Sittin' Pretty, Ready to Go

We went to the doctor today and we are over halfway to having our very own basketball team. That's right, another boy! Yes, I was hoping for a girl, everyone knows I did everything to have one, but apparently God wants us to have another boy right now. And it's probably a good thing, since Robbie still has two years of school left, and I wouldn't be able to properly spoil her like she should be. The next time we have a baby, Robbie will have a full time job and I will be able to pay for cute girl clothes and not dress her in her brothers' hand-me-downs.

So yeah, I have nothing to do to get ready. We have sizes of clothes for all seasons since Alex and Jared were on the opposite ends of the spectrum. No burp cloths or blankets need to be made, so I can just relax until he comes, right? Not! I have plenty to do, like Alex's first year scrapbook, or catch up on the kids' photo album, or do the scrapbook for Robbie and I that I have been trying to do for years. Oh, and we also have to get rid of a lot of stuff to make room for one more in our little apartment.

It will be interesting to see what he looks like, since Jared looks more like me and Alex looks more like Robbie. We just have one problem...coming up with another boy name. It is so hard for us, and it doesn't help that people seem to always be stealing good boy names for their girls. It will probably come down to another long last night in the hospital debating what the little guy's name should be.

So no one can get mad at me that there aren't enough good worthy young men for their daughters to marry, because I'm certainly doing my part. It made me think of a quote that was in the Visitor's Center on my mission about how sister missionaries were important because they would be raising up righteous young men, Elders, in the church. If anyone has this please send it to me. I tried to find it on lds.org, but couldn't.

Ultrasound pics to come...

Free Snapfish Scrapbook

My friend sent me the following email and it's true, so everyone enjoy it!

Oprah is giving coupons for a free snapfish scrapbook. You have to get the coupon by Friday and use it by Sunday. So hurry at take a look at it. I thought it was so exciting and that every one would like to take advantage of it! I hope this link works.

http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahshow/20081029_tows_messyhouse/7

Halloween

We had a fun Halloween. Jared got to wear his costume to pre-school and he got some goodies there too. On Wednesday they got Halloween cupcakes. His had an eye ring on it and he is obsessed with it. He wears it all the time, except for when he sleeps because he doesn't want to lose it. He tells me, "I love my eye, Mommy". Jared sure was a cute monkey.


My friend Choka's daughter Zayaa goes to preschool with Jared and so we have started carpooling. Her husband Dan works in the same lab as Robbie, so she took the kids to see them after school in their costumes and Jared thought that we pretty fun. Here are our cute kids. (Alex and Ariuna were napping.)


Jared before we left for the ward Halloween party.


The only way we could Alex to take a picture was to give him his pumpking with some candy already in it.


The ward had chili and baked potatoes first, followed by trunk-or-treating. Robbie decided this is the way to go. We got the church at 6:30 and were done and leaving by 7:30. No one was cold or tired. It was great.


Alex loved it!! Don't touch his bucket though or you will get a terrific tantrum. He had to be the one carrying it. It was so cute when he asked for candy from the people next to our car and I heard him say "thank you" so clearly. He always says "gracias" with me when I tell him to say "thank you". Robbie, who took the kids around, said he had been doing really well with saying it.




When we got home Alex looked through his bucket for a piece of candy to eat and he pulled out a little box of Milk Duds and started "oohing" and "ahhing". He had never had them before but you couldn't tell from his excitement. I asked him if I could have one and he responded with an emphatic "Nnooo", his favorite word lately.


Jared dumped out his bucket of candy and couldn't believe how well he had made out.


I overestimated how many kids would be at the party and we were left with 2 huge bags of candy from Sam's Club that were still half full. I guess we won't be needing to steal from our kids stash like last year. ;)

Halloween Birthday Party

We got to go to a Halloween Birthday Party for my friends' little girl on Oct. 25. The boys were so excited to wear the monkey costumes.

Alex really enjoyed the punch and cupcake. What a surprise! He has such a sweet tooth.

My little monkey.

My other little monkey, Jared, enjoying his cupcake.

They had a pinata and Alex loved it! It was so cute to watch him. Every time he would hit it he would yell. I thought it was so cute. Alex was very excited about all of the suckers that came pouring out when the big kids finally broke it open. I helped him get some starbursts and jolly ranchers. ;)

Thanks for a fun party Ana and David!

Gettin' Ready for Halloween

Well, I don't get much into decorating for the holidays, but since Jared is getting older I think it is important to celebrate and have some family traditions. So we picked out some pumpkins from Wal-Mart (not as fun as going to the pumpkin patch like we did growing up in St. Louis. Do they even have that here in Utah?) and we carved them the Friday before Halloween. We saw on the Today show to attach a whisk to your drill to clean out your pumpkin and so Jared wanted us to try it. It worked out all right, but not as good as we saw on T.V. Jared didn't like touching the guts and was done after pulling out seeds once. I don't blame him. I had my dishwashing gloves on.





Here are our Jack-O-Lanterns. And let me tell you. There was a tantrum about the square eye. I made the first triangle eye and asked Jared what he wanted the second one to be. He said a square. I asked him twice if he was sure that he didn't want another triangle. He was sure he wanted a square until he saw it. He wanted me to fix it, which you can't. He threw a tantrum and ended up in time out. When he came out he came over to me and said, "Ok, mommy, say your sorry." I was like, excuse me, you need to apoligize to me. He said, "but you did a square." He really thought I was in the wrong. I told him I was sorry for the misunderstanding, but that we can't behave this way. He apologized and we hugged and kissed, but he was in no mood for pictures, so I took this picture a few days later.


For FHE we decorated sugar cookies. My mom always made these and Halloween just isn't Halloween without them. Jared decorated his first one, and ate it, and was ready to play Wii. He decided he wanted to decorate a few more after that though and was pleased with his creation.




His had noses and hats. I only put eyes and mouths on mine.


Alex eats his pumpkin cookies by eating all of the chocolate chips first and then he eats the cookie. I like having a chocolate chip in every bite, but to each his own.

Raspberry Pickin'

Thanks to my mission companion Janae, my sister Melanie and I and Jared and Alex enjoyed an afternoon in Payson picking raspberries. After seeing all of her homemade jam I decided I just had to go and we had a great time. It was a little late in the season, we went Oct. 16, and there had already been a freeze so we had to look a little harder for the berries and my quads were so sore the next day from all of the standing and squatting as we looked for and picked raspberries. It took 2 hours to get there because of the road construction, so we got there when I thought we would be leaving. But boy, oh, boy after eating that jam on some french toast, it was so worth it.

Jared and Alex helped pick the first hour and then ran around the patch the second hour. Alex was very tired, since this was during his nap time, by the time we finished.








My sister Melanie, who is a freshman at BYU, came with us. I am so glad she did. It has really been fun to have her close and the kids loved having her there. She made some raspberry peach jam with her raspberries. She made some rolls and she said they were quite the hit with her friends.


It was so sunny out and we couldn't get a picture without whitening our faces. Jared I guess is practicing for his upcoming debut as a monkey for Halloween this year.


I highly recommend this activity for everyone and I plan to do it every year while we live here. My mom would take us strawberry picking when I was little and I just loved it, so it was fun to do it with my kids. For more info, click here.

Drastic Times Call For Drastic Measures

I am in mourning and I just had to do something, so I cut off all my hair. Pretty symbolic, huh? I have posted some pictures for those disbelieving friends and family.

Here is how long my hair was before:

Here is how short it is after:

My hair is still wet. I went to get it cut at 8pm tonight and didn't have her style it since it was so late. I will put up more pics when I actually style it.

Although I am disappointed that Obama won, that is not the reason I cut my hair. I realized that my hair had gotten really long about a month or so ago. I have always wanted to donate my hair to Locks of Love, but since I am not blessed with fast growing hair like my cousin Camille or Robbie's sisters, I have never done it. I didn't want to just get my hair cut and have 8 inches thrown in the garbage, so I decided now would be the perfect time to make the sacrifice and take the plunge. If I hate it, being pregnant, my hair grows a lot faster than normal, so by the time I have the baby my hair will have grown out somewhat.