Story Girl

I need to take some pictures of Story's adventures, but here's the scoop on what she's up to...basically her 11 month milestones...
She routinely takes 2-3 steps at a time. Today she took 6 consecutive steps. She's so proud of herself and looks around like, hey everyone! look at me!
We try to keep Story off the big stairs, but we have two steps down into our family room and she likes to play on those. She actually figured out how to go down them feet first - hooray! She figured out how to turn herself around and go feet first (instead of head first). She can book it up the big stairs in about 30 seconds so we have to make sure the stairs are blocked. Right now, we're using the ridiculous-looking combo of our ottoman and a garbage can to block the stairs. Since there's no railing on one side, a baby gate is not an option until the 4th stair up - still a long way to fall!
The safest place to leave Story is sometimes the couch. She has this uncanny sense of where the edge is, and not wanting to fall off, she somehow manages to stay on the couch - even when wrestling with Garett and tumbling all over the couch like it's her personal gym. Right now, I'm liking that she hasn't figured out how to get off the couch yet.
Story has, however, figured out that she can stand up in her highchair even when buckled. Darn it! She does not like her highchair & she squawks whenever we put her in it. My only hope is to hand her a piece of cheese before putting her down. The distraction sometimes works long enough for me to get her in the chair. I think we need to dig out the booster seat. Maybe she'll like that better?
There aren't many foods that Story loves, but she will eat cheese, noodles, banana (beware of the mashed pieces on the floor - super yuk), and she'll try a few other things. Most of the time, she puts the food in and spits it right back out.
Story likes to wave to people and blow kisses. She also likes to clench and unclench her hand when she wants something - kind of like "come here".
She will not keep socks on - I feel really bad for her frozen feet so I bought her a snowsuit with feet covers. Unfortunately, the more she walks, the less useful this will be! Maybe we need to go for boots that she can't take off???
Well, that's probably TMI for now so I need to go to bed!

Catching up...

For every season, I remake this wreath. Here's this year's Christmas version. I'm decorating with teal, turquoise and silver for Christmas this year. Yes, those are fake peacock feathers. Weird, I know.
This is what happens when I ask Haven to slice the olives for pizza. Not only does she decorate the plate with them, but I should point out that this is what's left of the whole can of olives.

My parents came for Thanksgiving and we had a belated birthday party for my dad. The kids had a great time making preparations and helping Grandpa celebrate.

My first ever chocolate cake roll. It was heavenly.

We had a fun & crazy time at my grandma's in Orem for Thanksgiving. She was super nice to host all of us crazy people & our crazy kids.

Pampered Chef

Haven went to a cooking-themed birthday party and came home with this adorable apron & hat. Such a cute idea! She, Holland, & Garett had a great time playing chef today!

Happy 3rd Birthday Garett!

We celebrated Garett's birthday on Saturday in Logandale while we were visiting Grove's parents. He got lots of fun toys and some awesome Spiderman pajamas. He's been carrying around a bag with his birthday toys in it ever since!
We're so glad Garett is part of our family. He didn't have an easy time coming into this world - he was born with a lung infection and was taken in the middle of the night by ambulance to UVRMC from AF hospital to be taken care of by the nurses in the NICU there. The hospital staff released me after 24 hours so I could go see him. Garett spent a week in the NICU - a few days on the respirator and a week on IV antibiotics before he got to come home. We're very thankful that he's a healthy 3 year old boy now!!!
Garett weighs 30 pounds (25%) and is 37" (between 25 & 50%) - he's back on the weight chart & doing great. The doctor told me today that he's worried about Garett's speech - that he's hard to understand - so those of you who have talked to Garett lately, what do you think? I don't think he's hard to understand at all, but I'm around him 24/7.
Some of Garett's favorites are:
Favorite Color: red & green
Favorite song: Popcorn Popping
Favorite toy: Spiderman and helicopter
Favorite show: Mighty Machines
Favorite food: corn dogs & french fries & he has his father's sweet tooth so anything sweet!!!!
Favorite thing to say: he calls everyone "hot dog"
Garett loves his firefighter blanket, his puppy, and "oo" his owl.
Garett says his k's and c's as t's and his says his l's as y's. So corn dog is torn dog and lollipop is yoyipop. He calls himself "Gg".

Garett's birthday box & ....

Garett got a birthday box in the mail 2 days ago from Grandma & Grandpa M and is completely enamored with it. He carries it around the house (unopened) and chatters about what's in it & how he's so excited that his birthday is tomorrow. This morning he decided to decorate the box & Haven & Story really wanted to be part of that fun. Thanks for the fun box G & G M! I'm sure he'll love the contents too, but who knew a box would be so much fun???

Last night there was the most beautiful sunset that I had to capture. Holland says the sky looked like cotton candy.

Fall Frolic

More tomato pictures...because of the frost, we had to pick some tomatoes early. They were huge! They've been ripening really well & we made a few more batches of tomato stuff & then froze a bunch of tomatoes too!

As big as her head? Maybe not quite...

Painting pumpkins

Notice the tomatoes ripening on the ledge...

My early Christmas present. I've really been enjoying our new piano & so has Holland.

Holland's 2nd grade Halloween concert

"Things that make you go Aaahhh!"

Have you ever seen a sleeping walrus?

Haven the unicorn and Holland the half wizard/half witch (her own creation)

The loot

Buzz lightyear with a pig nose. This cracked me up! Garett kept pulling his helmet down so it pulled his nose up....what a funny kid!

First of all, I did not stage this. This is what fell on the floor (and didn't get picked up) in the kitchen in a 24 hour period. The kids have to rescue whatever they want & put it where it's supposed to be or it goes in the trash. Just wanted to document this. The good news - the kids have been coloring & drawing a lot lately. The other good news - that means they're not watching tv. The bad news - paper and crayons, colored pencils, etc. everywhere!!!

When it's time to change, you've got to rearrange...

Do you know what show that's from? I'll give you a clue - 6 70's bellbottom-wearing children...
Last week, they split our ward. So now instead of being about 5 square blocks, we are 4 square blocks. Just to give you an idea, we were filling the entire chapel and gym most sacrament meetings and there were about 250 children in the nursery and primary. Only in Utah...
Anyway, the way they split our ward, we lost the YW pres, part of her presidency and at least 1 advisor, the RS president, and the same week they put in a new bishopric member to replace the one who moved. He had been the YM pres so we needed a new YM pres too. Oh, also, they called a new Sunday School president who was the former ward mission leader so today we got a new ward mission leader too. What a week!
Lots of people got new callings today, including me. I was called as the new RS 2nd counselor over the formerly-known-as-Enrichment meetings. I actually like change and look forward to this new opportunity. I think it'll be fun!
Today, we had two full-time missionaries speak in our ward, which is rare in our area - they come to our ward about twice a year because they have so many wards in their area. I'm writing this for the benefit of my East Coast friends since we had 4 elders assigned to just our WARD in Connecticut. Of course, there are 2 stakes in all of Connecticut and there are 3 stakes just in our neighborhood and they're planning a 4th. We have to have 2 sessions of stake conference to fit everyone.
So I just have to share this funny story one of the elders told. He grew up in a family of 11 children. Imagine...
He and his siblings were bugging their mom & dad for allowance for the chores they did around the house during family council. The next day, their mom came home from shopping and put up a sign on top of the door that said, "Service is the price you pay for the space you occupy." Grove adds that instead of calling them chores, they called jobs around the house family service. I thought that was brilliant!!! What a mom!