catch-up: fall time 2014

whoa, here's for a quick catch-up! 

zenna got a lot of beautiful, warm outdoorsy clothes for her birthday. we have loved dressing her up and taking her outside to enjoy the cooler weather! 

we also enjoyed getting ready for halloween by decorating the front room with a little seasonal fun!

we also spend lots of time in warm baths, and that leads to adorable bath-time picture taking! 

uncle jarik has spent lots of weekends with us in provo, and zenna loves him. they play together and have a lot of fun!

one of the funnest nights we've had together was going to see The Swon Brothers in concert. the tickets were super cheap, the show was super small and intimate, and the music was super great! even drake enjoyed the country music show a little bit :) before the show we ate at the cheesecake factory, even enjoyed their famous pumpkin cheesecake, and then took a stroll around the temple. it was a strange night spending so much time without zenna!

halloween is always a fun time of the year. at school, we've been talking a lot about figurative language so i wanted to go as some play on words or something- so i went as "holy cow" and it was fun to see the kids reactions :) some of them got it right away, some stared at me for a while before it clicked, and some never got it. those who did get it- really liked it- and that was awesome. 

after school, we were invited to a halloween party with our friends and this happens every year. last year, we were still living in idaho, but we drove to provo with our new baby to introduce her to our good friends. last year, zenna was a kitty and we were a chicken and bunny. this year, she took on a more vicious animal: the shark. it was a really fun costume that drake and i just randomly saw and decided we liked, so we ordered some lifeguard shirts and voila we had a costume. zenna, however, hated her hat. 

at yet another party, we were invited to a costume murder mystery party. since drake works almost every night of the week, dassia was my date. she was a hot business woman and i was a gothic writer. i thought the look suited us ;)

finally, october held our updated family pictures and zenna's first birthday shots. she was incredibly beautiful and the rest of us looked pretty good too :)

isn't she stinking beautiful!?! i cannot even express how much i love her and the happiness she brings me! 

okay, so november brought a lot of family time. first, my mom and grandma came to visit with my sisters. we went to see Meet the Mormons in theaters and then they stayed over and played another day with us. it was so great seeing them! 

we also made a big decision to trade in our 2005 chrysler sebring.  it had just ended up costing us too much money in repairs and seemed to be heading in that direction again. it was extremely spontaneous though. i just wanted to go check out the larry h. miller in orem because they had holiday sales going on. we just went to strictly browse cars. well we found out the sebring passed decently in inspection and since we did have a pretty substantial down payment, we were able to have a really great upgrade! meet our new 2012 nissan versa! 

the best part of the night was the way zenna charmed the salesman. he thought she was probably the cutest thing ever. he gave her a sucker (her first one ever) and she loooooooved it. she just makes every day so much fun!