Just beacause...

Merry Christmas!

Oh wait, I mean Happy Halloween! It's easy to get confused when this is what it looks like outside in October.

To be fair, this is not normal. But I didn't find it amusing. The beautiful fall leaves were still on the trees when the snow started coming down. Because of the weight of the leaves and snow, there was a ton of damage and resulting power outages. We lost our two beautiful pear trees in the front yard. We finally got power back this week after using the generator for several days, but not until after both church and Halloween had been cancelled.

That's right, they cancelled Halloween. Mother Nature, you are a big jerk. Luckily we took the kids to Trunk or Treat last week. The kids looked adorable, Christian as an army man and Ashley as a sunflower. I did my best to get a good picture, but gave up after a while thinking that I would have another opportunity on Halloween night.

Christian had a ball playing the games and LOVED going around to all of the trunks to get candy while Ashley just chilled and took it all in. To many of the other trick or treaters' dismay, the gorilla did not make an appearance this year due to a combination of busy scheduling and lack of planning. We promise he will be there next year.

6 Months Old!

Holy cow, where has time gone? Ashley had her half birthday this month. We celebrated by taking her to her doctor checkup to get some immunization shots. It's tough being the second child. Here is a little about her...

• Ashley is now sitting up and eating baby food like its going out of style. She seems to like vegetables better than fruits, especially sweet potatoes.
• sleeps through the night (since she was 2 months old) and follows her nap schedule like clockwork. She will let me know how disappointed she is if I am late for nap time.
• loves the jumparoo just like her brother.
• sleeps in her swing. I am dreading the day she outgrows it and we have to switch her to the crib.
• She is one of the happiest, most easy going babies I have ever seen and is quick to smile at any happy face
• loves to wrestle with Daddy and cuddle with Mama
• still no teeth
• not fond of sitting through Sacrament meeting

Here are the 6 month stats:

16 lbs 2 oz

25.5 in long

50th percentile for height and weight

cuteness off the charts

Weekend Get Away

This weekend I spent my first night away from my children. Phil and Sherrine offered to stay with our kids while Ry and I headed up north for a little vacation. After doing a little research online, I found a place in Berlin, NH that does ATV tours in the White Mountains. It is peak leaf week, so we payed a premium. We drove halfway on Saturday afternoon to Lincoln. Ryan and I agreed that if we ever get our cabin in the woods someday, it will be near Lincoln. It is beautiful! We had a delicious dinner and checked into our hotel on the slopes of Loon Mountain ski resort.
We woke up early the next morning to drive the rest of the way to Berlin, otherwise known as Armpit, NH. It might as well be Canada. Berlin's one redeeming quality is the hundreds of miles of ATV trails high in the mountains which is perfect not only for fun, but for leaf peeping. Too bad it was super cloudy and rained the. whole. time. When it wasn't raining hard, it rained even harder. The clouds totally obscured every overlook we stopped to see. On a positive note, there was no dust on the trails, we pretty much had the mountain all to ourselves, and the mud and water puddles added some extra fun to our ride. I would totally do this again! Ry and I decided that when we get our cabin in Lincoln someday, we are getting ATVs.
This is the only picture we took mainly because we didn't want to stop riding, and also because getting the camera out involved taking off wet gloves, unzipping the waterproof bag, and shielding the camera from the deluge of rain.

We can't thank you enough, Jinga and Pepe, for watching the tots. We had so much fun! I promise that I will read every conference talk that we missed due to our weekend of freedom.

Playing in the Rain

A Few Favorites

To my husband,

Happy 5th anniversary! Yes, time has flown. I looked back at our wedding pictures today and saw how happy we were surrounded by our family and best friends who were there to support and celebrate with us. It was one of the best days of my life, up there with the births of our two awesome kids. I married you because I knew you would be a wonderful husband and father and I have not ever been disappointed. Thank you for all that you do for us. You are the perfect companion for me. You are fun, hardworking, smart, kind, generous, and loving (without being too sappy of course.) We have grown a lot together in the past five years and I look forward to spending forever with you! I love you!

You Scream, I Scream...

for the Ice Cream Man!

When we hear "The Entertainer" playing loud and clear, we know the ice cream man is making his rounds in the neighborhood. Christian does a little jig and makes a b-line for the driveway. Today I grabbed my wallet and my camera to capture the excitement as Christian stood at the end of the driveway waving his dollar bill.



I have GOT to get his little dance on video, it is too funny. Unfortunately this Shrek ice cream bar will probably be dinner for tonight since the truck came by at 6. But I can't resist. Love this face!



And this one too



Goodbye summer. I miss you already.

Irene

It was wicked bad, but it could have been a lot worse. I was supposed to speak today in Sacrament, but church was cancelled because no one knew quite what to expect. There was tons of rain, but it was the wind we were really worried about. There are a bunch of tall trees that could hit the house if they were blown over. Luckily the 70mph winds that were predicted never really panned out. This little apple tree was our only casualty. Behold the carnage.



I think we can even replant this little tree since it didn't break. It's only leaning because of the wet soil.
We lost power briefly for about 10 min. We had the little dvd player all charged up for Christian to watch some Peep. He grabbed his snacks and juice and pulled up baby Ashley's bumbo for a prime seat.



Both kids weathered the storm just fine. We are used to being inside during winter snow storms, but it was weird to be cooped up in the summer. The good news is that it is supposed to be sunny and beautiful for the rest of the week so we can dry out a bit.

4 Months

My little jelly bean is 4 months old! Here are the stats and a few pictures to enjoy...

13 lbs 9 oz

24 in

50th percentile for both height and weight

We put Ashley in the jumparoo to see if we should bring it up from the basement, but she has a little more growing to do

Summer Bounty

Our garden wasn't awesome this year. We got lots of cucumbers, some green onions, and a few beets and carrots, but everything else was underwhelming. However, my flowers have been beautiful this year. I cut a bunch of different summer flowers and brought them inside to enjoy. I think that next year I am going to plant flowers in my raised bed instead of vegetables. I get a lot more pleasure from flowers than from zucchini.

Could I be any more excited?!!

No. No I could not.

Christian sat on the potty voluntarily for over a half hour. It wasn't very...productive..., however he is happy to give it another try. And so am I.

Summer Fun

In an effort to redeem myself from being a blogging slacker, here are a few random shots of the kids doing fun summer things- swimming, frolicing in the sun, hanging with cousins, and just being cute.

Maine Attractions

Last week we decided to pack up the kids for a little outing to the zoo. We had two choices- the Stoneham Zoo in southern Massachusetts or the York Zoo in Maine. The Stoneham Zoo would require a 1 1/2 hour drive on 495 through Mass, trying to avoid rush hour in Boston, heat, and much bigger crowds for a much bigger zoo. The York Zoo meant a 1 hour drive to the coast, no traffic concerns, the possibility of an ocean breeze, and much smaller crowds. Another bonus was that we would drive through Kittery, Maine. I'll explain why that is so awesome later. The choice was easy. We packed up and headed to Maine.
I am happy to report that the zoo did not disappoint. I knew it was small, but it had all of the cool animals- lions, tigers, bears, alligators, elephants, lots of monkeys, zebras...you name it, they had it. We fed the goats and baby deer, visited the butterfly house, and thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon. Christian loved looking at the animals and baby Ashley was content in her stroller. The weather was beautiful, the crowds were small, and the food reasonably priced. We will definitely return! My only regret is that I didn't ask the zoo keepers what happens to the animals in the winter. I'm pretty sure that African elephants are not used to 10 feet of snow.

Here we are feeding the goats


Christian was brave at first, then decided that Mommy should feed the goats instead. Same went for the baby deer.

Lions

Alligators

Checking out the kangaroos

Ry and Christian in front of the white tiger

Butterfly house


The day's adventure did not end at the zoo. We stopped at Kittery Trading Post on the way home. It is the largest sporting goods store in New England. It is Mecca to Ryan. They have anything that an outdoors man/survivalist could ever dream of. It also has an awesome fudge stand.

Christian and Ashley checking out the stuffed moose
Funny thing is that there wasn't a moose at the zoo, and they are native to New Hampshire. This picture was taken just before Christian took a header into the moose pit. He was ok after a little bite of rocky road fudge.
This was the result of the day's events. We had two very tired tots. Both Christian and Ashley were very good kids considering all of the exciting things they got to see that day.