BRYSTAL'S BIRTHDAY BASH!

We celebrated Brystal's birthday on Saturday and had a big party for her. It was a costume party of course. If you can't tell Brystal was a butterfly. I didn't get any better pictures of her in it before she got all sweaty and I had to take it off. Anyways, It was a great party and here is just the highlights of it...

Here is the amazing cake I slaved over all day the day before. If you can't tell, it is the baby Einstein caterpillar. She is so obsessed with baby Einstein, I thought what could be more perfect. By the way, if anyone wants some birthday cake there is TONS left over, please come over and eat it. I'm begging you.

Here we are having hot dogs on the back porch with all her friends.

Mmmm. This was her first bite of birthday cake. Boy did she love it.

She loved it even more, when we added ice cream to it. She was like this the rest of the day. So excited. She probably would have eaten that whole cake if I didn't have to pry it out of her little fingers to go open the presents. She would have sat there all day eating that thing.

Brystal got so many new presents, and all the kids got involved with the present opening. It was a smorgesbord of toys in there.

She was so excited with this book as you can see. She loves books.

Hmmm. what is in this box? This is from mommy and daddy.

After the party was over we set up all her toys and she has been having a hay day ever since, this is the gift we got her. A shopping cart walker. It is adorable. And she loves it. Thank goodness. Nothing worse then spending money on all these toys and your kid doesn't even play with them. It was such a great party. And we all had a blast.

CAKE AND ICE CREAM

Brystal had her first cake and ice cream. She LOVED it. After her cake she was so wound up for the rest of the day, so excited.

BRYSTAL'S FIRST PUMPKIN!

For family home evening yesterday, we bought a pumpkin and carved it together. Brystal had a great time getting all messy!

OH MY GOODNESS!

A little questionable at first, but decided to give it a try.

What a great helper!

So proud of herself.

This is a bad picture of us, but here we are in front of the ghetto spider I carved. We had such a great time as a family carving our first pumpkin together. Brystal loved it!

LOVIN THE PUMPKIN

Once she got used to the feel of the pumpkin, she just went to town on the pumpkin guts. She could have done this all night long.

BABY LANGUAGE

Brystal has invented her own language. Though she can say 2 words that I know of which are "daddy" and "bubbles" she has this little lingo that she does. She looks right at you and talks to you like you can totally understand her, and she uses her tongue in such a funny way that I can't even mimik it. Sorry if this clip is a little boring, but it was all I could get out of her, she never performs when you want her to.

SKEET SHOOTING WITH THE YW

Last Saturday I got to go Skeet shooting with my Mia Maids. This was sadly my last activity with them, since I just got released and put in as the Relief Society Secretary. I wasn't too thrilled about leaving my calling, but I guess I am off to new adventures. Here is all of us. I'm the retarded looking one in the front.

This is me shooting. I was seriously the worst one there. I did actually hit ONE clay pigeon, but other than that, I was way off! That gun was really heavy, and I don't have much muscle. Also, I don't know how I feel about having a deadly weapon in my hands. It was kinda freaky, and I don't know if I trust myself in room by myself with one of these things.

Just chillin with the girls.

And did you ever think you'd see something like this? This is a legitimate GUN STROLLER! No someone didn' t just take a baby stroller and turn it into a makeshift gun stroller, you can actually buy one of these like this for little compartments for guns and bullets and all your other deadly weapon accessories.

THE TROUBLE BEGINS

Ever since Brystal has learned to crawl there are several things that I have been really dreading her getting into. I knew that she would start getting into things but there are always a few things that you just really would rather never happened. Well today she managed to accomplish 2 of my biggest fears
EATING DOG FOOD AND SWISHING HER HANDS AROUND IN THE TOILET WATER.

Need I say more

GENERAL CONFERENCE

We spent conference with our friends here who kindly invited us over to watch on their cable, since we don't get conference on local TV. Otherwise we watch it on the internet. It was a nice day to share yummy food and the company of good friends, and learn from our prophets. Watching conference is a little trickier when you have a baby. It's a good thing they come out with the conference Ensign, or I might not be able to learn hardly anything.

Nathan playing Conference BINGO!

Mmmmmm. Donuts.

This is Brystal and her friend Catherine, or Cat for short. They don't really play together now, but someday they will be little schoolmates.

GET YOUR GROOVE ON

Brystal has some new moves up her sleeves. Now that she can stand, she can dance while standing! And anytime music comes on, she will start to bounce or sway with the music. You can't hear the music, but it is coming from the little toy so she is dancing to the music on the toy. Shake your little baby bootie!

COOLEST PARK EVER

Right in the middle of downtown Houston is this amazing park we stumbled across. My friend knew about this park as well so we went together. It has a huge area with water fountains that shoot out for kids to run through, a cute litte park , and even one of those little lakes you can rent those remote control sailboats. Brystal just played in the water section mostly and had a blast.

She mostly just stood in this position the whole time, but enjoyed the water.

It is still sunny 80 something degree weather here in Houston, I wish it was fall here, but at least we still can enjoy days like this in the water.

Sorry there are so many pictures of the same thing, she was just so cute today! I loved it.

Then we changed her wet clothes and played at the little park for a bit. She didn't do much but crawl around and stare at people. Someday Brystal, someday.

STORY TIME

Brystal loves to read her books. she can sit down with a couple books and just thumb through the pages for almost an hour. I'll put little books in her crib and come to get her up from her nap and find her just laying back with her feet propped up reading her little book. She likes to read them outloud of course. Here she found the book stash in her room and pulled them all down and couldn't decide which one to read. I hope she'll keep this love for books forever.

MY BABY IS BETTER THAN YOUR BABY

If you are a mom you may understand the pressure that comes with having friends who are moms. There is always a competition like, "my baby is crawling" "my baby is eating like a champ" "well my baby can say 3 words" It gets a little stressful sometimes trying to keep up with the other babies. You don't want your kid to be the baby with no talent. Well guess what people, my baby is way cooler than all your babies.......

MY BABY POOPS MONEY! BEAT THAT!

GOOD LUCK MIKE AND ANDREA

Our good friends Mike and Andrea from Galveston stayed with us for a week while waiting to get back to Galveston to collect their things. We loved having them here, and after everything that has happened since the hurricane we hope that them and everyone else will be able to get back to normal and things will work out for them. They are staying in Utah till they figure out when they can come back. We miss you guys. Oh and Brystal does to, even though it doesn't look like it in this picture.

IS SHE CRYING, AND PLAYING?

For some reason when she gets real tired or sick of playing in her jumper, she continues to jump her little heart out as she is crying. I don't understand. But it is kinda funny.

DINNER BY CANDLELIGHT

After the storm, we were without power for 6 days. It was a very long long time to be without power, we are very blessed that it finally came back on last Thursday because most people in our ward are still without power. It's really sad. Things seem to be getting back to normal somewhat around here, the grocery stores finally have food, and you don't have to wait 2 hours to get gas anymore. Our good friends Mike and Andrea have been staying with us this week because they are Hurricane Ike evacuees. Mike is going to Med school in Galveston, and they left a week before the storm hit with about 3 days worth of clothes not knowing the storm would hit Galveston and not knowing how bad it would be. They were finally able to get to Galveston yesterday to go through their muddy smelly apartment to salvage what they could. We have enjoyed having them here. They are going to Utah in a couple of days till further notice.
Anyways, things here are ok now. We luckily had a gas stove so we could still cook, and a generator to run our fridge to keep our food cool. We are so much luckier than most people around here. What would we have done without that generator? Here is how we spent our evenings. Dinner by candlelight.