Pumpkin Patch

Friday afternoon I met up with my sisters-in-law and all 11 grandkids to pick out pumpkins. The kids had a great time running through the hay maze and then pulling carts around the patch until they found the perfect pumpkin. We had to sort out what was what before we went to pay since we had lots of helpers, but we found some great pumpkins and are excited to make good use of them this Halloween. Preston, Kylie, and Millie were so cute riding on Amy's cart together, but they barely fit on there by the time we were done loading it up with pumpkins. The weather was perfect and it was great for the kids to see each other. Aunt Amy was brave taking home three extra kids for a sleep over (which Dylan ended up coming home early from...he said he missed us. Who knew?). Anyway, here are a couple pictures from the pumpkin patch adventure. I LOVE FALL!

Train Museum

As part of our train unit (which is now a "transportation" unit) we headed to Ogden's Union Pacific Railroad Station for a field trip last Friday. I'd been a long time ago, but not recent and was pleasantly surprised. The boys had a great time climbing all over the trains outside. My mom and Tony stopped by in between soccer games and we grabbed some Subway sandwiches. Then we decided to go to the museum. They had been having so much fun outside that I almost decided to bag the museum and just call it a day. I'm so glad I didn't. The kids LOVED the museum. It was so much fun to watch them both run back and forth chasing trains and getting excited about everything they could touch and climb on and explore. What a fun field trip! We also got to see the Browning Firearms Museum and the Classic Cars Museum as part of our passes for the day. Super cool!

Random

Yet more pictures that I wanted to remember, but didn't merit their own post. Here we go...

Just a small glimpse of the semi-annual clothes disaster.

I got the boys' done in a couple days but am still working on Marissa's.

Seriously! How do people do this with more than three kids?

We have quiet time after lunch. It gives the boys time to chill and gives me time for myself to read, relax or get stuff done. It is also a really good way for Dylan to get in some reading time by himself since he is holding still and being quiet for an hour or so. I often find Preston asleep in odd positions when I go to get him of quiet time. This day he'd fallen asleep on the ground on top of the little changing pad I use to change his diapers. Quiet time has also been a really good time for him to poop without my knowledge, which has made the whole fear of pooping on the potty even more difficult. Oh well.

Tony holding Marissa at his birthday celebration at my mom's house

Oh this crazy hair! This is what Dylan looks like most mornings. His hair has become such a problem. People seem to have quite an opinion about it - they either love it or hate it - but it is definitely more work now that it's grown out a bit. Dang it! To cut it or not to cut it...that is ALWAYS the question. For now, we're letting him choose, but we shall see how it goes.

This is what general conference looked like at our house. Dylan found Marcos' ref outfit and walked around giving people yellow and red cards or flipping a coin and asking us which way we wanted to go. Preston spend most of the time emptying and filling his possibles bag (from our Mountain Man Unit) while wearing rain boots around the house. At least they were fairly reverent and stayed in the room listening for the majority of conference. That's all I can expect at this age I suppose. I was going to have activities for Dylan to work on, but it didn't happen in time.

My sweet baby girl! It's difficult to get a good picture of Preston because he is so quick these days, but he pretty much loves on that baby all day long. He is such a loving little guy!

Late Birthday Bash

Tuesday evening I met up with a couple friends, a much needed treat for me. My friend, Liv, lives in my grandma's ward. She had to work, but stopped by to see me and the kids after she got off. It was fun to chat for a bit and see her little boy, Soren, who will be two next week. Preston was a little nervous about sharing his Thomas trains when he realized Soren was interested in them, but as soon as it was HIS idea to share, he was really cute handing each train to Soren one by one.

Lisa got to my grandma's a little bit after Liv. We have birthdays that are 10 days apart and had decided we should get together to have a birthday celebration. Well, it took us a month and a half to actually get together, but it was so worth it. She is pregnant and due in a couple weeks so we figured we'd better make our get together happen if we didn't want to wait even longer. We all visited at my grandma's house until Marcos came to pick up the kids. Liv had to get Soren in bed so Lisa and I took off for our grand evening. We headed to Cheesecake Factory for some delicious food. As we were getting seated, I realized it was almost 8:00 already so I ran over to Nordstrom to get some lipstick I've been out of for awhile. I'm one of those people who only buys makeup every 1-2 years, but I'm picky about my stuff when I do get around to buying it. I found a color I LOVE and I'll probably stick with it for quite awhile. Anyway, I grabbed my makeup while she got a table and then went back to eat. We ended up sharing a pasta dish and a chicken dish. They were both DELICIOUS! We talked and talked and talked...just like old times. I love my friends! Lisa and I both moved to Pleasant View when we were 15 and have been best friends ever since. In high school and college, we were basically known as "Maria and Lisa" or "Lisa and Maria". I'm pretty sure there are many people who didn't know which one of us was which. :) Anyway, it's been more difficult to get together since we grew up and got married because she has never lived very close, but now she's in Utah County and I'm in Davis County so we can get together in Salt Lake (half way) once in awhile and it's not too bad for either of us. Anyway, she was the same old encouraging Lisa that she always has been. She has a way of boosting my spirits when I'm down and I will be eternally grateful for that amazing quality in my friend. She was always my fun, optimistic friend and I helped add balance to her spontaneous whims and added sensitivity to the mix. We really were such a good team...and still are in many ways. Anyway, it was so great to get together and stay up chatting until we forced ourselves to get on the road and drive our separate ways at 1:00 a.m.

Visiting GG

Tuesday we had devotional, got ready and headed down to my grandma's house for a visit. We stopped at my aunt's house to borrow some Halloween costumes and pick up produce and books and then headed over to see Grandma Betty. The kids were starving so we went out to eat at a fun little restaurant where 98% of the customers are over 65. Their prices are great though and the food is quite good so it is always a good choice when we go out. We went back to my grandma's and visited while the boys watched a movie. After that, I thought it might be nice to get them outside for a bit. We would normally be headed home by that time, but I was meeting a friend later that evening and knew the boys would need to stretch their legs and get some energy out of their little bodies. They had a great time digging through grandma's basically empty garage and pulling out tools, a dolly, broom and a bucket. Funny boys! They are so easily entertained. I thought it might make grandma crazy, but she was pretty tolerant of their rock loading, fossil digging and endless sweeping of the sidewalk. What a good day!

BYU

Last Saturday Marcos took a bunch of boys to the BYU football game. Now, this is an interesting thing to me. Both of us did our undergrad work at Weber State and then went to the University of Utah for grad school...but Marcos is a HUGE BYU fan. It was always who he cheered for as a kid and once a fan, always a fan. You do not trade teams. Anyway, our neighbors have tickets, but weren't able to go because someone was using their home for a wedding. So they asked Marcos to take their oldest four kids and a few friends. My nephew, Tony, was at our house when we were planning everything and ended up going with them as well. Marcos and eight really excited boys set out for the BYU stadium around 1:00 and returned some time around 10:30. Crazy boys! They had a blast and got some delicious Crown Burger food after the game. What a fun memory!

Treehouse Museum

Last Friday I took the kids to the Treehouse Museum again. I love having passes to a couple places...it makes field trips a little more affordable. We just recently finished our Native American unit (although there is some overflow of units because by the time we get some of the books other people had checked out at the library, we might be moving on to something else already). I decided to do trains next since Preston is absolutely obsessed with trains right now(which evolved into a "things that go - planes, trains and automobiles" type of unit). He carries his little Thomas trains in his batman backpack and loads and unloads them all day. Anyway, we sat in the teepee and painted on cliffs and played with trains....plus did a bunch of other stuff the kids love to do. Dylan LOVES the knight castle and Preston likes to dress up and build things. Lucky for me, they are in the same area. I took Preston to the bathroom (although not really...he's been saying he needs to go to the bathroom AFTER he pees in his diaper. Oh well, progress is progress). Dylan wanted to stay and play while I took him to the bathroom so I told him to stay by the music room. I came back and found him in the little chair reading a book about Abraham Lincoln. I'm telling you, that made me grin from ear to ear. Sitting there reading? A patriotic book? Yay!! He really is enjoying learning and it makes me happy to see him so curious and inquisitive about EVERYTHING. Here are a few pictures I took of our trip.

After we played for awhile we stopped by my mom's work. She is a teacher, but teaches junior high students who have been kicked out of their school. Right now she only has one class that goes half day and then works on teacher prep stuff in the afternoon so we were able to stop and see her at work. The kids played and Dylan did his reading to her. She hasn't heard him read out loud for awhile so I think she was pleasantly surprised at the progress he's made. Anyway, it was a really good day!

Surprise!

I put Marissa on her belly for a little tummy time this morning. She doesn't love being on her belly so it didn't surprise me too much when she squirmed around and ended up on her back. Wait a minute. What the...? There is no way that child is rolling over yet. So I did it again. Sure enough, within a few seconds, she was on her back. I finally decided this was a real thing, grabbed the camera and attempted to capture a moment. She was pretty tired by the third and fourth time around, but I managed to get it on film for Marcos and the rest of the world to witness the first day. Scares the crud out of me! Now that I'm on child number 3, I'd prefer for the milestones to hit a little later in life. Oh well! My baby rolls over now!

Preston's Pledge of Allegiance

Preston, Preston, Preston! Oh how I love this little monkey. He is mischievous and sneaky, quiet yet social, loving and tenderhearted. And he is a mystery to me most of the time. I try to teach him the way I taught Dylan and he just doesn't learn the same way. He doesn't answer my questions or repeat things back very often so I am left wondering where he's at and worrying probably way too much about the little tyke. But...he is doing so well. His talking and vocabulary in general has taken off since we started home schooling. We do a devotional every morning before school. We have a song, prayer, pledge and often sing a patriotic song, we look at the calendar and say what day and month it is and then find the weather on our weather chart. We read a chapter out of the illustrated Book of Mormon, a story from the Friend, and then work on memorization (Articles of Faith, a scripture, a talk for church, poems, etc.) Anyway, Preston is more of less just along for the ride at this point. I don't push him too hard, partially because he's Preston and partially because he's 3. He often holds the flag for the pledge of allegiance and usually puts his hand over his heart too. The other day I was waiting for Dylan who had decided he NEEDED something (story of my life) before we could continue. Preston was already up holding the flag and just started reciting the pledge of allegiance. It's amazing how much kids pick up just listening to and observing us. I had to get it recorded, but he doesn't cooperate very well. This is as much as I could get. Then I decided I should get him doing his ABCs too. He does actually know them, but got a bit confused during the recording. Funny kid! Also, if you haven't heard his voices, it gives you a brief look into one of the three or four interesting voices he uses. Why? I don't know, but it is so cute!

Updates

I realized just how many pictures and events I have failed to blog so I'm updating a little bit in this post. It's very random so hang in there.

Sound asleep in the Bumbo

I love Marissa's round bowling ball head with peach fuzz on top. In Spanish we call her duraznito or little peach. :) Preston had the same nickname for awhile, which his aunt Tomi gave him (and still sometimes calls him).

Preston couldn't hold on any longer. You can tell the kind of day he had had - popsicle on his chest, tools in hand, sound asleep leaning against the love sac. Poor kid!

Sweet Preston with goofy Dylan in the background

Making a human totem pole for the picture

Preston has the funniest fake smiles ever - he looks like a jack-o-lantern here!

We made totem poles during our native american unit for school

We dog sat for Alicia. This was Preston taking Belle for a walk on his trike....frightening!

We watch very little TV during the week now so we've started movie night on Fridays. We usually have pizza and watch a movie. The kids even get to stay up a little later than normal. Here's a picture of us chilling during our movie one Friday night. We've been reading a Junior Classics version of Oliver Twist at night and Dylan was pretending to be an orphan here in case you wonder what's up with his outfit and knapsack. :)

I love that little face! Marissa is starting to drool like crazy lately.

In the bumbo with her cute little booties.

Marissa is such a happy baby!

I LOVE this purple outfit with the hat - seriously we have been so blessed with hand-me-downs once again.

Even when she's not exactly happy, she's cute as can be!

I love this little girl!

Preston painting

Both of my kids LOVED painting

During our mountain man unit, we talked about Audubon and how he worked hard and faced lots of danger in the wild to paint real pictures of animals, and in particular, birds. Then we painted our own pictures. We are definitely lacking in the artistic department, but we had a lot of fun! Preston kept drawing a long, squiggly line going down and said, "I draw slippery slide, mama." So cute!

Mercedes, my mother-in-law, on her birthday. Preston had a fever so he and I were at home hanging out together.

Preston sound asleep the day he came down with a fever. We realized he had a fever during sacrament meeting. At least we didn't send him to nursery that way.

I LOVE the bumbo! Marissa spends a lot of her morning play time in the bumbo since it is usually right around breakfast time for the rest of the family. It's great to have her on the counter hanging out with us while we're cooking and eating. But when she's tired, she's tired. More times than not, I find her sound asleep like this and have to move her to the swing or bassinet for her morning nap.

This was the first time Laura, my sister-in-law, met Marissa. Her baby, Otis, had been sick so she had to keep her distance for a few weeks.

Abuela with my kids. Preston looks like he's a dinosaur in this one. Crazy kid!

I LOVE this picture! My little monkeys!

Abuela and Marissa

Otis and Marissa are only 2 1/2 weeks apart. This was the first time they met, although neither of them was very happy at the time. You wouldn't know it, but Marissa is actually the younger one of the two. :)

David and Marissa. Dave is Anthony's dad and will always be like family to us. It's a really special relationship we've formed with Dave and Anthony over the years.

Marissa sleeping on Papi's shoulder

The Museum of Natural History - field trip day with Papi

Otis' blessing day

My sister, Melissa, got married last Saturday. They had an intimate gathering at the country club to celebrate. It was a PERFECT day! My friend, Courtney, took pictures. There are just too many great pictures to choose from, but here are some to give you a feel for the day.