Happy Halloween

We're getting ready to carve our pumpkin. We've worked out a pretty good system where Danny cuts the lid and cleans it out. I'm the one who carves the face. Emily "helps" during the whole process. This year Dallin ate Cheerios in his highchair.

Emily was a beautiful ballerina.

Dallin was a cute little bear. Too bad his costume was made for sub-zero temperatures.

October

Moving on to bigger, better, and obviously funkier-tasting foods: carrots and peas.

I took the kids to a little Halloween carnival. They liked picking out their own pumpkins.

It's finally nice enough in the mornings for us to take walks and not sweat to death. It seems, though, it's just as sunny as during the summer.

September

Emily's gotten into wearing "fancy" shoes, be it Mom's Sunday shoes or slippers or flip-flops. On this particular occasion, she's wearing her daddy's shoes.

The temperature finally cooled down to the mid-90's (as opposed to 110), which means spending a little time outside in the swing.

Dallin's first BYU game. He comes from a long line of Dixon men who bleed blue for the Cougars and they're starting him young!

What a happy little guy!

August

We bid Dallas a bitter-sweet farewell and flew back to Mesa on the 3rd. We really enjoyed our time in the Lone-star State and think it's a very livable place. On the other hand, it was more than wonderful to come back home to the dry heat, our house, and our families among other things. Emily was thrilled to see her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousin Nathan again. Thanks to Amy's mom who came to help get her and the kids home, the flight was uneventful and easy. Danny stayed for his final week of work at Raytheon and made the 15-hour drive in two days instead of three, as he'd originally planned. He arrived home on the 10th and we were so happy to have him home a day early.

While Danny was still away, we spent all our time with Amy's family. The Garns and the Burnhams were in town so it was sort of a family reunion. Everybody stayed at the Wallises' house and had a great time. There was lots of swimming, playing with cousins, late nights catching up, and of course, eating. It was a fun week and it was sad to see the out-of-towners go.

Danny had a week between getting back from Dallas and the first day of school. He began his second and final year of school on the 21st and has been very busy so far. He has a job as a teacher's assistant every Thursday evening and he's serving as the president of the Graduate Supply Chain Management Association. He's enjoying this first trimester and does very well balancing his time effectively.

Toward the end of the month, we did an intense, crash-course in potty training for a few days. Emily put forth a good effort and loved her big-girl potty and new undies, but we're going to try again in a couple of months to see if we can have more success staying dry. I couldn't resist taking pictures of her sitting on the potty and wearing actual underwear. Her little buns sure looked cute!




Inspite of what it may look like with a lot of photos of and references to Emily, we do have another child. Dallin is such a fun baby and we love him to pieces. At his four month check-up this month, he weighed 16lbs., 12 oz. - a full eight pounds more than what he weighed at birth. His Daddy's genes have come through in a big way for height; he was nearly off the charts at 27 inches long! When we got home, I was determined to help him sleep through the night (mostly for my own sake!). He's doing really great now and it took just a couple of nights' worth of trying. Oh, and for those of you who've never seen Dallin in person and are wondering if his hair is red, it is!

July

July came and went for us here in Dallas. It was a little more low-key than June was, but we still did a lot of things that made it a great month.

Danny had the 4th off and we spent the day hanging around the house. Nothing too significant happened, but it was nice having Danny home with us. We saw some fireworks on TV and that was the extent of our celebrating.

We came across something online that we'd never seen before, something they don't have in Mesa (that we know of). We discovered something called a "sprayground" and we went to check it out one day. It turned out to be a really neat outdoor water area with lots of unique playground-like equipment that spray watter. There were even water spouts in the ground. Emily enjoyed herself, but was hesitant when it came to running through the spraying water. She preferred sitting on the ground, filling up a cup with water, and dumping it out over and over.

A week later we went to the Dallas World Aquarium, a place to which we'd planned to go all summer. It was a very cool experience. At the aquarium, they have three levels, with three different indoor exhibits. Each exhibit was filled with exotic plants and animals from around the world. We saw just about any animal you can think of - from a jaguar to manatees to a toucan to a three-toed sloth. The neatest part of the exhibit we experienced was walking through a glass tunnel surrounded by water. In the water were fish, sting rays, and a huge bull shark that we could see perfectly and very close-up. We had a great time seeing all the exhibits and eating lunch there as well.

The next Saturday we took the kids to Chuck E Cheese's to play and to eat lunch. We expected Emily to be in heaven with all the rides and things, but upon arriving she just kind of wandered in and stared at everything. I think she was in awe of all the lights, the noise, and kids running everywhere. With some coaxing, she got on the rides and seemed to have a good time. Her favorite thing by far was a big, blue balloon we got for her, which she carried around the whole time. She was all "rided-out" before all our tokens were gone, so us grown-ups helped ourselves to playing some ski-ball. We definitely will go back to Chuck E Cheese's, but it'll probably be when the kids are a little older.

The highlight of the month for me (Amy) was attending the temple. I was able to go twice (and Danny once) before it closed for cleaning, including a Spanish session. That was the greatest. It is a beautiful temple and we've been blessed to live so close to a temple yet again.

This last weekend we went out on a date - with no kids!! We did a babysitting trade-off with our friends and it was wonderful to go out all by ourselves (our first time all summer). We'd read online about an antique trolley ride that takes passengers to various locations downtown. Best of all it's free! It turned out to be up-town Dallas and we had a great time riding the trolley. We got off in a shopping district and enjoyed strolling up and down the streets looking at the shops. We stopped at a little Italian ice cream shop and enjoyed that tasty treat. We loved being out on the town, especially since the evenings cool down quite nicely here.

June's Pictures

Shopping at the outlets.

Going swiming at the apartment pool. Our time in the pool lasted all of five minutes, which in the end was a good thing since my (Amy's) arms were getting really tired from holding both kids.

Emily's second birthday.

Emily's "funfetti" birthday cake.

Emily got a dress-up set complete with a wand, a cape, earrings, a ring, a tiarra, and high heels (which were her favorite). She learned two new words that night: princess and tiarra.

Our smiley little Dallin.

Our two cute kids.

Emily riding a pony she named "Holly".

At the Mesquite Rodeo.

Wagon races at the rodeo.