Happy 2nd Anniversary!

Today is our 2nd Anniversary. It's pretty amazing how blessed we have been in this short time. We have a beautiful daughter who is only 3 1/2 months from nursery. We live in a wonderful valley. Jonathan enjoys his job and I enjoy learning to be a homemaker. Together we are learning to be good parents. We especially enjoy our family vacations and time together. If you visit us soon you can have some of our ice cream and cake.

This year we opted to celebrate with a carmel-chocolate covered chocolate cake rather than the traditional lemon-raspberry. Thanks for the green frosting Meli!

This morning I found 4 flickers in the back yard. Can you spot all 4?

This one isn't a flicker, but she enjoyed the snow. Or as Autumn says the "no". Autumn had a cute moment yesterday when we told her she was tip-toeing. She started tip-toeing around the living room saying tip-tip hahaha tip-tip-tip hahaha. Today she did the same thing but now she says "tip-toe, tip-toe, tip-toe" over and over and over. Today Autumn identified Jesus in a picture and also the number 4. Yesterday she said amen after the sacrament prayer without prompting, not that we've ever prompted her to do that in church. Today, when asked if she wanted to get out of the bathtub she said "Up. no!" She practiced that several times too. She puts a pause between up and no for dramatic effect.

Spies like us

I got food poisoning from a Relief Society Food Demo Night I went to last night and now I feel very sick. The unsuspecting culprit was probably the homemade shrimp cocktail, but it could have been the sausage-stuffed mushrooms. I am thankful that it didn't happened on a worse day, like YW activity day. Today I get to stay at home and do laundry. Yay for me! Autumn seems to be trying to have a sympathy sickness, which I profoundly appreciate. You would have enjoyed the humor of the two of us both laying on the carpet, watched a sappy WWII spy movie this morning.

Autumn visits the track

I love living so close to a track! This track is special because I competed on it while I ran for NMSU. I even scored points in the 800 meters for our team. It's wonderful to get to share my love for running with Autumn, even if she is more interested in the bananas.

Hospitals, Miracles, and Other Events

I'm going to start with the most recent miracle and work back in time for the last month. Today we drove down to Salt Lake to see Jon's grandparents who are from Monticello. Last week Grandpa was life flighted to the UofU Hospital from Monticello with heart problems. Miraculously, he didn't need to have surgery and after observing him for several days, they released him. (See the photo, he looks pretty good!)

Miracle number 2- Just as we pulled into the hospital parking garage, Grandpa and Uncle Kim were driving out. They spotted us and stopped. This might not seem like a miracle that we met up, but if you don't have a cell phone it really was! We followed them down to Herriman where Uncle Kim's son and his family live and where Aunt Cindy and Grandma were staying. We visited with them and had a nice pizza lunch. (As a side note, I found out that Autumn's second cousin had a milk allergy too and so did Uncle Kim when he was a baby. It must be a Burtenshaw trait!)

Miracle number 3- Or my most appreciated miracle. Autumn is finally well after 18 days of diarrhea. Yuck! She had a stool sample taken and the lab results came back that she was suffering from a bacteria normally found in the topics. We probably went through 3 months of diapers in a month and washed several pairs of pants a day. We are still waiting for the final results of the stool test but three days of antibiotics really did the trick. Thanks Dr. Visick!

Miracle number 4- Autumn had to go to the Emergency Room after she fell off of a bed and hit her head on a hard wood floor about a week and a half ago. I took her in because she had seizured immediately after the fall and because she couldn't walk or grab things for about half an hour. Miraculously, she didn't have any brain damage and the bruise on her head has finally gone away.

I get to teach the lesson to the young women tomorrow. The lesson is on gratitude. I feel more prepared because I know that each of these events could have turned out in a much worse way. We all have miracles, sometimes we just need to weather the storms before we can learn what they are.

Happy Halloween!

"Are you kidding me mom? This pumpkin isn't scary at all!"

(Autumn had a scary week. So Halloween has been relatively uneventful. )

Happy USU Homecoming!

Last week we were invited to dinner at a Brazilian woman's home. We had wonderful Brazilian food. I made the dessert which needed to be sugar-free. Did you know that they even made sugar-free whipped topping? I couldn't tell the difference.

Welcome Molly!

Autumn's cousin Molly Kate was born October 17 at 6:30 am. Molly was 5 pounds 10 ounces and 18 ¼ inches long. She surprised everyone by coming two weeks early. Congratulations Amanda and Brendon!!!