Halloween

We had a fun Halloween this year, each holiday gets more fun as Daylen gets older and can appreciate it. He really liked getting candy, I kept having to tell him to put it back in his pumpkin until we got home. He did really well saying "Trick-or-Treat!" between houses, he got all excited and then he was silent after he knocked on the door. As we left each house he said, "Let's go knock on the door!" Kate was content to ride along in the stroller. As much fun as Trick-or-Treating was, the real fun started after we got home. Every time the doorbell rang Daylen ran to the door, opened it and yelled, "Trick-or-Treat!" at the expectant kids in costume. After giving them candy he would say, "Thank you!" and shut the door. Maybe next year we'll just stay home and give out candy since it was so much fun. You can see Daylen running to the door behind Kate and I in one of the pictures below, the doorbell had just rang as we were taking the picture. Daylen sported his wizard costume from last year, it fit him much better this year, and Kate was our cute little puppy. Brad went as a football player and I was a hula girl.










I just had to take a picture of Kate and I after church today in our matching red.

Grandma Goodwin

This post is more for me than for any of you, except maybe my family, but you are welcome to read and enjoy it as well.

My grandma, Nedra June Goodwin, passed away early this morning at the age of 91. These pictures were taken at her 90th birthday party. The top she is surrounded by 9of her 10 grandchildren and the bottom is my family with grandma. My Grandma Goodwin was the epitomy of the word "grandma," I have so many fond memories of her growing up. We always lived about an hour away from her and every Saturday since I can remember we went to "grandma's house." She always had a stocked candy dish and cookie jar. When we were really young we just went a played all day. She had a huge yard and a pasture, a climbing tree, a little smurf (sp?) to ride, chalk for hopscotch, a clothes line that doubled as a volleyball net, a tetherball pole...she had coloring books, paper for drawing, and a manila envelope for myself and each of my sisters to keep our drawings in. She kept all of our drawings, of course she was not one for throwing anything away. She saved all of her arisol hair spray lids and kept them in potato sacks for us to use as building blocks, we LOVED grandma's blocks. She had barbies and "little people" and games my dad played when he was a boy. We played a lot of cards, perfecting our speed at games like nerts and speed. As brothers-in-law and husbands have joined the family none of them can compete with the speed of my sisters and I. It also nurtured a competitive spirit in each of us.

As we got older, my dad put us to work. My grandpa passed away when I was 7, so we went to mow her lawn every week and wash our car of course. When the Fall came we spent hours raking up all of her huge leaves from her 4 very large Maple trees. Grandma was always very generous in our payment for our work. It made up for not being paid for doing the same things at our house. Every once in a awhile we would wash grandma's car, (when she still drove, and even then it was to the grocery store once a week and church) grandma's car always had lemon drops in it and we would help ourselves to one as we dusted off the insides, I don't want to know how old they were. Sometimes we would take our earnings and walk down the street to the 7-Eleven and buy a slurpy.

After a hard day of work and play we would eat dinner. Grandma had special silverware for the kids with Disney characters on the end. Jamie had a Bull Winkle plate, mine was Cinderella, and I can't remember what Rachel's was, by the time
Lori and Kara were old enough we had grown out of our plates. Before going home grandma got each of us our brown lunch sack and the box of crayons and we would decorate our sack. Then she would take us to the back bedroom and give us our treats to take home, always a candybar, a 5 pc of gum, and life savors. Then we would go home and to it all again the next Saturday. My grandma also saved all of her change from her grocery shopping trips and on special Saturdays she would bust it out and divide it amongst my sisters and I, we LOVED this! We usually got about $5 worth each.

I love my Grandma Goodwin so much and I know she is in a much better place now. As much as I miss her I'm glad she doesn't have to suffer the pains of old age and the dementia of her mind. I look forward to the day I can see her again!

pumpkin patch

Tonight for FHE we went to Southridge Farms in Santaquin for a "hay ride" to go pick out our pumpkins. I thought it would be some sort of horse drawn carriage, but it was really a tractor pulling a huge wagon. Oh well, it was still fun. Daylen had a great time running around to all the pumpkins despite the COLD! Kate was the only one all bundled up, I wasn't expecting it to be quite as cold as it was, but we still had a good time. And even though we were freezing by the time we got back, we had to have some of their famous ice cream while we were there, yum! Brad borrowed a camera from work so we could take some pictures.

This first one is kinda blurry, the wagon wasn't so smooth.

double jogging stroller!

I finally got a double jogging stroller and this is what it looks like! I took it out for the first time this morning after bundling up the kids real good, and I felt so light and free! It's soooo nice not having to carry Kate in the sling, she's 4 months old now and is getting heavy! Ok so not that heavy, but after carrying her around in that thing for awhile it starts to hurt. I even did a little jogging, just a little because 1)I am in no way a runner/jogger and 2)it's been awile since I've jogged for any distance.

We also just got back from a trip to Colorado Springs to visit Brad's brother and his family. They blessed their 4th child yesterday at church so we went to be there for that. It was a beautiful drive and we had a great time, but I have no pictures yet. Our camera is busted for real this time so I have to wait for Brad's brother to send us a CD of the pictures before I will post about the trip. I'm hoping it won't take too long.

peaches...yummy!

I finally followed my sister's example and got my peaches canned. Although I only did a quarter of what she did, it will have to do cause I gave all my empty jars back to my mom. I canned some salsa and tomatoes earlier on in the season, but it's peaches that I love. I don't know why I kept putting it off. It was like that homework assignment you just really didn't want to do, and it felt so good to finally get it done. I also just had to add a couple of pictures of the kiddos as well. Daylen took Kate's bow off of her head and wanted to wear it himself. Brad wasn't so happy about that one.

randomness about me...

So I was tagged by my neighbor and friend, Ashley, to share 6 random things about myself...

1. I love strawberry flavoring, but I reall don't care for real strawberries. I picked the famous Klicker strawberries for 3 summers at home and only ate 1 strawberry. Mostly just to say that I ate one.

2. Brad has had to learn that my definition of "doing the dishes" means doing the dishes, putting all leftover food away, wiping down all countertops, stovetop, high chair, and dining table. Pretty much leaving the kitchen spotless.

3. My favorite TV show is Bones...with The Office coming in close 2nd.

4. I come from a family of car washing nuts, thanks to my dad. It wasn't uncommon for my dad to drag my sisters and I out in below freezing weather including Christmas and New Years Day to wash the cars. You know it's too cold to wash a car when you have to drive it into the garage to thaw before drying it. My car must be washed in a certain order, using specific sponges for each part of the car, followed by a precise drying procedure.

5. I REALLY don't like to iron.

6. My left ear became plugged after swimming while we were in Washington a few weeks ago. Since then Kate has been GREAT about sleeping through the night. :)

who needs a double jogging stroller?

I DO!

starving artists sale

My brother-in-law told us about a starving artists sale going on at the Provo Mariott yesterday so we thought we'd go check it out. We've been wanting to find some good art for our house, we've had a very blank wall above our bed just begging for some decor. We're really excited about our awesomelly cheap find!

Trip to Washington

I'm back! We were in Washington all last week for my mom's birthday, and then my grandpa's big 90th birthday celebration. We had so much fun relaxing with famiy. Jamie and her kids were there all week as well. Brad and I left Daylen with grandma and grandpa for a couple of the days and spent some time at the Cameo Heights Mansion where Rachel had her reception. It was so nice again of course! I have lots of pictures to share so I tried my hand a slide show. Enjoy!

stylin'!

This was Daylen today. He insisted on wearing these work gloves starting from the time we went on our walk in the morning, to running errands in the afternoon. Yup, we went to the library and Maceys like this. Notice he is sporting the socks with sandles look as well. This boy has a mind of his own!

Happy Birthday Daylen!

I can't believe it's aready been 2 years! 08/07/06 we brought our little Daylen Bradly Gasaway in to this world. It's amazing how much he has grown and learned over the past 2 years. His huge smile and big blue eyes have charmed family, friends, and strangers alike. He has a natural athletic talent and love for all types of sports (as you can see in the pics below, golf is one of those). He has a shirt that says, "So many sports, so little time" and I think that is going to be just the case for our little guy. Lately, we've had so much fun hearing his vocabulary blossom...colors, shapes, animals...he soaks it all up like a sponge. He repeats everything we say, including our expressions, "that's cool!" "Oh my goodness!" or "bummer!" We are also happy to see him take to his role as a big brother. We are super proud of our not-so-baby boy.

We love our little/big boy so much. He makes us laugh every day. The other night Brad was at mutual and Kate was in bed so it was just Daylen and I sitting at home together watching, "So You Think You Can Dance" and I looked over at him and he gave me the biggest, cheesiest smile ever. So I gave him a big, cheesy smile back. We then proceeded to make silly faces at each other until we were both laughing. Then he came and sat on my lap and we rocked as I thought about how much better my life has been since he came in to it. I hugged him and told him I loved him and he then said my favorite new phrase of his, "I love you!"

Before and After

I have just a couple of new pictures to post, unfortunetly Daylen got a hold of our camera and smudged the lens. I thought it was just the viewfinder at first so now I have a bunch of blurry pictures. Now we need to get a new camera this week because Daylen's 2nd birthday is on Thursday! The pictures of Kate are before the smudge, and the one of Daylen and his cousin, Ivan, is after. See why we need a new camera?