sweet home

I meant to post this last night, but somehow just saved it.....
I thought I would take this quiet moment (Lewis and the kids are watching a recorded episode of Phineas and Ferb) and share some of our favorite "scary" books:

Brooks loves this one. He loves to tell the monster to go away and don't come back, "until I say so"



We are HUGE Mo Willems fans around here. The pigeon books are so funny and we love the Elephant and Piggie books because A loves pigs and B loves elephants. Plus, they are easy beginning readers so Aiden can read them over and over to Brook (or he can read them to himself since he has them memorized). This story is a really cute one, and we have loved checking it out from the library multiple times. It was even the movie today at storytime.

As a side note, although it is completely unrelated, I saw the funniest thing today when I was going to pick Aiden up from school. It even made me wet my pants. But only a little bit. There was this little old lady riding a hot pink little girl's bike in the direction of the school. She was carrying a carpool number in her hand and swerving all over the place. She was completely hogging the road and I thought that she was going to wipe out at least 10 times. You know when a kid is learning to ride a bike and they are so wobbly they keep making sharp spastic turns? Yeah. It was like that. I got a good laugh out of it. But I did wonder why she didn't get off and just walk the thing.

Anyway, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! I hope you, I mean your kids, get lots of candy!

We had a busy weekend. First, there was the early morning fall festival fun run that I fully planned on having Lewis run with the kids when I signed us up. Of course he had to work, silly me! It was Cate's first race and she did great. The "big" kids took turns riding on the back of the stroller when they got tired.

After the race we rushed over to the church for the Primary Program practice. I won't lie, it was painful and long and boring and it should be totally illegal to have to practice on Saturday. But the program did go really well on Sunday. Saturday afternoon slash evening we spent at the school again for the fall festival. Brooks and I worked at the "flying Saucer" game while Aiden socialized. Yeah, I guess she's got a LITTLE of Lewis in her, eh?! Lewis met us there and we even let the kids do a few of the little bouncy things like the slide, obstacle course, and the bounce house. I know, we're super nice.


Sunday we had the Primary program, I thought it went well especially considering the fact that we had all 3 of our kids up on the stand. Lewis held Brooks who sat there better than any of the 6 year olds around him and I held Cate who was, as usual, great. Sunday evening Lewis invited some resident friends to come for dinner and pumpkin carving. Surgeons take this cutting task very seriously. But we were all traumatized by the story of a guy who cut off 3 of his fingers while carving a pumpkin. You see, fingers are a vital part of a surgeon's career, this was the scariest Halloween tale of all for us.

I don't think surgery will be the career for Brooks. He couldn't even stand to touch the pumpkin guts WITH a glove on. Check out the face.

This is Lew's masterpiece


This is Tony's (so blurry--oops)


TJ and Jenny's (it was a joint effort)
And this is Josh's pumpkin. You can't tell from the picture, but it is also carved in the back, so when it is lit, it makes little ghosts on the wall behind it. These are the cupcakes Josh brought, they are so festive they even put my hot dog mummies to shame. There were witches and bats. I guess I didn't get a good picture, but trust me, they were amazing.
Next up is the church carnival and Trunk or Treat. I have to pull a costume together today....... my pretties!

Aiden seems to have a flair for the dramatic (oh, oh, wherever did she get it?!!?!). This evening she hit her hip on the corner of a piece of furniture and was terribly wounded. She was whining about it in the kitchen one minute and the next Lewis and I could hear her slowly making her way down the hall toward our bedroom.


This is what I saw before I burst out into my loudest most obnoxious laugh. She had convinced Brooks to push her by her feet down the hall. I just about peed my pants. Then, later, when she was trying to get up on our bed we heard her tell Brooks that she would pay him to help her. When he said no she just said, "then you're fired." Where do they get this stuff?

We spent some time today at the "science mu-center". Check Brooks out. He is so dang funny. He's got moves I ain't neva seen.

(look how big that 0-6 month pacifier still is on her little face!)

Wow. Cate the Great is 4 months old now. At her appointment today she only weighed 12 lbs. 8 oz. which is what I think the other two weighed at about 2 months. She's just a little thing, but she is as sweet as they come. She cuddles, she sleeps, she coos, she smiles and laughs, she hardly ever cries, she is super easy to calm down, and she spits up like it's her job.
Now I am off to write a nasty letter to the nasty insurance company because apparently well child visits where the child receives immunizations are "outpatient services" (and go toward the insane deductible) while well child visits alone ARE covered (except for the co-pay) because they are "preventive care". grrrrrrrrrr. Gotta love student insurance.

We HAD to go back so we could experience the pumpkin patch as a family. And even though it is about 45 minutes away, it is one of the VERY few pumpkin patches around, so we saw lots of random people that we know while we were there. It was fun and the kids had a great time picking a pumpkin and riding the ponies.

At church yesterday someone even told me that she just wanted to kiss him because he's so cute.

(me yesterday morning. notice a few things--one: I just woke up, two: I am wearing LONG SLEEVES finally, three: I need a haircut, I am looking too much like Kath Day from Kath and Kim, oh yeah and I have allergies hence the eye issues)
Well, my mother-in-law tagged me and since you should never tell your mother-in-law "no", I am going to do it. Here's the thing though, isn't a blog a place that we talk all about ourselves already? I mean, it's really a self-indulgent activity anyway but here you go.......

Here are the rules:
1. Link the person who tagged you.
2. Mention rules on your blog.
3. Tell about 6 quirks of yours.
4. Tag 6 fellow bloggers to do the same.
5. Leave a comment to let them know

1. I have a fake tooth. (really I just wanted a reason to post this picture again, but whatever) Maybe I'm a pirate, but I'll never admit it. Maybe I like the shock value.

2. I love water. I like to drink water, listen to running water or waves, and swim. I love the sound of the water when I am the only person swimming. That's the only way I can describe it.

3. I can't stand fake people. Authenticity is so important to me. And really, it's painfully obvious when you are trying too hard.

(Aiden in Ghana. They were worried about how white she was)
4. I love to travel. I want to go to Fiji next, or Argentina :) or Rome :) Or the beach in Alabama slash Florida hint hint. I did 2 study abroad trips in college (one to France and one to Jerusalem) and have traveled with Lewis to Thailand, Italy, Vienna, and Ghana. Also, we have driven cross country together multiple times. We really love to travel.

5. I love pulling weeds. I will just sit in the yard for hours on end pulling weeds. For some reason it gives me lots of satisfaction and time to think. I love it. And no one bugs me because they are afraid I will make them pull weeds too.

6. I couldn't think of another one. I have the movie The Goonies memorized, I bite my nails, boring. I am very opinionated, you all know that. I stick my foot in my mouth a lot, you probably know that too because most likely I have offended you at some time. I love a clean house, my mother in law put that one (oh, and I'm with you Tiana, I can't go to bed or function unless it's clean and Lewis totally doesn't get it so apparently he didn't get that gene). So I need to think of something unique, ummm--- Ok. Lewis says I have an irrational fear of raw meat. But I don't want to be the one with all kinds of funky issues because I wasn't careful around the raw chicken. But it's true, I really hate to touch raw meat.

(did I just get in like 100 things about me, maybe I'm super self-obsessed too?!?!?! scary)

Oh and I almost forgot, I TAG my sisters and anyone else who hasn't done this yet. DO IT.

Did you see the game last night? The Red Sox were down 7-0 in the 7th inning and they came back and WON it! How awesome is that? I say, those guys with all their statistics can take a break when it comes to the Red Sox. It was so exciting. The announcers said it would take a miracle, and I guess they got one.

Speaking of miracles, I have been watching General Conference slowly but surely. We missed it while we were on our whirlwind trip and recorded it on the DVR. It has been so amazing to watch. Even if you aren't a memeber of the same church as me, I know that you can definitely benefit from the uplifiting messages that we heard in conference this year. Anyway, Brooks and I were watching the first Saturday session last week and President Monson was talking and he said something about miracles. Brooks turned to me and said "Mommy, we WILL see miracles." Well said, B. (did I redeem myself with this cuter picture?)

Doesn't this look like fun?





Oh, and "let's go Red Sox!!" Jacoby don't fail me now.

As you can plainly see, Cate enjoyed herself tremendously. She face planted right into me and crashed. She slept the entire time! How ungrateful. I mean, honestly we drive all the way out there and then she just sleeps. ;)








It was no New England, but it was still really fun, haystack maze, hayride and all (only enjoyable because I remembered to take a Claritin before we left, go me). Also good was the fact that we were able to avoid the jumpy things and big inflatable slide. Call me a Scrooge, but I hate those things. They are so big and nasty and dirty and crowded and sweaty and ugly. Not to mention the whiplash and injuries they cause. We got a big orange pumpkin, a white pumpkin, a little sugar pumpkin, and a really cool apple gourd. And the farm had the most beautiful fields of sunflowers. I love sunflowers. (I want to thank you in advance for keeping all FIVE head and huge sunglasses comments to yourselves.)(the sunglasses fit so nicely over my regular glasses. again, please keep comments to yourselves)

this has to be one of the funniest pictures I have EVER seen. Ever. Ever. For reals.Oh. MY. Goodness. How funny.

you are the third child. You cry yourself to sleep in the middle of the floor with people walking, talking, and watching tv all around you.













I know I'm biased, but she's adorable.













This is what happens when you live in Alabama, they have BBQ and turnip greens for lunch.














This is what happens when you try to take a self portrait with 3 squirmy kids. Doesn't Cate look scared? She looks like that a lot.












And this is what happens when Daddy is home on a Saturday and Mom runs a few errands. You make a huge mountain of every pillow in the entire house and leave it until Mom can't stand it any more!
Oh, and check out Jordan's blog, Matt got a HUGE deer!