Big bad October

We had a very fun and exciting October, but I didn't blog about any of it. So, here are some of the highlights of the month:

At the beginning of the month my sisters came for a visit. Lauryn really really loves her cousins and was on cloud nine while they were staying with us. We went to the zoo and swimming and played while they were here.
We made some Halloween cookies to send to Aunt Kalo and Uncle Shiblon on their missions.

She decorated this cookie all by herself. I think it has about half a bottle of sprinkles on it.

Lauryn turned 2!! Her cousins Paige, Noah, and Tate came over to celebrate. She was so excited about it. The first thing she said to me when she woke up on her birthday was "Where's my cake?"

Can you believe I made this cake all by myself. It turned out better than I thought it was going to!

We found out we are having another girl!!

We went to Pumpkinland and carved the pumpkin we picked out.

We celebrated Halloween. Grandma Mary and Grandpa Hank came to visit for the weekend. During the day Lauryn and I met them at Gardner Village. Lauryn wore her costume and we looked around at the shops and very cute decorations. That night we went with my brother Shane's family to their ward party and trunk or treat. Lauryn did so good trick or treating this year, except she always went for the suckers instead of the chocolate, silly girl!

Uncle Shiblon

Paul's brother Shiblon came to visit for a few days right before he went into the MTC. We had a lot of fun while he was here and Lauryn LOVED having her uncles around. One of the great things about living in Utah is that we're the last stop for Paul's siblings going on missions and we get to take them into the MTC. Here are some pictures from his visit.

Watching football with Uncle Key and Uncle Shiblon.

Funny girl

She looks a little like a ragamuffin in this picture,
but I thought it was cute that she went and got my
shoes out of the closet and put them on all by herself.

Lauryn says the funniest things sometimes. I think they're even funnier when you see them coming out of her little 22 month old mouth. Here are some of the funniest ones.

"Come on, Mom. Vamanos!"

"Let's go, guys" -Talking to Paul and I as if we're her buddies, not her parents.

"Lauryn Reese Pahulu and Mommy Reese Pahulu"

"Go brush your teeth?" -Said to me after I kissed her one morning.

"My can do it!" -Said anytime she wants to do something without help, like eat or sing a song.

Me (very frustrated): "Lauryn, do you want to go to time out?"
Lauryn (calm as can be): "No thank you, Mom."

Last night she wanted to sleep with her stuffed alligator but I told her I didn't know where he was and we'd find him in the morning. Then at about 7:45 this morning we hear her yelling excitedly from her crib and when Paul goes in to get her the first thing she says to him is "I found alligator! I found alligator!". Apparently he'd been in the crib the whole time.

Goodbye, Hernia...you will not be missed.

Bright and early at 5 am this morning Lauryn had surgery to fix her umbilical hernia. We got there and got her dressed up in a little gown. It was so cute when she was walking around right before the surgery and you could see her little back and diaper bum through the opening of her gown. It went pretty quickly and the toughest part so far was when she woke up from the anesthesia. She was really out of it and very grumpy and squirmy. She slept all the way home from the surgical center and has been pretty good since we got home. We watched cartoons all morning and then she just went down for a nap, hopefully a very long one :). Our camera was out of batteries, so I didn't get the before shot like I wanted to or any pictures of her in the tiny little hospital gown. But looking back over her pictures I found where that hernia snuck into a few of them. In a couple weeks when she's healed up I'll get an after picture on here.

Moved

Well, after 9 years, I no longer live in Provo. It's hard to believe I actually lived there that long! About 2 weeks ago we moved to Saratoga Springs. We are renting a town home there. It is so nice having a garage and a yard. We really like the place for the most part. What we didn't notice before we moved in was the massive amounts of dog hair all over our carpet. Apparently, the renters before us had a dog, but no vacuum. But after a thorough Rug Doctoring, several vacuumings, and a complete going over with a lint roller of every square inch of carpet we are 90% dog hair free. Hopefully, regular vacuuming will eventually clear up that last 10%. Needless to say, I didn't have the kindest thoughts going through my head towards the previous renters as I was down on my hands and knees trying to lint roll the hairs out of the carpet. I think one of the most frustrating things about moving 5 times during our 3.5 years of marriage has been spending hours cleaning the place we were moving out of and then spending hours cleaning the place we move into. I don't know if it's just our luck, but we have never moved into a place that was left clean by the previous tenants.

Well, I usually don't vent very much on our blog, but it feels nice to get that out. Anyways, in more exciting news, to celebrate our clean carpet, we went and bought a new leather couch! Well, new to us and in very good condition. Now we just have to find a loveseat or chair to match it!

Just a random picture if Lauryn I thought was cute.