Photography

We were too lazy to take Spence in to get his picture taken....So, like most people, we attempted to take a "professional-looking" picture ourselves. And like most people, it was a disaster. We did however, figure out a trick to get him to smile....the dog. Spencer loves our dog, but our dog (my parents dog) does NOT love her. She is a gray toy poodle, who is almost fifteen years old. We all decided that she is mentally retarded as well. My mom, and Scott, keep threatening my little sister that one day the dog will meet with an unfortunate accident. Anyways, she's old, and does not like little kids. She snaps at Spencer all the time, and he thinks its the funniest thing. It doesn't hurt because half her teeth have fallen out. So, my point is, the dog keeps his attention, and makes him smile. So it ended up being a good trick. Just to note, the only background that we could find (that was a solid color) was this creme color...Which completely washes him out.

This was the best picture, I took it to Kinkos and printed it out in black and white. It looks really good, and more professional, in black and white. We also printed the date on it. So for anyone out there who knows if I can change it to black and white on the blog, let me know...I'm not that advanced. So here are a few that are cute, but look like just a snap shot. Very obvious that they weren't professionally done.
Can you tell what's making him so happy? He loves that dog! I think the key is a background that doesn't scrunch up so bad, and a decent camera. Both of which we were lacking:)

Hair Mania!

Today was my little sister's first dance (Well actually 2nd, she went to Freshman Farewell last year). It is Homecoming, and yes Borah actually won their homecoming game. Borah is in the top 5% of best high schools in the nation, academically, but we couldn't ever win a football game to save our lives.When I was there I don't think they won a single game....maybe a few. Anyways, I did Katie, and her friends hair for the big dance. My older sister Lindsey did the make-up.

This would be the mid-way through shot

Final product (Cassie had to leave before Katie was done). Looks gorgeous.

Can't get enough of the park

The past few days Spencer has wanted to be outside non-stop. We stayed very active this summer, and spend a lot of time outside. Whether it was swimmig, going for walks, or going to parks we spent a good chunk of everyday outside. It has died down a little; we spend more of our time inside. We still go outside some....However, yesterday my older sister Lindsey babysat him while I went to class, and they spent most of their time outside. Since then, all evening yesterday and all day today, Spencer has been wanting to go outside. He stands by our backdoor and just cries until I take him out. It's been a rough day. So after I got done with a test this afternoon I took him to the park. He loves the park. We have about four or five different parks that we alternate between. His favorite thing about the parks are the slides. He does pretty well with them, if they are too big then I lay him down, but for the most part he can sit up while going down them.

I rarely put him in shoes. I never wear them inside, so he never does either. And if we are going somewhere I usually don't bother putting them on him, because he's usually in a cart or the stroller. But I always put him in shoes when we go to the park (obviously), every park has those dumb wood chips. So if I put shoes on him, he knows where we are going....and gets very excited.

Who loves hats?

Hilarious

Months and months ago, my best friend who lives in Salt Lake, came to visit us. She slept on a mattress we put on the floor; and it is still there. Spencer loves to climb and play on it. Well, one day, I was milling around and looked over at him. He was laying on his stomach on the mattress, being a big lump. It must have felt good to lay down! He laid there forever...long enough for me to run and grab the camera and take this picture. I think it's hilarious!

So what have we been up to, since Scott left?

Hi Scottie! We woke up to a very rainy morning. It was actual a pretty big thunder storm all morning. It let up for a while, then at about 5:00 it did another big storm. Today was the BSU vs. Oregon game. Oregon was very heavily favored, they are ranked # 12. We were suppose to get mutilated, but we showed them. Final score 37 to 32, BSU; go big blue! That puts us at 3 and 0 so far this season. We have been pretty busy the past few days, so luckily they have gone by pretty fast. We have done a lot of running around, and bought our tickets for Disney on ice (I'm so excited). I think that hay fever is starting to get to Spencer, his eyes have been watering all day. For those of you interested (Scott) Spencer got new pajamas. The blue ones have arctic animals (polar bears, moose, penguins, and fish), and the other is obviously Halloween. The little kid Halloween pajamas were completely picked over, these were the only thing (out of all the jamas, and even Halloween shirts) in his size. And it's not even October yet.

What am I going to do??

Scott works for a company called Pacific Technologies Inc. (PTI). They do asbestos abatement...hazardous materials removal. The owners have been in our ward forever, at least my whole life, so I know them pretty well. They have treated Scott very well, and want to keep him permanently. However, they travel a lot. Even though Scott has only been there about 6 months, he gets to pick and choose which jobs he takes. He took a job in McCall earlier this summer, but besides that he has stayed local. Since Christmas is coming up, he has decided to take some out of town jobs, because he gets paid a little more. So this Wednesday, September 17, he is leaving for Denver Colorado for a week and a half. Which isn't bad, but when he finishes that job he is turning around and going to Dallas Texas for about 5 weeks. I'm hoping he can come home between the two jobs, if he does, it will only be for a day or so. So I'm contemplating flying down to Texas for a few days, but that would use a good chunk of Christmas money, thus defeating the purpose of him going out of town. These jobs are what really got me jump started on my blog. This way Scott can keep updated on what Spencer and I are doing. So I'm warning everyone in advance that my posts will be relatively monotonous and boring. Kind of a "Dear Diary, this is what I did today" type of posts. And probably a few that are directed toward Scott. Since Scott is only in town for a few more days, we took the opportunity to go visit him. Spencer was ready to work, so he's wearing his work overalls.

7 years later

I'm sure that we all vividly remember the attacks that took place, and what we were doing on September 11, 2001. It was a pretty shocking day. I was a senior in high school. I remember I pressed the snooze button on my alarm about a million times, like I always did (not a morning person back then). My morning rountine always began with grabbing the remote from my night stand and flipping on the weather channel. The glare from the TV would help wake me up, and I would always know what the weather was going to be, so I could plan my attire accordingly. Well, this particular morning the scene of the first twin tower on fire was what I awoke too. Being so groggy my mind didn't comprehend what was going on. I thought that a movie was on instead of the weather. Still being half asleep, and irritated that the local forcast wasn't on, I tried to find a local news station to figure out the weather report. Well, after seeing the same image on basically every channel, I then realized that it wasn't a movie. I watched for a while, then went upstairs to watch it with the rest of my family. I remember not wanting to go to school, because I was obviously glued to the TV, but I went. Luckily, school was "cancelled" in a sense. Three-forths of my teachers just flipped on the TV and let us watch through class. My history teacher was very passionate about history, and made sure we knew that we were alive during a significant event in history. He told us to take notes, and remember that day. He said, "Your grandchildren are going to do a unit in their history classes about September 11, 2001, and they are going to want an interview with someone who was alive during it." I am glad that I was able to watch the news all morning. I distinctly remember sitting in class and watching as the second plane hit, and then again (in a different class) watching as the towers fell. I can't imagine being in that disaster, I am so grateful that I didn't loose anyone that day. My heart goes out to those who did. Lamar Alexander said, "September 11 is one of our worst days but it brought out the best in us. It unified as a country and showed our charitable instincts and reminded us of what we stood for and stand for." And it did, I am proud to be an American, very grateful for those firefighters, policeman, and civilians who risked their lives to help others that day, and proud and grateful that we have people willing to go over seas to defend our country.




On a lighter note, what did we do today? We wore our flag shirts and went to Mcdoanlds:) My niece Natalie's school told everyone to wear red, white, and blue today, so Spencer and I joined in. We try so hard to get a good shot, but in never happens. This was the best we could get.




We don't have any 9/11 memorials here in Boise, none that I know of that is....I don't know anyone who was directly affected by the disaster. But I will proudly wear my flag shirt to show my remembrance, and patriotism!

My little T-Rex

Spencer started trying to walk the first week or so in August. Now he is to the point where he wants to walk more than crawl. Still very wobbly, but he can walk across a room. He loves it, he has the biggest smile on his face when he walks. However, he looks like a T-Rex when he does. His legs are very far apart, and he pulls his arms up against him. It's hilarious.

Happy Birthday Spencer!!

August 22, was Spencer's 1st Birthday. He was so excited. Well, maybe he was oblivious, and we were the ones who were excited. Since he wouldn't get the concept of unwrapping presents, we took everything out of the packages and laid them all out in the family room. He had the largest grin on his face when we walked into the family room that morning. He likes balls, and anything with wheels....and thats what he got. Spencer and I played with his new toys all day until Scott came home from work. I couldn't even get him to look away from his new toys for a picture. That evening we decided to take him to Planet Kid. We have taken him there several times, and he loves it. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the place, Planet Kid is Idaho's






largest indoor soft playground. It includes tunnels, tubes, mazes, ball pits, nets, and slides. It is about two stories high, and I don't have the slightest clue on how big it is. Out of all the slides, tubes, and tunnels, Spencer's favorite part is this dumb space shuttle pinata that hangs about fifteen feet in the air. Any chance he had, he would crawl as fast as he could to the dumb thing and stared at it. Aunt Emilee brought cousin's Lexie, Ethan, Jocelyn, and Jackson over. Also Grandma Cannon, Aunt Lindsey, and cousin's, Natalie, and Alex came too. We went about an hour and a half before it closed, so not very many people would be there. It ended up being the perfect time, hardly anyone else was there, and everyone had a blast.
Aunt Emilee with cousin Jackson

Aunt Lindsey with cousin Natalie

Camping

Scott, Spencer, and I went camping over Labor Day weekend. We were accompanied by our good friends the Matagi's (Sefa, Fanua, and Naki). It rains everytime I go camping, and it didn't fail. Luckily it didn't rain the whole time, just Saturday evening, all night, and Sunday morning. Besides the rain, and cold weather, we had a lot of fun. It was nice just to sit back and relax. Our weekend was full of walks, huckleberry picking (right next to our campsite), scrabble, and lots of food. Spencer had a hay day. Obviously, when you go camping, your going to get dirty.....and he did. He had two places he liked to be (Places to keep his attention away from the fire). One was over by where our bikes were leaning against the trees. He likes to spin the pedals around. The other was by the cars. He would walk around them, check out the tires and the license plates. The only problem we had with him was what he would put in his mouth. If we weren't holding him, whatever was at his feet, went into his mouth; rocks, dirt, sticks, wood chips, and several unknown things. His mouth was dirty...literally. Oh well, it won't hurt him. He never actually ate anything, just stashed it in his cheeks.