Halloween Fun

Ah-hem. Nobody will comment that it is the very tail end of November and I am just barely blogging about Halloween. It is important that I get the story down, right?

The little bit of pumpkin cleaning out that Little Man did.

We had fun this Halloween. It was busy, but relaxing at the same time, and I felt like it snuck up on us! We did a couple of fun things. We learned that the Utah Water Conservation place in Orem had a pumpkin walk. You could show up in costumes and walk around and look at the pumpkins that people had carved. They had little activities that all the kids could participate in. It was really a lot of fun! They had a box that you had to put your hand in and guess what it was that you were touching. If you got most of them, you got a big candy. If you were like Little Man, you just pulled everything out! haha, he gave it away for all the kids behind him. He only got a tootsie roll!

Baby K wanted to be involved in what we were doing!

The night before Halloween, we carved pumpkins. Little Man and Baby K (I really need to come up with another name for Baby K) were pretty lucky. Both Granny and Grandma gave them pumpkins so we had LOTS to carve! Little Man chose what he wanted for his and for Baby K's pumpkins.

"Mom, my baby wants twiangle eyes and a smile! I want glasses." So, we did the best we could. Little Man did NOT like cleaning out the pumpkin. He found the seeds and guts to be kinda gross. But, he loved sitting on the floor and 'creating' his very own pumpkin.

Momma, what is this fun thing?

The very best of carving pumpkins? Taking them out onto the porch and watching daddy put candles inside of them! I think Little Man thought he was in heaven! He loved watching Mike light the candles. :)

I got the lid! Can I eat it? I tried to make Baby K's pumpkin like him with 4 teeth on top and 2 teeth on bottom, but I accidentally broke one off while cutting around it.

On Halloween, my awesome baby-sitter brought Little Man and Baby K down to my work to do a little trick-or-treating. It was quite an eye opener to learn the limits of how long Little Man would wear his costume. He had it all the way off before he trick-or-treated my entire work. :) He was very good at getting candy and only taking one. 

So proud of his pumpkin with glasses that looked like a minion, but it wasn't.

I got off work early and went home so that we could go trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. While we were out, we ran into Little Man's bestie, Little Miss M and her brother and sisters. We seriously love the Peacocks. Sadness though, while coming down a porch, Little Miss M fell and got cut up pretty good. She ended up going home to be with her mom to hand out candy. She left her very real blood on the porch. {sadness} 

This pumpkin won me 3rd prize in my work pumpkin carving contest.

Mike ended up catching up with us and going the last half of our neighborhood with us. I loved that all of us were together going around the neighborhood. I love being with my little family. Little Man quickly ran out of steam and I went up to the last 10ish houses to get his candy for him. haha! I didn't get the "aren't you a little old" line once. :)

Help me!

I felt a little bad in that, all of our neighborhood was out at the same time we were, so we didn't get to hand out very much candy to people we knew. Next year, maybe we will carry our candy with us and give it out as we run into people out and about. haha!

How adorable are my boys?

It was a little hard getting a very tired, but very excited 3 year old to bed that night. We kept getting trick-or-treaters (who we didn't know at all!) and every time the door was opened, Little Man was out of bed. He wanted to be the one to hand out the candy. We finally gave up and turned our lights out a little before 9 PM. Yet, I still saw people going around outside. 

My little pirate.

I love watching my boys do things together. Little Man is the perfect age where he is getting things and he gets excited and really into them. It is the magical age. {grin} He is definitely getting Christmas. He told a visiting member of our stake presidency on Sunday what he wanted for Christmas. A couple of weeks ago, it was a kitchen. Now it is a 'BIG airplane and a car that goes WAY fast!' My vote would be for the car that goes WAY fast instead of the kitchen that will take up lots of room in our small home. :)

My fireman hero!

I can't wait until we continue to get into our Christmas celebrations. I am going to make a countdown chain with Little Man to start a countdown. On each ring will be a scripture about the Savior. As we tear off a ring to countdown for Christmas we will get to read a scripture about the Savior. I am excited for this. Little Man often prays for Jesus, or the man that we love. The first time he prayed for the man that we love, I asked him, "Who is the man that we love?" He looked at me like I should know and said, "Jesus mom." So simple. I love watching his faith develop and grow. The other night when Mike told him he needed to go straight to bed he threw a fit because we hadn't done our "scwiptures and pwayers" yet. This little boy is an example to us. We love him!

Pictures

About a week and a 1/2 ago, I agreed to take my friend's family pictures. They turned out super cute by the way! I decided to try to get some pictures of my adorable boys before we met up with my friend.

He pulls this face all the time.

 We started of at Mike's parent's home as we had stopped to say hi to them. I had found matching (somewhat) outfits. Thankfully, we had purchased the shirt Baby K is wearing last December. I have been waiting to put him in it because, even though it is 12 month, and that is what he is wearing right now, it is long sleeved. I didn't think Baby K would be doing 12 month clothing at 5 months old! Good thing I dug it out of the closet because it fits just perfect!

I love his smile!

Gettling Little Man to look at the camera and actually smile was hard! He wanted to be doing anything else but just sitting there. Or, he would smile, and when I woudl ask him to smile again, he would reply, "I aweady smiled mom." The boy was stubborn! It is a good thing he is so cute!

Looking up at daddy

After taking some pictures at Mark & Sue's home, we moved to the Ameican Fork Ampitheater. It was so beautiful and the weather was perfect! When we got there, all Little Man wanted to do was run after the bunnies and explore. It was even more difficult to get him to sit still and take pictures. But we got some.

OK Mom, I will look at you.

Little Man loves babies. Having his own makes him REALLY love babies. During the shoot, some of the only smiles I got that were real was when he saw another family with there little baby. He was super excited.


Do I have to be here?

I love my boys. There is no doubt about it. Little Man loves Baby K and Baby K loves Little Man. Little Man is able to get the best laughs from Baby K, and he doesn't even have to work for them! The other night, Baby K was in the highchair and Little Man was jumping up, trying to get magnets off the fridge. It must have been hilarious because Baby K couldn't stop laughing, which then had all of us laughing!

Look Mom! There is a baby over der!

I am so lucky to be these two adorable boys' mom. Seriously, I lucked out in the child department. They are both easy going, even while trying to assert their independence. They are happy and smiley and share love and joy without reservation.


I awready smiled mom!

Please enjoy the rest of the pictures! I know I am going to!

Brotherly love!

These two boys love each other and it melts my heart.

One of my favorites of Little Man, taken after he has run all over and
gotten sweaty and hot. But still adorable!

We can be finished, right?

Birthday Fun

Yesterday, we celebrated Little Man's 3rd birthday. Where have the years gone? It seems like just yesterday that Mike & I celebrated our friend's first birthday and then drove straight to the hospital to be induced. A mere 23 1/2 hours later we looked into the eyes of our newborn little son. I cannot believe how old he is and how grown up he seems!

Of course we celebrated by eating pancakes shaped like the #3 for breakfast!

Little Man has been the hugest blessing in our lives. We cannot imagine our lives without him. We love his little imagination that has started to show. He tells us stories that he makes up. We need to start a little book of the things he says! Tonight, as I was driving, I took a turn to sharp and went off the curb. Little Man tells Mike, "Dad, sorry. That my mom."

We took Little Man to the Lion House for his birthday lunch!

This little boy brings so much joy to our lives and he has the BEST giggle! We love to hear it. We lucked out in having such a wonderful little guy to start off our family. He loves being a big brother and is such a big help all the time.

Baby K loved celebrating Little Man's birthday!

He sings to Baby K if he cries. His songs are usually words from a few different songs that we sing to  him, such as: "Tinkle, tinkle little star, don't take my sun away." He is also a big protector. If he doesn't want somebody other than mom or dad holding Baby K, he will do everything in his power to keep you away!

My boys in front of the Salt Lake Temple

Mike and I decided to take the day off work and spend the whole day with Little Man. We want to make our boys birthdays special. We were going to go to the zoo, but learned that my work party was that evening up at Lagoon. We decided to spend the day in Salt Lake hanging around and then head to Lagoon from there. We had to change our plans just a little to fit in an MRI for Mike's shoulder, but we still managed to have fun!

Am I not the luckiest mom ever?

 We started off the day by opening a couple of presents (one being the awesome cape he is wearing in many pictures) and having a great breakfast. Pancakes shaped like 3s. Mmmm, they were delish! We then got everything packed for the day and headed up for Mike's MRI. We ended up getting out of town a little later than planned, and that combined with bad directions put us 25 minutes late to Mike's appointment. Ooops. We ended up being at the doctors office for 3 hours. That is 3 hours that I had to entertain 2 little guys in the lobby, most of which Mike was back being seen. Really, for the most part, they did amazing!

Super E loves the temple!

After we were done, we took off to Salt Lake City. We decided to go to lunch first. We took Little Man to the Lion House. We love their food and enjoy using it as a treat. When they found out that it was Little Man's birthday, they gave him a piece of cake on the house! He loved it!

I fly up, up, up there! To da very top! (Of course, that is what super heroes do!)

 After we ate, we wandered around Temple Square. Little Man was in awe of all the water! This boy is obsessed with water! I think if we hadn't been watching him, he would have tried to climb into the reflecting pond!

A super hero has to keep the citizens safe! The two ladies walking towards us were enamored of Little Man!

Mike and I really wanted to see City Creek. We have wanted to go and just haven't had a chance. Again, we found more water, which Little Man loved! City Creek is amazing and Mike and I want to go back and explore more!

Waiting for the train

After we left City Creek, we headed up to Lagoon. We left a little early as we were hoping somebody would fall asleep in the car and get some type of nap. Unfortunately, it didn't happen. We were worried about how long Little Man would last with no nap, but he did awesome!

Little Man and W driving the car.

We met  up with our friends and went into Lagoon. We rode some of the big rides like Wicked and the Spider before we hit up some of the kids rides. We then grabbed some dinner. This is where the unfortunate accident happened. Little Man was trying to get off the picnic table and his feet got tangled up trying to get off the bench. He ended up falling off and hitting his chin on the ground. He got a pretty good scrape on his chin. Little Man was a trooper though and quickly forgot all about it.

Baby K enjoyed some naps!

After dinner, we headed back and did more kid rides. Were we excited when we discovered that Little Man was tall enough to ride some of the big little kid rides! We took Little Man on Bombora. When he sat down and the ride started he immediately put his hands up in the air. Once the roller coaster went down the first hill, his hands went right back to the bar and he held on tight! He had a look on his face like he wasn't sure what to think. When the ride finished, I was trying to be up beat and happy but it wasn't until his friend, Little M, declared it was fun that he decided that it was "Way fun!" He ended up riding this ride 3 times!

Little Man, Baby K and Hayley on the Ferris Wheel

Baby K even got in some ride action. He got to ride the train and the Ferris Wheel with us. He got woken up to go on the Ferris Wheel and I am not sure he was completely thrilled to be there. I think he was just there. {grin}

Little Man and Mike

Mike took it easy and didn't go on a ton of rides because of his shoulder. Imagine Little Man's excitement when he finally go to ride on a ride with daddy! Mike and Little Man rode the sky chairs across the park. He loved it!

The super hero riding the rooster

We ran Little Man into the ground! He was so tired at the end of the day, but he had a blast! Funnest birthday ever! We are going to have a lot to live up to for future birthdays!

Baby K and Mommy riding the carousel

Little Man and Daddy riding the carousel

Daddy had to take a turn being a super hero!

Little Man and M riding some of the rides together.

More summertime fun!

 We had a lot of fun this summer and much of that fun involved water. In August, we headed up to Magna for Mike's work party. It was fun! They had big blow up water slides all over. Little Man was anxious at first about getting on them. I hadn't prepared to get wet and with Baby K, I didn't really want to get wet. Mike was still not feeling too good from his accident at work the end of July so he didn't want to get wet either. Mike works with awesome people though and his co-workers went down the slides with Little Man. He ended up having a blast!

Little Man hung out here as people ran up and slid to see who could get down the fastest. It was crazy!

He loved playing and loved all of Mike's co-workers.

Hey mom! Don't take pictures!

Little Man and Uncle John. He LOVES his Uncle John.

 A few days ago, I saw Little Man run from our kitchen to his bedroom. Curious, I decided to follow. At first I didn't see him. Upon further investigation, I found him hiding under Baby K's crib with the marshmallows for our hot chocolate. The little stinker hasn't figured out how to be sneaky without being obvious. Hiding under his blanket or running really fast to his room are sure signs he is doing something he isn't supposed to be doing!

Don't look at me and don't notice I have the marshmallows!

 On Labor Day we went up to our family cabin to meet all the family for a bbq. It is a tradition that we get together during the summer and at Christmas time. A few years ago, we changed the summer venue to the cabin and we totally love it! There is a hill that all the kids love climbing up. Little Man spent the day climbing up and then called and said, "Mom, take picture me now!" He then sat down to play in the dirt, ready for the picture to be taken!

The picture Little Man wanted. {grin}

We can't go to the mountains without bringing home a boy covered in dirt. You can always tell how much fun he had.

I love this boy!

 While we were there, I wanted to take a picture of all the babies born this year. Jack and Hazel Lewis have had quite the jump in their descendant count this year. First we had Baby K who was born the beginning of April, then Anna had twins on Memorial Day. Bret had a little girl the beginning of June followed by Alicia's little girl the end of June. Valerie brought up the rear with a little boy mid-July. We thought about doing the picture with them arranged by their birth dates, but Baby K kept rolling out of the picture. We had to surround him by babies. Also, having the twins right next to Baby K would have made him look even more giant than he already is! I know 2 months is a big difference, but man, Baby K looked to be more than 2 months older than the next in age!

Jack & Hazel Lewis' 2012 Grand-babies. We need a picture of all the great grandchildren!

Little Man and Baby K with Uncle Kenyon. I have always loved and appreciated his example.

Camping Fun

Back in July, we went camping with Rosie & Mark. It was so much fun! We went up and spent 2 nights. I decided it was a lot different taking such a young baby up camping. We had taken Little Man when he was 10 months old and taking Baby K at 3 1/2 months was a little more difficult, especially when it came to night time. The first night, Baby K got too cold and was inconsolable for about 40 minutes. It was about 11:30 at night and I felt so bad for any campers around us!

Little Miss E showing her cute dirty face.

Little Man and Little Miss E (his cousin) loved camping! They were both super dirty the entire trip. We finally gave up and decided only to try to keep them clean before eating and bedtime. The rest of the time, we just let them play and have fun.

Unfortunately, timeout also took place during camping.

We spent the first day relaxing, going on a few rides on 4-wheelers, hanging out and talking. The kids played and made dirt pancakes. We watched some real cowboys ride by on horses! That was fun!

Baby K showed us how happy he was!

We went fishing one day. We spent quite a bit of time driving to Currant Creak. We got there, set up our fishing spot and right away I saw some lightening strike. Lightening makes me super nervous, it is too much of a sporadic thing and I immediately wanted to go. We stuck it out for about 5-10 minutes, and then saw the storm hit the other side of the lake. We had to pack up and hurry to our cars. It was disappointing to not get to spend more time fishing, but the experience was fun.

An example of a dirty face.

Views like this are one of the reasons I love camping. We woke up to this every day.

Somebody really loved their Hot Chocolate!

Night #2, Baby K was a lot happier. :)

Little Man loves his Baby K and Baby K loves his Big Brother!

Again, a reason to go camping. How can you not love sitting here with this view?

Little Miss E loved spending time with Baby K also.

Our quick fishing trip. We didn't have time to catch anything.

Baby K was very interested in everything that was happening around him.

Little Man and Little Miss E loved throwing rocks into the water (that is how they fished this day.)

I love this dirty face! It is still kissable!

Baby K loved camping too.