WARNING! AVISO! AVERTISSEMENT!

Call it a swing, call it a cradle, call it thrifty...call it whatever you want, but this was funny! Last night we were at Kevin and Randee's house making our Halloween Trees, and Justin put Mya in this bucket we were going to use for the base. He swung her around for a minute and not very long after, she fell asleep! I wonder why they have the warning labels...kids LOVE them!

(No, we didn't leave her in there for her nap).

The Muzzle Load!

Okay, it's really the muzzleloader, but now I know why they call it that! Last Wednesday Justin and I took off work to go hunting. It's kind of a crazy story...


(These are the deer, you may have to blow it up on your screen, but after Justin shot, the deer went to the top and then filed out of the canyon)

At 3:45 am we dropped Mya off at my mom & dad's and headed up for Clear Creek, past Snowville. I was really tired, so I laid my head down on the console as we drove. After a while, I noticed Justin was turning and slowing down. "Did you just get off the freeway?"...the freeway was closed, which wasn't convenient since we were trying to beat the sun. So we were taking a little detour through Brigham City (I just assumed there was construction and sometimes they close the freeway at night). When we were driving to the next freeway entrance, our Explorer just shut itself off. Justin checked the oil and gauges, and everything was fine (after a little prayer, of course). The car started right up again and we were on our way. We got to the on ramp, and that was closed by a cop car. So I knew it wasn't construction. We ended up driving all the way past Brigham City until the next entrance, and the freeway was opened and cars were driving on it. It was so weird and I just felt like we were being delayed for some reason, like something could have happened to us and we were being protected. You never know, but that's what I really think.
So after we were up there, we were sitting at the top of this cliff, looking down in the canyon. I looked around, didn't see any deer (the sun was still not quite up) so I was just enjoying the view with the sun coming up and enjoying nature, when I hear "So I count 25 deer"...What?!? "Where are you looking?" We weren't sitting there for more than 10 minutes when Justin spotted all of these deer that looked like dots. I guess I was looking for bigger deer...? There were actually about 35 deer. So after 20 minutes, Justin had his deer picked out that he's been scouting and moved over to a closer cliff and shot it. He waited for this deer to get to the top of the mountain until he shot it, but after he shot it, the deer drug itself back to the bottom of the mountainside. We went, found the deer, boned it out, and carried it back up the mountain...wait...did I say we? I meant, I carried the gun up the steep mountain while Justin carried the pack with all of the deer meat in it and the head. We were back to the car by 10:00 and home by 1:00.
BUT, our day wasn't over. We ran around doing errands taking care of the deer head, finding a meat grinder, picking up Mya, and then we stayed up until 1:00 processing the meat. I KNOW, Natalie, who hates touching meat, touched deer meat, the deer we just shot that morning, cut it up, carried it up the mountain, washed it off, trimmed it up, and then made it into ground meat, touched all of this and was just fine. But even though we were so tired, it was really fun. I loved spending all day with Justin and there was some sort of pride with killing an animal and making meat out of it to provide for your family. My sisters are going to think I'm disgusting, I know. But we even cooked it up the next day, and with my amazing cooking skills :), it actually turned out really good and you couldn't even tell it was deer meat (and I am picky with my meat). I just had to get over the mental thought of eating deer!

Our Sour Patch Kid

Mya loves sour things. Pickles, lemons...(I can't remember the other sour things we've let her try) but she loves them. The other night I made my Italian Lemon Chicken, and after we were done, Justin let her have part of a lemon. She loved it! She left some cute pictures too that I had to share!

Date Night

So when Justin and I got married, we decided to make 3 rules after hearing advice and counsel from people. They were: 1. to never yell at each other 2. We always had to go to bed together (no sleeping on the couch, which means we couldn't go to bed angry) 3. we had to put aside one night of the week for a weekly date night.

Our dates aren't always going out to dinner and a movie. It's fun when we go out to dinner or go bowling, but a lot of times, it's getting a $5 pizza and watching a movie or playing games. The thing that I love is that we set aside one day of the week with no homework, cleaning, or making any other plans. That's the day for just us to spend time with each other. I've noticed that I really look forward to these nights. I think it really does help keep our marriage good and I love the fun memories we make. I was thinking about this last night (even though this wasn't our date night) when we stayed up late playing pinball and trying to beat each other's scores. I have so much fun with Justin and he always knows how to make me laugh. He had me in tears laughing so hard on Friday night. There was one weekend where I rented a scary movie (and I can't watch scary movies) because I thought it was a movie he had said he wanted to watch when we saw the previews...only to find out it was nothing like the movie he wanted to watch and he thought it was completely stupid and I was scared to death... But it's just nights like those that I love and so I just wanted to say thanks Love!

Hanging Out With Daddy

Mya LOVES her dad! Justin is so cute with her! Last Saturday Justin had to mow the lawn, so he took her out with him and I looked out there and saw this! It was so cute! They mowed the entire lawn like that.

The next morning, Justin had to wake up early for a meeting, and so when I was getting ready for church, Justin took Mya downstairs and played with her. After a while, I realized it was kind of quiet so I thought I would check on them...they were both sound asleep. It was cute.

Climbing Stairs

On the 5th, Mya climbed up the stairs all by herself! Trichelle and Joe were over and we were hanging out in the living room and Justin had the calculator. After a minute, Justin started putting the calculator on the stairs and Mya climbed the stairs to get to it. After each stair, Justin would move the calculator up and she would climb another one. It was a proud moment. I was way suprised because I had no clue she was that close to climbing stairs!

Eating Plums!

Justin fed Mya dinner two nights ago. We gave her plums, which she had never had before. When she was almost done, I looked over at her and saw this:

What a mess! I went to clean it up, but decided to grab my camera instead. Then two bites later (her last bite), she spit it out and smeared it all over!

It was so funny and she went staight to the tub!

Labor Day Weekend

For Labor Day, we went to Brownie Lake in the Uintas. It's up by Flaming Gorge or Spirit Lake if you've ever heard of that. My family goes up there every year so it was Mya's first time camping. It was way fun! We didn't get up there until midnight Friday night, and my family ("bless their hearts" as Justin would say) waited up for us. So that night was just put up the tent, unloaded the SUV, and went to bed. Mya slept pretty much the entire way up, so we just had to lay her in bed and she slept the rest of the night.

On Saturday, we went for a drive, but mostly hung around the camp. Of course, we don't miss driving around for animals. We spotted (did I say we? I meant I) 4 deer and 2 bull moose...that was about all of the animals we saw while we were up there. Sunday my family did a breakfast with everyone and a dinner.

So we cooked a lot that day on our little stove we brought up. But there was also a lot of Horseshoe tournaments going on. I beat Jared! But then he practiced pretty much all day and I never won a game again. I played a game with Justin, which I almost won, but knocked my own ringer off to lose the game!

We also went on walks...I guess Mya got a little tired because we didn't go far and...
Sunday night was the big storm! We actually stayed really warm in our tent with all of the blankets I brought up (which Justin gave me a hard time for bringing up so many).

But it was so cold outside! There were patches of snow on the ground, our tent was drooping down with all of the rain and snow sitting on it, and my sister's awning even broke during the night. We stayed in the trailer a lot on Monday since it was so cold.

But I absolutely love it up there! The smells and just all of the memories. I still get excited to go up there, even if I do freak out a little when I hear footsteps outside of the tent, only to find out it was a couple of my nieces and nephews trying to toilet paper our tent. They did have an accomplice get our car though....who thinks she/he is still unnamed. But we'll get even...
The drive home was good. We saw so many deer! I think we figured around 40 or so. Mya was so good on the way home. She slept a lot, but when she was awake, she'd just talk to herself and make funny noises to keep her entertained. It was cute!

Snoozing on the Job

I guess Mya thinks my job is boring...I thought this picture was so cute, I couldn't pass it up!

First Hunting Trip

Justin is so proud! Two weekends ago we went to Higley's cabin at clear creek for a few days. It was so nice to do nothing. It seemed like that week was so hectic and once we left (even though it wasn't until 10:30 at night when I got everything done that I needed to) it was all relaxing. It was way nice to be able to give so much one-on-one time with Mya.

Very Affectionate

Mya loves giving hugs and kisses! I just didn't realize it was to anything that even resembles a person. This is Megan's doll she was kissing.
Guilty! Now we know what she will look like if she did any kissing after she gets home from dates.

I Am Blessed

So there has been A LOT of crazy things happening to us lately. As some of you know, a bunch of our things decided to give out on us lately. First of all, we've had Mya's hospital bills that finally got paid off in August, Justin's school, plus we needed to get the internet for Justin's school this semester. So those were just added bills on top of the rest. We had our dishwasher go out, then our central air. After that, our computer decided it was tired of us (hence, why I haven't posted for a few weeks). Then I had a tire blow out and come to find out, I needed to replace all of my tires! Then our lawn mower stopped working and after having my dad come look at it (and a little prayer of course) it started working again. Almost all of these has been within the last month and a half. It seems like I'm leaving something out, but I'm sure Justin will remind me later. But I'm not complaining. Looking back at everything makes me realize that Heavenly Father has given us so much and the more amazing part to me is that we have actually been able to pay for everything, somehow. On top of all of that, we were able to get a new car. The last little while and especially the last couple of days I've thought a lot about how much the Lord really does know our situation and helps us with the things we need or want if we just ask Him. My testimony of tithing and fast offerings has really strengthened, too. I just feel really blessed, but also hope this streak is over.