Cornbelly's

We had a great time at Thanksgiving Point on Friday night with the Bailey's. This was our first year at Cornbelly's. There were so many things to do that we didn't even get through the whole thing. Taeya had a blast of course. She loved everything! (Although by the looks of the pictures, you wouldn't think she had fun because I could only get one picture of her actually smiling!)

Gordon, Taeya, and Brandalyn

The farmers: Taeya and Brynn

In Cinderella's coach: Kira, Brandalyn, Taeya, Brynn, and Alyson

Brynn and Taeya

Taeya lost in the maze

The train ride: Taeya, Kira, and Brynn

Kira on the train ride

Taeya playing in the corn - definitely a highlight for her

Everyone had a great time on the air pillow

Tour De St. George

Last saturday (October 18th), Gordon and I went to St. George and did a bike ride called the "Tour De St. George." While I am no Lance Armstron, Gordon comes in close behind him! I only did the 30 mile ride, but Gordon did the 100! He makes me laugh. This is probably his 6th 100 mile ride and everytime he finishes he tells me how much he hated it, but then that night and all the next day, he tells me how much fun it was! He is crazy. We rode together for the first 18 miles, than I headed back into town and he just kept riding. The weather was so beautiful, and we really did enjoy a fun weekend with family and friends.

Fall Leaves

At the end of September we went up the canyon and roasted hot dogs and marshmellows with our neighbors, the Bailey's. We were able to enjoy the beautiful leaves that were beginning to turn. Here are a few of the photos we took. Gordon, Brandalyn, and Taeya

The Bailey's - Seth, Alyson, Kira, and Brynn

Rub a Dub Dub, 3 Kids in the Tub

Over the weekend we watched my friends kids, Olivia and Cohen, they had such a great time in the bath with all of the bubbles.

Cohen, Olivia, and Taeya

Cohen

Taeya

Olivia

Triathalon

About three summer's ago, Gordon became a Triathlete. This season he was able to accomplish a few of his goals. The first one was to compete in an Olympic Distance Category. For those of you who don't know about triathalons there are 2 categories, Sprint and Olympic. Sprint is 1/2 mile swim, 12 mile bike, and 3 mile run. Olympic is double that so, 1 mile swim, 24 mile bike, and 6 mile run. He wanted to compete in a few differents tri's this summer, but for whatever reason the first one he was able to do was in St. George on September 22, called "Kokopelli". Unfortuntatly I wasn't able to go with him so I didn't get any pictures. In his opinion it wasn't a great race because he didn't do well on the run (it was hilly and in the dirt). But he finished and I was proud of him (it makes me tired just thinking about it). On October 4th he competed in a sprint triathalon in American Fork called the "Splash n Dash." At this tri he was able to accomplish another one of his goals for the year which was to get a medal in his category. He got first place!! Taeya and I were really proud of him. Unfortunatly, I didn't get any good pictures so I posted a few of the okay ones. By the way, did anyone notice Gordon got braces?!? He was able to get a great deal on them through work and he will only have to have them for about 8 months!

Taeya and Gordon after he finished

Gordon with his medal

Taeya "singing in the rain" (it was rainy and cold and she insisted on wearing her nightgown)

Cousins

I have been meaning to put this picture on here for a few months now because it turned out so cute. This is Taeya and her cousin Laeklan in their matching hawaii dresses Grandma Laura bought for them. They are only about 4 weeks apart in age. (Picture was taken in August)

Lagoon/Frightmares

We Went to Lagoon at the end of August with Gordon's work and had a great time, and then again last weekend (October 4th) during Frightmares. School had started in Utah County so it wasn't very busy and it wasn't too hot in August. Taeya had a great time. I think her favorite ride was the carousel, but a close second was the little swings! Gordon and I even got to try out "wicked" which we both loved.

Our family photo taked in Pioneer Village. We had been trying to take this picture since Taeya was born, but Pioneer Village isn't open during Frightmares and that is usually when we go. I had a hard time getting the dress off of Taeya, she loved to dress up.

This was the gorilla Gordon won for Taeya

As I mentioned above Gordon and have been going to Frightmares since we were first married. We went last week-end with some of Gordon's family. Because of the rain and cold we had the place to ourselves! It was great, the only bad things was that all the kiddie rides had wet seats. Taeya didn't really care though, just me. Taeya had a blast following around her cousins Cassidy and Presley. Her favorite ride is still the carousel ("the horsies"). Brandalyn, Cassidy, Frank, Presley, Taeya and Gordon (with the rest of the Dracula crew!)

Taeya didn't really like this ride, but she was a good sport and went on everything we put her on!

Happy Anniversary

Our ninth anniversary was August 11, 2008 and Gordon wanted to do something really romantic for me, so he layed a flagstone walk-way, every girls dream!!

He wanted to do it while I was in Vegas and surprise me, but he didn't have enough time. I complain that it took him 3 years to finally do it, but I have to give him a little credit because about 3 years ago he started to put pavers in the walk-way but we ended up with tickets to the Blue Man Group in Vegas so he didn't get it done. I love the Flagstone instead of the pavers, so it worked out, and it looks awesome. He did such a great job.

If you like puzzles, you would have loved to help Gordon get it all layed out!

Gordon, finishing up in the dark!

Brandalyn planting moss in between the rocks the next day.

Happy Anniversary!!

Little Grandma Fenn

In the middle of August my sister Kimberly and I drove to Roosevelt to visit my Grandma Fenn. She has had a tough year. She just turned 87 this past July and had been in great health until she fell and broke her hip in January. She was taking out her garbage and slipped on the ice. According to her she layed on the ground for about 45 minutes until finally a car stopped to help her. Unfortunately she had to have surgery. Because of the surgery she wasn't able to return home with out physical therapy. When she was released from the hospital they transported her to a care facility in Orem where she could get the therapy that she needed. She seemed to be fairly happy in Orem, and it was fun to be able to visit with her weekly, but her short term memory was really bad. The standard question was "Have you heard from your mom and dad?" We would of course tell her everything we knew, but she received the same letters that we did, she just couldn't remember them. We blame some of the memory loss on medication she was taking. But her overall health seemed to be improving so after about 2 months when she could walk on her own with her walker, they let her return home. She was so excited to be going home!

As soon as she got home though she started needing constant care and once again her memory was really fading! After being back in Roosevelt for about 4 weeks I offered to go and spend the weekend with Grandma. I got there on a Thursday afternoon (in the end of April). Shortly after I got there the Home Health nurse called and told me she thought we should take Grandma to the ER. She was in a lot of pain, wasn't really eating, and alot of other complications that probably shouldn't be mentioned!! We took her to the hospital and after a few tests they admitted her. She had a very contagious infection that they think she got from the Care Facility in Orem. It went undetected for so long that it caused a lot of pain which needed surgery to repair. Grandma had the surgery in May and is now recovering at a care facility in Roosevelt. She is doing so much better. It was fun to visit with her. She seemed so happy. I am not sure if she knew our names, but she knew which family we belonged to at least!! The suprising thing about Grandma was the color of her hair. Since her surgery in January she hasn't colored her hair which makes her look a lot different to me. We sure love little Grandma and we are glad she is recovering!

Grandma with Kenzly, Kimball, Kierra, and Taeya

Taeya and Grandma Fenn, February 2008 at the Care Facility in Orem

Bye Bye Binks

WARNING: The following story is really long, but it is written out for my benefit!

Taeya is finally done with her Binki. I thought the day would never really come. We had some really rough weeks but I think we are finally completely over it! The night before I went to Vegas with my sisters we were at a little family party at Gordon's sisters house, Cheryl. Cheryl has a little girl, Laeklan, who is just 4 weeks younger than Taeya. At the party Taeya would just randomly walk up to little Laeklan and claw at her face. It finally got to the point were Laeklan would get scared when Taeya would even look at her. Gordon took her in the other room and told her if she did it one more time, he would take away her binki. Well, a few minutes later she did it again. After she scratched her I told Taeya to go and tell Gordon what she did, and she told him (in her own crazy words) that she had scratched Laeklan, and she even knew that she would get her binki taken away, so we took it away. I thought we were just going to be done with it for the rest of the evening, but Gordon thought it was a good chance to get rid of it. Taeya had been such a great sleeper with the binki that I didn't know if we should mess that up, but I knew I was leaving for the weekend, so I figured he would get the worst of it. We figured we would just try it and see what happened.

When we got home from the party Gordon helped Taeya gather all of the binki's up, they put them in a bag, and Taeya dropped then into the big garbage outside. Surpringly she went to bed just fine that night, and slept through the night. I was shocked! Friday during the day she asked for it quite a few times but I would just remind her that she threw it in the garbage and I would try to get her mind off of it. Friday night I was in Vegas and Gordon ended up taking her for a drive in the car to get her to go to sleep. She did okay for the rest of the weekend, and pretty much the rest of the next week, so I thought we were in the clearing!

The next week (so about a week later), she was aweful. We could not get her to go to sleep. She figured out how to climb (a.k.a. fall) out of bed and she was even able to open the door a few of the times! After she got out of her crib a few times I thought we would just play around for a little bit to get her more tired and then try again. Gordon had been working out in the basement, and Taeya went to find him. She thought she needed to lift a few weights. (I was hoping it would tire her out!)

After the weight-lifting I thought we would try bedtime again. She climbed out again, we took her for a drive, she woke up and started crying when I put her back in bed, I tried putting her in bed with us, she just crawled out and wanted to play. Finally around 12:30 am, I layed on the couch with her and she fell asleep!

That whole week she was so hard to get to go to sleep. We would let her cry for about 45 mintues before we would go in her room, and then usually I would lay with her on the couch and she would go to sleep. We finally made her totally cry it out, it took 2 1/2 hours!! We were dying. She had to do that for a few nights.

Now she is doing fine. Her naps are only around and hour long instead of two, but I guess I am going to have to live with that. She is so much cuter without a binki in her mouth! She is still obsessed with anyones binki, but she knows it is not hers. She even found a few random ones around the house and we had to be sneaky to get them away from her. We had a rough month but I am sure glad that we are finally done with the binki!