Smith Family

I mentioned earlier that Hazel is the only model I have to practice my photography, and I end up taking a lot of pictures of her.  My friend, Diana Smith, took me up on my offer to take some photos for her.  Her  baby Olivia is three months old and kind of at an in between stage.  She isn't a newborn, so she doesn't fit in those small baskets asleep, and she can't sit up, but I still managed to get some cute shots of her.  Her are just a few.

Towards the end she just wanted to fall asleep.  Thanks Diana!  It was a lot of fun!

Ward Halloween Party

Brendan and I are on the activities committee in our ward, and we really enjoy it.  On Friday night we had a Halloween party and chili cook off.  It looked really nice in the end, but the pictures don't really do it justice.  My tripod is broken, so I had to use my flash unfortunately.  These are just some pictures while we were setting up, but we had the lights dimmed, with our fog machine going and Brendan had some cool Halloween tunes playing.  People also brought their carved pumpkins for the centerpieces and to enter our pumpkin carving contest.  We also had a costume parade and contest.

 Brendan and I saw the striped and polka dot pumpkins on the Martha Stewart show and decided to give it a try.  I thought they kind of turned out cute.

Brendan is setting up the speakers, and Hazel is tagging along.

Brendan and I made the tree by spray painting sticks and a pot.  We hung garland and some ghost pops from it.  We also made homemade rootbeer with dry ice in the cauldrons.  

We downloaded and used this cute invitation from Shauna Younge posted on Twig and Thistle.

Urban Outfitters Sweater Girl

(Photo taken from Urban Outfitters)

Many of you know that Brendan's family owns Campus Plaza Apartments, and I have the great job of being the pool cleaner.  This morning Brendan's cousin called from New York to tell him that Urban Outfitters apparently had a photo shoot there and there were pictures of the Campus Plaza Pool in their catalog and on their website.  Go here and here to see more pictures.   I guess the photographer is a student at BYU and her clients are Urban Outfitters and Columbia Records.  Good thing I've been keeping the pool grounds clean.  Who would have thought our pool would get so much publicity?

Costumes

I had been wanting to take some pictures of Hazel in her Halloween costume, so I invited my friend Tabitha and her son Sawyer to come along.  Brendan's sister is also in town, so we invited her to bring Clara and Montgomery to add to the cuteness.  It was a lot of fun, but it can be hard to get several kids to look at the camera.  We had a strawberry, a monkey, a kangaroo, and Tinkerbell.

Sawyer

While we were waiting for Brendan to get home from work and help us with the hay for our Halloween shoot, we walked to the duck pond and I snapped some pictures of Sawyer.  Such a cutie!

Russian Friends

Our friends, Daniel and Sasha, came and visited from Russia.  Brendan has been friends with Daniel since his mission, and we met Sasha two years ago when Brendan and I visited Russia.  Brendan met up with them in Las Vegas and drove them up here to hang out.  We visited Sundance and also drove the Alpine loop.  Sasha was able to attend his first American football game, and also visited Temple Square. It was a fun weekend!

Farm Fest

On Saturday we went to a Farm Fest in Payson with Brendan's parents and his sister who is in town with her two kids.  Grandma Rowland had some cowboy and cowgirl attire ready for the grandkids.  It was kind of a small festival, but I think Hazel had fun riding the pony, feeding the animals, and going on a hayride.  I managed to get a few cute pictures of Hazel and Montgomery, but not really any good ones of Clara.  I will make sure and snap some more of her on our next outing.  Hazel really likes having other kids to play with, so it has been fun having cousins in town.  

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

I made some pumpkin chocolate chip cupcakes with a maple cream cheese frosting today, and they were delicious.  The recipe came from here, but I changed it a little.  I added mini chocolate chips to the batter, and also changed the frosting a bit.  I found the cute cupcake wrappers and picks at Smiths.  If you like pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, then you will love these!   

Fall is Here

It was pretty warm most of September, and it hasn't felt like Fall, that is until yesterday.  It felt like a nice crisp Fall day, perfect for walking weather.  Brendan and I took Hazel out for a walk and ended up stuck in a storm.  It started to pour on us and we found shelter under a small overhang of an apartment complex.  We thought it would blow through, but we were under there for around 20 minutes as it became worse.  Finally, Brendan had to run home in the rain and go get the car to come and pick us up.  Of course it stopped shortly after and the sun came out again.

While Brendan was in Europe, he bought Hazel a few outfits from Zara Baby.  They have the cutest baby clothes ever!  I wish you could buy them online, but they only started offering online shopping last month for Europe only.  With the cooler weather, Hazel was finally able to wear one of her outfits today.  We walked up to BYU to visit my sister at work and bring her a treat.  While on campus, a student wanted to give Hazel a balloon and she didn't mind.

Watching her balloon fly away.

Hazel loves to visit the duck pond frequently.  One day Hazel wasn't throwing the bread fast enough and the ducks snatched them right out of her hands.  

Brendan was listening to an audio book on his ipod for school, and Hazel wanted to listen.  Brendan turned on some music for her, and she was loving it.  Brendan put on some Bob Marley and told her what it was and she said, "Bob" and started to dance.  The skeleton pajamas are from Grandma Rowland.  They are a little big, but they're cute and they glow in the dark.

Magleby's Chocolate Cake

I recently purchased a new cake platter, which gave me a good reason to make a cake.  I love Magleby's chocolate cake, but have never attempted to make it.  I found a copy cat recipe, but I had to double it to make it four layers.  The cake turned out very moist and was delicious, but I didn't like the chocolate frosting recipe very much.  Does anyone have a really fudgy chocolate buttercream recipe?

I also included a picture of my flowers.  My brother is taking a floral design class at BYU right now, and the lab where he makes his flower arrangements is across the street from me.  He delivered these to me with a nice note.  I always wanted to take that class, but it was always full or didn't work with my schedule.