dinosaur

Lately Joshua has fallen in love with dinosaurs. We thought it would be fun to make him a dinosaur costume for Halloween. I sewed everything by hand so it's not the best work, but it was fun to do. I cut out the spikes from my old scrubs and sewed them together. Then I stuffed them with newspaper and sewed them onto a sweatshirt and sweatpants. I think it turned out cute.

The next picture is of Joshua making a "scary" dinosaur face.

39 minutes

That's how long I had to keep putting Joshua back in his "big boy" bed tonight before he gave up and fell asleep. 39 minutes and over 200 times of putting him back. Exhausting.

How did we get to this point today? I'll tell you, and with as little embellishment as I can.

5:59 am - Joshua wakes up. Our day begins.

12:50 pm - Put Levi and Joshua down for a nap. (Put Joshua down in his crib like always.)

1:15 pm - Joshua comes WALKING out of his room. He's learned how to climb out of his crib. No nap today.

5:45 pm - Walk out the door to pick up James. Put Levi in the car and Candace in her seat, although not buckled. Run down the hill and around the apartment building to grab Joshua who has run off. When we get back to the car Candace is standing outside it. All doors are locked with Levi, my keys and my cell phone also inside. James runs home to rescue us.

8:00 pm - Begin the battle with Joshua to stay in his "big boy" bed.

8:39 pm - All kids are alseep.

I left out all of Levi's naps, feedings, books read, meals prepared, walking to campus to pick up Candace and walking home, etc. It was an exhausting day. I'm grateful for Emily, Stephanie, Becky, James and my parents who all rescued me multiple times today.

And to add an ironic twist to all of this, we are in charge of the "Dealing with Children Effectively" Booth at the ward Welfare Fair this Saturday.

if you obey me.....

Candace met a new friend on the playground today. A few minutes after they started playing together Candace and her new friend walk up to me. Candace states, "I told her that if she was really good and obeyed me she would get a really big treat." HAHAHAHAHAHA! I can't believe that cute girl. You can tell she's an oldest child and you can definitely see that I bribe my kids way too much. The next couple of minutes were spent trying to explain to Candace that our friends don't have to obey us like she has to obey her parents.

"the fun kids"

as they were and as they should have been

Each week, sometimes even twice a week, we check out about 30 different books from the BYU library. Sometimes I put a lot of thought into each book that we get and sometimes it's a free for all and I let the kids run around and pull whatever books they want off the shelf. This last trip was one of the free for all kinds. When we get home I usually sit down for about an hour and we read almost every single book. This is one of the books my kids picked out this time. It was written in 1904 and most of it is in huge contrast to how we expect children to behave today. i got a great laugh out of it and realized that more often than not my kid's were acting like the kids in the lefthanded pictures.

the cuteness

Cute cousins.

Even cuter brother and sister.

Levi smiles more and more everyday, that is when he's not sleeping. He's 3 months old and he's still sleeping tons.

Joshua and Pierce got the chance to sit in Wymount's golf cart.

These are delicious calzones that I made earlier this week. My neighbor, Emily has an AWESOME recipe. Thanks!

Candace's aunt Shannon made this huge cookie for her. Lucky girl.

take a look...

Here, take a look at Candace. This is the last picture of her taken with her gorgeous long blonde hair that I love. It's been growing for 4 years and I was quite proud of the product. However, Candace decided during "quiet time" Friday afternoon that she wanted short hair.

Here is what she did to the front:

Here are the sides. You can see the long hair that she wasn't able to reach.

Here is the pile of hair I collected around the living room when this was all done.

James took her to a salon and here is the result:

And when Joshua saw us taking all these pictures of Candace, he exclaimed,
"My Turn!". So we took a picture of him and one of the group.

shot of the week

crafts of the week

greek festival

We went to the Greek Festival that they have every year in Salt Lake City. They have good food and fun dancing. The kids had a great time. They especially loved the carnival rides. Ok, so maybe Candace loved them and Joshua was terrified.

Look at that Face on Joshua.

counting to josh

I was sitting on the couch nursing Levi and all of a sudden I hear Joshua next to me count from 1 to 12. It was very shocking. I think he knows how to because he hears me counting to 10 for Candace to obey, but I'm not sure. We can't get him to say 4 or 5 anymore though. One cute thing: Joshua seems to think 12 is Josh, so listen for that. Enjoy.

first days of preschool

Candace goes to the BYU Preschool from Monday to Thursday, 8:30 till 11:00 AM. She loves it! Her teacher is Mr. Brad. Every morning she walks to school with James. On the first morning we all walked together. She's getting to be such a big girl.