Lilly is 6 months old!

Lilly is in the 97th percentile for height, and 75th percentile for weight. She just got her first tooth poking through on Sunday, and I'm very happy to have her sleeping through the night again.

I love Halloween!

Ever since I had kids, Halloween has become my favorite holiday. Sure, there's nothing significant and meaningful about it, like Christmas and Thanksgiving, but it sure is fun! I love seeing my kids' faces light up when they receive a ton of candy and realize they can eat as much as they want. Halloween has become much more than just a one-day affair. It's more of a week-long blitz, starting with Monday. For FHE, we made sugar cookies in the shape of ghosts and pumpkins and frosted them. On Tuesday, Kate gets to dress up in her costume for dance class, and they have a little party with cookies and punch. On Wednesay, Kate gets to dress up in costume again for her preschool Halloween party. Then on Thursday, all the kids get to go trick-or-treating at Melaleuca. Later that night, they get to go to the neighborhood trunk-or-treat and carnival at the church. Then, finally, on Friday, it's officially Halloween and the real trick-or-treating can begin. Here are some pictures of our family pumpkin carving night and of the t-shirts I made with some friends. Yes, we tie-dyed the shirts ourselves and painted on the pumpkin faces!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

The Hubby Tag

You can thank Katy Paskett for the following!

1. Where did you meet?
At a stake dance at the Wilkenson Ctr at BYU. I introduced myself, and he got my phone number, but he never did ask me to dance.

2. How long did you date before you were married?
We got engaged a year after our first date. Our engagement lasted 5 months.

3. How long have you been married?
6 years and 4 months.

What does he do that surprises you?
He likes to surprise me with romantic mood lighting by lighting fragrant candles throughout the house.

5. What is your favorite feature of his?
I love his broad shoulders and long arms - great for giving hugs!

6. What is your favorite quality of his?
He's very patient and thoughtful. He never wants anyone to feel badly.

7. Does he have a nickname for you?
Sometimes he shortens my name and calls me "Ju."

8. Does he have a favorite color?
Yellow.

9. What is his favorite food?
He loves the Italian nachos at Carinos. He really likes my homemade pizza: he sometimes eats so much of it that he makes himself sick.

10. What is his favorite sport?
Baseball.

11. When was your first kiss?
I can't remember which number of date it was, but I think we'd been going out for a couple of months. I was wearing this striped sweater that I still have, which he loves. It was on the doorstep of my apartment in Liberty Square, and I was totally surprised by it. I didn't see it coming. (It was also his first kiss EVER - no lie!)

12. Favorite thing to do as a couple?
We like to get on the internet and watch the TV show Bones and Pushing Daisies on the laptop in our bed.

13. Do you have any children?
Three beautiful daughters.

14. Does he have a hidden talent?
When he decides he wants to cook something, which isn't that often, it always turns out really good. He's also really good at reading instruction manuals and figuring out how things work.

15. How old is he?
29.

16. Who said I love you first?
I did.

17. What's his favorite music?
His taste in music is eclectic, to say the least. He loves broadway musicals, Peter Cetera, Air Supply, and Lionel Richie.

18. What do you admire most about him?
I admire his ambition to succeed and advance at work, but I also admire how supportive he is of me in my hobbies and endeavors.

19. Do you think that he will read this?
Probably not, at least not for a long while. I said last night to him, "You know, you can always post stuff on our blog too." And he replied, "I know, it's just the last thing on my mind right now."

Okay, now here's the fun part . . . I tag Aimee, Jenny, Lindsey, Alicia, and Cassie. (Since you're all family, you can't stay mad for long, right?)

Pictures of Lilly

My sister Aimee asked that I post some recent pictures of Lilly, so here are a few. She's just starting to eat ceral, and she's really cute about it. She's growing so fast.

Since Kate turned four, I've been wondering where the time went. I recently looked at an old video of her, and I feel like it was a different life completely when I had this little helmet-wearing baby. Now look at her, a little smartie-pants who loves dance class and preschool and Zac Efron! (My girls are High School Musical fans.) Plus I have two other little kiddos. Here are all three of them being cheesy for the camera. Lilly doesn't quite know what to do with all the attention. She really isn't sitting up up that well on her own, so this was one of our "practice" sessions with the boppy pillow.

Kate's 4th Birthday

Kate turned four years old yesterday. Wow! I made her this lamb cake, which was a big hit to look at but not so much to eat - who wants to eat all those marshamallows? This is what it was supposed to look like. The day was a pretty good one. She was excited all day, and I tried really hard to make the day special for her by not getting mad at her and letting her do whatever she wanted. By the time birthday dinner rolled around, she couldn't wait for her presents. After we ate, Mac set up the video camera and we started singing happy birthday. As soon as we started singing, this funny look came over Kate, like she was getting overwhelmed by the attention and starting to shut down. She's gotten this look many times before: at Easter Egg hunts, her first day of dance class, etc. But it's always been when we're with a lot of other people, when she clearly isn't comfortable. So it was strange to see this look come over her when it was just us, the family, singing to her. After we were done singing, she wouldn't blow out the candles, and it took a lot of coaxing to get her to finally do it. Then, as she was opening her first present, she wouldn't look at it while she slowly took the wrapping paper off. We kept saying, "Look, look - some of the present is going to fall if you don't look at what you're doing." But she refused to look and would only stare at us with that strange look. She didn't even act excited about the gift, even though normally she would be ecstatic at the thought of watching High School Musical. Finally, she started to loosen up and get back to normal after a couple of presents, and then she had a blast playing with everything. She was so caught up in playing with her new toys that she didn't even eat any of her cake. I was afraid they didn't like it, but the girls ate a lot of it today.

Overall, yesterday was a really good day for Kate. She's a funny girl, but she enjoyed herself a lot. Today she was getting excited just talking about her 5th birthday!