Happy Fall!

And here’s the new! We have had a fun October! We started with our once-a-year leaf raking for the kids to jump in. Always a good time. Crazy how much Samantha has grown!

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We went to pick apples at the local orchard. These kids are getting fast! We had 1 1/2 bushels picked in no time. Now if only I could get them to can them as fast as they pick them…Dang I love this little boy. Well hello, little devil girl. Carter took this one, I have to say he did a pretty good job. And what better to do with apples than cover them in caramel? Needless to say, this was by far the favorite part of the day. So cute with his glasses. And to finish off the festivities, we decorated Halloween cookies and carved pumpkins tonight. Ben’s favorite was the cookies. Happy Halloween!

Something old, something new…

Still recapping this last summer… 

Our big vacation this year was to Yellowstone.  We started out by driving out to Billings, MT to see some of our favorite people – our Montana cousins (I believe I mentioned our mad naming skills previously).    We went out on to the rims and did a little hiking.  It was a fabulous view and we didn’t get bitten by any rattle snakes, so that was a plus.  The kids loved hanging out with their cousins.  I mean really loved hanging out with their cousins.  Mike and I enjoyed not having to do any parenting all week because the cousins were keeping them so busy. 

 

And then on to Yellowstone!  Speaking of views, that place is a.maz.ing.  I wish I could put a cabin there.  I could give up a lot of modern conveniences to wake up to this every morning.  As you might guess, we saw a lot of wild life – tons of buffalo, an elk, moose, osprey, bald eagles, and probably more that I don’t remember now.  The highlight was the wolf that passed right by us as we were on a bridge taking pictures.  Apparently they are very rare and this one was probably the alpha male of the pack, according to the nice park ranger.  It was pretty awesome.  My personal favorite were the bears.  Ok, this one too.  We actually saw two bears, on the last day we were there.  This was the closer one of the two.  A bunch of our Utah family met us up there too.  My parents – Grandma and Paca, as Ben now affectionately refers to him.  My cute sisters – Turtle, Sarah and Michelle.  It was so fun to spend time with them!  Our Montana cousins had their bikes with them and Aunt Holly tried to teach Carter how to ride without training wheels.  He rode for 30 seconds or in all his tasseled glory until he ate it, narrowly missing a tree.  Since then, he has refused to try again.  Carter learned the art of roasting marshmallows to blackened perfection.  And got in touch with his outdoorsy side.  Ben fell in love with his “Paca”.  This kid loves finding pictures of Paca around the house, calling him, and he’s super excited for him to come out for Thanksgiving.  Here’s the man himself…All in all, it was a great time!  We’ll definitely be back. 

June in October

That’s right.  I’m going down memory lane here.  It’s been a while, but I feel like I haven’t had a lot of free time lately.  I’m not going to lie, teaching seminary is a lot more time intensive than I thought it would be.  It’s so good for me, but it’s a lot of work to prepare a lesson every day.  With that and catching up on the last 6 seasons of Friday Night Lights, blogging has fallen to the bottom of the list.  But there are things that I want included in my blog book at the end of the year, so I’m going to recap. 

 

First, the start of the summer. Carter and Samantha had such great teachers.  It was hard to say goodbye.  I teared up a little when I said goodbye to Ms. Jones.  She was Carter’s teacher for 2 years, and then Samantha’s for k3.  After seeing her everyday for 3 years, I was sad to say goodbye.  I’m just hoping she’s still around when it’s Ben’s turn to go to school.  Carter’s teacher was so good for him.  He had a great kindergarten year and he still talks about her.  Mrs. Stuppan pushed him to work harder and be better, and he did so well in her class.  They had a little graduation program for the class at the end of the year.  I didn’t realize what a big deal it was (flowers, balloons, gifts, the whole 9 yards) and forgot my camera, so I ended up with nothing but a few iPhone pictures.  I’ll do better for the real thing.  Here he is with his best friend Isaiah and another girl I had never met before that day.  Look how proud they are of their “diplomas”.  So cute.  

Apparently not much else picture-worthy happened in June.  Stay tuned for July and our Yellowstone trip.  And I promise, there will be some more entertaining posts in the near future. 

Look Who’s Two!

Actually, he’s been 2 for a while now. He turned 2 on the 6th.  And believe me, we had lofty plans for his big day!  Unfortunately, all the fun places we had planned to go were closed on Labor Day when we had planned on going.  Then, on his actual birthday, Samantha threw up on the bus ride to school and we ended up staying home.  We did have some good friends over for a small celebration though.  In spite of our foiled attempts to get out and have fun he got to eat lots of good food and play with some toys.  All in all, a good day in Ben’s book. 

Here are some of my favorite things about Ben.

He is hilarious.  About 6 months ago, he looked and me and said “I funny Mommy”.  And he really is.  He loves making people laugh.  He loves to tease, tickle, and make faces.  Whatever it takes.   Lately, it’s the faces.  As you can see he has quite the arsenal of them.  Lately, he’s started saying “just kidding”. 

He is a tank.  This kid is 30 lbs. and 35 inches of chunk.  He eats constantly.  He knows how to open the fridge and does so on at least an hourly basis.  He loves milk, string cheese, yogurt, fruit leather, goldfish, and really anything else he can swallow.  At this rate, I’m going to have to find a couple of jobs to feed this one as a teenager.  He loves his babies.  This one in particular.  We are really clever about naming our dolls in this house and refer to this one as naked baby.  We also have pink baby and orange baby, named after the color of clothes they are wearing.  Really unique, I know.  Anyways, he has really latched on to naked baby and sleeps with him/her, changes it’s diaper and gives it baths.  It’s really quite cute.  He is very particular about his sleeping situation.  He is my pickiest in that area by far.  He likes to sit on the closed toilet to have his teeth brushed.  He likes to read How does a dinosaur love his cat after brushing his teeth.  He has to be the one to shut the door, turn off the light, and turn on his sound machine (in that order).  Then he needs his blanket (luckily, it just has to be one of the 5 or 6 flannel ones I made when he was born) and a few minutes in the rocking chair with some songs.  Then he needs two blankets on him and you must say good night as you are leaving.  He then shouts “Good night Mommy/Daddy!” after you close the door at which point you have to open the door and say good night once again.  Um, high maintenance much?  I hold Mike responsible.  I spent the first 18 months of his life putting him in bed with one blanket and singing twinkle twinkle little star as I walked out of the room.  He is incredibly energetic.  I guess he needs to burn off all that food he eats.  This kid doesn’t walk anywhere.  He runs, hops, jumps, shuffles or stomps everywhere he goes.  Most likely he is just a normal little boy, but Carter and Samantha are pretty lazy, so he wears me right out.  He loves to sing.  I was listening to a song the other day in the car and by the end of the song, he was singing along with it.  I have to watch what I’m listening to! My all-time favorite is when he belts out “MOTHER KNOWS BEST!” or “I’ve got a dream!” (both from the Tangled soundtrack).  He sings along to You are my Sunshine at bedtime and I’ll frequently catch him singing “Baby, oh! Baby, no!”.  That’s right, he’s got a bit of the Beiber fever.  He hates messes.  I love this about him.  Although this doesn’t mean that he never makes them, he is all about helping clean them up.  He asks for napkins at meals and says “that’s gross” at least 3 times a day.  Here he’s showing me his sticky hands.  He’s discovered how to get up on the toilet and wash his own hands now.  I’m hoping that his dislike for being messy will help us out in the potty training department (a girl can dream, right?).He is obsessed with busses, trains, cars, airplanes, and trucks.  Every time he sees a bus – city or school, he shouts “a point for me!” and he’s always the first one to spot them.  It’s a random game that the kids play in the car.  Ben is always the one that Carter and Samantha want on their team.  I attempted to decorate his cake with a school bus.  I decorated it the night before though, and the frosting started to run by the time we served it.  Rookie mistake.  And yes, there is a bite taken out of the 2.  I’ll let you guess who did it.  Ok, it was him.  I am absolutely loving spending all day with this little boy.  He is so much fun to be around.  He is an awesome little buddy to hang out with!  We’re so glad that he came to our family! 

And for your viewing enjoyment, here are a few more from his collection of funny faces.