A New Do...And this ones for James

Not a whole lot has happened this week outside of our regular schedules of work/school/homework. I did however get a new look. I have had the same hair for quite awhile now and I have been ready for a change for awhile now. So I made a hair appointment and went darker and got a new cut. I really like it and its a good change. Change is good sometimes. It's a fun thing for fall season. If you compare last weeks pictures that we posted to this picture there is a pretty significant difference. I'm no longer a blonde...and yes that's right. Those are red streaks you see in there. It's going to take Derek awhile to get used to finding me in a crowd because he isn't used to looking for a brunette but I'm having fun with the change.

Since not a whole lot has happened this week in our lives that is very exciting we thought we would take a minute and talk about one of our most valued readers of the "Bib and Deek" blog. 

I would like to dedicate this next part of the post to one of our dear friends and one of our most valued blog readers... James McCabe Nickerson. You might all refer to him as McCabe. McCabe is a friend of Derek and mine for quite awhile now. Just a quick spotlight on him: My first memory of McCabe was 7th grade computer class. We had assigned seating next to each other found out that he had the same name as my dad and we've been friends since... odd how that sparked a friendship but it did. Hence, my nickname of James. I asked Derek to reminisce for a minute on McCabe and share a favorite memory of him. One that kept coming to his mind was going to wal mart and buying six foot long sandwiches to eat in Brian Cozzens basement pretty regularly...a lot... through highschool. Of course a bonding moment for teenage boys involving food. He happened to marry one of my best friends of all time, Cicely. McCabe and Cicely have one pet, Tut the Turtle and reside in Logan, Utah. They are great friends of ours. Thanks for reading our blog regularly and being one of our most valued readers. 

Here they are:

Until next time... so long and have a great week. 

Fall is in the Air

Hey everyone....we missed last week with out blogging, sorry. There are probably very few of you out there that actually noticed but we apologize anyway. We just have had very few moments to even breathe and be able to spend time with each other that blogging was kind of down lower on the To Do list and it just kind of got forgotten. But here we are this week. This morning we went to the temple dedication of Brigham Temple and it was really fun to be able to go participate in that. I'm really excited for General Conference in a couple of weeks. It will be nice to be able to just relax and listen to all those wonderful men/women speak to us.

I don't know about all of you but fall is my most favorite time of year. It's just so great. Its not to hot and not to cold. Its the time of year when it starts to be socially acceptable to start pulling out your hot cocoa and blankets to cuddle up in. Leaves changing, beautiful autumn colors, pumpkins, scarecrows, apples, hot homemade soups,etc. Well the past couple of days as I have been looking up at the mountain I kept telling Derek that we have to go up to the mountain before it gets too late and we miss all the fall leaves changing. Its one of my favorite things to do every year is take a Sunday drive up to the mountain and just take everything in. Well on our way home from visiting both our families we finally just decided to make a quick trip. We had a lot of fun and I"m glad we made time to go up, because our schedules are just getting so crazy that I think otherwise we would have kept putting it off until it was too late.

Here are few pictures from our adventures up the mountain. I love the fall leaves up there. Beautiful! One of the great things about living in Cedar.

Don't I just have the cutest husband?

I love this background. 

Me and Derek

We had a great relaxing Sunday drive to take in all the beautiful fall colors. 

Derek and I are both doing great and just keeping busy with same old same old...work and school.

We are so blessed to have such a great life!

Baby blessing Numero Dos

Well this week flew by. We were both busy with work and school as usual. We knew that we would be going out of town for the weekend again so we worked hard to get all our work done before we left town on Saturday. We still didn't get everything done but we did get a lot done so that's still good. On Friday night we had Derek's parents over to our place for Banana Cream Pie and movie night. We had a lot of fun. We watched the movie Australia. The next day we got up got things packed and headed up north to attend baby blessing numero dos of baby Steve (Sarah and Dave's cute little baby boy). We also celebrated Dave's (Derek's dad) birthday which was Saturday by going out to dinner and just having fun being all together. I think we are done attending baby blessings for awhile now. Its been a lot of traveling lately but we have really had fun and enjoyed all our little trips. We are looking forward to staying home for this upcoming weekend. It will be nice to just relax and get life organized. Here are a few pictures from our trip.

Cute baby Steve

Derek playing with Dani. He always loves playing with his nieces and nephews.

Grandma Payne with the Grandkids. Love this picture.

Quality time with the kiddos.

Derek reading Peter Rabbit with Dani Sunday morning before church. 

Grandpa and baby Steve (Happy Birthday to Dave!)

All the gals. 

We had a great trip and had fun spending time with family. Until next week...

Sweet Olivia and School Stuff

Derek and I both had a crazy but good week back to school. First we will tell you a bit about Derek's first week back. Derek has been so so busy with his homework already. He gets home from work/school at about 5 most days and then it seems we have just enough time to get a quick bite to eat and he is off to do homework the rest of the night until ten or eleven when its time to bed. He has a very demanding semester ahead of him and we are already seeing the results. He will enjoy it though. He has some fun and interesting classes ahead of him.

My first week of school was so busy. I came home everyday just exhausted. I forget how much work it takes out of you to work with 3-4 year olds for 6 hours a day and most of them have very specific needs met. I would not survive without my teachers aides. They help out so much. Its been so busy though that my boss has approved for me to higher another aide for a boy I have in my class that has Cerebral Palsy and can basically do very very little by himself. It will be nice to have a little extra help. We covered so much in preschool this week and sometimes you assume the kids would know how to do things, I have to model so much for them. Even as simple of what it means to sit on your pockets, or how we wash hands, or how to push the soap dispenser to get soap, etc. Its so much work but it has been so fun too. I have some challenging kids, but they are so darling and I'm going to have a great year. I also started my USU class for my masters that I am working on. Its every Tuesday night for 3 hours which makes a long day, especially after a day at the preschool. It is also going to be a very demanding class but I'm excited to get going and get that much closer to earning my masters in special education of early childhood education.

After our first week of school we got up early Saturday morning to head to Vegas with Derek's parents. We went there to celebrate Brian's birthday as well as see Olivia blessed. It was so fun to go and visit. We spent most the time just hanging out and visiting at Brian and Amy's house. We also went out to eat at Sweet Tomatoes restaurants, all I can say is YUMMY. Derek and I are going to make it a point to go to the one that is located in Sandy most times that we go up to doctors visits. It was just so good. And you could eat so much and not feel that guilty because its like salads and soups galore. It was fabulous. Sunday we saw Olivia blessed and then we headed home to have a quick lunch (which was also very amazing, thanks Amy) and then headed back home to good ole Cedar City. Here are a few pictures from our trip.

Derek building a tower with Noah

Grandma and Grandpa loving baby Olivia

The child in the picture above is one of the cutest children I know. Seriously. 

Derek all tuckered out from the days adventures. 

An Uncles job: Getting the kids all riled up right before bed time. Wrestling with Noah and Hannah.

I'm just watching Derek play with the kids on the couch when he got this lovely picture. We were both pretty tired at the end of the day. 

Just chillin' at Brian and Amy's. 

We spent our Labor Day holiday off from school just catching up on homework, classwork, and things we needed to do around the house. We did go out to dinner with all of my family at the Pizza Factory and had fun doing that. I guess we are back into full swing of school work and reality at our house.