It's great to be 8 round 2

 These kids are growing up too fast. I can't believe that Jackson is getting baptized. I'm so proud of him for making the choice to get baptized. We invited all the family as well as some friends.

 Jackson even invited our favorite Kindergarten teacher Mrs. Anderl we were so thankful that she would take the time out of what I'm sure was a busy Saturday to come see Jackson.

 It was a beautiful day and we were so happy to have as much family there as we could.

This is Halloween!

Halloween with kids is so much more fun than it was before we had kids. I love seeing their excitement when they decide what they want to dress up as for Halloween. Our kids are so fun and sometimes so imaginative. This year both girls wanted to be Violet from the Incredible's.

Addi and Jaiden were with us after school that day and we got to go trick or treating together for a while before Amber could join us. Addi was the Queen of hearts, and Jaiden was Letti from the Fast and the furious.

Josh was Harry Potter and that was no surprise. He has read the books and the supporting books. He loves all thing Potterworld.

Jackson decided to be a zoologist. He wants to be zoologist when he grows up so this was a great idea for him. He borrowed my Hogle Zoo hat, Mikes velcro monkey, and I made his name badge.

We wanted to be the Incredibles as a family but the boys were not about that. They had their own ideas but Miles didn't have a choice to he was Jack Jack.

He was the cutest Jack Jack ever!!

 We stopped by a neighbors house who hosts the neighbors every year to have hot dogs and chips and other neighbors bring other treats. After that we continued around the neighborhood and finished up at home before the bigger kids continued around the rest of the neighborhood. It was a fun Halloween and Miles, Emily and I hung out at home and watched Curious George Halloween Boo Fest while we handed out candy. It was a great night and the kids wanted to sort through all their candy before they had sugary sweet dreams and headed to bed.

Carving Pumpkins

We are loving having a garden and this is technically the end of the crop. Our pumpkins! We really enjoy having our pumpkins in the backyard and many of them so we can carve to our hearts content.

It's been really fun to see the kids creativity come through in the pumpkin designs they've chosen.

We were excited to have grandma and grandpa come over and help us out. Grandpa Quinn helped Emily design and carve her pumpkin.

Some of us used the paper designs. Jackson was not gonna have it. He wanted to have a dragon pumpkin so he drew it on and started cutting it out.

When we were all done the girls decided they wanted to look at the pumpkins when they were all lit up.

We had so much fun and will continue to plant, nurture, pick and carve our pumpkins for years to come.

 

Birthday Boy! Miles is 1

How can this be? How can my baby be a year old. My baby! He is our baby our last one, our caboose. Miles is such a sweetheart. He is a lover, a snuggler, and everyone's favorite. I am still nursing and today as I was baking cake I decided to nurse Miles. As I was nursing Emily told me she wanted to see Miles's cake and I told her I couldn't show her right now but when I was done nursing I could turn on the oven light and show her. She decided to take matters into her own hands and try to turn on the oven light. She touched the wrong button. She turned on the self cleaning feature of the oven. Not all ovens are like this but ours locks automatically. And you can't undo it. I didn't know that she had done that until the middle of my nursing session I start to smell burning and I think, "why do I smell burning? The cake shouldn't be burning."

I stood up, Miles still attatched, and walked into the kitchen to investigate. I discovered the top of both the big cake and Miles's cake bother burned. Black. I tried everything to get the oven to stop and unlock but I wouldn't do it. So I unlatched Miles and set him down as I rushed downstairs to the breaker box. Yup, I cut power to the oven to get it to stop the burning. When I opened the oven and returned power I inspected the cake. It was toast. Not just toast burnt toast. Well now I was flustered and mad but not too mad. I just started to make a new cake from scratch. The recipe called for milk. I didn't have any milk. We ran out. What I did have was breast milk and more where that came from so I thawed out some breast milk and used to make a new cake.

This time I let Miles lick the beater.

He loved it.

After finishing the cake, picking up kids from school, and decorating the cake I felt like I could breath a sigh of relief. If only all the kids would stay out of it until after dinner.

We invited the grandparents over last minute. Papa Jim, Grandpa Quinn, and Grandma Arlene came over to sing happy birthday and have some cake. They all enjoyed it but I didn't tell anyone about the breast milk because I didn't want them to not eat it.

Miles was entirely confused as we were singing to him and the girls were all in his face and confusing him after we sang Happy Birthday so we chilled them out and got them out of his space so he could enjoy his cake in peace. He didn't dig right in. Mike cut his cake in half and tried to get him to pick it up but he wouldn't at first. Once he had a fork though he was all about it.

When the fork wasn't doing the job he finally picked it up with his fingers. And he finished it off with some milk.

He was super messy so we cleaned him up in the tub, I mean, kitchen sink.

After a little washup we opened his presents which were fancily wrapped in a target bag. He got a sloth to replace the whale that was lost.

And a water bottle, because we believe in doing our part to help the environment.

I let the kids pick something for him and they chose the little popping walking toy. It is so loud.

But he loves it so much.

A few days ago someone decided to write all over things and people with a sharpie. I am a genius and thought that if magic eraser could get sharpie off of my furniture surely it could get it off a baby well I wasn't wrong but we quickly learned that it can cause an abrasion and make you feel an immense amount of mommy guilt. So PSA don't use magic eraser on your baby.

As part of the kids birthday's my mom takes them to Barnes and Noble to pick out a book.

Miles loved it. He was all about the books. He had a great time looking at books with his Grandma.

He even climbed up on top of some books to get to more books. The kids loves books!

Aunt Jenny also spoiled him with a Mickey Fire Station.

And on Halloween Grandma Dawn and Papa Jim came over and brought him his puppy. This puppy knows his name and some of his favorites. This kid is certainly spoiled and loved so much.

He loved it and dances to the music.

 A note from the future: Miles learns to play in the toilet water and someone puts this puppy in the toilet. It did not recover and was quickly disposed of. It took us a while but it has since been replaced. Poor kid, being the youngest is a tough break.

Haunted Half 2018

This race is super special to me now. Before last year it was just a fun race, I didn't care what my time was. Quite frankly I didn't really care if I ran it or not but now that this race and I have a history I have to run it every year that it exists. Last year when I ran this race I was 39 weeks pregnant. I felt every step. I remember that when we got to the port a potties I had to stop -duh- cuz I had to pee and get Miles from bouncing on my bladder. It didn't matter how much pee was in there if it wasn't empty I felt every step. Last year I finished in 3:27:31. Brandy ran with me every step of the way she was so good to walk with me when I needed to walk and to listen and commiserate with me when my pelvis felt bruised from this child's head bouncing on it. So this year I really wanted to take some comparison photo's

 It was fun to take the kids with me to packet pick up because they love the cut outs that they can take their picture in front of. Everyone who recognized me couldn't believe that my baby was already almost a year old.

 It was really cold this morning but nowhere near as cold as it was last year when it was snowy and icy. We were happy to have hot chocolate to keep us warm. 

I loved Brandy's Mickey ears she had them painted just for this race and her cruise. they are Pirates of the Caribbean with Jack Sparrow on one of them and a skull on the other with a Minnie bow in the middle.

the race went well and Brandy and I stayed together most of the time but we didn't finish together which is part of our running agreement. As I approached the finish line I grabbed Miles from Mike and we finished together. This is our race so I thought it was fitting. I finished this race in 2:48:52. It is far from my best time but honestly by the time I get to this race each year I am just running for fun not necessarily for time.

I had to include this picture of Joshua Hansen because the costume he came and ran in a foot costume but not just a foot a runners foot, bruised toenail and all. This race is more fun than anything else. Maybe one day I'll be a faster runner and I'll be able to run it in an amount of time that doesn't take me so long.