Happy Birthday Ryan!

Ok, so I am just now getting around to posting something that happened exactly one month ago!  Time has just flown since then.

My spunky little Ryan turned 4 on November 24.  We had a quite little party with just us and it was lots of fun.  Ryan was so excited to see all his presents wrapped in Thomas the Train paper.  If you know this kid at all, you know he LOVES trains.  He knows all about them and doesn't hesitate to tell you about them.

What kid doesn't like to get candy?  Ryan is our candy hound.  He can sniff it out of any hiding spot!  He is fun and mischievous and all "snips and snails".  He is a tease and doesn't always like to do what he is asked but he has a good heart and is a really sweet little boy.

Ah, Thomas the Train tattoos.  Sweet!   Ryan loves to play school with Hannah, he knows his colors, numbers and letters and anything that starts with "R" must belong to him.  

A loader that can be completely taken apart and put back together!  Every little boy's dream toy!

So, because I loathe making and decorating cakes and it was so close to Thanksgiving, we chose to have cupcakes and the kids decorated them as they desired.  Ryan loved putting googly eyes on his and loved eating them even more!

Garrett with his large mouth cupcake.

Ok some quick things about Ryan:

Favorite color:  Green

Favorite food: candy, milk, bananas, apples, bread, and just about anything.  He's not too picky.

Favorite toy: Thomas the trains, or any train for that matter

Height: 38 inches (10th percentile)

Weight: 33.2 pounds (10th percentile)

He is all boy.  He spent the majority of the summer digging in my flower beds with trucks and shovels.  He loves to be outside and to help in the yard.  He is also my kitchen helper and taster of the dough.  Any dough.  He has a tender heart and is a good big brother to Blake.  

He's always been our little guy, our challenge, our sweetheart, our tease, our child that I wonder if he'll make it to his next birthday.  (Just kidding, kind of).   We love this kid soooo much!   Our family wouldn't be complete without him.  Love you Ryan!!

Halloween 2012

We love Halloween around here and we usually have a few events leading up to the actual day.  First off the year, the Halloween Carnival at the kids' school.  Our friend Lorna is always in charge of the spook alley and we try to help out where we can.  This year, Garrett was a glow-in-the-dark stick figure in one of the rooms of the spook alley.   While he did that, I took Hannah, Ryan and Blake to the rest of the carnival.  It was fun for all.  

Here is Garrett all dressed and ready to go.

Here's what he looks like in the dark.  It is a really cool effect and when there is a whole room full of these guys just standing there and then they start moving towards you, it can be a little creepy!

At the carnival they did face painting.  Ryan got a handlebar mustache and beard (although his beard is dang near worn off by this point).  Still lots of fun!

Carving pumpkins is a must.  Here is Garrett and Blaine getting ready to gut the first one.

Ryan, showing how strong he is to lift up his pumpkin.   

Miss Hannah scooping seeds.

The finished product.  Yay!

Next up for fun activities is witches' night.  Always a fun event hosted by my friend Lorna and her mother and sisters.  This year Jessica came with me.  Don't we look witchy?  So much fun to get out with a large group of women, all dressed as witches.  You should see the looks we get.  This year one man asked if he could take a picture with a group of us.  Lots of fun!

Here is my kiddos on Halloween, getting ready to go to the trunk-or-treat at our church. Hannah is a black cat, Blake is a monkey, Ryan is a skunk and Garrett is a Lego man.   

After the trunk or treat, we headed over to my parent's house for trick or treating with the cousins.  Doug and Kara always have the cutest group costumes.  This year was Bert, Mary Poppins and two little chimney sweeps.  Very cute!

Porter the tiger and Ryan the skunk.  (Ryan kept calling it the stunk).

Garrett made this costume himself with help from his buddy, Topher.  They each made one for themselves.  Very creative boys!  See those bright blue eyes peeking out!

Baby Paige trying to figure out what all the noise and commotion is.

Baby Bryndyn (little lamb with her bottle).  When she first got to my mom's, she was actually chewing on that huge calf bottle.  Funny!

My cute little skunk.  Look at those big brown eyes.  When we were out trick or treating, if you ask him what a skunk does, he would turn his little tail towards you and make a spraying sound.  Nice.  Who taught him that?  

Sweet little kitty cat!

An attempt at a group picture with all the kids.  Dang near impossible but worth a try.  Here we have Beckie with Paige, Remi with Bryndyn, Lexie on the floor, Garrett, Jayson, Jonah, Hannah and Liam.

Halloween was a big success and as always, the brownies came and brought goodies!  We had such a fun time this Halloween season!  Thanks to all our friends and family who got to help us with it and share it with us!

Summer 2012 Randoms

What we did this summer:

We grew a garden.  Most things grew really well (beans, peas, tomatoes, onions,  peppers, cucumbers), other things grew so-so (squash, potatoes, raspberries), and others not at all (pumpkins and carrots).  We canned a bunch of stuff and ate fresh fruits and vegetables.   We did not grow corn this year but enjoyed eating it all the same!

We went to Rigby Lake.  We went a bunch of times.

Its close, its cheap, its shallow at the edges for little kids.  We love it!

We went with Beckie 3 times, well I went with Beckie 3 times, my family went with her 4 times!

Beckie loves the lake.  She likes to just float around and relax.  Nice!

I also love that there is grass just behind the sandy area.  Keeps you so much cleaner!  Here is me, Beckie and Kara just chillin' on Labor day.  Not many people here this day either.  Awesome!

We snuggled clean, cute babies!

(Actually my kids spend a ton of time in the water.  Garrett, Hannah and Ryan took swimming lessons this summer.  In addition to pool time, lake time, running through the sprinkler time and bath time, my kids should have been little brown raisins this summer!  Luckily, they were just brown!

We went boating with friends.  Our awesome friends, the Coffmans invited us to go boating at Blacktail one night.  We had a ton of fun and I actually rode the tube behind the boat.  I'm pretty sure their daughter was videoing the whole thing and my face is probably a mix of laughing, sheer terror and screaming.  I'm pretty sure there is some look of G-forces trying to push the skin off my face as we whipped around corners in the 3 man tube.  Good times, right?  :)

We went to a family reunion with Blaine's family.  It was a lot of fun.  We watched a movie outside one night-so much fun.  The next day was lots of fun games and getting wet.  They played a water kickball game that got everyone wet!

We played minute to win it type games.  Here is Garrett and Lucy trying to get the cookie into their mouths without touching it. 

 It was lots of fun to hang out with everyone.  And EVERYONE was there.  Its a big group when they are all together but its fun just the same!

So the last thing we did at the family reunion (off the official agenda) was to milk a goat.  

Blaine's sister Rachelle has a couple milk goats (among other things) so we decided to have a turn at milking the goat.  The kids loved it.  Above is Hannah (with help from Rachelle) milking this very patient goat.  Nice.

 

And, last but certainly not least, we mowed lawn.  Once or twice a week from may to the end of September or so.  Here is Blaine with Blake.  The kids like to ride with us around the yard.  Garrett is old enough that if we mow the edges, he can mow the rest.  Awesome!   Ah, as much work as it was, I'm kinda missing my green lawn and warm sunshine.   

We had a great summer with lots of fun things seen and done!   Can't wait until next summer!!

Happy Birthday Hannah!

Hannah turned 6 on September 8.  I can't believe she is so old already.  I took the day off work and we went to Rigby Lake (per her request) to spend the day with friends and family.  

Hannah requested a Hello Kitty cake this year.  Have I mentioned I hate making cakes?  Anyway, I think it turned out pretty cute.  She loved it, of course, and that is all that matters. 

Her birthday was on a Saturday this year and the day was gorgeous!  I am so glad we got to spend the day at the lake.  It was warm, no wind and hardly anyone at the lake-even better!   We had so much fun playing in the water.  We took lunch for all and then after playing for most of the afternoon, we headed back to our house.   Our awesome friends and family were there with us and I hope they had as much fun as we did!  Hannah was so happy to have them there!

She got to open a present at the lake.  It was a super soft stuffed dog and carrying case from our friends the Hopkins family.  Thanks guys!  She loves it! 

(*Sidenote:  Looking at these pictures makes me a little sad because this was really the last day of summer fun for us.  School had already started at this point.)

Back at home, here is the birthday girl with her cake.  

Blowing out all 6 candles, surrounded by friends and family!  

Some things about Hannah:  

-she still loves pink and anything pink.  

-she is in kindergarten, Mrs. Zaladonis is her teacher, and she LOVES school!

-while I can't remember how tall she is, she remembers that she weighs 42 pounds.

-she is just on the verge of reading like a pro.  She is sounding out everything in sigh!.

-she is our little artist.  she is always drawing pictures for us, her artwork is everywhere.

-her favorite foods are chicken rice casserole, watermelon, ramen noodles, apples, "banana cookies" (sliced bananas), baby carrots and no bake cookies.  (all per her telling me so).

-she has long hair, its slightly past her waist.  she wants to grow it out like Rapunzel.  

-she is such an awesome helper around the house with Blake and Ryan and anything I need her to do.

Hannah's birthday was such a great day.  I know she had a great time and felt loved.  Thanks so much to all our friends and family who spent the day with us!  We love you and we love this Hannah girl so much!!

First Day of School 2012

So, I'm only a month behind posting things.  That's how things seem to go lately.   Anyway, the kids started school again on August 27, 2012.   I was working that day so Blaine did the first day of school duties, including getting the requisite pictures.  

 Garrett is in the 5th grade this year.  Wow!  Time flies!   I love to get pictures of them with their backpacks loaded down with all their school supplies.  In years past, he had to lean forward to keep from falling over from his huge back pack.  Not so much this year.  He is getting so big and is such a great kid.   

He wasn't too excited for school to start this year because his group of friends wasn't going to be at school with him this year.  One of his friends is being home schooled, two go to a different school and another was in a grade below him.  He was really nervous about getting a new group of friends to hang out with at school.

 (Love the hair, eh? )  

No worries, though.  He is having a great year, likes his teacher, his buddy Topher moved from 4th grade to 5th grade and he has a good group of friends to hang out with.  He has even discovered that he loves to play football.  (Heaven help us!)

 Miss Hannah started kindergarten this year.  She was so excited to start school.  She goes to afternoon kindergarten and has an awesome teacher.   She also had a friend in her class that she knew already so it made her not feel quite as nervous.   Look at her huge backpack.  She also had a grocery bag full of school supplies too!

 Hannah is also enjoying the school year, loves school and loves playing with her new little friends at school.  Ironically, her bestest little friend is the daughter of a boy who lived across the street from us growing up.  (If you can follow that).  Small world.

I am enjoying the school year, getting back into a schedule and a normalized rhythm of things.  It makes me happy that my kids are such good kids, have great friends, great teachers and are loving school!

Happy Birthday Blake #1!

My baby Blake turned 1 on July 25.  I can't believe he is 1 already.  He seems so little.  With the other kids, I was excited at each milestone (don't get me wrong, I'm very excited for each of Blake's milestones too!) but I have not pushed him as much as I may have pushed the others.  I'm letting him be a baby just a little bit longer, I think.   You don't want to walk by your first birthday like the others?  OK.  You still want a bottle? OK.  Pacifier?  OK.   

.

Here is a picture of Blake the morning of his birthday.  He may have just gotten up from a nap.  Still has bed head.  (On a side note, while I love my beautiful bay window in the kitchen, it makes for annoyingly bright pictures at times).   Anyway, he is such a happy baby.  Here he is showing you patty cake.  He loves it, especially the rolling part.  He says "roll, roll" with you and does the actions.  Love it!

I decided to get a little creative and made monkey cupcakes for his birthday.  I like the kids to have a cupcake for their first birthday so they can devour it by themselves.   The cupcakes turned out so cute, even if my family thought they were cows.  Still cute.

We gave him this walker toy for his birthday.  Subtle push in the walking direction.   He loves it and its so cute to see him walking around with it.  He pulls himself up to things and walks around them and can even stand up in the middle of the floor and just stand there.  He will walk holding one finger of yours but won't walk on his own.  Silly baby!

Some things about Blake at age 1:  He likes to think he is as big as the other kids and has as many teeth (he has 5).  He likes to eat anything he can get his hands on, especially apples, bananas, watermelon, green beans, bread, corn dogs (see above), chips (scares me), popcorn (also scary), peaches, pears, etc., etc.  He basically eats anything we hand him.  As long as he can feed himself.

Here is his birthday cupcake complete with the candle.  He had to be restrained to he didn't burn himself.  He was very excited and not quite sure what was going on but figured if we put something on his high chair tray, it must be for him to eat.

Checking it out.  It had mini M&M's and mini Oreos on it.  Yum!

Obviously figured out what it was.  Now does he like it?

Yep.  Loved it!

See him eating this apple?  There were no bites out of it when he found it.  He went to town on it!  No choking either. (knock on wood)   He is not our choker child.  Swallows lots of stuff.  (His molars are now starting to come in so he is even more excited to eat stuff).

So happy to be left to eat his apple.  See his cute little teeth?  His front top teeth have a space between them.  So cute. So sharp!

Some other things about Blake:   

*He is our most easy going child (since Garrett).

*He loves music.  He loves you to sing to him or to listen to music.  He will dance to it or relax in your arms as you sing.  Very handy during church.

*He is 30 inches tall (around the 50th percentile)

*He weighs 21 pounds, 13 ounces (around the 30th percentile)

*He loves his siblings and loves them to play with him.  He does not, however, like to wrestle with them.

*He is a tease just like the rest of the kids.

*He will let you know in no uncertain terms whether he wants something offered to him or not.  He bats it away if he doesn't want it.  He has done this since day 1.

*He is a pincher with he sharp little nails.  He will pinch the skin on your chest or neck with his little fingers.  Ouch!

We love our little guy so much!  He is such a happy baby and has been such a welcome addition to our family.  We love watching him grow and are so glad he is part of our family.  

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BLAKE!