Homecoming and Blessing

On Sunday, November 9th, Jason's cousin Jared had his homecoming and his cousin Ryan blessed their little girl, Brisa. She's the cutest little thing and has so much dark hair. Jason's family was still in town so we were all able to go. The blessing was really nice and the parts of Jared's talk that I heard were really good. He also sang and has the most amazing voice. The spirit was so strong. I was out in the foyer with Logan during his talk so I wasn't able to hear most of it. Logan has become so crazy during sacrament meeting. He knows I bring snacks and whines for them and then he tries to escape from our pew. And he's just so loud, so I usually end up taking him out to the foyer. After church we headed to the Daley's for some lunch and family bonding time. Misty and Jody put together a cute little craft for the kids. They got to make "thankful turkey's" and had a blast doing it. After the craft we headed outside for a little nature walk. Each kid had their own brown bag and collected things along the way. Dax and Afton came back with their bags full of leaves, rocks and lots of berries.

In the collage of pictures, the bottom middle picture is of the kids playing the game "hullabaloo" and they were suppose to touch their nose to their knee.

Logan and Max hanging out on the stairs

Adam is so fun with the kids. They love playing with him.

Max Bud. Isn't he so cute?

Afton and Dax with their thankful turkeys. I love how Dax is hiding behind his. Grandma Joy was helping Dax with his turkey and on the feathers they wrote what they were thankful for and she said the first thing he said was that he was thankful for Jesus.

Dylen, Dax, Afton and Kya with their cute turkeys.

I blog again!

Finally, I blog again. It's been over a week since I last blogged and I've been having blogging withdrawals. So I thought I better blog some stuff before I have a melt down. As you can see there is lots that I've had to catch up on and still more I have to post. So enjoy!

New Visitors

We had some new visitors come into town last weekend. Rex, Sharon, Kari and Kya drove here last Friday. Afton and Dax were excited to have more visitors. They love having family come stay at our house. The reason for there visit was to help us with our deck in the backyard and for Jared's homecoming and Brisa's blessing. Jason has been wanting to build a deck in our backyard on the hill for awhile now and Rex had some material leftover, so he brought it down with him and helped Jason build the deck. I guess I should say he practically built the deck himself. And he did an amazing job! I have the best father-in-law. He's so great and not to mention very talented. He can build almost anything. Thanks Rex for driving here and building us a great deck. We're very excited to try it out. (I'll put some pictures in a later post)

Afton and Dax were so excited to have their cousin Kya staying at our house. And I think she was pretty excited to see them too. They had a blast together. Her and Dax played so well together and couldn't get enough of one another. When Kya would leave to go places with her mom, Dax was always asking for her. He wanted his buddy around to play with. It was too cute!

She is so dang cute!

The day after they got here, I had to take my mom to the airport. So we all hopped in the car and headed to the airport. After dropping her off, we drove over to Walnut Creek for some shopping. We stopped at H&M and found some really cute stuff. I had never heard of the store before but I loved it and got some really cute shirts. Thanks Sharon and Kari for letting me join in your shopping fun. I don't know if Jason appreciated it, but I sure did.

Dax stayed at home with the boys and Afton, Logan and Kya came shopping with us. They loved this big glass window in the store. Logan was waving to everyone outside.

Paris's Birthday

Afton was invited to her friend Paris's birthday party last Friday. And she couldn't wait to go. She had a Hannah Montana themed birthday party. The kids got to sing and color some cute pictures. They also got to have fun little makeovers. Afton had such a great time. She loved singing into the microphone. And my friend Amber did an amazing job with the party. She made these awesome guitar shaped invitations and a guitar shaped cake. It was all so great and Afton had a blast. Paris turned 8 and she's getting baptized on Sunday. We are so happy for her and the kids can't wait to go to her baptism.

Afton and Paris

Mom

My mom came to visit us for a couple of weeks. She came the week before Halloween and then left the week after. She had never been down for Halloween and wanted to be here with the kids. They were so excited to have her here visiting. They asked every night if they could sleep with G-ma Darla. We had a great visit with her. I've really been wanting to learn to sew, so she got me started when she was here. My good friend Amber came to my house and my mom gave us a little sewing lesson. We made these really cute headbands for our girls. I was so excited that I actually made something on my own. And I was so excited, that I picked up a pattern and some fabric to make some pj's for my kids. We'll see how that goes without my mom around. It was lots of fun to have my mom around and we were all sad to have her go. Thanks mom for coming to visit us. We miss you!

Of course the kiddos wanted to make silly faces.

PTC

On November 5th, we had our first parent-teacher conference with Afton's teacher. Our appointment was in the morning, so Jason was able to go with me. Afton's teacher is so great. She gave us a little report card on Afton's progress. They grade them in different areas each semester. The grades are 1 to 3, with 3 being the highest. And she got a three in all of the areas and her citizenship is great too. She got S's and S+'s. Her teacher said that one area that Afton excels in is her fine motor skills. She also does really great with their songs and rhymes. That girl loves to sing! She also told us that their is a little boy in Afton's class that has a crush on her. I guess this boy's dad had his conference with Mrs. Nightengale the day before and was telling her that Kaleb likes Afton so much. And I've actually seen them together when I go help in class and I think he does have a little crush. It's so funny! They love to chase each other around at recess. I'm definitely going to have my hands full with that girl. But we are so proud of her and happy that she is doing so well in school. I do have to share a funny story that Mrs. Nightengale shared with us. In class one day they were discussing different places that you can count. And she was telling the children you can count in the classroom, or at home or at a friends house. Some of the kids mentioned a few other places to count. And then Afton slowly raised her hand and Mrs. Nightengale called on her. And Afton said, "Um, you can count on the toilet." Jason and I just died laughing. It was hilarious! Mrs. Nightengale was cracking up too. She said it was so funny and she was trying so hard not to laugh when Afton said that. Geez, I wonder where she would ever think of something like that to say. Maybe I need to have a talk with Jason.

Painted Pumpkins

I finally let the kids paint their pumpkins that they've been dying to paint. I told them we'd paint pumpkins forever ago and we finally got around to doing it last week. It was after Halloween, but Afton and Dax had a blast and they didn't care that it was after Halloween. They were just dying to paint their pumpkins. Maybe I'll get on the ball next year and we'll do it before Halloween.

Nap time

Dax doesn't really take naps anymore, but occasionally he'll fall asleep in random places when he's really tired. A couple weeks ago, he was eating his lunch and kept saying that he wanted to go to bed because he was really tired. I told him that he needed to finish his lunch and then he could take a nap. Well, I guess he was too tired to eat his lunch because he fell alseep on the bar stools. That kid can sleep anywhere!

Logan

Logan had his 15 month check-up on October 28th. I can't believe he's already 15 months and he's doing great. He weighed 24 lbs 2 oz. and he's 31 inches tall. Oh and I can't forget the head measurement. It was 49 cm and I think it was in the 90th percentile. My kids all have big heads. He's in the 50th percentile for both weight and height. And I think he's closer to 25 pounds now. That kid can eat! And he's got the tummy to prove it. It's huge!

New things for Logan:

-he's stopped playing with his ear when he sucks his thumb. Now he twirls his hair and runs his fingers through his hair. Occasionally he'll still tug on his ear, but now he mostly plays with his hair. It's so cute!

-I had mentioned that he was getting like 4 teeth a little while ago. Well, most of them have come in. He's got all four molars and two more in the bottom front. So he got like 6 teeth all at once. I couldn't believe it. I guess he really needed all of those teeth for how much food he eats.

-Logan says grandpa now. After Rex and Sharon and Kari came for a visit, he started saying grandpa. He says, "dampa." His favorite words now are "dadda" and "dampa." Rex was so proud.

-He loves to throw things and hit people. I remember this stage with Dax and it's no fun. I feel bad for Afton and Dax because they are the ones that usually suffer from his blows. He's always trying to whack them in the head. When he gets tired of doing that, he'll start to throw things at the tv. He actually has a really good arm. He throws pretty good and I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

-he still loves to give people fives, but now they're more intensified hi-fives. He pulls his arm all the way back behind him and then swings it down hard on your hand.

Pumpkins

We kind of got our pumpkins carved a little late this year. We usually try to do it the Monday before Halloween for FHE, but didn't get it done. So we started on them the night before Halloween and Jason finished them up the day after Halloween. We went online to find some fun free patterns and let the kids choose what they wanted. Afton chose a spider and Dax chose Frankenstein. Afton's pumpkin maybe lasted one day. I walked by it today and it's already moldy and sinking in on itself. I think we may do the paint thing next year. My kids have been dying to paint pumpkins.