome shutout. Sunday was Ben's farewell and he gave a great talk. He is quite the popular kid and there were more than 600 people in sacrament meeting. Many people (around 150-200) came over after the meeting for a little luncheon put on by Jane. She is amazing and graciously fed and chatted with the hordes of people who came to wish Ben well.

At the beginning of the walk--notice the temple in the background:



The temple was about the half way point:


Megan after church on Sunday:


Uncle Ben with the littlest grandkids, Alonzo and Megan


Monday we saw Heather and kids and recently almost-finished basement in Tooele, Maren, Brigham and new baby Benjamin and almost-finished upstairs in Riverton, and Josh, Lisa, and kids for dinner in West Jordan. It was a long but very fun day.

Megan, Jakey, and Tyler in Tooele


Maren, Brigham, Amber, Benjamin, Megan in Riverton


Tuesday, Jane and Ben joined us for a little drive up to Logan. We saw Ali's home and Amberly's new apartment and then we had lunch and went to the Logan zoo. The weather was so nice and Megan really enjoyed all the ducks. Ben was set apart Tuesday night and we really enjoyed being there for it.






Wednesday we went to breakfast with the family before going with Ken, Jane, Ali, and Alonzo to drop Ben off at the MTC. I didn't do that with Carrie or Shad so it was a neat experience. Ben was more excited than sad and Ken and Jane held up well. After he went in, we headed over to say hi to Stephanie and baby William (but did I take any pics there? of course I forgot). Dan and I spent the afternoon wandering around campus with Megan and met a big group of friends for dinner at the Brick Oven. It was fun to see so many people and spend some time in good ol' Provo. We had dessert with Nate and Steph and headed back to Bountiful.

Thursday we visited with my Grandfather and his wife. I loved watching my almost 88 year old Grandfather get on the floor to play with Megan. After that, we headed back to Bountiful, gathered our stuff, and went to the airport.




Megan got a chance to wear some outfits that are just too hot for Houston--this is one of my favorites. She quickly mastered tugging the hat off.


There was an empty seat on our flight back--it was so nice!


We were glad to know our apartment already had the power back on and were interested to see what Houston would look like when we got back. We'll post more on that later.