bugs, cheese, and more

(just helping her old man with the dishes)

Have I mentioned lately how smart our little person is getting lately?  In fact, Violet said her first phrase a couple of days ago.  It was, appropriately, "I want cheese".

Yesterday, I heard Violet in her bedroom yelling, "BUG!... BUG!...BUG!" and sure enough, when I went in there, she was enthusiastically pointing at a nice big cockroach on the wall.

Other new words she has been saying lately:  moon, knee, airplane, tweet tweet, plus about 20 others.  Glenn and I are going to sit down together soon and make a list for her scrapbook.  Everyday we put it off, that task gets a little harder!  I seriously think Violet has learned at least one new word a day for the past 6 weeks.  It is amazing to get to watch her learn so fast!

The Beach in November

The days have been warm here lately, so on Saturday, we decided to take a trip to the beach!  I've been to this beach in Marina del Rey a few times, but Glenn never had been before Saturday.  It is called Mothers' Beach because it is so great for kids.  Since it is in the marina, there are no waves, and there is a big playground right on the beach.

Violet had a great time, and it was fun just giving Violet all of our attention for a couple of hours with no computers or tv to get in the way.  

Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving was wonderful.  On Tuesday when Glenn finished with school for the week, he mentioned, "Do you realize we could be driving home right now and we'd be there for 5 whole days before we had to come back," I started to be a little sad about our decision to stick around here for Thanksgiving.

But we had such a great time yesterday, and now it will just be even more fun to go home for Christmas (by the way, our Christmas break starts in TWO weeks!!).  We had dinner at our church building, and we ended up having 30 people there for dinner!  Everyone brought something (or five things!) and we had SO MUCH FOOD.  

(I cooked and carved the turkeys.  I wish you could just admire my excellent carving job in this picture, but we didn't take the picture until half of the turkey was gone.)

There were quite a few kids there, and Violet played with them all day long.  We were there for about 5 hours, and I barely saw Violet (besides checking on her occasionally to make sure she was still there, of course).

I am thankful for Glenn, Violet, my health, their health, our big loving families, our ward here in Los Angeles, that Glenn is doing so well in school and enjoying it so much, my computer, the weather here in CA, that my turkey wasn't raw yesterday, and Maggie. 

Cousin love

Melts my heart every time.  I can't wait for them to meet at Christmas!

Our artist

Violet's Aunt Kari Sue gave Violet sidewalk chalk for her birthday, and it has recently become her favorite thing.  Just look at that concentration!

Bye bye, Violet!

Welcome to the world, Margaret McAferty!

My brother's baby was born on Friday afternoon!  Maggie is Violet's first cousin on my side of the family, and we couldn't be more excited.  In fact, Violet said her first name today besides Elmo.  Can you guess whose it was??  Maggie!  She says it so cute.

Some pictures I got from facebook and Annie's blog:

(She is a big girl!  She was 8 lbs 9 oz and 22 inches long)

(My brother with his little girl!  He told me a funny story when I talked to him the day after she was born.  He said that he woke up twice during that first night after they had her.  The first time he woke up, he thought, "Oh, it wasn't a dream!  I'm so happy!" and the second time he woke up, he thought, "It wasn't a dream.  Oh no!")

Annie and Kenny are going to be the best parents, and I CAN NOT WAIT to see them at Christmas!  We will all be staying at my parents' house for a few days at the same time and it is going to be awesome!

Shoes

Violet is very interested in shoes lately.  She likes to pick out her shoes for the day, and tries to put them on herself.  She likes to "help" us put on our shoes (which doesn't exactly make it easier)!  Also, she likes to put our shoes on herself and shuffle around the house:

p.s. Violet is getting her first cousin (on my side of the family) today!  Annie, we are praying for you!

The Opera

We went to the Opera last night!  A girl from our ward is in USC's production of The Tempest, and got tickets for us!  Another girl in our ward agreed to babysit, so last night we got to go on a nice long date (operas=long).

(Waiting for the opera to start)

This opera is the same words as the Shakespeare play, but set to music.  However, they did leave out some lines, including one of my favorites!  But it was still excellent.  The music was especially amazing in the last scene.  

I'm so grateful for the two girls in our ward that made it possible for us to go, and I'm also grateful that Glenn is such a good sport!  I wouldn't say that operas are really something he is interested in (at all), but he had a good time and said he enjoyed it.  

Glenn had a birthday

As you can see, Glenn's parents came to visit us for Glenn's birthday!  It was on Saturday, and Scott and Terri were here from Friday night to Monday morning.  On his birthday, Glenn and Scott went to the USC football game (USC won, just for Glenn, I'm sure!) which took up most of the day.  But in the morning, we had french toast, and in the evening we went out to dinner at Yang Chow's, a delicious restaurant in Chinatown.

In these pictures, it looks as if we are about to eat this delicious pumpkin cake I made, when in reality, we were all too full from dinner!  We all tried a tiny piece, then wrapped up the cake, and I took it to church the next day.  

Can you believe Glenn is 27 now??  So old!

Our first trip to the flower district

Glenn's parents are coming today!  And Glenn's birthday is tomorrow, which is the reason for their trip.    I thought it would look festive to have flowers this weekend, so yesterday Violet and I ventured into the flower district!

It is always a little stressful to explore a new place downtown, because you never know what parking is going to be like, or exactly where anything is.  But this trip went perfectly!  We found a good parking spot and a really big flower market you could enter for free.  

It was so fun to see all the different kinds of flowers, and we found exactly what we wanted: bright yellow marigolds!  I figured Terri is the only one who will appreciate the flowers, besides me, and yellow is her favorite color.  

The best part is, they were so inexpensive!  Only $1.50 a bunch, so we bought two bunches.  Thus, we have an elephantine flower arrangement on our table.  Seriously, it is as tall as about one and a half Violets.  Also, I tried to arrange them, but they look pretty lopsided.  But sometimes your mom isn't there to arrange flowers for you, and you just have to do your best!

They smell so good and are so bright, they make me happy every time I see them!

Persimmons

Did you know persimmons are in season?  We snatched some up at the farmers' market yesterday!

And guess who loves them? Violet couldn't get them in her mouth fast enough!

This is the face of a girl who charmed all the vendors at the farmer's market and has a face smeared with strawberries to show for it. (But it was already getting dark when I took this picture, so it is hard to see how messy she was.  By the way, it was only like 4 o'clock when I took the picture, dumb daylight savings.)

Frosting cookies

On Halloween, we got together with the other moms and kids from our ward and decorated Halloween cookies.  It was really fun, and Violet even decorated her cookie a little bit, although she definitely ate three times more frosting than she put on her cookie.  After her initial attempt to frost, I would decorate her cookie, and she would eat everything off of it, and then we'd start over.  Until she ate the actual cookie, and then we were done.

My friend Brittany took these pictures.  Thanks!  And also thanks for letting us make a huge mess of your house!  (Violet had a great time with the sprinkles, and the evidence was everywhere.)

Braids

Notice anything different about Violet??

She has braids!

And in my completely un-biased opinion, her new hairstyle is just about the cutest thing in the world.  (Until her hair gets a little longer, the braids are not very sturdy.  They only look this cute until the first time she rides in her carseat, and then they look pretty ragged.)

Popcorn Popping

The other day I was singing Popcorn Popping with Violet, and she did all the actions before I could even get to them!  I was so impressed, because I don't even sing that song with her that often.  Last night, we video taped her doing it, but Glenn kind of had to hide behind me so she would do it instead of being distracted by the camera.  So it is kind of hard to see her at the beginning.  Happy Friday!