Mickey Mouse

Jack has recently discovered Disney Junior on the ipad.. otherwise we have never watched disney or mickey mouse… he is a little confused on the name however:

“Mom, I want to watch Squeaky Mouse.”

Birthday Boys

My friend Katy Paskett was kind enough to take my boys picture together on their birthday. I love it! Thanks Katy!

Birthday Party with the Millers

Luke with Aunt Torrie. She got his birthday hat on him for about 2.4 seconds. I brought those party noise makers… note to self… never again.

 

Jack and his favorite gal pal Ellie. Look at my sad looking cake, not so great the second round. I was so not cut out to be a cake decorator.

Jack, Ellie, Luke, Grandma, Ezra, Torrie, Wade.

These kids will do anything to come to Grandma’s house, it is the best place in the whole world. I love how grandma and grandpa always are so welcoming and spend so much time listening and spending time with their grandkids.

 

Jack has a shy nature as you all know. So this year I have put him in anything and everything. He did swim lessons all summer and recently passed to the next level “eel”, he did T-ball in June, he enjoyed that but he definitly was interested in the dirt and grass and dandelions and collecting pinecones… he was in the outfield a bunch. And getting the bases down took awhile but it was so fun to go sit in the sun and watch him play. It was really good for him.

It snowed the other day (of course all the snow is gone now), had lots of fun building snowballs and snowmen and sliding and snow angels. Love that boy.

What has Mom been doing?

I know I am guilty of chronically posting about my children. And that’s about it. (Being a mom and all sometimes I forget that I do stuff as well, its just never as exciting or cute, you know?)

I have been taking care of our home, I love flowers and taking care of outside stuff in the summer time.


This year Kara inspired us to raise some chickens. They have been SOO fun. When we went and got them Jack was so excited he was beside himself, and was so excited to have chickens in a box. (they put the chicks in a little tiny box to take home). We have raised them from chicks (That was probably the funnest part.) We had them in a tote in our garage and Jack loved to watch and hold them. They are so adorable. Then they got bigger with feathers and started hopping out of the tote, so we needed to build a coop. I looked some up online and knew what I thought we could do, but Dan didn’t see my vision so I decided to take him to Cal-ranch to show him some of theirs to get an idea… and we came home with a Cal-ranch pre fabricated coop. Its perfect for the “small urban farmer”.  They are just now starting to lay eggs. One lays brown eggs and another just started and lays green eggs. Jack loves collecting the eggs every morning and having green eggs for breakfast. Most of the summer we let them free range in our back yard, we have never had such a great garden with the help of their fertilizer and it has helped our grass also, but by the end of summer I was tired of the chicken poop on my back porch so we decided to build a small fence (the lower half). But they kept getting out so I thought they must be flying over (even though we clipped their wings… that was an adventure, but in my defense I did watch a youtube video to see how it was done  lol) Anyways they kep getting out so we decided to make a taller fence, so now our fence looks REALLY redneck. Next year we plan on putting a nicer looking fence up. but for we will look hillbilly. At least noone can see it but us , I always say keep the front your pristine and the back can be toys and mess and fun! I really do love my chickens. We also used to put them in the coop at night and one night Dan was doing it but they wouldn’t go in for him, he got really frustrated and started herding them with a baseball bat… we are glad to still have 5 of 5 chickens. They like me more than Dan lol, they will follow me around the yard, and I can pick them up, they love to see the boys and will play around them.
This summer we also went to rigby lake.. A LOT, at least once a week sometimes 2-3 times. Seriously the funnest summer activity. We love going with Torrie and kids they have so much fun in the sun. My trunk was full all summer with the necessities of lake going.  Jack got really comfortable in the water and he would even go on the water slide with me. ( he wears a life jacket all the time of course, and had a sweet life jacket tan line). Luke also enjoyed the lake and playing with spencer and trying to eat the sand. Boy the tub was full of sand each time we got home and washed up. We talked Kara into joining us once... she thinks we are crazy. We did float the canal a few times with the smiths. That was also fun, but Luke couldn't join us on that adventure.

Brotherly Fun

These two love playing together. In some ways it was nice that Luke started walking at 10 months, then he can keep up with Jack. Luke really enjoys wrestling and tackling Jack. He is a pretty rough little guy.

Pumpkin Patch

Every year we celebrate the “Great Pumpkin”. Gram and Papa were in town so we went to the Red barn and their pumpkin patch.

Just one of the pumpkins.

Gram , Jack, Luke, Papa.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE fall and winter. So this is always a fun time.

Cowboy

Jack got a cowboy hat and boots and electric toothbrush.. lucky boy.

Baby in Boots

For some reason there is nothing cuter than a Baby in his diaper with boots on. And playing with his tractor that he loves. Pop Pop Pop brrrrr. Im not really sure how to spell out a tractor sound.  Luke is NOT interested in playing with the baby toys, or the baby tractors..he want the real deal.

Birthday with the Martins

As you know Luke’s birthday is September 29th and Jack’s is October 1st. But that didn’t stop us from having 3 parties!

First we partied with Gram and Papa Martin and Sina’s family. It was a nice time, we played outside in the awesome weather (of course Papa couldn’t contain the urge to escape so he and dan went to some manly store..) then we had a pizza party. Then onto the cake. My mom insisted Luke have his own cake to destroy, not just a slice. I was cheap and was only going to give him a slice, but of course gram pulled through with her own fancy gourmet chocolate fudge cake all for Luke. And he DEVOURED it. Here is the cake I made for the boys:

 

My 3 favorite guys.

I don’t know what is happening, but I’m sure excited!

The beginning.

The Middle.

The End.

Happy Birthday Buddies! I will try to post a video but we will see how that goes…

Luke got a bday card from Jack.

Playing Outside

We of course spent some time outside.

Luke chewing on the lawn mower string… YUM! He loves outside, and he gets ROYALLY mad if

a. You don’t take him outside.

b. You bring him inside.

c. Jack goes out without him.

Preschool

This Fall Jack started Preschool with Mrs. Hammer. It is just around the corner from our house with a nice lady in our ward. That is nice because I feel I can trust her and Jack knows some of the other kids in his class of 10 kids. He goes tues and thurs from 9-11. He has done pretty well from the start. He has only cried about going maybe 2 times. I am trying to get him to be more independent and confident so I drop him off and make him walk himself to the garage door and into the house (of course I always sneak when he isnt watching to make sure he made it all the way down the stairs to the school room, but that’s our little secret). For about the first month his teacher said he was SUPER shy and wouldn’t talk but finally he is making progress and will talk to his teacher. I can’t believe how big he is getting. He loves going now and asks daily if we are going. They are learning letters, doing worksheets, making crafts, practicing writing their names… It has been great for him and I love his enthusiasm.

One of his creations at school a cowboy vest. With mom’s boots to complete the look. Later I asked him if he wanted to wear his cowboy vest and he said “NO MOM, we don’t have HORSES!”

Helmet Mania

 

 

Suzie requested and Patty for many months now that I post of the latest and greatest happenings.. This summer we endured the dreaded HELMET! Luke’s head was flat on the right back, they were concerned about his soft spot because it was so small. But thankfully it was still open so no surgery necessary. It worked nicely and we had it on all summer. Now that was a bummer. We had to be careful not to be in the sunshine so we didn’t roast his noggin. Also you can’t put on any lotion or anything on his head so no sunscreen. He did pretty well with it. I missed being able to kiss his sweet head and smell that sweet baby scent. Because with all that sweat his head ended up smelling like a foot. And it wasn’t till the last few weeks that he figured out how to take it off.  I have some cute pictures of the lake with his helmet and man sized fisherman hat I made him wear. Isn’t it great to know they can fix stuff like this so easily?

Dan’s Irresistable charm

I got a new camera and it has a panorama setting… so we thought we would try it out……hopefully you find this pic as hilarious as we do!

Halloween

 

Running to the car from a FUN Halloween party at preschool. (Mrs. Hammer in the back)

My little Ghost! BOO! He originally wanted to be a cowboy, but a few days before the big day he changed to a ghost. I LOVE DIY costumes. Seriously I bought a can of hair spray paint for $2, and a yard of clearance see through fabric for $2.50 and cut it to fit! I had him put on his Halloween pj bottoms and a white shirt. We did originally have face paint but it wouldn’t dry and jack said “its really bugging me mom” so we wiped it off. He got a lot of compliments on his costume (tooting my horn..toot toot).

Here is my Luke boy. An what a great MONKEY he made! Funny note Kara was telling me that my kids costumes are so appropriate… I was confused like appropriate?? What do you mean? like modest? I don’t get it…. Kara’s like DUH! Jack is quiet as a ghost and well Luke… is a monkey!  And about a day later Grandpa Miller said the same thing. Made me laugh.

We got to go trunk or treating with our cousins. Jack  loves playing with Gavin, they always have a lot of fun.

from L to R.

Babies Lydia and Abigail (can’t remember which is the flower and which is the Bee) Scott, Gavin, Natalie, Rebecca, Dan, Luke and Jack! It was fun but the set up of the trunk or treat was REALLY WEIRD! They said it started at 6 but they were doing like a costume contest then dougnuts and hot cocoa (do we really need the added sugar??) then forever later finally the trunk or treat. Next year I think I will try to organize a normal  trunk or treat for the neighborhood. Come and Six do your thing and be done! All in all it was a fun time.

We also carved pumpkins while dad had EQ visits. And Luke was sleeping. I am a terrible mom and didn’t let Luke participate, trying to contain the mess and all….. Every night we had to light our pumpkins. It was so fun the night we carved it had snowed and snowed. When we were done we put them on the steps and lit them and we had a snowball fight. Jack thought that was special, in fact he said about the evening, “Mom its really magical, huh?” Year, darling pumpkin it is!

This is what I call INGENUITY. They are all BOY!