Duggins Family Pictures

My brother, Ben, was called to serve his mission in Jacksonville, Florida. He leaves November 13th. His leaving brought Crystal to town. On her last night there we took pictures as siblings to commemorate this occasion of us being together for the last time for the next couple of years.

There were many pictures taken, and some of them were HILARIOUS. I didn't include the worst ones, but added a few of the outtakes to show the real us. I got a good laugh looking through these.

This is my favorite outtake of Ben:

 And this is my favorite outtake of the three girls:

I love this picture. It may need to be framed.

 This one was meant to be silly. :)

 Hugs!

 And we needed one as a whole immediate family, of course.

So proud of and excited for Ben and his new adventure coming in just a few weeks. He is going to be a great missionary and I look forward to hearing all of his stories! Love you, Ben!!

Pumpkin Patch

Crystal and her kids were in Fort Collins visiting for about 5 days. They came to spend the day in Erie on Saturday. Ryan had the totally brill idea to go to a pumpkin patch! 

We spent about an hour there. The bigger kids went through the hay bale maze. 

There were also animals to look at/pet. Maya loved them! She would yell and talk to them. 

She also got pretty excited about the pumpkins. 

Crystal's son, Zander, was in a great mood, too! He is so cute!

Family pictures for this fall (I love Maya's face in the second one - it's too bad my eyes are half shut):

Ryan told Brielle to make a scary face. This is my favorite one:

And then sweet Aislynn: 

And our little clown: 

It was so fun to spend the day doing something fall oriented with my family! (Missed you, Holly and Garrett!!)

  

Maya is 10 Months! (11 days ago)

Can't believe how close Maya is to 1 year old! So much changes in the first year!

Maya is trying reeeeaallly hard to stand up by herself. She pulls up to stand and then very carefully lets go and tries to keep her balance. It's so cute to watch her concentrate and get excited about how long it takes before she falls. One of her favorite toys is her little walker thing. I think it makes her feel grown up.

She is getting very fast at scooting across the floor. No official crawling yet. Also, she has a super cute little baby bum.

She plays peek-a-boo with us now. I love it!

Just yesterday she went from laying down to sitting up by herself. We watched her do it on the video camera while she was supposed to be napping. And then she pulled herself up on the crib! Ryan thinks it is cute because it means she is getting older. And while it IS cute, it also means nap time just got harder for mommy.

She signs "more" now.

Watching Baby Signing Time

She spent 4 1/2 days without me. It was harder for me than it was for her. I was in Las Vegas for the ABC Kids Tradeshow for work all last week. It's good to know she can survive without me!

She still sticks out her tongue when she is excited. :)

I am really super excited for the holidays with her. She has so much personality!

Accidents Happen

On Saturday Ryan went to Priesthood session of General Conference, so I decided to take my little girl out shopping. 

We went to The Orchards, which is a large outdoor shopping mall. Our first stop was to a toy store, and I let her pick out a stuffed animal. It is the one in her crib here:  

(This is how she lays when she is falling asleep.)

We walked around for about an hour and a half, just enjoying looking at things to buy. 

When I strapped her in the car seat to go home, I had a feeling to make sure the buckle was in the right spot on her chest and tight enough. Not that I don't usually do that, it was just more of a conscious decision this time. 

Maya fell asleep on the way home and I was enjoying Michael Buble. We stopped at a stop light and then suddenly we got hit from the back. It felt pretty hard and of course I FREAKED because of Maya, who was now wide awake and screaming. I quickly pulled to the side and ran around to make sure my child was safe. Thankfully she was, and I just suffered very mild whip lash. 

The guy who hit me was really flustered. He gave me a hug and kept apologizing. I have never been in an accident like that before, so I really only knew we needed to exchange insurance info. He was driving his girlfriend's car and didn't know where to find it. We exchanged names and numbers and parted ways. 

Now cut to Ryan getting home and my telling him about the accident: "Always call the cops, no matter what." Oh. Whooooops. 

Then we went to assess the damage. The bumper had a couple of marks on it, so Ryan called the number the guy gave me. It was fake. Seriously? But then we noticed something on my car that is my saving grace. The license plate of the car that hit me was imprinted perfectly in the dust of my bumper. Ha! 

I am looking forward to surprising the guy when he realizes he didn't escape. 

First Family Hike

This weekend we went on our first hike as a family! We had tried to go during the summer, but it is easier now that Maya only naps twice a day. So we took the opportunity of the beautiful fall weather and found a place to hike! It was a little difficult since we had major flooding in these parts last month. Ryan found a trail at Chattaqua Park in Boulder. There were lots of people there, which was the only downside. 

We stopped for a moment in this clearing. It was a darling little spot, with the sound of trickling water and sun shining through the trees. 

Ryan wore Maya for most of the time. I was glad because he has more sure footing than I do. 

We hiked for about 45 minutes and then decided to turn around because Maya was getting a little fussy. But overall I think she loved it! 

Afterwards we stopped for a few minutes at the park. 

I look forward to more outings like this!

Fun Times

My days are pretty full, from taking care of Maya to work to exercising to good hygiene to daily housework, I don't usually have much downtime unless I MAKE it. 

But I always try to have fun with Maya. She is so funny and I love spending time with her. It won't be long before she is talking back and being defiant, so I am soaking in as much of this cute baby stage as I can. 

She got herself stuck here. I was sure to take a picture before assisting her. Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?

We did another video shoot for work. Peek a boo!

She loves going to the store and sitting in the cart. I have learned I need to tighten the belt! Just after I took this she turned all the way around and tried to stand on the seat. 

She has a leopard puppet that she just loves. It was the first toy she insisted on keeping when she went to bed. 

She gets very excited about doing laundry. She likes to hold on to the laundry basket as I fold the clothes. Sometimes she helps by putting the clothes back in the basket. =\

She watches Daddy very closely while he's doing out-of-the-ordinary things. 

She also enjoys watching a good football game with him (go Broncos!). 

Our neighbor's cat comes to our door sometimes. Maya likes to watch him. 

She has determined that the whole sock-wearing-business is no good. I keep putting them back on, but she always pulls them off again. 

We went down to the basement to pull out a couple of her sweaters I had packed up last spring (apparently I was silly for thinking my nearly 10-month old baby would no longer fit into 3-6 month clothing when it got cold again). She was intrigued by the bassinet she slept in for her first 3 weeks of her life. 

She likes to stand here while I do silly things on the other side to make her laugh. Also, I love her skinny little legs in these pants!

Notice the socks?

I love this sweet girl.