Henry is growing up!

I have neglected to take pictures of my kids the last few weeks. Sadly, Henry has much fewer pictures than his brother (typical). I took him in for his 15 mo well check, and he is much smaller than his brother was at that age. Here are the stats:
23 lbs  28%
32 in    76%
He's still small enough to be small to me. I love that he eats everything and loves to mimmic his brother. Last night we played red light/green light, and he insisted on doing everything we do. He is a ball of energy and loves to climb on EVERYTHING. I don't know when this stage will end, but I hope soon. He's started playing well with toys and his brother. This has led to many blissfull moments for me to get things done without his "help". He is so quick to understand everything, and is really good at sleeping. He has one more tooth to come in, then we can finally be done with that! He enjoys being outdoors and LOVES animals. He does all the the sounds when prompted. His favorite movie is the LION KING. He says a few words like: "mama, dada, hot, water, car, go, cracker, grandma." He signs for a lot of things, mostly when asked, but is great at it!
We just need to get him past the clingy stage to welcome baby brother...sigh. We sure love him!
Here's a few photos taken today for this post...

happy halloween

Cornbelly's

Last year we went to cornbellys with the kids and we all LOVED IT! We decided to try it again this year. Unfortunately, we picked the WRONG day to go. It was super windy and very cold. We only lasted just over an hour. The kids had fun, despite the weather, but we decided to cut our losses, and plan better next year.

Porter jumping on the pillows

 The kids loved the singing farm animals

My latest project

It only took 2 days and a long night to go from this:

To this:

I only did my hallway, kitchen and the great room, but those ceilings are high, and the time it took to climb and unclimb and reposition the ladders on the stairs and the great room was the biggest time-taker. I did run across THE BEST tools for the job- one is the shur-line edger. ($5)  Those smooth lines? No taping! Not a lie. It saved me loads of time and frustration. The second is the Wagner turboroll. It's a paint roller that hold all the paint in the handle, and I could do more than one wall without going back for more paint. Totally worth the $ for the time it saved me. ($40) I just have to do the rest of the house now, and pick a color for the archways.

Halloween Craft

It has been awhile since we've done a craft, and we wanted to do some Halloween wreaths. The descrepancy was our door colors. Tea's is white, and mine is black. She found a really cute wreath I though I could replicate for my door (picture now unavailable-from etsy). It would be cheap and fast.  During Priesthood session, we got started but my kids weren't allowing us much undivided attention, so we did them one at a time. Hers turned out super cute, and fast, and easy. Mine was a different story...

I bought a foam wreath, and covered it with quilting batting, then wrapped it tightly with gauze.

Then, I did it again, this time loosly.

After that step, we ripped up some gauze, and placed it haphazardly around the wreath. I ended up sewing on the gauze strips, because gluing it would show too well...that took the longest.

Then I found some mummy hands at Michaels and spray painted some black and brown and glued them to the wreath. Then I hung a rediculously short ribbon around it, (because I wasn't thinking at the craft store) and viola! It's done!

Can you tell what I am?

It's a boy!
We found out in May, but didn't openly publish it, except to those who would obviously be aware in the coming months. We were so sure it was a girl, with no real reason except we had felt since Henry was born that the next would be a girl. And I started laughing when I noticed what was up in the ultrasound.
"What are we going to do with 3 boys!!!" That's the common phrase around our house. We don't have even 1 boy that will sit through a cartoon yet, so I have NO idea (and yet, a whole lot of ideas) of what I'm getting myself into.
The surprise came when we didn't actually miscarry-which was why we started so early...so I guess we can plan on never being in control. We'll leave that up to the Lord.
We are excited, nervous, and just plain scared. I had convinced myself that it was ok to have a girl, and started seeing visions of pink and hairbows, and dresses, but now, we are back on budget, and happy just the same! No names to agree on yet, and a minivan to purchase, but we can wait on those things:)
We are due Jan 9th.

Park City

Our annual trip to Park City came and went so fast! The boys had a blast swimming every day, running around, fishing and just enjoying the "hotel room". It was beautiful weather all week, and we took the kids out on the bike trail a couple of times. The kids liked roaming around, and just lazying and being together. Of course, a trip to Park City wouldn't be complete without a ride down the Alpine Slide!

Heading up to the slide

Riding the airplanes

 Climbing the rope tower

Henry running around

In a bobsled

Typical play-date.

Porter is 3

Porter's birthday always lies around Labor Day, which makes is hard, yet fun to plan parties. Since we just had Henry's party and invited the family, we didn't want them to have to come to another one, so we had a low-key friend party this year. And, just like Henry's, it rained. At least we were able to party, though.
My mom and dad and Tea and Ryan came Sunday for Porter's favorite dinner-spaghetti, and we opened the family gifts.

Monday (Labor Day) we invited some friends and their families to come to a water party. We bought a water table, had the slip and slide going, and bought water guns for all the kids. It was overcast and perfect. We all hung out under the tents and ate hot dogs and had cake and ice cream. It was wonderful, as you can see:

3 yr stats:
31 lbs
39 in
You have been such a joy to have in my life. You answer all questions with a full sentence: "yes I am," or "yes I do". I am amazed each day at your intellect. It seems you are far too knowledgeable for your age. You are beginning the "why" stage. You have such a methodic mind. You love to put puzzles together. It takes you once with help, and you can do 24 pieces in a few minutes. I love watching you talk to yourself while you do an activity. You are beginning imaginative play. It is so neat to watch you start playing with other kids and make up stories. I LOVE IT! You are a big helper around the house, and you are understanding that work brings rewards. You are good at obeying and you always stay close. I don't remember when you were too little to do that!  Thank you for all your goodness and your fun. Life would be so dull without you in it. Thanks for making me laugh each day, and for always reminding me why I love being your mom.

Outdoors in August

In August we also went to the family cabin site-affectionately called The Pines for a little getaway with nature. The boys love it, and since there's indoor plumbing now , I love it too. Here we are at Meek's Cabin Reservoir:

Here's Porter at the bottom of the Y. I hiked it with him when a friend and her family came to town to visit. Its funny how the hike always seems shorter than it is-or maybe it's shorter when there isn't a 2 yr old climbing it with you.

And canning. Lets not forget canning. My sister came over the middle of July to can so jam with me. She had never done it, and I wanted her to learn how. Instead of a monthly craft, we learned a useful skill instead. These are strawberry and raspberry jam, all from our garden! This summer I've also done beans, beets, and salsa. It's my dream to put in a canning kitchen in the basement when we finish it someday...

We went to Boise, ID in August for Evan's family. His big sister Linda, had 3 kids with big events. We're grateful they squeezed it in in one weekend! Her daughter was baptized on Saturday, her son had a mission farewell sunday, (first grandbaby AND missionary in the family, and we are so proud of him) and a baby blessing the same day. Talk about crazy! She handled it all very well, and we ate ourselves silly. We headed to Salt Lake that night where we slept soundly until monday, when we hopped a plane and arrived in Washington D.C. (yet again). This was the first time there that we didn't see any historic sites, monuments, or parks. (We did stop in at the Air and Space Museum the last day, for Evan) We spent our days in the hotel room, which was treat enough for the kids. Eating out-YES PLEASE! and doing a lot of walking and riding the metro-as usual. It was great to see Evan during our time there, since we hardly see him during the day on business trips. It was like a real family vacation! Thanks again to Evan's company for the wonderful accommodations and putting up with our kids during meals!

Me and Henry at the Nationals baseball game

At the Air and Space Museum

Henry is 1

From the stress of having strangers in my home, keeping it clean, and worrying about a birthday cake, we had a pretty low-key celebration this year. If you remember Porter's shin-dig for his 1st, (click here) it was nothing like that. We didn't even buy him gifts. We had some hand-me-down from a cousin that were put into a box that he opened. I threw the cake together that morning, sunday because the dancers were supposed to be gone, and it was a good day for a family to get together for a BBQ-our favorite thing. We had our families all here and ate well and played well. We sang, cut the cake, and opened presents. Pretty much a perfect day. I love my family!

At one year you are:
21.5 lbs
38 in.

• you are so busy! I follow you around most days and pick up what you've scattered around the house.
• you have the highest pitched scream I've ever heard
• you love to copy whatever Porter does
• you beg to be held all day long, and scream and cry if you don't get your way
• you are super independent and won't let us feed you anything you can't eat by yourself
• you are starting to run, and climb on EVERYTHING!
• have the cutest smile that melts my heart
• still let me cuddle with you and sing to you at bedtime. 
• you go down to sleep easily and have learned to fall asleep on your own
• have 8 teeth
• love to be outside

Shalom Israel

We had the opportunity to be a host family for some Israeli folk dancers for the Springville Folk Fest this year. We went back and forth about it, but decided we'd wanted to do it. Last year, the date fell over Henry's due date, and we couldn't have THAT mess to deal with...but our neighbors did it last year, and wanted to do it again, so we hosted together, which turned out FABULOUS!
We were put with Israel last-minute when our Aremenian dance team canceled a few days before hand. We had a good time with our dancer-men, and got to see some pretty cool folk dancing too! Our neighbors hosted 2 men, and we hosted 2 men. It wasn't what we originally planned on, but we were glad to help. If you personally know any Israelis, then you might have a clue as to how our week went...if you don't, then I will just leave it at that. It was an experience to say the least. They LOVED our boys, and Henry especially LOVED them!

Henry with Ofir

Henry with Aviel

Since Henry celebrated a birthday while they were here, we hosted a big BBQ (somewhat kosher) for all the dancers and their host families. We sung happy birthday and he was showered with attention, of course.