November

I find myself only having time about once a month to do anything with the blog so I guess we are having monthly updates.

At the end of October I took Shawn out of his preschool. We were paying....well.....a lot for this preschool and it was way too easy for Shawn. He came home a few times asking if he could go to a harder school. I don't blame the teachers or anything. I think if this was Shawn's first year of preschool it would have been perfect. However, he is wanting to read and do math and things like that and they were focusing on one letter a week and learning to count. Currently I am teaching Shawn at home and he is loving it. I have bought some workbooks and beginner reader books and different things. He has passed off book 11 of the 20 pack that I bought and he is always asking for more math to do. He doesn't get that from me. Plus we do A LOT of art projects. Man, it is time consuming, but worth it. I feel like he is being challenged. Now, come January, we might be putting him in a preschool because I am not sure I can keep up with it with a new baby.  

 

This picture was actually taken sometime in October (see the Halloween pajamas). Shawn had woken up and immediately asked for me to print out a math problem worksheet for him. 

Amy and I took our kids to BYU one afternoon. We ventured into the museum of art which had this exhibit with giant helium balloons and fans blowing them all around. The kids thought it was the greatest thing ever. 

For one of our personal "field trips" for school I took the boys to the Clarke Planetarium downtown.

This is Evan playing with the machine that explains how clouds are formed. 

They also really enjoyed the static ball thing

Evan asked me to take picture after picture of him on the "planets"

 This is the GIANT marble maze (do they have a name?) Shawn literally spent 30 minutes here watching it. Evan and I just sat on the floor waiting for him. The only reason we left was the large group of stinky Junior High kids that showed up for a field trip.

The boys begged to go out and play in the first good snow storm. It was still freezing, windy and the snow was blowing sideways. I kept trying to convince them (especially Evan) not to go out because I didn't want to go through the hassle of getting them ready only to have them turn around and come back in after 2 minutes. Surprisingly enough, they stayed out for about 45 minutes.

Until Evan decided he was frozen

A couple days later the snow was all gone, but this snowman in our yard survived for a while.

Shawn's teeth have started to get wiggly. One was especially wiggly a couple weeks ago. That night Shawn asked me to help him floss his teeth and while I was in there I decided to see how that tooth was doing so I gave it a little budge and it fell right out. Shawn was so excited and was even more thrilled when the Tooth Fairy came during the night. He will probably lose another one here before Christmas and then he can sing that song, "All I want for Christmas are my two front teeth." :)

Happy Halloween

Our Halloween festivities started with a party the Saturday before with my family. We had a costume fashion show, games and lunch. The annual doughnut eating contest was a hit.

 

 I am sure that my sister Amy would kill me for posting this picture with her mouth wide open, but she doesn't really look at my blog so...oh well. I wanted to post this one of Evan trying so hard to eat his doughnut which got much harder when Alex kept grabbing it.

 That's better. Forget the no hands rule.

 We had to move the game indoors because the bees discovered us and wouldn't get off the doughnuts.

The night before Halloween we finally got a chance to carve pumpkins or color pumpkins in Evan's case.

 

We all hate cleaning out the pumpkins, but my boys are the worst at hiding their disgust.

 Our finished pumpkins. We tried to coach Shawn on how to do pumpkins freehand and tried to explain that he needed big enough spaces to let light in. His response, "I will do it as I wish so leave me be." Then he cried when we turned the lights off and hardly any light came through his tiny carvings. Don't worry, we helped him fix it. (Shawn's is in the far left of this picture)

 Halloween morning the boys watched a Halloween cartoon

I made some pumpkin pancakes, but Evan went to the cupboard and cried for this for breakfast instead.

  Finally it was time to go trick-or-treating. My cute little knight and dragon. Shawn claimed that the job of a knight is to protect dragons. I like that idea.

 Evan still wasn't sure what was happening.

 One more shot before letting them go. (Notice Shawn's pumpkin with the enlarged shapes)

 Heading off with a bunch of the daddy's and kids of the neighborhood.

I never got a picture of Jon in his costume. He was Bob Ross, the painter who used to be on PBS. He would paint the landscapes and often use the phrase, "happy little tree".

Happy Halloween!!!

October

We were in Provo one evening and decided to head up to Squaw Peak to watch the sunset.

I was checking my emails one day when Shawn came running in with a sock that he has cut in half and said he needed a bucket of water and some nails for the machine he is making. So I ask what this machine is all about. His response, "Well it is a really cool machine mom that all you have to do is close the windows, push a button and then a magic potion comes out and makes your house look all Halloweenish. We should probably wait outside while it is working. Oh, and mom, what do you think about a few changes to our T.V."

He worked on this project for a couple days. I took pictures of the completed "machine" but can't find them for some reason. This is a picture of the "magic potion" that makes the machine work. It has peanut butter, honey, glue and smashed tomatoes in it.

 We bought season passes to Cornbellys at Thanksgiving Point this year. We have been there many times and it never gets old. I have only brought my camera a couple times for a few pictures.

The older the boys get the better they play togeher. It is really nice.

 I went to Witches Night Out again with some of my neighbors. It rained the whole night which made it cold and not as fun. But I still loved spending the evening with a fun group of girls. I am lucky to have such great friends!

We took white balloons to my mom's grave on her birthday. We each made a wish for her and then sent the wishes up to heaven by releasing the balloons.

Jon and Shawn went on a father/son date to a pirate cruise on the Provo River. Shawn really wanted to dress up and insisted that his daddy participate also. Jon was such a good sport to be willing to go dressed like this when everyone else was in normal clothes. :) Evan and I dropped them off and went on our own little date, which he thought was a total rip off. All I heard was, "Evan go on boat! Evan go on boat!" 

Well, that was our October in a nutshell. Stay tuned for Halloween pictures.

Multiplying and Replenishing the Earth

We are expecting another baby! I know this is old news to most of you, but I realized I never announced it on our blog. I was the typical sick during my first trimester. I have had a couple neighbors mention that they didn't see me as much this summer. Well, that is because I spent the first part of the summer lying on the couch while I sent the boys out to play in the backyard or sat them in front of the T.V. One has to survive any way they can. I am doing well now even though I do feel like it is harder to be pregnant now that I am a little bit older. Everything aches just a bit more. It makes me wonder how people do it in their 40's (or even later, yikes!).  I am due in January which means I should have just enough time to put away Christmas and get things back to normal before this little baby shakes things up a bit.

 

And it is a BOY! I think it is fun to have little boys and it will be great for these little guys to all have each other to play with. Of course, I would like to have a girl. Every time I am shopping for baby things I can't help but check out the girl stuff and how cute it is. But I really am excited for another son. 

Profile Picture

I love this picture, but most people can't see it. It is of the baby folding his legs and sitting on them. I think it is super cute. 

Shawn was less than excited about the news of another boy. Surprisingly he was really hoping for a little sister and had been praying for months that it would be a girl. I am sure he will be glad in the long run. 

Busy September

I was thinking about how busy September has been and how behind I am on posting things to the blog. I came up with a solution.....post a bunch of pictures all at once and forget the individual posts. So here's too a very long line of pictures

 

Our September was filled with:

 

 Trips to Trafalga

Watching cartoons

 Playing in one of the only rain storms of the summer

 Going to our brand new Kneaders on opening day. Other kids recognize the McDonalds sign, mine only ever scream out when they see a Kneaders. Jon says I have ruined them. :)

  

 Starting school again. Someone was very excited.

Going to some different parks

 Taking a drive through Alpine Loop

Taking swimming lessons. Shawn forgot to take off his shirt this day.

 mother and son nap times

 Picking apples at my grandpa's house

Making ridiculous caramel apples with those apples (don't worry, we also made apple sauce and dried apple chips and things that were healthy)

 Harvesting our never ending supply of tomatoes

 

 Doing some exercise

Harvesting a giant red potato from our garden. We were so proud.

Taking at drive up Big Cottonwood canyon. Learned about the rings of trees.

 Going for a little hike and collecting leaves

 Shawn's prize winning leaf

 Evan's leaf :)

 Using our voices A LOT during the hike

Throwing rocks into the stream

  

 Making matchy matchy smiling faces

 Watching ducks

 Enjoying life!!