Happy 7 Month Birthday Ainslie!

Our little girl is 7 months old today! We can't believe how fast she's growing up and how strong-willed she is getting. She's awesome, and we love her lots and lots. (We wanted to show off the shirt that Aunt Heather made. It's pretty cool!)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving traditions: turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie, football, and . . . balloon soccer?

This year we went to St. George for Thanksgiving with Josh's family. Grandpa Davee's birthday was on Thanksgiving, so we were excited to make the trip down south to be there.

It was fun to spend time with everyone, and the food was great. We all ate until we simply couldn't eat any more. Thanksgiving done right. Ainslie had a good time playing with Grandpa and Grandma and all of their toys!

She also made friends with the dog and worked on biting a balloon. Lots of fun.

The time off from school has been nice, but the threat of finals hangs like a black cloud on the horizon. These next few weeks are going to be a real adventure. We can't wait until Christmas vacation . . .

When Sweet Potatoes Attack!

Ainslie's working on real food these days (if you can call mushed up vegetables and oatmeal "real food"). So far, Janae is the only one brave enough around our house to venture towards little Ainslie with a spoon full of this stuff, and last night the challenge was sweet potatoes. From the picture above you'd think it was a pretty crazy experience, but these "before" pictures show that it wasn't all "Attack of the Killer Sweet Potatoes." Ainslie was having a good ol' time taking the spooon and eating on her own (and flinging food around the room just a little too).

*** Update ***

Josh tackled the sweet potatoes with Ainslie tonight. No casualties were reported . . .

Carrying on . . .

A few nights ago we thought it would be a good idea to let Ainslie wear herself out in the crib a little bit before bedtime (lately it's become a battle of wills to convince her that it's time to go to bed). When we came back a few minutes later to take another shot at going to sleep, she had almost crawled out of the crib! So, we decided it was time to drop the mattress to the lowest level, and Josh went to work with his handy tool kit to make our crib a little safer. Now Ainslie can stand up all she wants, and we don't worry about her jumping out. At least not anytime soon . . .
This week Josh finished up the Rex E. Lee moot court competition, and he made it all the way to the final round. That means he'll be on the BYU team that will compete for a chance to go to the national competition in Chicago a year from now. This spring he'll probably be competing in a few other competitions as well for both the Moot Court team and the Trial Advocacy team. He'll be pretty busy, but he enjoys the competitions. Plus, we might get to go to a competition or two together in some exotic locations such as Minneapolis or Nashville!

Election night went well for Janae. After Josh's semifinal round was done, we all headed over to the exit poll headquarters, and Janae helped write up a press release to let people know what the exit poll showed. Vouchers didn't pass, Becker's the new mayor, and there were more Democrats voting in Salt Lake this election than the last. Interesting . . .

Not too Mobile

Ainslie still hasn't started crawling yet, but she's been giving it a pretty good shot. If you put the right thing in front of her, she'll give it everything she's got to move in some direction. Legs kicking, arms stretched out as far as they can go, fingers wiggling. . .

But, we're not too sad that's she's (for the most part) stationary. It's nice being able to put her down and not be too concerned about where she's going to scoot off to, and from what we're told, this stage won't be lasting much longer.

True to predictions, school is picking back up, and the intensity is sure to only build as we get closer and closer to finals. Janae has papers and tests coming up, and Josh is still in the Moot Court competition. Tomorrow he'll be in the Semi-finals, and Janae is going to be busy helping with the KBYU Exit Poll during the election. Should be interesting to see how the vote comes out on the Salt Lake Mayoral race and the contentious school voucher question, but we're mostly hoping that we'll be able to make it through this election night without having anyone fall off a stage . . .