Classic

Oh boy...These are some classic photos to be sure!  

When Aunt Rachel came to visit she brought some produce from her garden.  She brought some cucumbers and green peppers that sat on my counter for a few days.  One day, Isaac saw them and decided he wanted a whole pepper and a whole cucumber for a snack.  Um...okay.  Can't argue that one.  Of course Ben had to follow suit, as he does with everything.  The looked so funny with cucumber in one hand, green pepper in the other.  They ate them up too.  And then wanted the same thing the next afternoon too.

One of the days that Jacob's mom was here we took the kids roller skating.  Sarah knows so many of the deals in town.  She's good like that!  On Wednesdays they have a deal for kids and parents, I can't remember if the kids are free or the adults, but it made the whole thing really affordable and my kids LOVED it.  I'm sure we'll be back again many times this winter.

Ben was really capable on these playschool roller blades.

Isaac ended up switching from the high friction skates to the playschool roller blades.  Even the high friction skates were pretty easy to roll and there was a lot of falling.  These roller blades are more like walking.

Sarah's kids had been before and were really good at keeping their balance in the skates.  I love this picture of Isaac holding Riley's hand, even if it was staged.

We were trying to capture a shot of all the kids holding hands.  It was a joke.  This is the best I got.  Obviously lighting in a roller rink is terrible.  And Isaac isn't a fan of staying still for pictures.

Part way through the two hour skating session they pull out these little wiggle type cars.  Everyone loved these!  Including me.

Maxwell and Isaac chased each other around on these for a long time, laughing the whole time!

Ben wanted to try the skates.  I think he looks adorable in them.  He loved being pulled in while wearing them.

There were many falls, of course, but everyone had a really good time.  Being in a dank skating rink brought back a lot of memories.  I remembered the 4th grade field trip and skating the "couples" skate with Jimmy Doyle.  Man were my hands sweaty, I was so nervous.  I was also so embarrassed every time my skate would hit into his.  And I was really embarrassed on the bus ride home when Diana asked if I skated with anyone while Jimmy was right there!  I sure had a little elementary crush on him.  Then I thought of the times we would go to the Friday night skate in high school.  I think I forced my friends to go a couple times hoping to "run into" the boy I liked only to be disappointed when he didn't show up.  Silly.  But such fun memories!

Anyway...I love October!  and I love kicking it off with General Conference.

I thought it was so cute that Ben pulled his chair right up to the TV to get a good look at President Packer.

I had a lot of activities for the kids to do during conference, nothing terribly exciting or clever, just some of the pre-school supplies they don't regularly get to play with.  It worked out pretty well.  I feel like I got a lot more out of these sessions than I did 6 months ago, so that's good!  We also rotated through our 72 hour kits and checked all the smoke detectors.  Jacob had the boys practice what we would do in case of a fire.  That was awesome.  They loved the little fire drill and had to repeat it several times that day.

I finished the quilt I've been working on for my mother.  They came to visit the Monday after conference and I was so glad to have it done in time.  I think it turned out well and I had a lot of fun quilting it.  I tried out some new things.  I think I could be good at machine quilting given some more practice.  This quilt was surely a stretch of my abilities as a quilter and I feel much more confident now.  I'm excited to keep trying some new techniques in our Relief Society block of the month group.   I'll take some pictures of what we've done so far in that group and post them some time.

I took close up pictures of each block but this one was my favorite to quilt.  I did a flower in the center and some leafy, flower sort of things in the cream triangles...not sure what they are called, if they are called anything.  It was fun!

And I was totally negligent when my parents were here and only pulled out the camera one day.  This was a typical scene though.  My dad built train tracks for Isaac and Ben and my mom and I sewed a lot of costumes for Halloween.  She was making something for MaryAnn that I helped her with and she helped me with a good chunk of our families costumes.  We are dressing up as Star Wars characters this year.  I'll be excited to show you the pictures when we are all decked out.  Isaac is going to be R2D2, Ben is yoda (his hat is adorable!), I'm Leia (probably the least cool costume of the bunch, but still decent) and Jacob is going to be Han Solo.  The costumes came together mostly as cute as they were in my head.  That's always nice.  I usually have it the opposite, cute in theory, horrible in actuality.

Dad also entertained the kids with his remote control helicopter which the boys (especially Isaac) loved, we went to the park, saw the temple construction, shopped some, and went out to dinner.  All in all it was a fun visit with my folks.  Thanks for coming!

A Little Bit of Sweetness

Oh Isaac.  Sometimes he and I have such a hard time and then sometimes I just never want him to get any older than he is right now.  I guess that's the way with kids.

Yesterday we were having an extended conversation about gospel things after he had asked me about the song "Seek the Lord Early" that they had sung in the primary program.  He was curious what it meant to seek the Lord and how you do that.  So I was sharing a little about reading the scriptures and a recent scripture I had read about having hope for the future because of Christ.  I explained that it was a good reminder from Heavenly Father to me to be hopeful about me being a good parent and that he and Ben would grow up to do good things.  Then he wanted to know what were some good things he could do as he got older.  I turned the question to him and asked what he thought he could do.  He said read the scriptures and pray alone, go to Priesthood session, and stay dry.  I told him I hoped he'd serve a mission and get married to a good woman in the temple.

His response "What if I don't want to get married."

"Why wouldn't you want to get married?"

"Because I want to keep you."

I explained that I will always be his mother, that we are sealed together.

He then asked if I would go wherever he went.  I laughed a little and told him I would visit him wherever he was.

He then said "What if I marry you?  Then I could keep you!  And we could have children."

So sweet.  He wants to keep me.

I love the logic of an almost 4 year old.

Another Baby Blessing

Disclaimer:  These pictures are totally out of order.  I'm too lazy to fix it tonight.  So....here we go.

We recently had a wonderful visit with Jacob's family for the blessing of Sarah's new baby, London.  It was really fun having all the Brunson cousins together.  6 children all under the age of 5.  Awesome!  

Jacob took a bunch of the folks on one of our favorite activities, the downtown trolley.

Cuteness did abound.

This is our niece Ruby, Rachel's daughter.  She's 2 and so full of sass.  Loved her!

Grandma and Maxwell, Sarah's oldest son.

Grandpa, Isaac and Rachel's husband Chuck.

Chuck, Rachel and Ruby.

Jacob and Isaac.

We also enjoyed some time out on our swing set.  Man, has that been the best addition to our backyard!  So fun for us all.

Ben loved time with his grandparents.  He especially loves tackling anyone who lays down.

This picture was taken just after Grandma and Grandpa arrived.  The grandkids were so excited to see them!  They all ran out to great them.

Isaac, Maxwell and Ruby playing in the pumpkins at the grocery store.

More tackling with Grandpa now.  Maybe he also tries to help them up?  I don't know.

And this was our best attempt at getting a picture with all the kids and the grandparents prior to the blessing.  Grandpa, Ben, Ruby (Rachel's daughter), London (Sarah's), Riley (Sarah's), Grandma, Maxwell (Sarah's) and Isaac

Isaac likes crunching leaves.  I don't blame him.  I love the fall.

It was such a beautiful fall day!  We all enjoyed the short time outside before heading to church.

Chuck and Rachel left after sacrament meeting and Jacob's dad left the next day.  His mom stayed for a week and we had lots of fun with her.  I have some pictures that I'll share in the next post.  I really enjoy Jacob's family.  I'm lucky to have such nice in-laws.

Ugh...Another Overdue Catchup Photo Overload.

I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever get back on my blogging game.  It seems months go by and pictures accumulate and then I dump...


So, enjoy this bombarding of photos:

We had a super rainy August.  I loved it.  It was pleasantly cool almost every afternoon.  We had windows open and weren't running our air conditioner.  It was nice.

And of course, who doesn't love playing in the cool summer rain?

Isaac made this cool drum kit the other day.  Pretty awesome jam session in this house!

We've been making a lot of paper airplanes lately.  These little helicopters were my favorite.  Easy to make and fly great.  We made a ton and then the boys would drop them from the upstairs hallway and it was a rainbow of helicopter fun.

Random, I know.  But Jacob and I recently purchased new appliances.  Dishwasher and fridge to be exact.  And now we match the microwave we had to replace several months ago.  The only thing out of place now is the oven.  But it works and I can't justify replacing it just to match.  Soon though...we'll save a little more.

Ben LOVES his blankets and bear. I was laying on this chair and he came and tucked me in with his stuff.  Then he wanted a rest too.

We've also done a little dressing up.  Winter boots and helmets are always a winner.  So are cowboy hat and new hand made vest.

I've been trying to give each boy about 30 minutes of one on one time with me (some days are more successful than others...) and this particular day Isaac wanted to race his little car through obstacles in our dining room.  Good times.

These boys have been loving some warmer afternoons to play in the sand.  They've used it all up this summer and now all the toys are packed away for the winter.  (It's my policy to only buy one bag of sand a year.  It gets "used up" by mixing in with all the pine needles and such as it spills out the sides while they play.)

This Isaac just looks so grown up to me!  Can you believe he's almost 4?  I can not.  Man he is handsome.

And Ben is learning more words and talking more every day.  My recent favorites: "Oh dee" (for oh dear), "Nana" (for Banana of course, which, by the way, he suddenly LOVES.  We get very excited shouts of Nana at our house.), "Zazee" (for Isaac), "my do!" (constantly), "my turn!" (almost as often as my do," and "my self."  Can you tell he is getting more independent?  He does not like having things don for him.  He also plays this really fun game with me that I don't think I can accurately describe.  He says "Mama" with the cutest little inflections and tones to which I respond "Benjamin" and so it goes.  Over and over.  Sometimes the names change, sometimes not.  He is adorable at this stage.

Look at the evidence of said adorableness!

We still enjoy our afternoons of bikes and trikes and scootering.

But sometimes you just need a little rest sitting next to "Mama!"

I loved that Isaac was riding his tricycle while sitting on the top foot step.  Notice how he isn't in the seat at all.  Silly boy.

And then he needed a rest too.  So sweaty from the helmet!  He was either trying to be like Ben or trying to avoid looking at the camera...I can't tell.

That's about what we've been up to these past few weeks.  Just soaking in the last bit of summer and gearing up for some awesome fall weather and festivities!  LOVE IT!