35 Months

This boy is just a month away from turning 3! Where did the time go? When did my little guy get so big? Leif continues to be himself- happier and sillier than can be one minute and pouting or whining the next :) His newest thing is to recite nursery rhymes. When I say one that he likes he will ask me to say it again and again until he memorizes it, then I will catch him later reciting it to himself or to Heidi. I guess this isn't too surprising given his love of songs- nursery rhymes are pretty similar. Leif has also decided that he doesn't like napping anymore- which is not a good idea for him. He is often the first person up in the morning or gets up at the same time I do and is almost always the last kid asleep. Its a rare evening when Leif doesn't come out of his room at least once, but more often twelve times. He's always wandering around looking for something or has some other excuse for being out of bed. So by the time nap time comes around each day, he is more than ready for a nap, but he has been fighting us on it. I think he realizes that Asher is often up and playing while he is napping and he's not thrilled about missing out on the fun. Yesterday Asher and I raked leaves and filled up a pumpkin bag while Heidi and Leif napped, so when he woke up I let him help fill up the other bag. They are very proud of their pumpkins and know very well which bag belongs to which kid. Tonight was our church Halloween party, so here is Leify in his Halloween costume:

Five Months

This sweet little princess is five months old already! The boys and I were raking up leaves for a couple hours today and she napped through a lot of it, but I also thought it would be good for her to get out in the fresh air too. She rode in my baby wrap for quite awhile while I raked and didn't complain at all when I bonked her with my arm as I was raking. She is so even tempered and content most of the time. I say it all the time, but she is such an easy baby. Part of it is her disposition and part of it is having two brothers to constantly entertain and love her. Not a lot has changed since she turned 4 months old- she is the same happy girl. She is growing like crazy and loves attention. One of my favorite times of the day is when Austin comes home in the evenings. Aside from the obvious reasons that I love this time of day, I also love to watch Heidi try to get his attention. She loves her daddy and will make all kinds of faces at him and flail her arms around in his direction to try to compete with everyone else for the first few minutes of attention. Sometimes at dinner she makes it very obvious that she would rather sit with him than with me. We are so happy to have this girl in our family- she is a little ray of sunshine for everyone!

Punkin Carving

Its a little early in the month, but since this was the best time to get the most family together, we decided to have everyone over to eat pizza and Halloween cookies (the boys and I made a few days ago) and carve pumpkins. My absolute favorite picture from the evening was Leif "smiling" with his jack-o-lantern, but we got quite a few pictures to capture the fun. Grandpa helped Leif carve his pumpkin and Dad helped Asher. Renee helped Mandy carve hers while Justin wandered around helping Ben and Paul. In the end Paul had to use Austin's drill to carve his pumpkin because it was so thick. I think that made the evening more exciting for everyone. Heidi and I aren't in any of the pictures because we were behind the camera most of the time.

Here are some bonus pictures of the boys decorating their Halloween cookies

Grandpa's Visit

My dad and sister came to visit us this weekend. The boys were like little puppies following my dad around everywhere he went. Grandpa is pretty exciting stuff- he lets them have treats all the time, buys them pizza, takes them on adventures, carves jack-o-lanterns with them, sleeps out in the tent with them, watches silly cartoons with them . . . Needless to say they had a very fun and very exhausting weekend being spoiled and skipping naps. Of course Heidi was as happy as could be to play with her Grandpa and the boys also enjoyed seeing their aunt Abbey. It was kind of nice to be able to run to the store a few times while the boys stayed with my dad and Abbey came with me and took care of Heidi while I got all the groceries. here are a few pictures that we got:

This is a picture of Little Miss in one of the outfits that her Uncle Kenny got for her- he got them in the mail really late, so this is the only one that she still fits into it. She sure is cute though!!!