We feel safe here in old Payson

So we went to Doug's work's Christmas Party tonight and had a fabulous time. Comedy Sports performed and they were hilarious. I had never seen them perform before. Anyway, when we got home we found that our side door was wide open. That scared us a little. Doug checked everything out and we eventually realized that we had just never shut it. Good thing to know we live in a safe neighborhood! Especially because one of our laptops was sitting on the kitchen table and the other was on the couch. We also realized that it's pretty hard to see our side door unless you're in our neighbor's bedroom. It also made us feel good to discover that we'd left our heat on so we're glad that we were heating up the neighborhood while we were out. Hope you all had a good night!

What Sophia's Been Up To

I thought I'd take a minute and post a few pictures of Sophia's latest and greatest. I have to hurry and get pictures of just her on here before the blog becomes overtaken with pictures of her little sibling. Tuesday (the 4th) is the day! We'll keep you posted with how everything went and what we had!

Here we are at the temple Sunday. We drove by to reminisce about our happy day 4 years ago. They have this really neat white marble nativity set up right now but unfortunately there were about a million missionaries taking pictures by it so we didn't get a chance. I'd never seen a nativity set up at the Provo Temple before. It's pretty cool!


Here's the kids coloring on Sunday night at Grandma's. Grandma was so nice to get all of this out for Sophia. She had a fabulous time.

Here's my proud girl in front of her favorite mess! I guess this is what she's up to when my head is buried in the laptop doing work. She managed to empty the entire bookcase three times in one day!

Why do they have to look so peaceful, cute, and innocent when they're sleeping? If only she had this look on her face all of the time.

Here she is with her funny glasses on. She has really been in to wearing these lately. She thinks she's pretty funny when she puts them on.


Finally, here's a video of her silliness. She put these glasses on and started singing "I love glasses, she loves me..." Unfortunately she had stopped singing by the time the camera came out. It was still pretty cute though!
Silly Glasses from jmwilkins10 on Vimeo.

Bonus picture time - Here's our tree and a few other decorations all set up. Enjoy!

Happy 4 Years!

Doug and I celebrate 4 years today! I can't believe that much time has past but I've enjoyed every minute of it! I love you Douglas! Thanks for 4 great years!

Fun Weekend

We had such a fabulous weekend celebrating our anniversary! Thanks again to Emma, Luana, Jason, and Jeffy for putting up with our girl! It was greatly appreciated! We went to the Blue Boar Inn and had a fabulous time! We stayed in the Rudyard Kipling room. It was really neat. We loved the attention to detail that was apparent everywhere. We went to dinner at the Homestead and they had us leave our key at the desk because it's "European tradition" and so that they could turn our room down. When we got back there was a rose, mints, a little book of poems (from the authors their rooms are themed after), and a little paper showing the next days forecast. They also had some nice soft music playing. Doug didn't take any credit for it so we were greatly impressed by their service. They had a really yummy breakfast this morning which was complimentary (a $30 deal!) which we greatly enjoyed as well. We'd recommend this place to anyone! The happy couple in front of the Blue Boar.

It was so fun to have stairs to climb to get into our bed!



Before we got there we went and did a little more Christmas shopping. The reason why my sweet husband got up early yesterday to go shopping was to get an anniversary gift. He drove all the way to IKEA to get me this bowl I really wanted that we saw last time I was there. I love it! It's kind of hard to see in the picture because of the shadows. It's completely silver and I really do love it.

He also purchased the wardrobe shown below. It was $20 (the original price was $80)! We're using it to store games and linens. Because it was such a good deal (and because we're so crazy!) we went back to get another one for Sophia's room later. We really could not pass up a deal this good.

We also got a couple of these night stands shown below (the candelabra on top was from an earlier IKEA trip). They were a way good deal too. I love IKEA!

Finally, we got all of our Christmas up today! This was my big goal for the weekend because I wanted to have it all done before the baby comes. I put together this little display and I'm not quite sure what I think about it. It's just layers of pine cones and cinnamon apple slices in different vases. Let me know what you think. Hope you're all well and that you had a fabulous weekend as well!

Our Turkey Days

Our Thanksgiving celebration started out Wednesday night with a fabulous dinner at Doug's sister Jenna's house. We had such a great time with family and enjoyed some wonderful food! It was so fun to get a surprise visit from his sister Leda. She's currently at school in North Carolina and we weren't expecting to see her there that night. It was such a fun surprise and so nice to visit with her again! We can't wait to see her again in a few weeks for Christmas!

Yesterday we got up and headed over to American Fork for the annual Turkey Bowl with the Quinteros and Co. It was a lot of fun. Especially because Doug managed to not get hurt! Sophia had a great time on the swings and toys while Daddy played. The whole time when she was swinging she kept saying, "This is a fun park!" and "Just mommy and Sophia swinging" over and over again. I love hearing her little voice repeat phrases like that over and over.
This is probably my favorite picture I've ever taken of Sophia. Have you ever seen a happier kid swinging!?

After that we headed up to Sandy to my brother Jason's for another fabulous meal! Doug and I both commented that it was probably the most relaxing Thanksgiving day we've ever had! Doug spent a majority of the time in front of the big screen watching Green Bay and enjoyed every second of it. He also got in a little Guitar Hero with Thomas. Sophia mainly played and enjoyed her time with cousins. She also had fun playing with their dwarf hamster (silly "monster!"). Overall it was a tremendous holiday for us!
The beautiful bird filled with sage butter.

The beatutiful table Emma set.


Lucy the Monster from jmwilkins10 on Vimeo.

Doug left this morning bright and early to hit a few sales and Sophia and I are going to try and get a little bit of Christmas up. I just talked to Doug (it's now 8 am) and he said he just got out of his first store. It took him 1/2 hour to get into the store and 1 1/2 hours at the checkout. I love my husband and the sacrifices he makes for me! he's the best! Later we're heading up to Midway and are looking forward to that! Hope you all had a wonderful and relaxing holiday as well!

The Adventures of Sophia

This has been a pretty good week for the Sophstress. Here's a few pictures of what she's been up to.

Last night I subjected her to sleeping in sponge curlers. This is the reason why you have little girls. I'd done this to her when she was about 6 months old so I figured it was time to try again. She did pretty good and had only pulled out about half of them by this morning. Her hair was pretty curly after I took them out so we decided to do piggys. I think she looked especially cute for church today. I love the baby doll dresses. She's definitely ready for the holidays!





Here's one (and a video)of the fun thing her and dad built the other day. She had so much fun running through it/under it over and over again.

Untitled from jmwilkins10 on Vimeo.


Finally, here's a video of her riding her bucking bronco daddy the other day. She thought that was a pretty good time too!
Buckin' Bronco from jmwilkins10 on Vimeo.

Gotta love those home jobs!

Or maybe it can be blamed on the squirmy kid? I cut Sophia's hair tonight and it's a little bit shorter than expected. Especially the bangs. They grow though right? It's okay that she looks like a dude for a little while right? At least it's straight (kind of)! She was in desperate need of a trim and I really didn't want to fight with her in a salon. She did great for me at home though (minus a few shifts here and there).

Here's picture of some of my Thanksgiving decorations. Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday. Probably because it's when I got married. Anyway, my mom is letting me borrow the little ceramic set since she won't be here this Thanksgiving. I love it! The stacking blocks with the ships and pilgrim's hat are from my old ward's Super Saturday. Aren't they cute? The turkeys in the bottom picture are courtesy of Jenna from last year's Thanksgiving. I think they're so cute! I made some like them today with my Activity Day girls and they loved them. It was so much fun!

We're so excited that Thanksgiving is only a week away! We can't wait to watch the parade and Doug play in the Turkey bowl and all those other fun Thanksgiving things. We're also excited to leave Sophia at my brothers the day after Thanksgiving (Thanks J and Jeffy!) to spend the night at the Blue Boar Inn (a B&B in Midway) for our anniversary (4 whole years!). It will be a nice very needed break before this baby comes! Happy Thanksgiving!

Fun Day at the Zoo!

Doug woke up this morning and realized that he didn't have class or anything to do at work so we decided to go the the zoo! We'd picked up a membership at the Minnesota zoo this summer and it was good for the Hogle Zoo so we decided to make use of it. It was so fun and was the perfect day to go. Sophia had such a great time! She was a little hesitant about the elephants but everything else was ok. Here's a picture of her taking a drink at one of the lion drinking fountains (she had to get a drink from every one). After she took a drink from this one she got down and said, "Thank you Lion". I was expecting a "Thank you daddy" but thanking the lion works too.

Here we are at the cool fountain just inside the zoo. (Can you see us?)


Here's one of Sophia by a "cat". She absolutely fell in love with it and kept trying to pet it. It was so cute!

On the way home we stopped at Cabela's to see the elk and fish. It's just about her favorite thing in the world. She sure loves those elk!
Here's a slide show and video of our fun day. The last one in the slide show is Sophia asleep in the car on the way home. I love how she still has a handful of food. Kids are the best!

Untitled from jmwilkins10 on Vimeo.

Now it's random picture time!

Here's one of me for my sister Melissa to prove that I really am huge! I definitely look pregnant from the side! Am I going to make it 3 more weeks? When I was at my doctor's appointment the other day I commented about how my maternity clothes are no longer fitting because the shirts aren't long enough and the pants won't stay over my belly. He then told me "third trimester maternity clothes are not meant to be flattering or passed down. They are meant to be burned in a ceremony after the baby is born". I thought that was very sound advice.


Here's one of my new do. I did a hair dying kit from the store last night. Can't you totally tell a difference? JK. I bought a blonde kit and I'm pretty sure it covered up every last streak of blond I had in my hair. Oh well. At least it washes out in 28 washings!

Here's one showing Sophia's newest bonk. She fell so hard into the entertainment center last night. Half of her forehead swelled up with a big blue line down the middle. It doesn't look quite as bad today.

LIttle Reminder

Hello all! Here's a quick reminder for us all from Sophia. As she was eating her lunch today I was downstairs folding laundry. I came upstairs and saw that she was making her usual lunchtime mess of flinging food across the kitchen. When I told her to stop she kept doing it more (of course) and so I let out a little scream of frustration. Nothing big, just a little "AHHH!". Anyway, she then looked at me and said "what was that?" I told her that I was frustrated and she said, "Just laugh mom. Just laugh". Thanks Sophs. So there's the reminder to you all. Just laugh when you get frustrated.

FHE and More Fun!

Tonight we talked about the armor of God for FHE. We each drew it as we read it in the scriptures. It was pretty fun. Try and guess which rendition belongs to which artist.



Here's a picture of my latest Christmas decoration. I saw something similar to this at IKEA and they wanted more than free for it so I decided to make one of my own. I think it turned out ok. It's twice as long as what I've shown but I couldn't really get a good picture of the whole thing. Apparently I'm going for a Scandinavian theme this Christmas. It's fun though and easy to find everything in red and white.

What comes after acorns?

LEAVES! Holy moly have we been hit by a truckload of oak leaves. Thank goodness we moved to a house with a giant oak tree. Who knew it would be this much fun. We're currently deciding what the heck to do with them. Should I make some more wreaths? Start putting in your orders! JK. Here's some pictures of Doug and Sophia's FHE the other night while I was in Arizona. I've also included a video of their adventures.


Sophia Raking from jmwilkins10 on Vimeo.
Here's a picture taken a few days later after they'd raked them up.

Here's one from today after I raked up the remainder. Thankfully the tree is now empty.

Here's a bonus video of Sophia watching her ABC's movie and singing along. I don't think I'll ever get tired of her sweet little voice.
Sophia Singing from jmwilkins10 on Vimeo.