Halloween

Our pumpkins this year. Guess which one is Shad's...

 The Friday before Halloween the businesses in Tremonton do trick or treating for the kids. We went with our friends the Norton's and Hardy's. These kids love each other and had a great time getting as much candy as they could. They also had some blowups set up for the kids. I think they enjoyed that more than collecting their candy.

Haken was a little nervous climbing up the first
time, but once he got up there he wanted to go
again and again.

I may be biased, but I think he might be the cutest
chicken there ever was!

Halloween preparations start early at our house. About a month or two before Halloween Shad starts to plan out his costume. The first year it was the Pillsbury doughboy, the next year was "Jack the pumpkin king," and last year was Sampson (from the Bible).  This year he chose Shrek and HAD to again make a paper mache mask as he did with the doughboy. I was going to go all out and make us all characters from Shrek, but lost motivation as I saw how much work and money it was going to be to make it all happen. He worked countless hours to make a mask that he only wore a few hours, but that is beside the point right? I think he is just excited to make an impression when he sees all of his friends.

The beginnings

The finished product. He even made/found the
rest of his costume to go with the mask all by
himself. 

 I have to admit that I think he did a good job and it really DID look like Shrek...but now I have a paper mache Shrek head in my basement I don't know what to do with. It may "accidentally" make it to the trash as the doughboy did a year ago. It's too soon to let this one go just yet.

The night of Halloween Shad took the boys out to a few houses in our ward and then we decided to go to our old ward's truck or treat to see some of our friends we don't get to see often. The kids got WAY more candy than they could ever eat, so of course they got to share a lot with mom and dad. Gracie just enjoyed sleeping in the stroller all night.

Gracie is 4 months

Where has the last 4 months gone?! It feels like this little girl has been in our family forever! She is becoming such a silly little thing and definitely has her opinion on what goes on around here. She is our little princess and we love her to pieces. How could anyone not just love this little face?

Here are a few things about Gracie at 4 months.

- She had her appointment with the Dr. today. My assumptions were confirmed that she really is a tiny little girl. She weighs only 10lbs 10oz. (3%) is 22"(1%). She dipped a little bit from her curve, but he said he expects her to rebound in the next 2 months and get back on track.

- She fits perfectly into 3 month clothes and all 0-3 month. The 3-6 month shirts have very long sleeves, but she can wear some of the dresses. I put away mostly all of the newborn clothes, although she still does fit into the outfit we brought her home from the hospital in.

- Still wears size 1 diapers, although I'm thinking she might be ready for size 2 judging by all of the blowouts we have had lately. She is a poop machine!

- She is still breastfeeding and does NOT like the bottle regardless of what is in it. We will keep trying, but I don't have a lot of hope since she doesn't like binki's at all either.

- She is now ready to start cereal, although I'm not sure I'm ready to start that new phase already!

- Eats every 3 hours during the day and goes about 5 hour stretches at night most nights. She goes to bed around 9, wakes up around 2 and then I get her up at 7:30-8:00. However, there are nights (like last night) when she also eats at 4:00 am and then doesn't feel like eating much at 8:00. Kinda hoping that stops soon.

- She is always sucking on her fists and occasionally gets the thumb. Not sure if the thumb habit is going to stick or not.

- She is awake for around an hour and half and then sleeps for an hour and half until it's time to eat again.

- She started sitting in the bumbo and exersaucer  this month. She doesn't like being in there too long because her neck gets kind of tired.

- Really doesn't like her tummy much. We do "tummy time" in 5-10 minute stretches all day.

- Holds on to toys, sometimes for only a minute, but just long enough to get them to her mouth. She gets frustrated when she can't get them there.

-She is a serious talker and will talk to you for like 10 minutes straight.

- Loves daddy's "beat boxing." Even if she is grouchy he can always make her smile.

- She has started to laugh and thinks it is especially funny when I get a washcloth wet and put it on top of her in the bath. She also is very ticklish under her chin.

- She is a serious drooler and blows lots of bubbles. When I forget to put a bib on her she soaks right through her clothes and I have to change her so that she isn't drenched.

- She is a little board. She is so stiff that you can literally hold her up in the air and she will do a super hero pose...indefinitely. She is not a cuddler. AT ALL. I am pretty much the only one that gets to cuddle with her since she has to when I feed her.

- She does not like to sleep in our arms. We have to fight her until she gives up. When we are at church or elsewhere she sleeps in her car seat and at home she is in her crib. She is really good about going to sleep on her own as long as she is in one of those 2 places.

- This month I really started to get concerned about her flat head in the back. After talking to some friends I concluded that she probably has torticollis which has contributed to the flatness on her head. I have been doing exercises with her neck everyday helping to make it less stiff and build up the muscle on the side that is less dominate. I think that it has helped a lot and I am not as worried about it as I was before. The Dr. says the flatness will also be come less noticeable with time and will especially get better now that she is sitting up a big more now and not on it all of the time. Let's hope so because I'm not especially excited about the idea of a helmet for her.

- She has rubbed off a little bit of hair on the back of her head where it "bulges" a little more, but other than that she still has TONS of hair. I haven't cut it yet, but since it is about 4 inches on top I'm thinking she might need a little trim. I have been curling it but it is now out of control!

- She has discovered the cool things that her tongue can do. This week she figured out this trick. Her tongue is so long and pointy I bet she could touch her nose with it like her brother Haken.

- This is how I find her sleeping quite often... I've started taking off her bows during naps.

Happy Fall!

I love fall! It just might be my very favorite season. There is nothing better than going on family walks and hearing the crunching leaves under your feet. Whenever weather permits we like to go on "family fun walks" on Sunday evenings. This particular Sunday was a gorgeous day and we found a huge pile of leaves to play in on the way. I think the boys kinda liked it... 

Surprise birthday party!

The weekend before Halloween my sis-in-law surprised my brother and flew him up to Utah (from Arizona) for a surprise birthday party for him. It was a costume party and was so much fun! I think seeing my mom dress up in a Geisha costume made the party all worth while. My brother was completely surprised (or so he says). He didn't know he was coming to Utah until they were sitting waiting for the plane at the airport. If he was disappointed that he was coming to freezing cold Utah instead of the Bahamas he was a pretty good actor. I think he was glad to see family, and we were glad to see them too.

Our family zoo...and Shrek. I'm a zookeeper,
Gracie is a zebra, Jack a chicken, and Haken a giraffe.
And Shad is Shrek..more on this in the next post.

My mom reading to the kids. Yes, those are nylons on her head!
I'm so proud of her for dressing up. If there was a contest I think she
would have won best costume. The kids didn't recognize her!
Oh, and don't mind the date...my sister's camera is a little off..

Keeping busy during the party

Gracie and Evangeline 

Helping clean up. Grandpa let them ride in the
garbage that was on wheels.

Pumpkin Patch

Can I just say there really are some serious perks to living in a rural community. One of those is that there are some seriously nice people with lots of land. There is a family here in town that have a huge farm. Every year they plant tons of pumpkin plants and give out all of the pumpkins to kids for free! Their theory is that every child should have a pumpkin to put on their doorstep for Halloween. 

We headed out there a month ago for FHE to get pumpkins for the kids. They said we could also take one for Gracie and both of us. So we ended up with 5 very different pumpkins. Afterwards she likes you to come to her door and get a treat. 

A week ago Haken had a fieldtrip for his Kindergarten class and they went to the same pumpkin patch. She let all 60 kids pick out a pumpkin and have a treat as well. I also know that they donated a ton of pumpkins to the school for the pumpkin walk coming up. There really are a lot of pumpkins in this patch. Very nice people!

Hogle Zoo

Every year (or sometimes twice a year) my family has a "girls day out" where we go shopping at the Park City outlets. We don't always find tons of deals but we have a great time. This year the boys came down with me to have a "boys day out" with Grandpa and their cousins Taylor and Riley. They headed off to Hogle zoo while we went to Park City (oh, and we did find some super deals this time). It was a perfect day and they had a great time.

Getting so big!

His cute little face kills me!

I wonder where he gets his smile?

Jack ADORES grandpa. They are best buds!

Summer flowers

One thing that I love about summer is the flowers in my yard. More specifically my front yard since I haven't been able to get much to survive in my hot backyard. This year Shad said that I really "nailed it." I would love to have tons of perennial flowers that come up and look beautiful every year, but I haven't had much luck in keeping them year after year. However, the annuals that I plant every year always do really well. 

Shad isn't much of a fan of the "cheap petunias" so I try to mix it up a little with the more expensive flowers. I also treat myself with my favorite begonias to put in my flower pots every year. One of the reasons why I like having my birthday in May :) This year all of my flowers got huge (thanks to a little miracle grow and lots of sun) and they still look great even though we are already into October. I just can't get myself to pull them out when they look so great, but the pumpkins we now have on our porch look a little silly next to the flowers.

Even if no one else notices my pretty flowers, they make me smile every time I pull into my driveway. I will be sad when I have to pull them up and everything gets covered in snow. It won't be too much longer...

My camera doesn't do it justice, I think I like Shad's instagram pictures better

I think next year I will try to add some more light pink and
yellow to the spread.

Note: at the beginning of the summer our front lawn had a huge patch of dirt in the middle since we decided to cover it up, fill in the low spots, and start over after our bug situation last summer. It has filled in so much better than I expected. You can not even tell it was all dirt 4 months ago and now we don't have big trenches in the middle of our yard!