Halloween Fun!

Okay so as you can tell from the very first picture, we have been having a lot of Halloween fun around here, at least Ben has that is. J/K. No really, tonight for FHE we carved our pumkins. Ben carved two, a good old Jack-O-Lantern, and then made a TRansformers one for James. Which James loved by the way. Harrison and I made one together, okay I did the whole thing myself, but he was by me while I did it. His and mine is the more goofy looking one.  When we first cut the pumpkin open we told James to scoop out the seeds and he was really excited to do that until  he looked inside the pumpkin and then told us how disgusting that was. We laughed. We had fun tonight though, we had donuts and all that. It made for a fun FHE.

The other pictures of Ben and I cooking are of Saturday night. We have been wanting to make a pumpkin pie out of a pumpkin and make it all from scratch, so we did. we bought the "cooking" type of pumkpin, cut it up, cooked it, mashed it up and made pie filling. Okay Ben did all that part, I put kids to bed and then made the crust. I was proud of myself for making the crust, I am never very good at that and this one turned out okay. i also made  pie cookies with the leftovers. (crust sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar and baked) The kids loved those.  We had quite a bit more pumpkin leftover though. So we made some pumpkin juice. It was more like a pumpkin smoothie, but it was still good. james really liked that. And then the rest we saved for the next day and I just cooked and seasoned it and served it with dinner. It was good. Better than squash.  So yeah we used up that pumpkin. It was really fun though to do all those things together. Ben and I had fun and we had lots of fun eating all that good pie. Oh and trust me, it was so dang good.  A fresh made pumpkin pie is way way way yummy. I couldn't stop eating the darn thing.

Halloween Party

Okay so we finally had our Halloween party! It was so fun. At least I think people had fun, I guess I don't really know. But a lot of people came. we had 80+ people here 45 of those were kids. Yeah it was pretty crazy here. But they seemed to enjoy the different games and everyone loved Ben's salsa. I will admit, it was pretty darn good. especially with some Guacamole and some sour cream to go with it. I ate way too much of it and I think I drank about 50 glasses of root beer. It was really good.  Anyways, I spent most of the week getting ready for the thing. Part of that was getting my house back in order after ignoring it so much from being sick. One day I cleaned every wall in the house, all the baseboards, all the blinds, windows, and then swept out the entire garage. I was very proud of myself and I most certainly did not cook dinner that night. 

But then I made a lot of the decorations and put treats in bags and all that stuff. Then the day before the party Ben and decorated until 3 am, got up the next morning and barely had everything ready by 3 pm when the party started. But I really didn't mind, I love to throw a party and I love to make it look good, so I really don't mind missing some sleep once in a while for it. The thing that took the most time was the garage. We emptied out the garage, and then hung orange and purple tablecloths around the room and had different things hanging from the ceiling. It was really cute. That is where we had all the games for the kids. We had bags for them to decorate/color, then a ball toss and they won a popcorn ball, and then bobbing for apples and they got to keep their apple and get a bag of caramels, and then a little treasure hunt game where they dug through different things to find candy, toys and rings.  It worked out pretty well I thought. we had a pinata halfway through and I think that was the highlight of the party for most kids. They sure loved that. 

James was so excited for the party he seriously could not sleep. He was up pretty much all night asking if it was morning yet, or time for the party or whatever. He definitely had a great time and loved his bumblebee transformers costume.  He was so cute. He wanted to help me so bad with the decorations and some things he could help with, like filling the pinata, giving me tape to hang things, he actually helped wash all the walls that one day. Anyways, so then he made his own decorations and put them up. He drew a bunch of skeletons and taped them onto the front door. our door was covered and it was so cute I couldn't take them down. Ever since the party he has been saying "thank you for the Halloween party" yeah, he really loved it.

Anyways, clean up really wasn't bad, it was all done that evening, so that is good. I guess we left a lot of the decor up because Halloween is still a couple weeks away so why not huh? Oh I am so sad though, we totally forgot to take any pictures! Ben and I were both pretty busy the entire time and we just forgot to get the camera out. So if any of you that came took some pictures, email them to me please, and then I will post them for those of you that missed out!

Catch Up

So yeah I have been a slacker at the blogging thing lately I guess. Mostly because I didn't think I had anything to write about. Everyday was pretty much the same, and then I got sick and didn't get around to sitting at the computer until now. So here is a catch up on our lives lately.

James loves loves loves school. He loves show and tell and singing time the best. He is learning all sorts of new songs and nursery rhymes and at night we hear him singing them in his bed. It is cute. He always gets so excited about show and tell and has taken the same thing...his transformer bumblebee.  He is obsessed with transformers lately and I have been letting him earn them. He has a chart, and by doing different things he can fill it up with stickers and once it is full, he gets the transformer. He now has 3 and takes them everywhere with him. I like that he likes them so much, I think it is cute. He is going to be bumblebee (the transformer...NOT the insect) for Halloween & is really excited about that. Oh he had his Primary program a few weeks ago and while he didn't stay completely still, okay he was pretty wiggly, he said his part just great and sang the songs he knew as loud as he could. I thought he did just great. I was proud of him.

I am loving this stage James is in. He talks and talks and talks and says the funniest things. HE asks questions about everything and wants to know everything. I can depend on him pretty well. He usually does what I ask whether he likes it or not. He really tries to be good and do what he is supposed to. I love it. I love doing things with him and just sitting there talking to him. The other day I was at the computer and he was on his way to the bathroom and stopped to chat with me and just kept chattin away until he said, "but I have to stop now before I poop my pants, but I won't I will hold it in until I get on the toilet" and then he ran into the bathroom. I laughed so hard at that.  Last week when I was so darn sick I came up to my room and he was making my bed and I asked him what he was doing. he said "making your bed for you" I asked him why he was doing that and he said "to be nice because you don't feel very good" I thought it was the sweetest thing in the whole world. He really is a sweetheart.

As far as my life goes, well things were going great. I was over the morning sickness, running 25 miles a week, eating well, keeping the house clean. Doing things with the kids. Made lots and lots of jam. yum. Life was good. And then I got a cold. It was really annoying, but I could live with it. Then it seemed to go away for a couple days and I went running with my friend one morning in the freezing cold rain. yes I know I am an idiot. It was probably one of the dumber things I have done. We ran 8 miles and I came home drenched, freezing and coughing my head off. I coughed straight for a week. Like not just little coughs, like I never slept I coughed so hard and I tore a muscle in my lower abdomen from coughing so hard. It was awful. I went to the DR, he wasn't helpful.  basically I just needed to tough it out since I am prego. But I am happy to say that I am only coughing a little now and am sleeping just fine. Ah. it is nice to be feeling good again. 

Now I am keeping myself 100% busy with our halloween party plans. We have a halloween party every year and it is always so fun to do, but we always go a little crazy about it.  I am really excited. Ben and I are going to be Bleaker and Juno (from the movie Juno, if you hadn't already guessed that :) We have a lot of fun games planned for the kids and of course homemade root beer and this year we are doing a salsa fest. Ben is making salsa and we are getting several other dips for the many chips to eat. It will be a lot of fun. BUt we still have tons to do, the party is next saturday, so my next post probably won't be until after the party and I will post all sorts of pictures from it. 

Oh, and on the stinker Harrison note.....I made all the invites, my sister becca came and helped me. we had them printed on orange paper and then stuck onto a black background with a candy corn glued on the top. they were really cute. Harrison liked them as well. He liked them so much he ate the candy corns off several of them. Yep, that is my stinker Harrison. I don't know why he didn't go for the entire Jar of candy sitting on the table, but I guess the invites up high and out of sight were a challenge so that must make the candy taste better or something. funny boys.

Oh yeah one more thing, my boys love halloween (don't know where they get THAT from) And at night we always hear Harrison in his bed saying"dyou hear dat ou-side?.......ooooooooooo (like a ghost).....spooooky!" it makes me laugh so hard.  Even when they are little stinkers they are darn cute.

Terrible Two's

When James turned 2...it was terrible. I swear someone switched out my sweet little boy James for some crazy, bipolar  look alike.  The tantrums were.... unbelievable. And I remember when he finally turned 3...ah....I could see my little sweet boy coming back and I loved it. Harrison is now 2. I was all sorts of prepared for big tantrums, like James', and he can throw a tantrum, but it is mostly funny, and only lasts a minute. However, he is the most mischievous little stinker there ever was. For example.....

Ever day Harrison pulls all, and I mean all the books off the book shelf, both the one upstairs and the one down.  He also dumps out whatever bin of toys or balls he sees and then just walks away without playing with any of them. At each meal he either throws or spills or just wipes his food everywhere. And anytime I have just mopped the kitchen floor you can bet that he is going to dump out his cereal, juice or whatever else is enormously sticky or messy to clean up. He always finds a pencil, pen, crayon or marker and will color whatever he sees. My walls are covered, as well as doors, toys, books, and other furniture. 

Harrison is also obsessed with the bathroom, the toilet especially and loves to put anything, including toothbrushes, in it.  He gets into my drawer on a daily basis, while I am trying to do my hair, brush teeth or any of that stuff. And he finds whatever he can and runs with it. He usually steal the deodorant, a toothbrush, or my make-up bag. This never ends up well. He also loves the water dispenser on the fridge and presses it often, cup or no cup.  He loves to destroy things. Books mostly. Many a book have been completely shredded in the past few months because of him.  He has also pulled all the stuffing out of his new teddy bear. I made 2 new photo albums this summer and had them out on the coffee table, Harrison ripped out the second half of one of the books. Thank you Harrison. 

He is really good at making big big messes. Like the other day when he poured chocolate milk all over the couch. Or yesterday when he took the bowl of raspberries, dumped them onto the floor and then jumped on them. Yes, I have tan carpet, and yes raspberries are very dark purply red. And the berries were completely mashed in. It was not amazing. I spent the afternoon with some oxyclean and that seemed to do the trick. Anytime I am cooking anything he gets right in the fridge as soon as I open it and starts pulling everything out. He likes to throw the eggs especially.  Not to mention all the boxes of crackers, cereal, cookies and who knows what else he has pulled out of the pantry and dumped all over everything and often smashed.  And all the while he is laughing his cute laugh giving you his sweet innocent little smile. This no longer works on me. He gets in trouble pretty quick and spends a lot... a lot... of time in his bed or in time out. 

I can imagine that you are sitting there thinking "wow. what is wrong with her kid?" or "wow, she does not pay any attention to her kids" I swear, I really do watch my kids, but laundry needs to be done, floors vacuumed, beds made, bathrooms cleaned, meals made, and messes to be cleaned up. Often he is destroying another thing while I am still cleaning up his previous mess.  It is impossible to have your eye on your kids 24/7. 

Now don't get me wrong, this sounds like I don't like my kids very much. Well anyone who knows me knows I love my little Harrison.  HE has had me wrapped around his little finger since day one. He has just about the cutest smile there ever was and can make you laugh at just about anything. He is a delight. A pain in the butt delight, but a delight. And all this terrible two stuff just makes the day more......interesting. :)

Today I.....

Today, I:  

Slept in until 9 am, ah.....  

Peeled and sliced a zillion peaches to make jam and yummy homemade ice cream. 

Realized that I needed Lemon juice for the Jam

Left to go to Wal-Mart and Costco.

Only made it to Walmart because I sneezed on my way out of the store and completely peed my pants. yep I am pregnant. There was no control.

Came home and changed my clothes.

Made bread dough

Took a short nap because I was feeling really not good.

Made dough into yummy rolls

Finally took a shower.

Went to Costco

Ate some seriously yum peach ice cream

Went to my  sister's house and took rolls and Jam

Came home late

Put whiny kids to bed

Made lots and lots of peach jam. A first for me.

Cleaned the kitchen

And ate some more ice cream.

Yesterday James:

Climbed into bed with me at 6 am

Fell out of bed and smacked his face/eye on the corner of my nightstand

Got ready for school

Went to get his back pack and came running down the stairs

Missed the very second step and fell all the way down to the tile floor below

Cried

Had a large scrape on his side. (poor kid)

Got to school late.

Came home from school happy as could be

Went to play outside

Went down the slide

Screamed

Slapped his hand

Got stung by a bee.

Cried

Got some benadryl (he is allergic to other bug bites so we thought just to be a little safe)

Got a band aid

Got hugs and kisses from mom

Was all better.

This week Harrison:

Poured (on purpose) chocolate milk all over the couch. ( I knew I should have put it right away)

Pulled all the books off the bookshelf, more than once.

Dumped water all over the kitchen

Colored the front door, his bedroom door, my bedroom door, the toy room wall, and the inside of the closet. 

Brushed his teeth after dipping his toothbrush in the toilet. (I always keep the bathrooms shut, James does not. I found Harrison by the toilet saying "ucky" and wiping his mouth out while standing by the toilet with his toothbrush. There were drips from the toilet to him... guilty as charged)

Threw his french fries all over at dinner.

Picked the tomatoes and threw them across the yard.

Tore "The Three Little Pigs" book into a million pieces

Sat in time out many many many times

Wore a cowboy hat around all week

Danced around the coffee table for an hour straight while I did dishes and listened to music.

Walked around the house saying "where James go?" While James was at school.

Was the cutest thing ever in his new little skunk costume.

 

Pictures from the Summer

Okay, so here are a truckload and a half, of pictures. Most of them are from this summer, but there are some older ones too. Okay, let's start with the oldest picture.

This one is from my sister, Becca's, wedding. I was the maid of honor, so I got a bouquet too. Aren't Ben and I the cutest?

This next one is a family picture my mom just gave to me and I love it. I love how little and chunky Harrison is, I love James giving that egg a weird look, and I think Ben and I look good too. Oh yeah, and my hair is hecka long. I guess I did cut 14 inches off, so...yeah. It makes me miss my long hair and wish my hair looked like that right now. But if it did I would probably just be wanting to cut it again. That is how hair goes.

This is another one from my mom of me at the Marathon I did in May. I like it. I had just crossed the finish line so I look a little crazy.

These ones are form the Freedom Run on the morning of the 4th. Most of my family ran it, as you can see. I was so proud of all of them for all their running this summer. It was so much fun! I was so excited to see each person cross the finish and cheer them on, it was great fun. I was proud of my time on that one too. It was a 10k (6.2 miles) and I got 52:10. Not too shabby.

These pictures are from the day/evening of the 4th. I loved James and his big cupcake. I laughed my head off at Harrison with his black mustache. I honestly have no idea what was around his face but my brother called him Don Carlos. He is cute. 

These one are of the very next day, we were having a family reunion and I hosted some family races. There was a 5K for the adults, which we all did and it was awesome. Even though we were all really tired from the race before, but it was still fun. All of our kids cheered us on. Then we had some kids races, and those were the highlight of the summer I swear. They had so much fun! They were so excited and were just so happy the whole time and they all got prizes and medals, it was great. I love these pictures because you can see how happy they all are. I love the one of James close up. He is really concentrating. That was right at the end of the "long distance" race for the kids and he won and was really excited.

These ones are just a couple from our trip. I love the one of Ben and James. They were both so excited to be there, I don't know who was more excited, but they had so much fun together. It was great. I also love the one of Harrison and I and James at the restaurant. Harrison is smiling his perfect sweet little smile and I love it!

And then these last ones are from our Provo River Half Marathon which once again, most of my family ran and I was 100% proud of all of them. It was the funnest race ever and yes I was running for 2, and still am as you all know. My sisters made me that shirt for the race and I loved having people know that I was pregnant and running. Yeah.  Oh and that first picture is my sister in-law Emily, that I ran with all summer. We had so much fun running through the canyon each weekend.  And once again, Ben and I are just about the cutest couple ever. I loved running that with him.

A Full Day

Today was a full, but good, day.  It started off at 7 am with Ben hitting the snooze one last time and me nudging him to get out of bed, which he did.  Soon he was off to school and I was waking the kiddos up to go for a morning walk. They are so cute when they wake up, I love it. Harrison was still asleep but started jumping around his crib and then went back to sleep. James and I decided that he had been dreaming that he was a rabbit.  I gave them some cereal and we were off on our walk.

My boys love to go for walks.  We go for walks nearly every day. They love to hear and see the train, cows, and birds around the neighborhood. James was really chatty this morning and was asking me stuff about everything "why is the road so dirty? we should clean it up Why are they building that house? What happened to that car" etc. It was fun though, I like to answer his many questions. The other day in the car he asked us how the baby gets out of my tummy. I laughed my head off at that one. 

After a couple miles it was time to get home, shower, clean kids up and dressed and off to Gma Robertson's to be baby-sat while I went to a Dr's appointment.  Their cousins were there, so that made it even more exciting. I went to my appointment and heard the baby's heartbeat. It was  steady 150, which was what both my boys always were, so that made me think I am having another boy. sigh.  But I was really glad to hear that little heartbeat in there and remind myself that it is a little baby and it is ours. I am so excited. I can't wait to hold the little one in my arms and see what it looks like.  I am excited to see James love and take care of the baby. He loves babies so much, and is so excited for this one.   It will be fun to see him bond with this one.

After the appointment  I went back to Gma's and while the boys played outside I picked raspberries. They began by helping me, but were eating more than I was picking. Then they found the blacckberries and honestly, Harrison just plopped himself down and ate as many blackberries as he could. his face, hands hair, shorts and shirts were covered in blackberry juice. It was the cutest thing ever and I was so sad not to have my camera with me. I love that my kids love fruit and veggies so much. I love to see them sit in the garden and eat as they pick, it is fun. 

While I was picking the raspberries though I kept thinking, "oh is Harrison okay? check on Harrison" So I kept checking on him and he was fin, just sitting there eating berries. I finished with the berries and took them inside. Right after I went inside I heard Harrison screaming. I ran outside and James and Joseph were swinging on this swing that has seats for four and can swing very high. But it is all hard plastic and metal, so very dangerous if a kid gets in the way. Which is exactly what Harrison has done. The poor little guy had a good bruise and scrape forming on the side of his face and forehead. His arm had two pretty deep cuts in it, and his back and shoulders were scraped up. I felt so bad for my little one. I calmed him down and after a nice bath and band aids he was feeling much better. But he looks like he just came out of a war zone.  Poor little kid.

So after that, the boys did not play on that swing. They rode bikes instead or played in the sand box, they still had plenty fun together. So I picked tomatoes while they played. I have to say that I really do love gardening. I love to see things grow and take care of them and then harvest whatever fruit or veggies we get. It is always so fun. There weren't a lot of tomatoes, but enough for a couple batches of tomato soup. mmmmm. I am so addicted. So I brought the kids inside and made tomato soup for my parents and then came home to made dinner for us. We had enchiladas. They were very tasty too. But I have to say, by the time dinner was over, I was really tired of being on my feet and was wishing I could just go to bed. But Ben and I cleaned the house, bathed kids, read stories, scriptures and had prayer. The kids then went to bed.  James actually stayed up a little longer. He and I played with legos for a little while. Harrison had broken one of James' sets earlier and I promised James I would help him rebuild it, so we did. So now, ah..., the kids are in bed, I am having a snack, in my my PJ's and am ready to just relax. 

Oh bragging moment here. In the last month I have run 3 half marathons. Provo River Half, Hobble Creek Half, and Spanish Fork Half.  yep I am awesome. Slow, but awesome.  :)