Halloween

Happy Halloween!

Ben and Alex both had parties in school for Halloween and both said they were fun and they were really excited for tonight when they got to go get candy. Our ward was having a trunk or treat with 2 other wards and serving hot dogs and hot chocolate. We invited Brett, Alma, Kyle and Sabrina and we all went over and ate hot dogs (they ran out of those, by the way) and went trunk or treating. They all had a really good time, even though it got a bit cold. And there weren't nearly as many people there as I thought there'd be, but we still ended up getting a lot of candy.

Following are pictures:

These two were of Chris in his tiger costume. He didn't want to show his face.



These are of Daniel in his tiger costume. Cute tiger, huh?



All 4 boys


Pirate Alex


Pirate Ben


Posing Pirate Alex


All 4 boys again

4 month check-up

Daniel had his 4 month check-up today. He is now 24 inches long and weighs 14 pounds, 2 ounces. That puts him at about 45% for both. That's an inch taller and 1.2 pounds heavier than at his last appointment. If you paid attention to his last check-up, they said he was 80% for weight then. However, they did the marking for 2 months, when he was almost 3 months, so he was really pretty close to the percentage he is now. He's growing well and looks good. The doctor thinks we could probably start him on some solids now (he stopped sleeping through the night regularly like he was and he's almost doubled his birth weight). He got 3 shots and an oral vaccine again. He didn't seem too thrilled to be at the doctor though and cried every time we laid him down. Maybe he remembered the last visit with the shots. Poor kid already has a good memory.

Pumpkin Patch

Today for Alex's preschool, we went to a pumpkin patch. It's a nice, warm day today, but it was still a bit chilly this morning. I told the boys that it would be, but they still wanted to wear shorts. Yes, they complained about being cold at first, but when we got on the hay ride, they didn't notice anymore. We went on the hayride around the farm, then we went up and let them pick out their pumpkins. They had to be able to carry the pumpkins they chose, so they weren't able to pick out the really big ones, but they liked the ones they chose. Alex of course, picked a green one. He's silly sometimes. We all had fun there and they got to have an apple juice box and a bag of popcorn at the end. Unfortunately, Chris decided to choke a little on some popcorn in the van on the way home, so he threw up, but he's been happy since then. Well, except for when Alex takes things away from him.

The pumpkin patch was kind of out by Bryce's work, so we picked him up on the way home so he could have the van, since he wanted to go pick up some plans from a few places. So it was nice actually having someone else help with cleaning up after Chris' mess.

Following are some pictures from the trip as well as some pictures from the zoo when we went there for preschool a few weeks ago.

The boys on the hay ride

Walking through the pumpkin patch

Ben and Alex looking for pumpkins

Ben holding his pumpkin

Chris holding his pumpkin

Alex: I don't know which one to get!

Alex riding an elephant at the zoo

The boys and the zebra

And just for fun...

Alex and Daniel

Daniel actually smiling in a picture!

Daniel in his swing

HOA's and other stuff

Bryce went to our HOA meeting last night. When I asked him how it was, he said that it was basically "a bitch fest." There were a lot of people interrupting to say, "What about this?" And "what about that?" Things that they'd get to on the list if they would have patience and just wait. And then it was discussed to possibly contact a lawyer to see if we could put pressure on the city to do something about our swells (the dip in the parking strip instead of storm drains...yeah, nice mosquito breeding grounds and potentially hazardous to small children). 10 minutes and another topic later, someone says, "How about if we see if we can start some Class Action Suit against the city about the swells?" Bryce said it took an hour to get to the point of the meeting, which was to get people to sign up to be on committees, such as the welcoming committee, legal committee, etc. So he signed up and then left rather than waiting around to see if they'd start re-hashing everything that people were complaining about earlier. I think I'm glad I sent him instead of going myself.

Daniel turned 4 months old this week. It's crazy how fast the time is going. He's a lot like Alex and starts to giggle when I put him on the changing table. Can't have anything to do with the fact that he gets tickled a lot when he's on there and is starting to anticipate it.

We're thinking that there's something in Strawberry Quik that affects Chris. He threw up in the van on Wednesday after drinking strawberry milk the day before and that morning. And it seems as though when he's thrown up at different times in the past, strawberry milk is usually involved. So the poor kid doesn't get to have strawberry milk anymore. But he can still have the chocolate milk (maybe not the Nesquik on that one, either though).

Alex is energetic as ever. He's really enjoying his preschool and is always excited to go. He seems to think it's pretty cool that he gets to have his own class. I think he's starting to miss his brother Ben, since he starts to get a bit wound up when Ben comes home from school.

Speaking of Ben, he's now gone two weeks in a row without losing any of his beans. Way to go Ben! He seems to enjoy going to school, but I do think that the bus ride is still his favorite part.

General Conference and stuff

Well, General Conference was this past weekend. I really enjoyed it. It's just really cool to be able to listen to the prophets speak. I think of all the people in the world who don't know that we have prophets on the earth today and I'm sad for them. One of the talks fit a bit with this coming Sunday's Gospel Doctrine Lesson. It's on Acts 21-28, where Paul goes to Jerusalem and is arrested at the temple and ultimately ends up testifying to King Agrippa. King Agrippa tells him, "Almost thou persuadest me to become a christian." (I may be off on the wording a wee bit.) Sometimes people don't accept the gospel because they think it would be too hard, giving up some friends and some habits, even though they can see the good of the message. Are there times when we are "almost" persuaded to do what's right? Like the talk in Conference, are we sometimes choosing the good over the better or the best? Sometimes that's easy to do. It's not always easy to choose the best over the good. So that's just one thing that I got out of Conference. If you so desire, feel free to add comments to this post and tell me what you got out of it.

And for those who may be wondering, Ben has been doing really well at school lately. Most days he either keeps all his beans or only loses one. He did have one day last week where he lost them all, but the day before and the day after (he only had school 3 days last week) he kept them all. So it looks like our efforts at giving him more attention and giving him something to work towards at school are working. He wants to be good, so the beans at school are a good reminder for him.

Alex is really enjoying his preschool. He runs to the houses when we get there and doesn't care if I'm keeping up with him. He doesn't seem to mind when he gets to go home though, but he talks about his preschool a lot. This week will be the first time it's at our house, so we'll see how he likes it then.

Chris is doing better in nursery than he used to. He doesn't need Bryce to be in there with him anymore and doesn't seem like he's quite so shy when he's there. I think he'll be excited when his cousin gets to join him in there in the next few months.

Daniel is still growing up a storm. He's reaching for objects and seems to like to roll over onto his side these days. Before we know it, he'll be rolling all over the place. We do have to be careful when we put him down on the floor, however. His brothers don't always pay attention to where they're walking and end up tripping on him. For some reason Daniel doesn't like it when that happens.

I was going to post a video on this of me practicing the song we're singing with our ward choir. I was practicing and wanted to hear how I sounded, since I'm doing the solo parts in the song. But since the video would go into processing and then disappear, I think you're saved and don't have to hear or see it. Lucky you. I guess if you're a glutton for punishment and if you really would like to, you can always ask me and I can see if I can email it to you. I'm not sure why you'd want to though. A couple parts really didn't sound very good, but that wasn't always my fault. Sometimes it was the microphone on my webcam. And no, I'm not just being modest. I cringed a couple of times. But only a couple of times isn't too bad, right?