Trunk-or-Treat!

Last night was our ward's Trunk-or-Treat. We have had Savannah's costume for a few weeks now, but hadn't even thought about costumes for ourselves. So yesterday I spent the morning pulling some things together for us. Savannah is a pumpkin this year. I didn't really think I'd be able to pull together a costume that she would be particularly interested in (since she really has no clue what's going on when it comes to Halloween anyways) until my mom and I were at Marshall's a couple of weeks ago and we saw the pumpkin costume and the light bulb flashed on! As you know Savannah has been obsessed with pumpkins since they started popping up in Halloween decorations everywhere and she is obsessed with her costume, asking us, "Punkin on?" all of the time and carrying it around like a favorite stuffed animal.
Nate wore a pair of scrubs and then borrowed an afro wig and Bass Pro shops hat. Unfortunately when we got home last night and I downloaded our pictures I realized that the picture I took of him in his complete costume didn't turn out at all! So all I have is a picture of him in his scrubs. :-(
I went in a blonde Marilyn Monroe-esque wig, long false sparkly eyelashes, and sparkly makeup. I have no idea who I was, but I do know that I wasn't myself, so that counts, right?
Savannah had a fun time walking around the parking lot trick-or-treating at all of the cars, but all I ever got her to say was "thank you" a couple of times. For the most part she wanted to hold the candy, though we did manage to get a piece of candy here and there into her trick-or-treat bag. She didn't have a clue that what was being handed to her was candy, she was just excited that people were handing her things! I'm not going to inform her otherwise either.
We handed out M&Ms and KitKats at our car. We will not be handing out candy at our house tomorrow night however, since Nate just left for Boston this morning on business so he won't be around. Savannah and I are going to go trick-or-treating in Redlands with my parents instead.

Savannah was pretty enthralled with my wig.
When I put it on her she was more than pleased.
She didn't want to take it off. I think she thought if she kept it on we wouldn't recognize her, and thus wouldn't make her stop reading her books and relinquish her hold on her candy to go to bed.
Someone in my extended family (was it you Uncle Dave?) recently emailed out an article on the Six Worst Halloween Treats. I take issue with candy corn being on that list as it is one of my all-time favorites. What are you handing out this year?

No more monkeys jumping on the bed!

Savannah has started to memorize the words to some of her favorite books. This video is of her and Nate having their nightly story time reading one of her current favorite books. It makes me smile every time I watch it.

Pumpkins, Lizards, and "Poo poo"

It's so fun to watch Savannah grow up (although sometimes I wish she wouldn't do it so quickly!). Last Friday Savannah and I went with my friend Jennifer and her two girls to the Sugar Plum Arts & Crafts Festival held at the OC County Fairgrounds. We had a blast and the girls were really good. We had them harnessed up in matching monkey harnesses so they couldn't run off (strollers were not permitted at the fair). We actually were stopped at least five different times by people asking if the girls liked their harnesses, where we got them, etc. Jennifer's oldest daughter grabbed Savannah's hand at one point and I thought I was going to melt, it was so cute. On Saturday we met up with my parents and went to The Pumpkin Patch at Live Oak Canyon Christmas Tree Farm in Redlands (California), which is owned by a family in my parents' ward. There is a ton to do, from picking pumpkins, to a petting zoo, to hayrides and stuffing your face with carne asada fries (of course I would never do such a thing). :-) I think the highlights of the day for us were watching Savannah in a total state of bliss in the petting enclosure and riding in a wheel barrow with the pumpkins we picked. She had no fear around the animals and was delighted when my dad helped her to feed the goats. She LOVES pumpkins and would get excited with each pumpkin that was added to the wheelbarrow. We did have a small heartstopping moment when I noticed a black widow spider in the wheelbarrow with Savannah near her legs, but we got it out and she lived for us to tell about it.

Also on Saturday my Dad caught a small lizard for Savannah (they go lizard hunting every time we go to my parents' house, it's their tradition). She held the lizard by herself for the first time (usually she just gives the lizards kisses--no joke). In an email that my mom sent later that day to my brothers, she wrote, "She [Savannah] was quite excited. However, then we noticed some brown stuff on her wrist and thought maybe the lizard had the poop scared out of him by being held. When Savvy finally relinquished the lizard, we discovered the poor thing had been crushed to death between her eager fingers. She'd squeezed the guts right out of him (her?). Ewwww…. It's probably a good thing she can't catch lizards by herself yet."

Savannah's current obsessions, besides pumpkins, are books and shoes.

One of her favorite times of the day is sitting down with Nate and night to read books.

Savvy-ism of the week: Savannah was sitting in her highchair playing with a favorite stuffed dog the other day. She flipped the dog over so that the tail was facing her and noticed the little tag that was near the tail. She pointed to the tag and said, "Poo poo!" She's daddy's girl all right.

BYU Bummer

Ouch. BYU's 32-7 loss tonight to TCU was a bit painful to watch. My mom and dad came over to our house to watch the game because they didn't have the channel that it was showing on. We were all glad to have Savannah as a distraction otherwise the evening would just have been too painful. She utilized her time with Nana and Papa to practice shouting "Touchdown!"
Here is Savannah holding cheerleading practice:



Savvy-ism of the week: A few days ago we all went to the grocery store. Nate had Savvy in the shopping cart and was going down the feminine hygiene product aisle. Savvy saw a package of pads, pointed and exclaimed, "Cookies!" Go figure.

Traffic and "Punkins"

Yesterday I put on an hour long seminar for the sales department at MBK on the topic of Gracious Hospitality. Now that it's over (until I do it again next month for their executives) I'm feeling a lot less stressed and have realized I'm overdue for an update!

We are still without a dryer. . . well, kind of. You might remember that I mentioned a couple of posts back that we finally got our washer and dryer in our Memphis shipment, but that our dryer wasn't working when it was hooked up. Well, our relocation company paid to have someone come out and take a look at the dryer. We figured it had to be a problem with the dryer, since we had a full inspection of the house with an inspector before we closed escrow and no problems had come up in relationship to the washer or dryer hookups. Well the repair guy came out and took a look at it and determined the dryer was fine, but that there was a break in the electric line somewhere between the breaker and the outlet. Great. So we called the inspector and said something like, "Um, you missed something?" He explained that they don't really check that outlet anymore because most people aren't using electric dryers and many people modify that outlet to accommodate hot tubs and the like (???). Well, unfortunately we're one of the few families I guess with an electric dryer because our place in Memphis didn't have hookups for a gas dryer. We got a rough estimate of what it would cost us to do the electrical work and quickly figured out that it was going to cost us about $50 more just to buy a new gas dryer rather than do the electrical work. We opted for the new dryer, since in the long run it will save a lot of money anyways. The dryer was finally delivered on Tuesday, but they didn't hook it up. Nate made a trip to Home Depot last night to buy a hook up kit and will hopefully have a bit of time soon to try and get the dryer going. In the meantime, we have now been without a dryer since we moved out of our temporary apartment in Irvine--a good month and a half ago. Ugh.

This weekend for Conference we went to my parents' house to watch the Sunday sessions. My cousin Denise and hubby John Pedroza (and their cute little guy A.J.), and my cousin Tom and wifey Erica (and their cute little doll Harper) came out for dinner. Good times!

(Savannah and A.J. Pedroza)

(Savannah being spiritual for Conference)

(Savannah "driving" Papa's (my dad's) car)

Nate is still as busy as ever, spending a lot of time on site at clients. Lately he's been having to go to Torrance and El Segundo (not exactly next door) more than he would like. Poor guy. He's truly battling the good 'ole SoCal traffic.

Savannah continues to get crazier and crazier. Thanks to Nana (my mom) she is now obsessed with doing Ring around the Rosie over and over and over and over again.
She's loving the change in seasons because she has discovered "punkins" and likes to point out every single one that she sees. I made her a pumpkin hat so she would even have a "punkin" to wear on her head.
I am now just short of being 24 weeks pregnant. I had an appointment with my OB/GYN earlier this week and things are looking fine, so all is good on the baby front!
Today Savannah and I went and met my dear friend Keilani Tanaka and her little boy Kai for lunch. Kei and her hubby Ryan were in our Stake in Tokyo and then moved back to the US a year before us. It's always good to see her. It's amazing how small the world is sometimes, isn't it?