The Slides with Nonno

Nonno is usually willing to join us for a walk. :) In fact, he's the one who usually encourages a short walk. Especially when Lena has been begging all day long to go outside. Before the cold settled in we were able to enjoy a nice evening out. We walked over to the elementary school and has some fun with the slides and jungle jim. :)

Nonno was poking his head in one of the whole and saying "hi" to Lena. She thought that was funny. :)

Here's Lena spinning a little wheel. She likes spinning wheels, but not as much as Jimmy does!

Here's my dad helping her up the stairs to get to the slide. :)

And here he is helping her down the slide. :)

Lena's silly ways with a milk drink box.

Yesterday Lena got a glance of a milk box in the fridge... we get these from Gossner Dairy in Logan to use for lunches and such, as well as food storage and some of them are strawberry flavored, which Lena has tasted and LOVES. So anyway, she saw one in the fridge and HAD to have one... I ignored her request several other times so decided this time I would finally let her have some. I tried to use the method of just letting her drink from it while I hold it, but she immediately grabbed on to it and in reaction I tried to pull back, afraid she would squeeze it... well, she did and strawberry milk was EVERYWHERE!!! I later figured out that if I would've just given it to her without resistance she would've just held it gently and drank from it... like she did after this incident. Here are some pictures of her having fun with her milk box:

The Charger is no more. :(

On October 22, 2011, Randy's Dodge Charger died. :( Rosie, Alex, Eva, Lena, Jimmy and I were making dinner while Randy ran to the store to grab some parts that he needed in order to change the oil in my car. On the way home from the auto part store he was in the left turning lane to go into another store... he said he was about 20 feet from a truck that was in front of him when suddenly he was running into the truck. A lady (possibly drunk) plowed into the back of his car going around 45 miles per hour, pushing him clear into the truck that was in front of him, she then swerved away from his car and hit the truck (the one that was in front of him) as well (later we found out the family had just bought the truck), she continued for a block or so before stopping. Luckily Lena and I were not in the car, I feel so blessed that he is okay and well. Later I was talking to Randy about the wreck and he started saying "If only I didn't need to stop by the other store" he then continued to say "well, actually, I'm glad that it was me and not someone with kids in their car." He is such a good example to me of selflessness, instead of regretting the fact that he was the one to get hit, he thought about how horrible it would be if a young family with kids would've been hit.

Well, here are the pictures of the damage.

Unfortunately it ended up being a total loss. Of course, I would have totally been okay if Randy wanted to get another similar, totally-awesome, car with the money, but he felt like in the mean time it would be better to just get an inexpensive "commuter car" for now so we can pay off our other car. We now officially have no car payments AND get to go to Arizona to see my Grandparents over the holidays. While we miss the charger, I assure Randy that we will buy him a nice car in the future. :)

Randy's new/old car

Swings!

I was looking through the pictures on Randy's phone and found some that I realized I haven't posted yet... I took them on Randy's phone because I didn't have the camera with me. If I were to guess I would say that this was the beginning of October. Sorry for the mix up in dates, but I think the most important part is that I document the experiences. :)

So Lena loves the swings! I took her about a week before this picture was taken and she just kept wanting to swing and swing. She would even say "Weeee" as we swang. The only problem was that swings and me don't really agree. I think I was sick for the whole rest of the day. :( Something about puberty ruined motion rides and swings for me. Luckily this time Randy was there to do the swinging.

Climbing out of her crib! Or at least TRYING to!

Lena started whining one morning after waking up and we walked into her room to find this:

We couldn't help but snap a picture. It was so funny to see her trying to crawl out of her crib through the bars! :)

Halloween Bath Time!

So when Lena was born we started the ritual of bath time being daddy's time. He was so confident from the very start about giving her baths and now is an expert. I was always so afraid about the fact that she was so slipper out of the bath and he had no problem with it. :)

They are so cute together when she's in her bath! On Halloween I was able to snap a couple pictures of how cute they are.

My cute little Monkey! :)

That's right. Lena was a monkey for Halloween. I don't think she was so sure about the costume at first, but didn't try to rip it off so that was good. :) After getting her dressed and ready and convincing Randy to come with us to the trunk-or-treat (he was sick on one of his favorite holidays :( ) we made our way out of the front door... Lena's favorite place, outside. :) We walked over to the church and started at Randy's car. At first she was a little shaky about putting the candy in her bucket, but soon got the hang of it. As we started going around to collect candy she didn't quite know what to think, but knew she liked candy so kept on trekking. :) A couple of times, when she got a dum-dum or smarties she would bring it to me and beg me to open it. I made her wait so that she could keep on collecting candy. :) It was so fun to see her all dressed up! She turned out to be even cuter than I imagined!