October Catch Up Post

Well we wanted to be able to post our Halloween pictures before Christmas came around, so we figured we better play some catch up and quick. So stay tuned for the Halloween pictures in the next post which if all goes according to plan will be up in the next day or two.

Be forewarned that this is a rather lengthy post, but as we usually do we'll try to keep the writing down to a minimum and the pictures up to a maximum. We made an attempt at putting them in chronological order, but we're not making any promises. Without further ado, we bring you random photos from about the middle of October to the 30th.

We got to go to the park by the Brugman's house one day when we were up there for dinner. We were surprised to find out that Shaylin could hold herself up on the monkey bars - although you'd think we would have already caught on since she tells us quite often 'I'm strong.'


Jayna and the girls got to go to the zoo again in October with our friends Jana, Savannah, and Sydney. It was nice for them to be able to spend time with friends walking around the zoo and seeing all the animals.


Now that our patio is finally done and we have a pathway over by the playground, we were able to finish part of the playground area. This allowed us to finally put out Shaylin's sandbox that her great Grandma and Grandpa Hull gave her for her first birthday. We just never wanted to put it out in the direct sun on the dirt, so we had been using it as a toy box inside since she got it. She loved getting to play in the sand and will definitely enjoy it for a long time!


Shaylin has always enjoyed sitting on Matt's stomach and usually jumps up and down attempting to knock the wind out of him. Emmalyn got in on the action this time and they both got a kick out of it.


Here's Emmalyn 'pushing' Shaylin in the play stroller. This is evidence that even though Emmalyn still isn't able to crawl completely despite being able to do push ups for months, she's now able to stand up on her own while holding on to something. Plus it's cute that like most babies, she feels the need to taste everything.


Jaycob and Jaymee (Jayna's little brother and sister) both went to the homecoming dance at their high school in October. Of course, since we never miss a photo opportunity we slipped Shaylin into a few pictures.

Jaycob and his girlfriend Kristin with Shaylin...


Jaymee and Shaylin...



Matt's parents came down in October for Matt and our niece Jessica's birthday. As always we loved getting to spend a little time with them talking and catching up. They are so good with the girls and help out so much with them while they're here.

Here's Curt (Matt's dad) pushing Shaylin on the swing set...


Here's Curt and Mitzi with all five of their grandkids - Shaylin, Christian, Declan, Emmalyn, and Jessica...


Our adorable niece Jessica turned 1 this past month. Here she is after devouring her cake. This is right before she started trying to eat the plate too :).


Here's all three of the girl cousins - Emmalyn, Jessica, and Shaylin. Amazingly enough we got them to all sit semi still long enough to get a picture.


We didn't get many pictures on Matt's birthday, but we had fun celebrating it with a pizza dinner over at Matt's parents house on his actual birthday and then again a few days later when we celebrated it along with Jayna's Aunt Dawnie's b-day at Dawnie's house in Queen Creek.

Here we are on Matt's birthday...


They had a little pumpkin patch here in Maricopa at one of the local landscaping company's yards. We went with Todd and Savannah (Jayna's cousins) and all picked out a few pumpkins to carve.

Emmalyn and Jayna...


Shaylin...


Shaylin and Emmalyn...


Shaylin enjoyed riding on the cart with the pumpkins after we picked them out...


Shaylin even helped out a little with cleaning out our pumpkin. And by little, we mean this is about as far as her hand made it in since she found the pumpkins innards rather gross.


Shaylin also got her first full haircut from Jayna in late October. She has really curly hair, just like Matt, so trimming it up will help keep it under control for a while. Jayna cut her hair while she was sitting on a bench on the back patio. Shaylin sat still the whole time and loved getting her hair done, since she sees Jayna doing other people's hair all the time.


Emmalyn unveiled a new smile this past month. She kind of grits her teeth (well, if she had all her teeth she would be gritting them-we are pretty sure she is teething again) and raises one eyebrow. Of course we think it's a very cute smile :).


We decided that Shaylin would dress up like a princess this year for Halloween. Jaylene bought her a bunch of dress up clothes for her birthday, and here she is trying a few things on in preparation for Halloween...