It's Tradition!

Tonight was our annual Pumpkin Carving FHE.  We actually bought our pumpkins early, on Saturday, this year, to save time since Mondays get so full!  I LOVE this part of Halloween.  I love the traditions that we have, and I love that the kids know them and look forward to them!  It's so fun!

We really had a good time, and EVERYONE got into it!!  Luke had a hard time designing his.  He wasn't happy with any of the things he was drawing.  He tried several.  About halfway through the FHE, I remembered the leftovers from our carving kit last year, that I had saved in the Halloween box, and when we were grabbing those, Luke found the book with stencils.  He fell in love with the Spider one, and decided that I was going to carve it for him :).  He's so funny.  He is definitely a perfectionist.  I need to figure out how to get him to be satisfied with his own work.  Whenever he thinks he can't do THE BEST, he won't do it.  Silly boy.  Although I do like that he wants to be the best.

Kelly was so creative with hers!  She drew a very intricately detailed design and then totally carried it out.  She did some "3D" and and some shaving... it was really incredible to witness!  She's very artistic.

This is how Jack participated :)  Cute little guy!!  I'm so happy that he's feeling better today!  He had such bad gas the last few days and slight fever.... kinda worrisome, but he's doing fine now and that is a relief!  I carved his cute little pumpkin for him... I think he liked it :).

Erika was VERY excited about this activity.  She got into it as much as she could without actually touching the insides :).  She seemed to be doing more than she did, just because she's so enthusiastic :).  But she had Daddy's help with her pumpkin.  Mommy cleaned it out, but look how cute it looked!  She had chosen to have a "mad face", and Nate delivered!  She loved it ;)

I love these kinds of activities with Nate.  He totally gets into it.  Gets all detailed and artistic.  I really enjoy watching his talent.  He really is very good!  And look how cute he looks :).  I just love this man!

Charity did such a great job this year!  She drew her "silly face" and then cleaned and carved it all out, all on her own.  She made such a cute face on her pumkin!  I was so impressed with how cute it looked and how well she did.  I loved that she had fun with it this year.  She didn't take it TOO seriously :).  She made good use of the peeler too... an interesting new tool for pumpkin carving!

This is Noah's pumpkin, I have no idea why we didn't get a picture of him.  He worked on his so hard!  He did NOT want to touch the guts or seeds, so I did a lot of that for him, but whatever he could scoop out with the spoon avoiding all sides of the pumpkin, he did himself!  And he drew the design on his, watched me carve the whole thing, complimenting me the entire time, and then got his hands on a carving knife himself at the end and made some lovely additions, not pictured here.  He had a good time and that made me happy.  I think this was his first year to get involved.

Luke's finished product :) well, with a few puzzle pieces place back in the picture... silly boy had a lot of fun replacing the negative chunks ;).  A new game.

Here's Charity's in the making.

Kelly's... look at the detail!

Bradley took a lot of these pictures while Nate was helping to carve his, so we didn't get one of his close up... I will have to get one tomorrow obviously :).  But his was amazing!  And as he mentioned several times, his was "professionally cleaned".  He spent the majority of the time cleaning his out.  I think he was mostly concerned about the thing catching fire.  He's so cautious.  He drew a cool little ghost and Nate helped to make that possible.  It turned out really cool!  He was a lot of fun to listen to.

After we finished, we put some glow sticks inside our pumpkins and then headed out to the porch for our traditional out-on-the-porch-with-the-pumpkins picture :).  I have to get this shot, we've done it like 4 years in a row now :).  Makes me happy :).  Look how cute my kids look!!  So fun!   

It's fun to step away from life and enjoy a night like this.  I think these are the moments I'll miss most when my kids are grown.  I'll have to beg them to come back and do this with their kids when they're gone :)

Noah was the scribe tonight, but he was not in the mood to draw a picture (something about not having any paper), so maybe I'll add that later, or have him TELL about it or something... I'm trying to be better at recording our FHE's.

He loves me :)

Nate wrote this on the white board today and it totally made my day.  In fact, it almost made me cry, but since I'm a little on the weepy side, I should probably keep that to myself :).  I'm so thankful for my sweet husband.  We're not perfect, our marriage isn't perfect, but I LOVE that we both want it to be.  And that we work and change and strive to grow together.  Marriage isn't easy.  It's actually really hard sometimes, and I think that that is what makes it SO worthwhile.  I hope that I can make myself worthy of his love and affection for time and all eternity.  I can't imagine my life without him.  He is my rock.  He is my friend, and I LOVE HIM!!  Thanks for the sweet message, Babe.  I heart you too ;)

Journaling

- Noah said, "I love Jack more than my Ee-oh."  It was as if he had thought and pondered on this idea for a while before.  And he said it very profoundly.  Loved it :)  10-17-12

- Nate brought Evan home with him on Wednesday to have a sleepover with Bradley.  They had a lot of fun.  I'm noticing a lot lately that my kids need to work on their hosting skills, or maybe that I would just like to re-emphasize our hospitality skills.  They're just kids, so I don't expect them to be perfect at it.  Especially since there are not a LOT of opportunities for it around here.  But it was fun to have Evan here, he's a sweet kid.  Really fun for the littles.  He spent quite a bit of time playing with just Erika!  He's a real sweetheart.  10-17-12

- On Thursday, since it was Fall Break, we wanted to do something fun.  But nothing was really coming to me until afternoonish.  By then Evan was anxious to go home, so we made the plan to take Evan home and then go see a movie.  Yep, just the kids and I!  I got to sit and talk with Nancy and Nate's parents for a few minutes when I dropped Evan off, and then we went to see Hotel Transylvania.  It was a lot of fun!  Surprisingly!  I had concocted all kinds of crazy things that could go wrong, but none of them happened!  I was relieved.  It was a cute movie, the kids all sat in their seats, relatively quietly.  We had popcorn and a drink and they both made their way around pretty well.  Jack was awake through the whole thing which had worried me, but turned out to be just fine since Erika was enjoying the movie so much, sitting by Kelly.  Jack just nursed the whole time.  It was actually a very pleasant outing!  I couldn't have been happier.  It didn't hurt that the theater was near empty.  Less people to annoy means less stress for me :)  It was a good time.  10-18-12

- Saturday we went out to Jarom's birthday party.  We dropped off Sierra, Kelly, and Noah for first part of the party.  While Charity, Bradley, Erika, Jack and I went to McD's for some ice cream and fries.  I really hadn't wanted to be in the way at the party.  For some reason, my big kids turn into little stinkers when we go to the birthday parties.  They think they need to play all the games and win stuff and be part of the party, which I'm sure is fine, I just like to give the little one who was invited their space.  They need those things to be for them. At least I think they do.  It was a really fun party, the last half hour, we were there.  Meg always does such fun games and has such cute ideas.  She loaded us up with candy and balloons, cupcakes and then we were on our way!  When we got home, Nate thought it'd be fun to end our Fall Break with some WIngers!  Unfortunately the place is under new management and the food just isn't as good.  It was slightly disappointing.  But we all had a good time.  Kelly, Luke and Erika couldn't get enough of the mirrors ;).  Jack slept the whole time.  Good boy.  And I enjoyed watching everyone get along for a change :).  Good times.  10-20-12

- Noah gave his first talk this Sunday!  He had wanted to talk about Jesus.  So we went through the picture book and found some pictures from his life and told that.  He was so cute when I was rehearsing it with him.  We got to the line that says, "Jesus felt all my sadness and mistakes so that I can repent."  Noah looks at me inquisitively and says, "He did?"  What a cutie.  Then we talked about that a little. Noah's always a little skeptical, but he believed me in the end.  Then the next line was, "Jesus died for us so that we can live with our Heavenly Father again." and he did the same thing, "He did?"  How this hasn't sunk in before now is beyond me, but I'm glad to know it did this time :).  He was very concerned about this one, and we talked about it for a long time.  I was proud of him for asking questions, and I loved the opportunity.  He actually memorized that second line and was able to repeat it himself without prompting when he gave his talk.  Must have had a huge impact.  Which speaking of, I completely missed his talk!  I had sent it with him to primary and was planning on going down there to watch him give it after RS, but I was too late!  Thankfully, Charity had been in there (the Jr. and Sr. Primaries were combined) and she got up and helped him with it.  I was so proud of my kids when I heard that the show went on.  But that doesn't take away how disappointed I am that I missed his first talk.  He doesn't seem to bothered that I wasn't there, but it had meant a lot to me.  Next time I guess :).  10-21-12

We got to go to the Boo Barnyard with Nate's family on Friday night.  Again it was just the kids and I, Nate was working. This trip was quite eventful!  We got out to Thanksgiving point way sooner than necessary.  I had mixed up the instructions to meet at the parents' house at four with meeting at Thanksgiving Point.  Wouldn't ya know, we were there a few minutes early even :)  But with a half hour or so wait before anyone else would be there (including Grandma and Grandpa's passes to get us in for free).  It worked out okay, since I needed to nurse Jack anyway.  So we sat in the car, chaotically feeding Jack and waiting, then finally I decided we needed to get out of the car.  We were almost complete and ready to exit the premises (bags, camera, baby sling loaded) when I noticed that Noah wasn't wearing any shoes!!!  WHAT?!!!  You mean to tell me we drove an hour away from home and you didn't bring your shoes!!!???  I was fuming.  I really got more angry than I should have, but it's because I had just sat there in the car for almost a half hour when I could have been looking for solutions to this problem.  So frustrating.  Poor Noah.  He's done this a few times at church too, which is aggravating, but he's a kid, so I should got easier on him.  So long story short, I drove around looking for a store to buy shoes at, while everyone then waited for us at Thanksgiving point.  It wasn't the most pleasant half hour, I was bugged with the traffic and how little I knew the area.  But eventually we did make it to the Boo Barnyard!!  Despite my rotten attitude to begin with, we ended up having a really good time!  The kids all ran around with their cousins playing games, looking at animals, winning candy.  They even got free pony rides, face painting and wagon rides.  All the things we normally don't do because they cost extra :).  It was a lot of fun.  I enjoyed talking with Nancy and Meg too.  It was nice that Jen was there to help out wiht Jack.  He wasn't the happiest camper there.  He cried quite a bit, but I've decided it may have been too cold for him.  In the words of Erika, "He doesn't WUV going places."  Jack would prefer to stay at home.  It's taking some getting used to :).  So anyway.  It was a good time.  Since we were going to be driving back out to the Taylor's house on Friday, we took Sierra home with us and sent Luke home with them for sleepovers.  They both had a good time.  Cousins are the best.  10-19-12

Here's Erika's face-painting, I wish I'd gotten pictures of everyone's!  I hate it when I forget to do stuff.  But just for fun: Charity had a witches hat, Kelly had a spider web, Bradley didn't get his face painted, and was very disappointed when he realized he'd missed his opportunity, Luke didn't get his painted either, he was too busy playing the games a million times to stock pile suckers :) , Noah got a spider web and spider, and Erika got a black cat!

Flaming Gorge

Nate left on his fishing trip with his Dad and a few brothers, on Monday.  I've been "single mom"-ing it since then.  I have to say, things have gone SO WELL!  We've really only had a few hiccups (too bad one of them was during FHE, but can't win them all I guess).  It's been really incredible though, actually.  I can't help but feel like Nate's been praying for us as much as we've been praying for him.  That's reassuring.  And actually it's one of the reasons I don't like even pretending to call myself a "single mom" during things things.  I'm not single even when he's gone, he's praying for us, and sending me sweet texts to help me out.  I even got to talk to him yesterday.  Not to mention I know there is someone else out there as concerned about our kids as I am.  And the fact that he's coming home.... anyway.  It's been a good time for me to think.  It's been a good time for me to kind of re-group as far as some of the methods I use with the kids and teaching them.  We've made a few changes, and hopefully I can keep this momentum going when Nate gets home.  It's proof that I've really gotten lazy.  And that's how it goes when I have a baby, I'm just happy to be recognizing it now.  So anyway.  I've had a lot of time to watch Noah and Erika these last few days, and my love for their relationship (does that sound weird?) has grown so much!  They are the sweetest little friends.  I sure hope it lasts.  We didn't do a whole lot while Nate was gone, he took the car so we were very limited, but the little three and I did go to the store once or twice, we went to my dinner exchange, took Bradley to Basketball, and Carl's Jr. with the Hatches.  So it's been fun.  I hope Nate's had some fun too.  I can't wait to have him home!!!  10-17-12

Here are some of the pictures Nate took on his trip!  It looks like it was really beautiful up there!

FHE 10-15-12

Nate was on his fishing trip during FHE.  We decided that the show must go on.  I couldn't see when we would make it up WITH him, so we did it without him.  It was Kelly's turn to do the lesson.  She had wanted to play capture the flag outside, but we took so long to get the evening things done and taken care of, it got dark!  She decided it would be just as fun to play it inside!  And it was for quite a while.  They hid these little animal stickers, and had 2 teams, one upstairs, one downstairs, and they actually did pretty good for quite a while.  It did, however, go bad. I'm not gonna lie, I got pretty annoyed, and made the kids come and sit down and work out every single little spat, and that ate up a bunch of their play time and resulted in some unhappy little people when it was time to end sooner than they thought we should.  It wasn't MY favorite FHE, for many reasons, but we had FHE, we had some fun, and we can learn from these mistakes and work on it to make it go more smoothly.  We go a little while having really fun, enjoyable ones, and then have a few that go bad to make us realize we need to try harder.  Satan sure has a way.  Erika was the scribe, this is her depiction of our FHE.  She had a blast :).

Forgot this

I totally forgot I was making these for my kids' birthdays.... isn't he handsome!  I just love this kid!

Journaling

- Monday was my first day in the non-club, dinner group.  I'm really excited about it.  Sabrina, Amy, Linsey and I are all making 4 of the same meal on Monday and then we meet to trade, and everyone ends up with 4 different meals.  So far I love it!  It's so nice to not have to think about what to make every night.  Really makes a difference. 10-8-12

- Monday was also my 6 week post-partum check-up.  He couldn't have been more pleased with the amount of healing.  He said I'm good to go back to my normal routines, I can lift, exercise, etc.... ;).... all is well.  And that's a wrap!

- Sunday morning went SO WELL yesterday!!  I really couldn't have asked for more!  I was all patient and cheerful, and even with all the usual wardrobe malfunctions and lost clothing, we still managed to get out the door on time with everything (well, except for Noah's shoes as we discovered when I was dropping him off to his class), AND a smile!  I was so proud of myself and so happy to have been able to enjoy the morning with my kiddos.  It's not always like that with Nate gone.  But Heavenly Father saw fit to bless me with a nice morning and the ability to keep it that way!  Even at church when things got hectic and less reverent in Sacrament meeting than I would like, I was able to stay patient.  Such a tender mercy.  Don't want to forget it.

- At the family meeting, Sunday, Noah and Erika were being shy as always.  Noah desired another cookie, so I told him he could go get one.  When he realized that the container of cookies was between Ali and Ashlyn, and he would essentially have to go between them to get one, he requested that I go with him.  I've been trying for a long time to get these kids to warm up to their Aunts and Uncles and cousins at the family meeting, so I wasn't about to miss out on this opportunity.  I told him that if he really wanted a second cookie, he would have to be brave and get it himself.  He argued with me for a little while, not verbally, just with his sweet little eyes, as he sucked on his fingers and patted his face with his ee-oh.  I was not going to give in, but just then, Erika came over and was wondering what was wrong with Noah.  I told him that if he wanted to ask Erika to go with him he could.  So he did.  She was more than happy to be his moral support.  So off they went. (sounds like they're going on this long trek, it was really only about 5 or 6 feet away from me).  Erika totally took charge and when they got to where they would need to part a little, (only one could fit between Ali and Ash), Erika took the lead and walked right up to the box to open it.  Ali stopped her and asked if she could help her get a cookie, and Noah then spoke up and informed her that it was he that wanted a second cookie.  Erika grabbed one for him, and they were on their way.  I LOVE the relationship between these two.  Noah relies on her as much as she does on him.  They really are such equals in each other's eye.  It's amazing.  So sweet.  One day I'll post about my theories about my kids's roles in the pre-existence.  10-14-12

-

Brother's Day

Maybe you're wondering why I keep calling it "Brother's Day"? :)  I will tell you.  But of course, I'm going to make the story longer than it needs to be... I get that from my Grandpa :)

Having Bradley's baptism and Jack's blessing on the same day was something I struggled with, simply because I like to do things the way that I do them :).  I don't combine special occasions like this, I like things to be separate, and everyone to have their OWN moment/day.  I talked myself in and out of the idea several times and then settled on not doing it because I didn't want to inconvenience the Bishop.  Well, oddly enough, as we were discussing the matter on one of our walks, we ran right into the Bishop!  We talked to him about how their special days would need to be so close together and the first thing he said, even interrupting what we were saying, was, "Why don't you just bless Jack at the Baptism?"  (We had gone to great lengths to change Bradley's baptism day so that he could be baptized on a different day from Enoch, so it was already not on the day it was supposed to be and with just our family.)  This gave me a little more encouragement, to hear that the Bishop was so for it.  But I still had my reservations.  I knew it would be more convenient in a LOT of ways, for more than just myself, as far as the luncheon afterward, and inviting everyone out, and I knew that Jack was too young to care.  But I did worry about how Bradley would feel about sharing his big day.  He had watched his big sisters enjoy their baptism days, getting ALL of the attention and all.  So I was nervous to even propose the idea to him.  My boys have a tendency to go along with things I ask them about simply because they like to please their Mommy.  Sweet huh.  So anyway.  Before finalizing our decision, we approached Bradley with the idea, and crazy enough, he was ALL FOR IT!  He loved the idea of sharing the day with the coolest, new member of the family.  He loved that he got to have pictures taken with him, he loved that it was THEIR day.  Such a cool little kid.  I was so proud of him.  And then he did the ultimate, and named it "Brother's Day" :).  Awesome huh!

So we began planning.  

I think we've gotten really good at planning these kinds of things with low stress.  It just means spreading out all the preparations over several days (and in our case, weeks).  Things were funny this time, with having to buy a suit and get it tailored, and all the new boy things that we weren't familiar with yet, but for the most part it was the same as with the girls.  At least with the non-spiritual parts of it.  

For the important Spiritual preparations, however, each kid has been so different.  It's neat to watch.  They all have their own style.  I loved watching Bradley through this decision.  He was so sure of himself, so ready and so easy-going about it all.  There probably weren't a LOT of surprises for him, but if there were any, we wouldn't have known.  He knows how to keep his cool :).  I love that about my Brad.  And how he takes it so seriously.  That means a lot.

SO the big day finally came!! We did so good at getting ready the morning of.  We were on time to the church, had everything we needed.  Jack of course needed to be fed, and there were some guests who were late, so it all kind of worked out together because of that.  The program went really smoothly, I was happy about that.  We'd worked so hard on getting it just right.  It went like this:

Opening Song: "Praise to the Man" (a new favorite of our kids' :) )

Opening Prayer:  Aunt Nancy

Bishop conducted, Aunt Sarah lead the music, and Andrea Petersen our neighbor played the piano

Grandma Ruthie did the talk on Baptism (she compared life to a road trip and using the scriptures as our road map, also choosing the right driver)

Nate baptized him

Grandpa Russ and Uncle Brent were witnesses (Dan had not made it in time thanks to traffic)

Then Charity and Kelly (Erika stood up in the front with them, her choice :) ): Famililes Are Forever

Talk on Holy Ghost: Aunt Meg (she used a stop sign to explain the roles the HOly Ghost has, very cool!)

Nate confirmed him

Uncle Dan, Uncle Chris, Uncle Brent, Grandpa Russ, Uncle Mark, Bishop Pierson, Simon and John Kirshbaum (Heidi's boyfriend) all stood in the circle.

Then for their convenience, they stayed up there and blessed Jack right after.

Then the Bishop talked with Bradley reminding him of the things Grandma and Meg had talked about.

Then we sang When I Am Baptized 

and Aunt Jen said the closing prayer.

Such a nice day.  All of the Primary Presidency were there, and so sweet and helpful with it all.  We really had a lot of support from everyone and I loved that.  

I only cried a little.  

Bradley, baptism was so neat.  I always get chills when someone goes under the water and comes back up.  The Spirit just pours over you!  It's so cool!  I think it might be even stronger when it's one of your own little investigators.  I feel like we've worked so hard on teaching Bradley the importance of this day and having the Holy Ghost.  It's such a huge responsibility to be in charge of teaching these little ones all that they need to know to get them to this point.  I feel very honored to be Bradley's Mom. I know he is a special little boy.  I know that our Heavenly Father loves him and that he has a lot of work for him to do as he grows and strengthens his testimony.  I hope we can be aides in getting him to the position that Heavenly Father wants him to be in one day.  I know he will do so much!  I can't say I didn't miss being able to help get dressed afterward.  I loved that time with the girls and admittedly did feel a little left out of everything this time since he's a boy :).  But he gave me a sweet hug afterward, and I will always have the sweet moments that Bradley and I have shared talking about these things.  I am glad that he and his Dad get to share that time as well.  It's just such a special day!!  So neat!

Jack's Blessing was beautiful.  I'm so grateful to have a Man who can perform this ordinance, and who takes it seriously.  I love hearing what he says and feeling the Spirit testify that it is what Heavenly Father would have him say.  It was just so sweet.  Just like Jack.  He is such a peaceful, calming influence for our family.  

I will write down the thoughts I had during Jack's blessing in my journal as usual.

What a beautiful day!!  I really couldn't have asked for more.  

Here are the pics!

Since I had to go in the Mother's Lounge to feed Jack, I left my camera with my Dad, he gave it to Charity, and we ended up with a lot of fun pictures of beforehand:

It's not hard to believe these two looked like twinners when they were babies :)  They still look a little alike..

I guess all my worrying paid off, because Jack did marvelously during the whole program!  I fed him, he burped, then I bounced him a little on my lap during the first part, and then he decided a nap was in order!  He slept through the rest of the program, including during his blessing.  Such a sweet little guy!

 Lots of supporters!

I love this picture.  I'm so glad we stopped and took pictures after, no matter how dorky we may have looked up there in front of everyone :)

I might have to frame this one.

It was worth a try :)

Becky sent me a bunch of the pictures she took throughout the day... these were my favorites:

I can't get over Lukey's face :)  And now I know where Bradley was looking in the better picture of everyone else that Sarah got ;)  Fun stuff.

We of course had a little luncheon afterwards at our house.  It was nice.  I keep running things through my head, and thinking of things I didn't think of that would have made it better, but I'm sure I'm just being my paranoid self.  I loved having everyone here, and visiting... that's always fun.  I think everyone had a good time.  It was just a neat day, all the way around!