Monday, November 8, 2010

so many things!

i can't believe how much has happened over the past few weeks! between halloween festivities, my mom coming to visit and scott being irresistable to take pictures of.... i have a lot of catching up to do! (i threw in a bunch of miscellaneous pictures on this blog because i'm getting to the point where i'm just not sure i'll ever do another scapbook besides a blog scrapbook and i don't want to miss out on these memories.) here we go!

i love this picture. i can't tell you how many summer/fall days we have seen scott just like this. riding around our condo complex on his little trike, looking up at his favorite thing... an airplane.




there's this really pretty little pond area in our complex that scott and i love to walk to. our favorite thing is sitting on the grass and throwing pinecones into the water. this is scott with his collection of pincones.



this is our tree and behind it is our rock and behind that is our pond. but the fountains are turned off for the winter and the leaves are dead and the grass is cold and wet. we'll miss you little pond... until next spring.



across the street from our condo is the westlake recreation center which is the home for most of the community events. including the very popular pumpkin hunt. this is a pictur of scott and i mentally preparing ourselves for the hunt. there were a lot of competitors!



and here we are with our prized pumpkin. i was a little more excited about it than scott was. (i' still not sure what he thought was going to happen, but he was NOT happy about it.)



after the hunt scott bounced on bouncy castles and took a look at a real live helicopter. it was an awesome day.




for fhe one night we carved pumpkins with our friends sarah, nick and mitchell. its been a while since i've carved a pumpkin but as you can tell... i still have the touch. (you can't get much more basic than the triangle face.)


while us girls were furiously carving, the boys were trying to bake some of the pumpkin seeds. (emphasis on the word "trying". :) )



and the little boys (who were both utterly disgusted by the pumpkin guts) kept themselves busy with some of sarah's apple dessert.




nothing like pumpking carving and apple deliciousness to spice up your halloween!





the best thing that happened to us lately is grandy keyser came to visit! she had a conference in columbus ohio for work so i drove down to pick her up. i dropped scott off to play with brody (which he was ecstatic about) and then my mom and i went to the columbus temple.




thanks to my good friend anne who watched scott. (at least the mom's are looking at the camera.)its amazing how much these boys still love being together even after some months apart. the second they were together it was like no time had passed at all. the week leading up to this scott would periodically shout, "i want brody!" the toddler brain is incredible.even though my mom came in october she wanted to have thanksgiving dinner with us. i was elated because it has been a good three or four years since i have eaten my mom's thanksgiving dinner. i'm sure she tried to teach me in the past how to make all her famous goodies but this year i REALLY paid attention. it was delicious!as always, my mom spoiled us while she was here. we took scott to the disney store (his favorite store on earth) where she got him some toy story figurines and this cute shirt. scott was in heaven. (she also got me that cute maternity dress in the photo above.) we also took mom to kirtland ohio (which is about a half hour drive) to see the church history sites. first we went on a tour of the kirtland temple. and then we went to the Newel K Whitney store. i always have the best experiences when i'm on the LDS visitor site while listening to the missionaries tell me what happened on that very spot. we truly had a wonderful day.





and this is just a photo of james that my mom snapped. i love it because this is what he looks like every ay when he gets home from his rotations. cute dress shirt and tie with his fancy white coat and stethescope. he's going to be such a handsome doctor!

a few more little outings with grandy took us to the movies, out to dinner, the ymca and the lake erie beach (though it was way too cold to get close to the water.)

and when we weren't running around scott was soaking up all the attention at home.











the thing that took the most time while she was here was SHOPPING for a king size mattress. yes, my mom realized it was time for james and i to stop bumping noses in our queen size bed. so for an early birthday/christmas present (for the next five years) se got us this awesome mattress. it came in a box so it took a few days to flatten out but that is normal and it is SO comfortable now! and the best part is that james and i can sleep without breathing in each others faces. its true... a LITTLE distance realy does make the heart grow fonder. :)



sadly, grandy had to go back to utah but luckily there were plenty of halloween parties to distract us from her absense. this one was with some of the girls in my ward. all the kids were so cute and surprisingly cooperative for the picture. this is the longest scott had worn his lion costume up to this point. i was amazed!
scott was cheesing it up.... i think he was trying to impress the girls.



this is the best shot that my friend mckenzie took with her camera. i can't believe they all sat there for so long! L-R: hannah petersen, madeline harding, shana's two kids, abby nielsen, scott palmer, ella nielsen, cailyn davenport and brinkley davenport. i'm sure i messed up a bunch of those names but they're close.)


i had to throw in this picture from babysitting my friend loni's boys. this is grant and he and scott have so much fun together. they re a week a part in age, both blond haired and blue eyed and scott LOVES playing at "hrants house."



then we had a ward "trunk or treat" party the night before halloween. scott refused to wear his lion costume so we put him in last year's costume. the pants went to his knees and his cute little belly was showing all night but he looked SO cute! this is scott with his dinosaur friend mitchell.




here are a couple cute vidoes of him in the costume parade:








after the trunk or treat we had our friends derrick and crystal lee over for a monopoly night. i was SO excited. i LOVE monopoly... until i got stuck with stupid properties and went bankrupt! james ended up winning. grrrrrr.


finally the night of halloween arrived and we were able to take scott trick-or-treating for the very first time. (we were going to go last year but it was FREEEEZING). we just took him around to five of our little old neighbor friends. they loved seeing scott since he's one of about three kids that live in our entire complex.



this is a picture of us with our cute neighbor pete. he's always walking around and we'll feel safe knowing he has his eye on everything that is going on. :)


this is our other neighbor lynn. she has showered us with all sorts of helpful items since we moved in. we really lucked out with our neighbors.




after our brief trick or treating journey we came back to the house and ate popcorn and candy while watching "bedknobs and broomsticks". it was so fun and all james' cute idea. i love hanging out with our fun little family.

and i had to include this picture for a pretty obvious reason.



this picture is up for two reasons: 1. because i love seeing how much fun scott has with his dad and 2. because grandma palmer mailed scott this cute halloween shirt and he refused to where anything else for three days (he probably still would want to wear it but i finally hid it so i could put it in the wash!)


and this random little photo is of scott and i at panera bread. it is our most favorite place to go these days. (for those of you that don't know, panera bread is sort of like the midwest/east coast equivalent of einsteins bagels... only a little bit better.) the warm, delicious smells of bagels and soup tickle our toes and we take any opportunity we can to go in there for a panini and soup or a bag of cinnimon crunch bages. (i'm hungry just thinking about it!)


and i had to include this shot of scott with the orange bucket on his head. it is a very strange day when scott hasn't at one point put this bucket on his head and run around begging us to find him. he really thinks we can't see him if the bucket is on his head and its so rewarding for him to be able to peek underneath it and show us where he's hiding. this kid really is a barrel of fun.
the moral of this very LONG blog is...


Life is Good.

Friday, October 15, 2010

autumn is...

watching conference with friendsandrew and his gf ashley, scott, crytal and derek

running in the leaves with mitchell

and rolling in the leaves with mitchell


stirring hot apple butter at the apple butter festival in burton, ohio

riding rides at the festival with mitchell




eating all the apples you can get your hands on



to the very core
walking through a pumpkin patch searching for the perfect pumpkin


going on crisp autumn day bike rides on grandy keyser's early christmas present

making a leaf hat at the library and showing it off to daddy when he gets home

going on a bunny hunt in the back yard and showing "your happy" face

trying on halloween costumes (and being bribed with fruit snacks to smile for the picture)

fall is also grandy keyser coming to visit next week! we can't wait!

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

it's a........

after my last mishap with the blog post pregnancy announcemnt, it has taken me a little while to finally feel like i can offically make the announcement again. but now that we know what we are having and have had a confirmation from the doctor that everything looks good (fingers crossed) i feel a bit more comfortable making the official post. I'M PREGNANT!!! and due on February 26th!! I had the ultrasound yesterday but James couldn't be there so I had the ultrasound technician write the gender down on a piece of paper and seal it in an envelope so that we could find out together when James got home from his rotation. (It was SO hard to wait an extra 6 hours to find out!!! i seriously deserve a pat on the back.)
anyway, we got it all on video and since i don't want to spoil the fun you are going to have to watch the video to find out what we're having! :)

Friday, September 10, 2010

My book!

my book, Second Kiss, is finally published! (*sigh*... a very deep sigh) i've been working with Tate Publishing for almost a year preparing for this day. i've been working and reworking, editing and re-editing, checking and double checking and its hard to believe that its finally complete.
the book is a teen fiction novel about a young girl in junior high. i've always wanted to write books that are fun to read while simultaneously promoting good, moral values.
i keep reminding myself that this is my first book and i have a long road in front of me and plenty of room to improve. but for now i'm so excited to be one step closer to accomlishing my goals.
if you want more information on the book you can click on the title of this blog post or the link below.
Thanks so much to everyone who have been so supportive and encouraging through this whole process!
http://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=978-1-61663-767-5

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

love those 70's

70 degrees fahrenheit that is. now that its not scorching hot outside scott and i have been able to get out and do some fun things during the day. i thought this picture was hilarious. we shared a piece of pizza from a little kiosk in the middle of our outdoor mall. i coudln't believe that it was bigger than his face! (scott was obviously stoked about it.)
we've been spending some more time on our lawn outside our house. i like to lay on the blanket while scott runs around and plays. but he usually ends up tackling me before too long. we also found this really cool splash pad that a friend told us about. i know i post a lot of pictures of scott at splash pads but if you could see how happy this kid is when he's running around in the splashing water you would take a lot of pictures too.
and (drum roll please) scott has made ANOTHER friend!!! This is his friend Mitchell. They are almost the same age and they play so well together. His family invited us all to go to the zoo with them on Labor Day and we had a blast.

this is us with the mitch and his mom and dad (nick and sarah).
and this is just a fun pic of scott and mitch sticking their heads through our staircase when they came over for dinner the other day. this is crystal and derek. they are some other friends we've been hanging out with lately. they took us to this cool beach at Wallace Lake. we feel lucky to know such great people.

and last but DEFINITELY not least. here is our cute little boy reciting his abc's. you may think i'm bragging but for any of you who know scott and how he is slightly behind in talking you will be very impressed.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

never bored!

life in ohio has really started to get exciting now that we actually know where things are. it turns out that cleveland has a TON to do and it is really nearly impossible to ever get bored.
james is doing his rotations now days so scott and i have had to figure out how to entertain ourselves without him.
scott LOVES water so we try to hit up any type of FREE H2O whenever we can. the beach on lake erie is one of our favorite. and how can we not go as often as we can when we live so close to it!?

when daddy is around we try to do fun stuff with him as well. this is our FHE last week at the local swimming pool.
and of course we had to hit up the county fair. i'm not going to lie, it paled in comparison to the iowa state fair, but there was this juggler guy that juggled chain saws and rode on his tall bike while juggling fire that scott was absolutely mesmerized by.

scott's getting slightly easier at restaurants these days but we have a goal to (as much as possible) only go to local restaurants that are only in cleveland. so far we've had some delicious local italian, mexican and the best gyro i've ever had!

scott is finally starting to make some friends. this is his cute friend thomas. scott gets a little confused when i tell him that thomas is coming over though. he tends to run around saying, "Train!" (as in thomas the train...)
one of our favorite findings in cleveland is the emerald necklace. the emerald necklace consists of a bunch of reservations or metro parks in the area that have walking paths, play grounds, lakes and nature centers in the middle of vast forests of trees. this is a picture of scott last saturday when we went to the nature center at rocky river reservation.

and of course we still have hours of down time at home where scott gets to run around in his underwear and superman pajamas and play with his animals! (he's not supposed to play with them on the lap top but i came in from the kitchen this morning and found them ALL lined up where? on the lap top. and what do i do? encourage him by taking a picture. i'm a great mom.)


another random tid bit about scot these days is that he really really loves mom's crocks. like he LOVES them and wants to walk from the house to the car with them every chance he gets and then he likes to wear them in the car and then he gets mad when he can't wear them all day. i forgot they were in the car one day and i opened the door to find that he had somehow reached them and put them on his feet. it was hilarious. you had to be there...

okay, i know i have a lot of scott pics but these are his new pajamas that grandy keyser sent him in the mail the other day. they are his "airplane" pajamas and he can't get enough of them. thanks grandy!
another clip of him in his pj's. he's too cute.

and last but definitely not least it was mine and james' 4 year wedding aniversary last week and james brought me home not 1, not a dozen, not even 2 dozen but 25 red roses! kind of a random number but i loved them!

Sunday, August 1, 2010

grandma came to visit!

the best part about living far away is having family come to visit. james' mom "grandma palmer" came to visit us last week and we had a blast!

scott LOVED having a pal to hang out with while driving around. grandma palmer knew just how to entertain him. in this particular instance she used scott's socks to make hand puppets. he thought it was the coolest.

one night we took grandma to Friendly's to get icecream. does scott look happy to anyone else? just a little.

another day we took a ferry boat ride out to Kelley's Island.

we rented a golf cart and explored the island for a couple hours.

then we had lunch at the beach.

here's a picture of us in front of the island (not sure what position i'm trying to pull there.)



it got kind of hot so we poured water on scott's head. i loved his wild hair.


one of scott's favorite things was when grandma took us all to see Toy Story 3. This was scott's first time going to see a movie in a real live movie theater. grandma bought him popcorn and candy and a drink. he was in seventh heaven. and mom and dad were so proud of him for sitting quietly through the whole movie (almost).


on friday night we went down to columbus to hang out with the bryan and annie fam. we slept over friday night and grandma was a hit with story time.

the next day we went to the columbus zoo (which annie boasts as the best zoo in the USA) it really was a very cool zoo.
the baby elephant...
scott LOVES his uncle bryan.
we were so sad when we had to leave. these little kiddlings are so cute together.

thanks for coming to visit grandma palmer! can't wait until next time!