Catching Up Again...

I'm not really sure how to best sum up the past couple months other than with pictures and some videos.  So here are some from our church Halloween party.  I let Lauren pick her costumes from a few that I thought were cute.  It was definitely no surprise what she chose:

Our favorite red monster

Elmo and Dad

Lauren even got to do some trunk-or-treating, the proceeds of which were heavily taxed by Ryan and I, mostly me though (I like treats).  Besides Lauren shouldn't eat that much candy anyway, and I was sure to save the fruit snacks and other small treats for her.

Thanksgiving was also a blast.  My cousins invited us out to Columbus, Ohio, where we stuffed ourselves silly and watched all the kids run around like banshees.  Sadly I didn't get a picture of that part, but I did get some of the Air Force Museum that we checked out the day after Thanksgiving.

Lauren and cousin Jacque

Jacque is Lauren's favorite

Lauren and Dad checking out the cockpit

The next cool thing that has happened is Bloomington got a whole bunch of snow, which apparently never happens in December.  Missing our Utah winters, we were very excited and got out to make a snowman at the best possible opportunity.  Sadly our snowman didn't even last an hour before the neighbor boys pummeled him to the ground.  At least I got some pictures beforehand though...

First Snow

Quite warm and poofy

Our Snowman

  And finally some randomness about Lauren.  She has started talking a lot more lately and is starting to get a little more understandable.  Some of my favorite things she has said include once when we were at the grocery store and I was getting her some Cheerios, Ryan told her that I was going to buy them; the whole rest of the time we were in the store and all the way home she kept repeating "Buy it, buy it."  I told Ryan that I was always going to take her shopping with me and Ryan said that he was never going to give her plastic (debit/credit card).  Another one of my favorite moments was when we woke up to it snowing outside and so we went downstairs and sat in front of the window snuggled up in a blanket with just the Christmas lights on.  Lauren leaned back on me and sighed and said "Happy."  It was so cute.  She likes to point to her self regularly now and say "happy" and then point to Ryan and I and say "happy" and wait for us to agree.  Mostly though she likes to identify things, and if she doesn't know what it is she'll ask "what's that?"  It's lots of fun and I feel like she is soaking up everything.

Here are two silly movies for your enjoyment: