want some more?

Nathan is on the verge of smiling real smiles for us. He's flashed us a few ear to ear grins over the past few weeks, but they've seemed a little more intestinally motivated than the social smiles we're starting to see now. Jarom and I have especially enjoyed coaxing the smiles out of him later in the evening after the other kiddos have gone to bed. Having a new baby in the house is the best!

Don't you just want to kiss those chubby cheeks?

The beginning of a grin.

Big smile.

Nathan melts our hearts. . .

even when he's mad.

for the fam. . .

I've been terrible about posting pictures of Nathan here for our far away family to see. Here are just a few for now. . .

Nathan with all his Christmas loot. I love the "cheerio mouth" stage. It never lasts long enough for me. . .

The kid is going to need a haircut soon. . . he's got an impressive head of hair! Jarom's a little jealous.

Our Boys

Olivia requested that we take a picture of her with Nathan this particular day. She really wanted to include her birthday crown and candy cane art work. Apparently, Nathan didn't like fighting for the spotlight.

timely

At the end of a mentally (and sometimes physically) difficult pregnancy, I was especially glad to have had this reminder and thought it was quite timely. Thanks LL for sharing the link!

I hope anyone who still checks my blog and hasn't seen this, enjoys the message.

It made me smile to think about all I have to be thankful for. . .

BoO!

Here are a few spooky images from this last week. . .

We took the kids to the pumpkin farm down the road to choose their pumpkins. We didn't bring any ginormous ones like these home, but the kids had fun walking through them.

The kids had a chance to debut their costumes this weekend at two HalLOweEn parties.

Jack had been set on being an eyeball since last Halloween (he was certain that I could just whip that costume up no problem), but happily/lucky for me he changed his mind at the last minute and opted for a spooky ghost. Phew! Hooray for having an old white sheet on hand. . .

Olivia set her heart on being a cowgirl after watching the Oakley Rodeo this past June. Impressively she didn't waver once from her decision and lucky for me sewing her costume was much less difficult than I'd imagined. Hooray for Target and their cute cowgirl boots and the cowboy store in UT for stocking pink cowgirl hats. . .

Anna made life easy for me this year by declaring that she wanted to be a "stay-wee witch" with a green face. She did try to change her mind a few times (a fish and skeleton were both on her list), but luckily I was able to steer her back to the scary witch costume we already had. Hooray for recycled costumes and for awesome "stay-wee" faces. . .

As far as spooky goes, this one takes the cake.

Four weeks and counting.

What in the world???

a little lesson from Jack. . .

Jack brought this book home on the second day of school.

He wrote it (well, dictated to his teacher) and illustrated it during his "free choice" time and was beyond excited to read it to me when he got off the bus. I was quite enlightened and impressed by his artistic details (let alone the subject matter). . . as was his teacher.

For your reading pleasure I thought I'd share it here too.

Enjoy!

Awesome.

First Day

We had a fun filled week last week. . . two first days of school. One for Jack on Tuesday and then Olivia's on Wednesday. I did take pictures and then our camera died (taking all the pictures of Jack's first day with it). Boo. Jarom took some pictures the next day of Olivia and Jack, but I haven't pulled them off his phone yet. I'll post them soon. . . promise.

Daddy, I love you as much as . . .

an ONION!

Who am I to tell a little girl that she shouldn't give her Dad an onion for Valentines?? Olivia's got class (and creativity). It was (obviously, I hope) all her idea. She and I were visiting a family who had just moved into our ward and while we were chatting, Olivia spotted the onions. She very politely asked if she could please have an onion in a little baggie to take home. I tried to give an easy out to the woman we were visiting, but she was more than happy to oblige Olivia's odd request. Bewildered, I asked Olivia as I was helping her get buckled into the car what she wanted an onion for and she excitedly exclaimed that it was for Dad for Valentines Day! So if you ever wonder what to give the one you love for Valentines Day, Olivia would suggest an onion. Why not??

two things. . .

First - For anyone who wondered (even just a little bit) if Jarom's birthday gift to me was serious, let me clarify. . . I never intend to wear that stunning article of clothing again and thankfully, Jarom never expected me too. It was all a big fat joke. Apparently there was some confusion out there about the joke part of that lovely dress. I just wanted to make sure y'all didn't give Jarom less credit than he deserved at making my birthday awesome. I'll take an ugly dress and a pre-arranged day of babysitting so that I can go shopping anyday!

Second - The cat's out of the bag now. Or maybe I should say the baby is. OR maybe I should say the news about baby quatro is out. . . since little four has another six months to hang out in utero. We are all very excited to welcome another little to our family. I'm "due" November 28th. Obviously in these last months my blog has been horribly neglected. I think I'll blame the "morning" sickness that in the beginning was my companion 24 hours a day and has finally (in the last week) mellowed to hanging around for only 4-6 hours in the evening. So, I make no promises that my poor little blog won't see more days of neglect, but I'll try really hard to be better about posting stuff. I've got a long old list of pictures and stories to post. . .

what's in the bag?

coming soon from a slacker you know. . .

an actual blog post.

with real pictures.

and real updates on our happenings here.

seriously.




did you fall off your chair?

i'm back.

shocking.

i know.