C Turns Uno

Okay, he turned one a MONTH ago (plus a few days) but I'm just now getting to this. Even if I never get to Christmas, I have to at least document the first birthday. He had a good birthday, getting a slide from us and a lot of other fun toys from all those adoring relatives. He got to go out to lunch and dinner that day and blow out the candles on a car cake.

At his one-year checkup he was in the 75-80 percentile for weight AND height, crazy to have my first proportional kid! He started really walking right around his birthday, and now he just runs. He is doing well health-wise, doesn't seem to have the anemia issues we are still battling with E. He can't tolerate cow's milk, but does well with Soy and a variety of solids and baby food. My best eater, really. Worst nursing issues of any kid, but he'll actually let you feed him with a spoon (a first for me) He likes to talk (and make animal sounds) a lot, so he's defying the statistics for a classic 3rd child. He is not really a great sleeper, though he has slept through the night 3 random times in his life, so that's something, right? He has 11 teeth already, including some molars. All in all he is just an active, busy, happy little thing!

Here are some birthday pictures:

New bedrooms!

The boys all moved bedrooms recently.

M got a new one built for him and was excited to pick out the paint and carpet himself (luckily he chose well or we would have had a hard time with letting him;) He likes robots so I made him a robot quilt and got some awesome vinyl robots from HERE. DH did this whole room himself except the drywall (I helped too) He built a lot of shelving that we thought would be enough but we ended up having to get him a bookshelf as well. So many legos to display.

I modified a curtain I got at a clearance sale and we painted a bed (bought from a neighbor who moved) with paint another neighbor gave us. Bought the table/chair at Ikea and painted it to match the bright orange door :) Lighting from Ikea Kids, he loves his reading lamp. Very budget-friendly room! (well, after it was built anyway)





E wanted to change from a cowboy theme that they had in their shared room to a Lego one. Pretty easy to do, and we put up the shelves he had in their old room.



There is still a lot of "cowboy" stuff in there, but I did the best I could making what he described in vinyl and making him a Lego art name to hang up. He still wants Lego men on the curtains and wants to paint the walls green. We'll see. He sort of got leftover & hand-me-down furniture, so I splurged and let him choose a new lamp (on clearance) at Target. He LOVES it!



C's room is the one M & E shared before. I figured it made more sense to have him closest to our room since we make trips into it several times a night. (grr!) We just moved all his stuff over. Pretty much the same as before, except now he doesn't have to share his room with a bunch of Legos- AND I can actually let him play in there (see the toys everywhere? LOVE IT!)





(I was too lazy to blur out all their names so just pretend I did okay?)

Flashback Friday

This was M (11 mos.) and DH in Fall of 2005. DH had just started Graduate school and I was 2 mos. pregnant with E, but life was still SO much simpler then!

Flashback Friday

Graduating from USU with a few of my good friends, Becki & Alf. I can't believe it's been 8 1/2 years since I finished college! I still miss school.

Happy New Year and my "one little word"

So, my resolution for next year is to have less going on so I am more available to serve others. I happen to be REALLY bad at knowing if someone needs help, and I'm trying to be better about that too. You can help me out by asking me for help if you need it and I'll try my darndest to be available. Thanks!

Oh, and I guess if I'm going to sum up my resolution in "one little word," like these people, it would be "less."

A Harry Potter Birthday

M turned 7 the end of September and he had a really great birthday. He wanted a Harry Potter party, so we tried our best and he had fun making and putting together a lot of things for the party with me. On his real birthday we had cupcakes for breakfast and he opened some of his gifts. He was super excited about a typewriter from his cousins and golf clubs from DH. At school that day, E, C, and myself came and ate lunch with him at school which he loved! After school he got to go to Boondocks with E and do a lot of fun things. He chose baked potatoes for dinner, one of his favorite meals.






The next day he was out of school and his Aunt Whitney came and picked him up and took him to lunch at Red Robin and to the bookstore where he picked out a Lego Harry Potter sticker book. He had a great time with her!

We all headed down to start the "party" after lunch. We met Grammy & Pops, Grandma & Grandpa, and Aunt Whitney at Gardner Village to look at the witches and get some candy. It was a great time and the atmosphere was very "potterish."



The party was that night at the house and we were joined by Aunty Ann and Uncle Chase in addition to all those that came to see the witches. We had a Hogwarts feast and slayed a dragon cake. Unlike the real Harry, M was spoiled with lots of fun gifts. He especially liked the Harry Potter scarf and Lego sets!












Still can't believe he's 7. He's growing up to be a great kid. He is an awesome big brother and great student and such a fun kid to be around!

A fun Halloween

It was a pretty good Halloween. C was sick and didn't get quite all the attention he needed from me that day, but I had a lot of help from my mom so he wasn't neglected by any means. The day started with a field trip with the Kindergarten to a nearby farm that had a ton of fun activities for the kids. I had fun hanging out with E and 4 other kids (it was also a lot of work- I won't lie) After that we raced to get C from my mom, grab lunch, do some last-minute grocery shopping, and get back to jump into costumes while DH pulled M out of school early for his office's annual trick-or-treat party (yes, it was during school hours?!) After the party, we got dinner on and had a fun meal with my mom and brother and sister. DH went trick-or-treating for his first time with the kids and I took them out again for another street. It was a fun night.

We had 2 Harry Potters this year (couldn't convince E to be Ron)

and Charlie Brown, who else?

DH was "Roger Workman" from the TV show LOST (Benjamin Linus' dad)

I let C chew on a dum-dum sucker. He seemed to enjoy both ends equally.

One thing the kids had been dying to try was bobbing for apples. It is always talking about it in Halloween story books and they had never had a chance. So after dinner, we stripped off shirts and bobbed. They also really wanted Grandma to do it with them. She was a VERY good sport and proved to be good at getting that apple too ;)