Slacker Blogger

Hey everyone. Yes, I know we disappeared for a month and an exciting month at that. New home (I like to call it a home even though it is an apt), new ward, holiday fun, cousins in town, etc. It has been a fun month. Maybe that's why I haven't had a sec to sit down and post pictures, nor look at any of your blogs. Thus the title of this post, slacker blogger. I hope everyone has been enjoying this Christmas season. I have tried to not get too caught up in the shopping and fluff that is associated with Christmas. But believe me, I have been into TJ Maxx 5 times looking for stuff and have driven to different stores on even Black Friday. But I've tried to focus my thoughts on our Savior and on serving others. I have tried to slow down and enjoy time with people. It has been very rewarding. I like what my sister said in her blog: Jesus wants us to celebrate Christmas and enjoy all the fun things we do but we can still do so many things to remember and honor him. I am posting a few pictures of different things we have done over the past month. Emmeline and Jon are still my joy in life.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Lights at Temple Square--Jon is an amazing photographer :)






















Beautiful Temple



























Spending time with Charley and Emmie--such a great pic!





















The new entertainment at my house in Emmie's closet!




















Hi Chew!












































You will see how much fun the closet is in this video:









We visited my cute grandparents this month.






















Emmie was in love with Santa at their house! She thought it was cool to have a bearded friend her size.






















They are the sweetest people. My grandpa takes such good care of my grandma as she has a lot of memory loss.






















Some pics of our new apartment. I LOVE my kitchen. It doesn't look like it has a lot of space, but it does--at least enough to hide all my stuff and that is all that matters.


























The living room/slash Jon's office (we will get there hon I promise!)






















Em's own room----yeahhh!!






















Notice the diaper champ (garbage can) next to the baby dresser. This was a huge reason why we left our 1 bedroom apartment. The only place to put it before was at the end of our bed. It happened to be on Jon's side of the bed. Let's just say that smell is not relaxing and conducive to sleep. So needless to say, we are very happy that Em has her own room for many reasons.





















I think this pic is hilarious. I decided to go for the slicked comb over while she was in the tub.






















What a cute girl




















A hair brush, computer wires (the "no no" section of our old place where she always ended up) and a sweet rock n roll hairdo!






















Jon took this picture while he was babysitting. Apparently she was so upset when I left that the only thing that would calm her down was toilet paper. It did the trick!


























My newest nephew is here for Christmas. Jon's older brother Mike and his cute wife Erin are here with their 6 week old baby, Andrew. He is the sweetest baby with the most peaceful, serene disposition. Such a great family. We have loved having them around.




















The first granddaughter and first grandson in the Featherstone family.




















My sweet in-law sisters at Erin's baby shower. I lucked out by marrying into such a great family.





















My darling sis Shelby came to sleep over one night. She is wearing a contest that should have won a prize at school for being the best mom sweater on the planet. We had so much fun shopping, making caramel corn and watching Beetle Juice. I know Jama is freaked out by that movie but I love it! The guy with the shrunken head is my favorite.




















Okay Jon, I wasn't going to put this picture on here, but then I just couldn't resist! Jon was helping us make caramel popcorn---but his real motive was to taste test the sweetened condensed milk. So funny. We were laughing so hard about this because it is honestly such a gross picture!





















Last and best of all......the newest walker of our family!!!! Go Em! It has been so much fun to see this come about. It is like they always say.....there is nothing like watching a baby taking her first steps. It reminds you that life is simple and good.

Our Friend Neve

Emmie is going to miss her good friend Neve. I'm going to miss their whole family who lives down the hall from us. Yep, we are finally upgrading from a one bedroom apartment. We are moving to B-TOWN (our hometown Bountiful) on Saturday. We are going to miss our cherished memories of the Franciscan Apts. (or as my friend Erica calls them "San Franciscan Apts.") These are a couple of videos of Emmie and Neve. Wish us luck in the move. It will be a good adventure for us but we are going to miss all our friends here in SLC so much.


Giggling Girls






This is what they would do for fun on laundry days. It would always make me laugh. Notice the doll in Emmie's hands. She kept throwing it out the basket and making Neve pick it up again. Emmie's way of having fun is to watch people work for her!! I love how Neve says "Emmie!" when she throws it out the basket. Neve would be wiped out after a few runs down the hallway.

Election Day

It was appropriate to post our Halloween Costumes today, as we decided to act as political leaders. Jon and I had fun playing the parts of John McCain and Sarah Palin. Regardless of how the election turns out today, we were happy to represent them on Halloween night (and yes John has a walker and a pair of depends hanging out the front of his suit). We can like people and still make fun of them right? Oh and if you are wondering who the little brown bellied, four eyed little munchkin in my arms is....it is none other than the dear leader himself, Kim Jung Il of North Korea.


















A model of the man himself. How do you think Emmie did? haha






















John McCain giving a speech while the Haaacky mom from Alaska converses with Kim Jung Il



















My wonderful family on Halloween night. I love the smurf hair hanging in your face, Rach. We had her throw on the wig she had worn at a high school dance for the pic. Mom and Shelby had fun entertaining the girls while we tried to take like 50 pictures of them (I love the digital age!)




















Ariel serenading us all with "Out of This World" She really was singing the part we all know "Ahhh Ahhh Ahhh" when I took the picture. The wig was the best thing I had ever seen on little blonde Charley!

























Earlier that day I dressed Em up in a giraffe outfit her cousin wore last year. I couldn't miss Halloween with cutsie pictures of Em. Kim Jung Il isn't quite what I call cute. The leaves on South Temple are amazing right now. It is always raining red, yellow and orange leaves as we walk up and down the street to the park. I am so glad it has been such nice weather as me and Em have had fun going to the park at least twice a day! Today it was raining but we did end up walking across the street to the Elementary School where they were having a bake sale for Election Day. Any excuse to leave the house for us!


























My little sweetie

Pumpkin

Emmie's newest word is "Pumpkin." Here are a couple videos of her playing with the neighbor's pumpkins and jabbering away.

Yellowstone with my darling Jon

Right before Emmie's first birthday, Jon and I packed are bags (and Emmie's bags which triple our stuff combined) and dropped her off at Grannie Jyl's house. Jon and I drove five hours to Yellowstone for a trip with just the two of us. WAHOOOOO! It was the best weekend ever. This vacation confirmed that I am still very much in love with my husband!



















A hot spring appropriately called "Ear Spring"

















A mini geyser from the distance. Jon is the photographer on most these shots. (His artsy side comes out!)




















Okay, so I did take this one and it is a little out of focus!





















I liked this background. Oh, and I'm not sure if you could tell yet that it was FREEZING. This was one of the more milder days. By day 3 I was wearing 5 layers on top!






















My Jonny!




















Pwwweetty waterfall. There were such amazing waterfalls along the way to different sites. My favorite part of the trip was all of the driving. There were so many cool things to see. It was a time to just sit and think. That doesn't happen when Em is in the car so it was a nice change-up for me!






















This picture does not do justice to the amazing color of teal found in this spring. It seemed magical.

















Old Faithful.....faithful as ever
























A river's birthplace is right behind me! Jon took me to this really cool place called "Big Springs." Big Springs is the head waters of Henry's Fork of the Snake River. 120 million gallons of water bubbles up from underneath the ground here every day. It was pretty amazing. Jon's Dad loves this place and would bring his family here all the time.

















Then Jon took me to a place in Island Park where he, his dad and brothers used to fish. Jon said they used to fish underneath this bridge.



















We both tried fitting under the bridge now and it was a little awkward! Jon was happy to walk down memory lane for a bit.



















It was such a great trip. I am so thankful that Em was in good hands (her two amazing grandmas and families). They were so nice to let Jon and I take off for a few days. I missed Em, but certainly not at 7 in the morning when I was peacefully dreaming! Thanks for the fun trip Jon!

A Peek into Emmeline's Day

So dazzling! I bought these glasses at the dollar aisle in Target to use for my "Sarah Palin" Halloween costume. If I end up not dressing up after all, this purchase has been put to use.









































Em and Mom....Just me and you baby (until 5:30 when "da da" comes home)






















The laundry basket is one of Emmie's favorite toys. (and the camera that she is reaching for!)





















My little angel sleeping. She has been sleeping a lot lately. This guy at the park says kids sleep more when they are learning new things. I don't know but right now she is still napping and it has been 3 hours since I put her down. World record for Em.





















Another shot of the laundry basket! This one was funny. Since our washer and dryer is a community one (down in the basement of our complex), I often lay Em on top of the clean clothes and carry her back up to our apartment. This time I sat Em in the basket, loaded all the clean, warm clothes on top of her and carried her up like this. It was actually a lot more heavy this way. I guess physics would say the weight wasn't distributed evenly. She seemed as cozy as could be!






















An appropriate bath shot!





















Em and her first baby doll. I think this picture is hilarious. Such an excited face. She got this dolly on her first birthday. She loves to rock it in our baby swing and take the binky out of its mouth. She tries real hard to put the binky back in, but I have to help her with that.






















Hugs!


















Kisses!






















She made this face after kissing the doll. Priceless!