Pumpkin Walk

We made it to the Pumpkin Walk this year... finally. We've always meant to go but missed it. Gavin just hung out in the stroller and we thought he looked pretty darn cute in his hat.

We thought the best scene was definitely MASH since my family are die-hard MASH fans. It was really awesome!

 Klinger in his dress.

 Hawkeye, BJ and Charles in the Swamp. They even had their still in the back!

 Father Mulcahy at his Piano at Rosie's.

Lauren's favorite was the Dr. Suess scene with Horton. :) She thought all the "pun-KINS" were pretty neat.

 I also liked Gene Kelly  in the Singin' in the Rain scene; working rain and all, since it's one of my favorite musicals.

Heart Attack

Poor Chase and Gavin, pretty sure they both experienced an almost-heart-attack on Sunday.

Gavin fell out of his car seat onto the hard church floor.

Chase had Gavin during Sunday school and Priesthood since I was with the primary practicing for our program next week. Gavin was fussy and tired and Chase finally got him to sleep. Chase gently put him into his car seat but didn't buckle him in as to not wake him up for the short walk down the hall.

Somehow the handle slipped out of the locking position and tipped the car seat all the way forward dumping Gavin out on his face. Thankfully it was a short fall, less than a foot, and he's still pretty squishy being only 3 months old...so he didn't get hurt at all. (We watched him really close the rest of the day though.)

I called Graco to see if we could get a replacement or some kind of reimbursement since this car seat was still within its expiration date. Long story short, we ordered a new one and Graco gave us a voucher to help with the cost since we don't trust the old one anymore.

We're glad that he's okay and he'll be cruisin' the town in his stylish new seat!

Harvest Season

Thanks to my mom and grandma our storage room is even fuller now. I'm glad that they know how to do these sorts of things so we all get to benefit from their knowledge.  We canned tomatoes, soup, pears, and applesauce.

I missed having a garden this year. Our garden plot needs some serious work before it will be ready for planting and that work was put on the back-burner this summer. Next year though... But thanks to family and neighbors we still got some huge zucchini and tomatoes!

Just Stuff

Not much going on in our lives right now. Which is nice... sometimes it's good to just be.

We did celebrate my birthday last Friday which was fun. I couldn't really think of anything that I wanted... so I told Chase to get me a new veggie peeler since my old one bit the dust. Which he did and it's so awesome... and lime green. (He calls it the most boring birthday present ever.) Didn't realize how much I used it until I didn't have one anymore. :) He got me a wheat grinder for our food storage too.

I asked Chase's parents for food storage and case lots. Everyone thought I was being silly wanting that for my birthday. But it makes me feel good seeing food on the shelves downstairs. Grocery shopping gives me the same satisfaction when I see a full fridge of food. I always felt a little apprehensive about food storage in our apartments as we didn't have much since we didn't want to move it. But now we're settled it's nice to be able to build it up.

I went birthday shopping with my mom and sister on Saturday before the Relief Society Broadcast. We had a blast and Chase was great to take the kids so I was childless for the day. My family came Sunday with homemade ice cream and lemon poppy seed cake in tow to celebrate!

I've been canning with my mom, we've done soup, tomatoes, and we're waiting for pears to come now.

We're loving this cooler weather. I love jacket season. It's nice to cuddle up inside where it's warm and watch the rain and the leaves turn colors.

Month 2

I feel like we're back to "normal" life in that we have some semblance of a routine during the day, finally! Gavin has started busting out the smiles, grins, and coos anytime someone glances his direction. I have yet to capture his big grin on camera though. :) He's been such a good baby, patient and sweet all the time. He's doing great sleeping through the night. Consistently 10 to 4-6 every night! One of my favorite parts of the day is when he wakes up in the morning and sees me standing over him and immediately grins.
 

 Lauren has been such a good big sister. I'll ask her sometimes to sit by Gavin and make him smile when I need to get something done for a minute. The other day I walked back into the room because I heard Gavin fussing a little. Lauren was sitting next to him patting his hand and telling him, "It's okay Gav...one min Gav..." Then she picked up his binky and instructed him to "open" and she stuck it in. Fussing stopped and all was well again. :) She always shares her toys with him and makes sure he has a blanket and binky at all times.

This picture makes me laugh. We watch cousin Jocelyn one day a week while my sister is at work. One day they both were sucking like mad on their binkies and both had hiccups while waving hi with their right hands. I'm pretty sure many more pictures of them together will happen, just like Lauren and Dallin have a bunch of pictures together.

Today

Today... was a long day.

A certain sneaky little girl innocently handed me my makeup case while feeding Gavin, smiling sweetly and saying, "ere go Mommy." Little did I know, in the next room she had my coverup stick in hand (which she knows she's not supposed to play with), smearing it all over herself, therefore smearing it all over my newly cleaned couch as well. Resulting in Timeout #1.

While getting dressed, said little girl comes into the bedroom wrapped up in scotch tape and can't get out. She hands me the scissors that she wasn't supposed to be able to reach, and knew she wasn't supposed to play with. I cut her free and notice that in addition to the mummifying tape job, she had a scissor-induced hole in her nice shirt. Timeout #2

Next half hour...after getting dressed I come into the living room to find said sneaky little girl lurking around the TV, which she also knows she's not supposed to play with. TV doesn't work anymore. No idea what she did. She's always been so good to let me shower and she'd sit and watch a show. Timeout #3.

While feeding Gavin again, I notice a distinct sound of silence. I call for Lauren and she comes out of the bathroom with the baby soap dripping from the open, empty, bottle on the carpet after completely lathering herself ALL over. Timeout #4.

So at this point I'm thinking, she is not going to see the end of the day if she keeps this up. But I figured maybe she was feeling jealous and needed some one-on-one parent time. So Chase took her to the park when he got home. And we thought that did the trick as she came home smiling and happily skipped off to bed.

Half hour later... I hear her door creak open. She excitedly bounds out and proudly holds up a large green crayon. I just knew what I was going to find...I scooped her up and we went to admire the green crayon mural all over her walls. No idea where this crayon came from. She spent the next 15 minutes washing her walls with a magic eraser.

It's a dang good thing she's cute...

Blessing Day!

Gavin had his big day on Sunday. Chase gave him a beautiful blessing. We're grateful we had so many family and friends come to help celebrate Gavin on his special day!