Edward and Bella

I forgot to mention that we went to the Boise temple open house 2 weeks ago. It is beautiful and the interior is completely different. We took our kids. I wanted it to be a memorable and fun experience so we decided to use our Tucanos gift card and go out to eat afterwards. Unfortunately the whole time we were at the temple our kids kept asking if it was time to go to the restaurant yet. So that kind of backfired a little bit but that's okay. We did have a great time at the restaurant. We don't eat out very often so it's pretty exciting for our kids.

Our family got invited to a costume birthday party. The mom served mummy wrapped hot dogs, monster mouths, and eye balls with dirt and worms for dessert. It was cute and clever. On Wednesdays in the wintertime we meet up with Anna and her kids at Burger King. This is a great time for our kids to play and for us to get out of the house.

Friday night was the ward Halloween party. It was one of the worst turn outs I can remember. It was kind of nice for the carnival though. The kids got to play all of the games and hardly wait in line at all. They had a lot of fun games set up. I was wishing that I could play. Scott and I decided to dress up as Edward and Bella. Ha. I don't think anyone knew we were dressed up. I looked totally normal (except I never wear skinny jeans with skater shoes) and Scott had pale make up on. I think people just thought Scott looked sick or something. We thought we looked pretty good though.

I got released from the Young Womens. It is sad but it's okay. I have been serving there for 4 years. There was a lot of turn over for different reasons so I think the Bishop thought it would be a good time for me to move on. I am now the Compassionate Service Coordinator which is pretty much making a lot of phone calls. Not my favorite. That's okay. I'm pretty excited about going back to Relief Society, I like Relief Society.

It was the Primary program today and Corbin was the only one who cried and the only one who didn't do his part. I was a little frustrated with him and I thought how can I be frustrated with him when I was the only one in the primary who would cry and who wouldn't give my part. Unfortunately it looks like I passed this gene on. Better luck next year.  Let's hope he does better than me, I never participated in the Primary program ever. It nearly ruined me! Ha.

Some funny quotes from this week. 

Gabby “When I share it makes Heavenly Father happy, when I don’t share with Corbin it makes Heavenly Father sad.”

Scott was talking with Gabby about trick or treating and he said that he hoped it didn’t rain on Halloween and Gabby said, “Yeah, because that would make Heavenly Father sad.”

Corbin was expressing excitement over having fruit snacks in the home.  Scott said, “Yes, what a nice Nana you have to get you guys those fruit snacks,” to which Corbin responded, “Yeah, I love Nana and Jesus.”

Corbin "Mom, I left that out so you could pick it up." 

Last Sunday before dinner at the Cannons we passed some time by feeding the neighbor horses.

Gabby dressing herself.

Edward and Bella "We are so SERIOUSly in love."

We probably shouldn't let our baby feed herself soup and she should probably have a bib. Oh Piper!

Brought to You From Utah

We went to Salt Lake to visit Scott's family this weekend. We went for a few reasons. Of course our kids are always dying to go to Nana's house for on thing. I also love going to Utah in October, it is beautiful and Janet is the Halloween Queen and it's fun to see her house decorated. I also wanted to see what things I could borrow for Chase's wedding. So here we are. We came down early on Friday morning and made it just in perfect time to get lunch at Hires. After that the kids had fun picking apples and pumpkins with Nana and Papa. Scott was so happy to repeat his nerd fest with his brother and brother in laws. They played video games until 2:00 in the morning. I finally go to watch Janet's favorite scary movie that I have wanted to watch for years. It is black and white and it is good. It is called The Uninvited but it's nothing like the stupid modern movie with that title. I liked it a lot, it was scary and had a good ending. It wasn't too cheesy and it didn't get stupid. Scary movies often have a hard time not doing those things. Of course that night I was a little spooked and got further spooked when I heard a sound that I thought was Piper. I proceeded to open the basement door to be met by a screaming cat. Wow, that made my heart skip a beat.

We had a horrible incident when Piper fell down the entire flight of the Cannons very long staircase. I was standing right there and in a second I had to watch my baby roll down the stairs catching speed the whole time she fell. It was horrible and sad. I'm a little traumatized thinking about it. I think this has been the scariest thing I have had to experience as a parent thus far. She came out fairly well. Her nose was gushing blood and her upper lip was swollen. Thank goodness that was all. She cried for a long time and it was sad. She woke up only a little swollen. She has a little bruise on her upper nose. Thank goodness their stairs have nice plush carpet. It was all hard wood a few years ago. I'm glad she fell down with at least a little cushion.

On Saturday we went down to Thanksgiving point and checked out the Barnyard Boo. They had a lot of cute farm animals. We saw all the animals and went on a short hay ride. Gabby was in a mood the whole time but she improved dramatically after lunch. Piper had the best time out of all the kids I think. Afterwards we went to Porter's Place in Lehi. It was so good. I loved it! It is a restaurant named after Porter Rockwell and they have Mormon Malts along with other delicious things. The restaurant is very old timey and has excellent food.

Scott and I sneaked off at one point to check out Uncle Rick's basement to see if there were any craft projects for myself or for the wedding but I didn't find anything. We then went to Goodwill and I found some more great things for the reception. It was pretty low key last night, there were a few rounds of cards played. Carole and I went to Nordstroms. I stayed up late catching up on a few shows while Scott played some more games with Rustin and Clark and for a little while Corbin as well.

We are headed home tomorrow. Hopefully we will play some games tonight. I love playing Sunday night games with the Cannons.  

At Barnyard Boo

At Porter's Place, you can see Piper's upper lip is a little swollen.

I think it's cute when Gabby watches Corbin play games.

Corbin playing with the boys. He was so focused. It was cute. Good bonding time.

The hideaway bed sinks in the middle. Corbin and Gabby slept real close all night. Funny and cute.

After church Corbin was feeling a little clingy or something. We had some good cuddles and watched Princess and the Frog together.

This is an old picture from Nicole's phone. Look at that face!

Another old picture from Nicole's phone. Cute!

Busy Week

This has been a busy week for me. It's mostly my fault but I got everything I wanted accomplished so that is good. I like having deadlines because they motivate me to get things done. I knew my parents were coming on Saturday for some baptisms so I thought that was some great motivation to get some more things done for the wedding so my parents could take it home and I could get rid of it. My house is too small to have tons of wedding decorations. So on Monday morning I began my fake wedding cake project with cardboard, paper, tape, fabric, and hot glue. I am happy to say that by Friday after cutting out and gluing hundreds of flowers I finished that wedding cake. I was so proud! Seriously it was a lot of work in a little amount of time. I think it looks good. Sorry you will have to wait and see (if you care).

Don't ask me why but I'm in a Twilight mood and so I decided to call my friend Lisa because I knew she would want to watch them with me for sure. So we watched 2 of the movies last week and I'm sure we will finish our marathon next week. I can't wait to watch the 4th one again because I think the wedding in that movie is amazing so I want to get some inspiration from it.

I made lots of cupcakes this week. I swapped with the Beehive leader and so 4 Beehives and myself decorated 48 Halloween cupcakes. It was fun, Beehives are crazy. Ha. My friend Jen Holyoak threw a baby shower for her sister in law Jen Holyoak (funny huh). I offered to make the cupcakes because I want some practice making gourmet cupcakes since I will be making those for the wedding (yes I am quite aware that I am a crazy person). So I made  48 snickers and lemon cream cheese cupcakes and they were both dang good. I'm pretty sure those will be making the wedding dessert list.

Piper has been really happy and low maintenance this week. Wow what a difference, it turns out I really do like this baby. That sounds terrible, I always love her but when she screams all day sometimes it's hard to like her. I liked her tons this week. She is so dang cute!

I've been doing Preschool with Corbin most afternoons. Sometimes Gabby is there. She loves it even more than he does. I'm sure she will be an early reader as she hangs out and listens and participates with Corbin's lessons and she likes it a lot. They both mostly like it because Gobstoppers are involved. Corbin does not like preschool things very well so I found gobstopper rewards to be very helpful and effective. We all have a great time. He has made a lot of progress. We have a lot more work to do.

Yesterday we went to two baptisms. My twin brothers both baptized their daughters. It was Lance's youngest and Alex's oldest. We went to Dejah's baptism at 4:00 and then Ruth's at 6:00. Thankfully Ruth was in the first group. Hallelujah because the group was huge and we would have been there all night. Plus by that point we were all tired of being reverent. Afterwards we had a yummy dinner at Katie's. The kids did really great for the most part. We were gone a total of 51/2 hours. That is a long time to be in church clothes and try to be reverent for half of it. It was good though. Plus we didn't want to miss out on an opportunity for our kids to watch their cousins being baptized. These are some of the teaching moments. That's all!

Here is half of Piper's costume. Cute! Yes she is surrounded by chokers and I think is putting one in her mouth.

Raspberry snitcher.

I love that Gabby is playing in all of those Fall leaves in her shorts. Love Indian Summer days.

Piper loves to kick her leg up while she eats. Funny girl.

I got both Gabby and Piper's dresses and shoes at Kid to Kid. So cute. What did I tell you, I love second hand stores.

Her first piggies. You an sort of see them, they looked pretty cute.

General Conference

Scott and I celebrated our Anniversary on Friday night. Our Anniversary is tomorrow and we were trying to decide when to go out and what to do and we decided that we should just go out that night. I got a babysitter and we were out. I'm glad that I feel pretty comfortable leaving my kids with a babysitter now. I just have a hard time leaving my small babies with a baby sitter so it's nice that Piper is a little older now. We went to Big Jud's and got some good burgers and fries. We then headed to the movie theater and luckily we were a few minutes early and there was a Goodwill next door. Score! I hadn't noticed it there before. I love thrift store shopping. Most of the time I don't find anything but sometimes I find some amazing things. It's like a treasure hunt and I love it. I found something great for Chase's reception so I was excited. We went to the new Batman since it was finally in the cheap theaters. After that Scott even bought me a Blizzard on the way home. It was our Anniversary celebration and we went all out! 7 years baby.

General Conference is such a great time. In the great parenting class I took years ago Sister Tanner said that General Conference should be like our super bowl and we should be EXCITED and we should make our kids excited too. I loved that. For Family Home Evening last week we talked to the kids about conference and tried to get them all geared up. I said we would get special conference treats and Corbin wanted to go to Winco everyday and get our general conference treats. I make cinnamon rolls every time which is fun and special since it's pretty much the only time I make those. We also had a yummy breakfast casserole. For the kids we bought special sugar cereal and fish crackers which are rare things at our house. It was a good time. We did have guests for the Sunday morning session and that was a challenge but that's okay. The girl I visit teach came over with her family. Her husband got a job in Idaho Falls and he is gone all week. He might start coming home for 1 day a month but he works 6 days a week so he will have to drive 10 hours in a 24 hour day off. Anyway so we had 6 kids under the age of 5 and well let's just say we didn't get too much out of that session but that's okay.

During the afternoon session Gabby was taking a nap and Corbin stood up and said "I can't believe Gabby's missing it." So cute and funny. Gabby was wearing shorts today and Scott starting singing the song "Who wears short shorts" and Gabby started singing back "I wear shorts" it was funny. I love my kids, they are so dang cute.

I made some good progress on the reception last week and still can't wait until they are official so I can really get my hands dirty. Once again I won't be posting pictures until the end. 

Painting. Corbin has actually gotten better about painting now that Gabby has joined in on the fun.

Apple munchers.

I could not get that girl to look up at me. Don't you love a red coat? I also bought Piper red Sunday shoes last week. Don't you love red shoes? What can I say I took after my Grandma Beal.

Nana sent Halloween costumes in the mail.

Piper's costume is a peacock. So funny. Anyway Corbin put on Piper's hat. It's pretty fitting for a pirate although a bird on the shoulder would be more appropriate.

Finally finished my pillow. That was a lot of cutting and gluing. I hand sewed the very upper left corner and after such a small section of that I bagged it and busted out the glue gun. I do think the hand sewn section looks better but SERIOUSLY! Just at least double the work and probably the fabric involved. I still used 5 yards. 5 yards of cut flowers people. What am I thinking when I choose to do these projects? As if that's not bad enough let's just say I bought 10 yards of white fabric to cut flowers out for Chase's reception. Apparently I didn't learn my lesson.

Weekly Update

My brother Chase is getting married sometime in December in some temple (they keep changing the date and temple). I had so much fun doing Kelsey's wedding I had to get in on Chase's. I shot him an e-mail asking if they were going to have a reception in Arco and told him I would love to do it if they were. He said they wanted one and they wanted me to do it so I was super excited! I love this. It is my newest favorite thing.

At the beginning of planning out Kelsey's wedding I could not sleep because I couldn't turn my brain off. I kept thinking of ideas and it was out of control. The same thing happened to me this week too. I had a rough sleeping week but I did get a lot of good ideas at that time. I would be trying to sleep and I would think of a good idea and I would get up and write it down and try to go back to sleep.  The good news is I basically have it all worked out so I think I will start sleeping again. The bad news is Rachel isn't even in the country and won't be for several more weeks. The reason this is bad news is because they aren't even officially engaged yet and I'm trying to wait before I start spending money and working on it. It's impossible. I have managed to do a lot of work for basically free. I repainted a lot of the stuff from Kelsey's wedding. Trying to wait has forced me to be a little more organized which will save time and money. If I get an idea in my head I have to go to the store right then and get it started. Since that isn't an option I now have a master list with all of the stores and what I need to get at each store. I will try to do little inexpensive projects until it's official but we will see. I'm not very patient and especially with stuff like this. This will be good for me. Anyway I hope everything turns out as good as it is in my head.

The kids are good. When Corbin says things that I say I can't help but think it's funny. Any time I hear him say "dang it!" I think it's funny (maybe I shouldn't, oops). I also love it when he says "what the heck!" It kills me. Speaking of that it reminds me of a story. We busted out the Halloween decorations and Corbin wanted to move some Halloween candy from my decorative cansisters and put them into some other Halloween cup and I told him no. As we were having this conversation back and forth and I was explaining my reasoning and he said "that kills me." So funny. Corbin is so happy and obedient most of the time. He is a very good example to his sisters. I'm glad he's my oldest. He helps set the tone for the whole family. He will have a good life with his happy disposition I think. Corbin wakes up from a deep, deep sleep by rolling over and immediately saying "good morning mommy" in a chipper voice. Wow I don't even know how he does that. It's so cute.

We put our old dresser into the kids room, the problem with this is that this dresser is shorter and the drawers are much easier to open. Consequently Gabby gets into them all day and wants to change her clothes and underwear all day. It's so annoying. I have kind of put a stop to that. I'm okay with playing dress up but I am not okay with wearing 10 different outfits in one day. Uh uh. I love that Gabby loves to look pretty and is almost always cooperative when I fix her hair because she wants to be pretty. She's definitely a girly girl. I should probably buy her some fake jewelry for Christmas, she would probably love it. She is my little parrot and says anything and everything. She is becoming more cute and fun all the time. The older she gets the more I am able to get her to have better behavior and she has much fewer tantrums so that is nice. She loves when I read books to her and she loves playing with Corbin. She also loves many of her toys and I watched her play hide and go seek with her tiger the other day. Hilarious!

Piper is a handful. She can be very cute and funny. She is definitely opinionated and feisty. I think Gabby was my preparation for Piper. Piper isn't happy and content generally for very long. I think she gets bored very easily. Piper loves it when I take her on long bike rides. She loves fruit. She is smart. I don't know how to explain it but I can just tell she is really smart. She was so hard at church today that Scott had to take her home and put her to bed. She kept screaming and would not stop screaming no matter what I did. I think she is working on a tooth but man oh man! You know how I mentioned how she is smart, opinionated, and feisty well that being said she did not want to be at church today and she was letting the whole ward know it.

Well how's that for a super long blog post. Like you are surprised.

Corbin doing somersaults over the couch. Hilarious.

Piper helping clean up cards.

Little creatures.

We found Corbin's old dragon costume. Isn't that the cutest little dragon?

Piper would grab a card and turn completely around and give it to me. She does it a little bit on this video. (Awesome braid).

This is for the video below, blogger would not cooperate. Anyway I made monster puppets for the kids and Scott is playing with them. Scott's voices are my favorite part. So funny to me.

Weekly Update

Gabby is doing amazing with her potty training. She is 100% trained and she regulates herself. What a relief! I'm so happy. I trained her on a little potty but I hate them and I think they are disgusting. I already got rid of it. I kind of tested her out to see how she would react and she seemed fine. I told her the potty fairy was going to come and take her potty away and she would use the big potty. She thought this sounded pretty interesting and like something a big girl would want to do. I told her the potty fairy would take her potty and leave a present behind. On Saturday morning in Gabby's tired state she went to use the potty and her toilet was gone. She started to get upset but I showed her the present that the potty fairy left and she was fine. She has been great about using the big potty. Hurray! So proud of her, and myself! Ha.

My big goal this year is focusing on Corbin's pre-schooling and it's not great. He's not super into it. He never has been. That's okay. I decided I just need to figure out a reward system that works well for him. I will just try to reward him for his efforts and work. My goal is to just work on something everyday. I hope to do big fun projects sometimes but mostly just to review and do something small everyday.  For me it's overwhelming to try to have hours of organized lesson plans and activities. It's not going to happen. So rather than do that I will just try to do SOMETHING everyday.

Piper had her one year appointment. This girl is skinny. She is my smallest baby yet. The doctor seemed a little concerned but I'm not. For the most part she eats a lot. Plus what she does eat is healthy. Would it be better is she weighed 30 pounds but only ate cookies and crackers? I don't think so. I will just have to douse her vegetables in olive oil or something.

On Friday morning we took a trip out to Caldwell to the church farms and got some fruit. On the way back each of the kids were munching on some fruit and they were happy campers. I tried to take a picture but none of them turned out.

I didn't take any other pictures this week. I will have to do better next week. 

Pipers' 1 year stats?
Can you tell she's my third? I can't find the slip. She only weighs a little over 17 pounds. She is 5th percentile in weight, 50th in height and I don't even know what her head circ. is.

Check out Gabby and Corbin here.

Potty Training

I potty trained Gabby this week. Potty training is the worst! I think Gabby has been ready for months but I have not been. They always say you should wait until the child is ready but you have to wait until the mom is ready too. I think summertime is crazy and with Kelsey's wedding forget about it. So in the back of my mind September was the time. I made a plan to start last Monday. It was going okay the first 2 days but I didn't feel like she was learning anything. Just because they can pee on the toilet doesn't mean they are getting it.  I follow the 3 day potty training method and I wasn't doing it exactly as she suggests. By Tuesday night I could tell I wasn't doing it quite right and I was depressed. Seriously potty training is draining. So I got up and went to Winco at 10:30 pm and got more snacks, juice, and rewards. Wednesday made all the difference. By the end of the day she told me she needed to pee for the first time. This was music to my ears. That to me is the key to potty training success. That is why I love this method so much. It teaches them to know and understand the urges to go to the bathroom and go take care of their business. They regulate themselves. It is the best. Seriously Corbin has been potty trained for 2 years and he has had 2 accidents ever and they were total flukes. Gabby is not perfect yet but she basically is. She's got it. She understands and I don't think we will ever have to look back with her either. I also love this method because it is day and night. It makes total sense to me and it works and I recommend it to anyone. Be warned that it is horrendous but after a few days it is DONE and you don't have to worry about it again!

Other than potty training and redecorating my room that was our whole week. We were all prisoners this week stuck in the house. It was the hardest on me and Piper. Piper loves getting out. Corbin took it well because he got snacks and treats along with Gabby so that was exciting. Gabby was happy because potty training was great experience for her. She got tons of attention, snacks, rewards, positive reinforcement, and a sense of accomplishment. She was LOVING it. I am excited to get out of the house with my kids next week. Let's enjoy this beautiful weather. Don't you just love September? Check out the post below if you want to see my redecorating.

Day 1, potty queen

Fort!

Corbin dressed himself, we were all stuck inside because of potty training anyway so who cares.

Silly kids

Piper is so smart. I swear she does little things that shows me that she is a little smarty pants. Corbin and Gabby were laying on their blankets and I could tell Piper wanted to as well. So I put a blanket down for her, she was so happy and excited

We grew watermelon, and it actually grew, and it actually tasted good.

 

Scott had Corbin watch Star Wars with him for the first time, my children and destined to be nerds. That's okay, nerds are far more interesting.

Here is a cute video Aunt Nicole made if you want to watch.