Rolls and smiles

It seems like the times in my life where I have a baby, I have so many more conversations with random people, including complete strangers. They ask about their age, oh are they good babies, are you getting any sleep. But I was just noticing when I saw another mom being similarly questioned, one thing I never get asked about my babies is if they are good eaters. I'd like to say it is probably because the answer is usually shining up at them in the form of two very round cheeks.

Look at this chunk of a guy!

And his newest accomplishment, to my absolute, complete, and utter joy, the smile...

I haven't gotten an official weigh in yet but when I threw us both on my friend's scale the other day, he measured in at a whopping 14 pounds! What a keeper. I love every inch of this kid.

We are off to Gridley today for an early start to our Thanksgiving holiday. Jon will work in Reno for the beginning of next week while the kiddos and I hang out with grandma and grandpa. By this time today I will be eating tangerines, mandarins, kiwis and all other kinds of produce right off the tree. It is the life!

In da house

This post has been a long time coming but I just couldn't wait any longer to brag about the amazing work Jon is doing on our house. We bought our house last March and, with few exceptions, Jon has spent every weekend and most weekdays working to make it a pretty fine lookin' pad. Sometimes to trecharous results. You might remember the previous nail through the toe incident. We recently had a nail through the finger incident. He made me take pictures... haven't gotten myself to post them yet. Theyre pretty gross. This morning, a can of spray paint exploded on him and he went to work with a face dotted with white paint.

For this post, I'll concentrate on our main family/living room area. This is what the room looked like originally.




Every wall in the house was a yellow-y off white. Jon has always wanted to try building a wainscot so he gave it a try.







Now you may be thinking, who in their right mind would post a picture of a house looking this messy? But, this is my 'before' model. Do they ever put a stitch of makeup or anything attractive looking on the 'before' model. No way! It only makes the 'after' shot look that much better :)






And after a dab of caulk here and there, a little bit of hole filler, and a touch of paint, we have our downstairs.





It has really turned out nice. We are still working on a place for a television. Big Bertha there in the corner is only a temporary solution.





Before
After!



So not only has Jon pretty much single-handedly changed every wall of this house, he has also built some of the decor. Here are a few of his latest projects.

Our coffee table



Our bookshelf


And this is his remodel to the original lamp hanging in our staircase.

A tour of the rest of the house coming soon!

Cute Story You've Heard Before

I know my child isn't the first to do it, but I still laughed pretty hard when she did!

Scarlet, Rhode, and I were sitting on my bed and Scarlet was being extra adorable with her baby brother. She was giving him soft kisses and patting his head. She asked if she could hold him ('baby up!' while pointing to her lap) so I laid him across her lap. She kept grabbing his pajamas to pull him closer to her so I stepped in and scooted him up until he was right up next to her. Then she pulled down her shirt top and said, 'baby eat!' Pretty observant girl! And so very helpful :)

Here is Rhode's 'no thanks, sis' face

Oh, and while I wrote this little blog entry Scarlet scribbled yellow marker all over her hands and outfit and dumped out a half a box of Rice Krispies on my living room floor. Totally loving the toddler years...

Are ya chicken?!

People have their different view of Halloween. I have always thought, 'kids in adorable little get ups and a night of candy, what's not to like about that?!' Now that I have a child who was just old enough to enjoy the holiday with me, I enjoyed the day ten times more than I ever had before.

We got the kids in their costumes around four that evening so we could take pictures while they still looked good. Rhode did not appreciate his first experience with makeup, what a man! Though he did like his costume... a little too much actually. The minute I put him in the cozy little thing, he was out. We tried our hardest to keep him awake to get a few pictures, but as you can see, he was a little out of it.

Scarlet did finally get to wear her chicken costume. We tried it out the day before at a Halloween puppet show at the library. She was not a big fan of the hood. I realized it really wouldn't be much of a chicken costume without the hood so we improvised.

The red mohawk actually stayed spiked all night long. It was quite the hair feat.

I wanted to get some pictures of the kids together so we set them on the hammock. Scarlet had already scored a box of Dots but I took them back to hold them for her during the picture. That didn't go over so well.

I gave her the box back and her life improved dramatically.

We started out the evening trick or treating at some of our neighbor's homes. Scarlet was giddy as we walked across the street to the first house. She knocked on the door and waited... and waited. Yeah, they weren't home. Turn your porch lights off people! So there was first disappointment of the night. We headed next door to a house absolutely covered from head to toe in Halloween decor. She pulled me along as fast as I would walk and headed all by herself up to the door. Unfortunately, the neighbors had also set up a motion sensor. So when Scarlet stepped bravely up to the front door, the door let out a horrific scream. As if that wasn't terrifying enough, our neighbor answered the door in a white mask and black hood. And to top it all off, he was handing out candy with a skeleton claw. She did not let go of my leg for a long time after that.

Jon tried to get her to look at the camera, but she couldn't look away from the guy!

We then made our way over to the trunk or treat. Our ward puts on a pretty good one. There was a blow up haunted house, tons of homemade root beer, and cars galore. Scarlet had a huge bag of candy by the end. And, keeping his great baby status, Rhode looked all cuddly and cozy while he slept soundly the whole time.

She spent most of the evening staring at her collection.

We have quite a few kids in our neighborhood so I bought a huge bowl of candy and we spent the rest of the evening at home trying to get rid of it. Scarlet insisted on handing out the candy to all trick or treaters. She even played favorites. Every now and again, someone would get two candies if Scarlet deemed them worthy. Occasionally, one of the trick or treaters would only get a small tootsie roll from her. She wasn't very fair but she was very cute.

We had only one sad note on the evening. Near the end of our candy passing out, an older group of kids came to the door. There was a 13 year old girl, a boy about the same age and then a few kids that were about 9 and 10. We could hear the boy swearing up and down the street. When they came to the door they asked if we were handing out candy. Jon told them we were, but we didn't appreciate the language. The boy apologized. Then the girl started asking about our kids and then says, 'I have a three year old at home, but it's past her bedtime.' I was so shocked I had no idea what to say. They left shortly after. That poor girl. What a world we live in.

But, to end on a more positive note, the evening was a complete success and we have been living on candy ever since!