November

And November's gone . . . What have we been doing to keep ourselves busy? Plenty, we've both been busy with lots and lots of school. Things started to get really busy for Josh with the Rex E. Lee Moot Court competition. And it continued with the Linda Anderson Trial Advocacy competition. The moot court competition went well (Josh and another student organized and oversaw it), and Josh and his teammate Dave won the trial advocacy competition. It was almost four weeks straight of nothing but long days, but he had fun.

With the weather getting cold, Janae has been looking for creative ways to keep Ainslie occupied in doors. One particularly popular activity is ripping up the junk mail. Try it, it's great.

When it's Josh and Ainslie, they like going for car rides. Josh usually takes a camera along, and the two of them have had fun taking pictures of the last few days of fall.

More recently, we had a great time spending Thanksgiving Day with our families. We started out the day in Layton with Janae's family. The food was delicious, and Ainslie had tons of fun dancing on stage during the "production." After that, we headed down to Lehi for more food and fun at the Davis' house. "Ains-o-wee" had lots of playing with Trey.
And she had fun playing on her own. There were lots of great toys, including some fun cars (Ainslie really like cars these days). And, she really enjoyed reading stories with Grandma Sue.
Life is busy, but we have lots to be thankful for. Wonderful family, great school opportunities, and this happy little girl.

Halloween

Despite Josh's persistent efforts to expose Halloween as a terrible excuse for a holiday, candy and costumes won in the end. Halloween wasn't half bad. In fact, it was pretty fun.

Ainslie dressed up like a ballerina. Actually, we dressed her up as a ballerina, but she didn't seem to mind. She was a huge fan of the frilly tu-tu, and even put on a few little dance shows for us. Unfortunately, the costume wasn't quite warm enough for trick-or-treating, so we had to throw a few extra layers on when we went out in the evening.

It didn't take Ainslie long to figure out what trick-or-treating is all about. The knocks gradually got more assertive, and by the end of the night she would just walk right into the house and look for candy on her own. We had a good time visiting some of the people in our ward, and Josh was more than willing to carry Ainslie's candy while she pushed the stroller from house to house. "Candy" has become a very common word around our house these days. Fortunately, Ainslie didn't catch on to just how much she was getting as the night went on. We tucked it away on top of the fridge, and we're hoping that she forgets it's up there.

So, maybe Halloween isn't that bad afterall. If nothing else, Ainslie learned some fun new things to say . . .

Pumpkins!

Josh hates Halloween. Janae remains undecided. But, Ainslie is loving it. For Ainslie, Halloween means three things: 1) dressing up like a ballerina, 2) more frequent discussions related to candy, and 3) pumpkins. The third is definitely the most important to her. Ever since the light up, inflatable pumpkins went up across the street, Ainslie has been in love. She can spot a pumpkin from a parking lot away, and demands that we take her outside to see them at least 5 times a day. Fortunately, some other neighbors put up a pumpkin that Ainslie can see from our window, so we can admire the pumpkin from the comfort of our own home . . .

Transcript:

A: Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.

Janae: What does a pumpkin say?

A: Boo!

Josh: What's out the window? Do you see pumpkins?

A: Yeah. Yeah. Pumpkin. Pumpkin. Pumpkin! PUMPKIN! Uh, uh, uh! (general excitement)

Happy Birthday Janae!

Just a little over a week ago Janae celebrated the big 27. If you think that's old, you're wrong. At least she'll always be younger than Josh . . .

We had lots of fun celebrating with our families (thanks everyone!), and Ainslie is getting pretty good with candles. It's too bad she has to wait until April to get some of her own.

Daddy-Daughter Date

This semester Josh is taking a beginning golf class at BYU, and he got a discount pass to Cascade. The pass comes with one free round of miniature golf, so Josh and Ainslie hit the "links" this Wednesday while Janae was in class.

The two of them had a great time. The rules of golf proved to be a little too much for Ainslie to follow (namely, hit the ball with the club), but she helped out on those rare occasions when the ball went in the hole.

But some holes didn't make much sense at all.

More than anything else, she had a lot of fun running all over that little mini-golf course. It was probably the biggest, greenest playground she's seen.

With all of the running from hole to hole, it was hard for Josh to keep up.

But even at Ainslie's quick pace, the two of them managed a minute or two to stop and appreciate the flowers.

In the end, Josh only hit the ball about four times, and Ainslie packed it around the rest of the time. But, the two of them had lots of fun enjoying a little bit of daddy-daughter time together.