Happy??? Halloween

Halloween is finally here and it started out pretty much like I thought it might. "Is it time to go trick-or-treating yet??? Why not? When do we get to go? Why does it have to be dark???" Ashton is just way to excited for it to finally happen. So he was pretty grumpy all morning knowing that it is Halloween, but that nothing is really happening yet. Lars wanted me to go by his work with the boys in their costumes, so we got ready to do that this morning and of course when it was time go Ashton didn't want to. But I made him anyway so we could at least get out of the house for a little while to kill some time before it's time to go trick-or-treating for real tonight. So after we went there and showed off their costumes (and already got way too much candy) I decided on the way home to go take some pictures of them. Of course Ashton was really excited about that. He stayed in the car for the first 10 minutes while I tried to get some cute shots of Gunnar, then I finally got him to put his costume back on and come out and I got about 3 shots of him before he was done.

As you can see Ashton's costume of choice is a ghost. He has been SO excited to finally get his costume, so I finally gave it to him after preschool yesterday. He had fun wearing it around yesterday trying to scare Gunnar and waiting impatiently for Lars to get home from work, so he could jump out and scare him.

Now he keeps asking me when the "real ghosts" are going to come out. He must have asked me that a long time ago and I don't remember saying it, but he says that I told him they come out after dark. So part of the reason he is so excited to go out tonight after dark is because he really thinks he's going to see some real ghosts flying around! Oops!
Hey maybe he will!Here is Gunnar in the monkey costume that Ashton wore his first Halloween...
(eating the leaves again)The lighting must have been a lot different the day I took the pictures of Ashton-it looks like it's a totally different color on Gunnar.
Here they both are...Anyway hopefully now that the day is finally here we can all go out and have some fun tonight and even get back in time to hand out some candy at our own house!

Another month already???

Gunnar is 7 months old today!

And yes I'm going to do a post every month older he gets :)

He just keeps getting cuter and cuter...he actually sat up really well today for a long time for the first time, so I took a bunch of pictures of him playing in the leaves.

He mostly just wanted to try to eat them so it was hard to get him to look at me, but he loved being outside.

It was such a nice day!

Oh and Ashton was having lots of fun too...putting all of our leaves in a big pile, then running and jumping in them with his friend Tyler.

Past Halloweens

As we are looking forward to Halloween this next Friday, I can't help but look back on the past 3 Halloweens with Ashton. I've always loved Halloween...just dressing up when I was a kid and trick-or-treating ( a lot of times in the snow! ) in Wyoming, and even when I was in highschool I remember going to Salt Lake with friends to haunted houses and dressing up at school and just the fact that it's fall time- I just love the feel of this time of year. But it's even more fun now with kids especially this year with Ashton being so excited about it all!

We had so much fun his first Halloween when he was about 9 1/2 months old dressing him up as a monkey-he was so cute! We took him around to a few of our neighbors' houses, then came home and handed out candy.

Obviously that Halloween was more for us since he had no clue what was going on! Then when he was 2, he was soooo into the Backyardigans so I had to get him this Tyrone the Moose costume that year-he was kind of starting to understand a little bit and thought it was fun to carry his little pumpkin bucket around to the neighbors houses again-

I think he even ate a few pieces of candy that year.

Finally last year I figured it was my last year to choose for him, so I got this UPS Man costume and he was SO cute in it. People commented on it wherever we went. It was a big hit! He had fun in it too-for whatever reason he called it his P.U. Mess Man costume! This year Ashton chose what he wanted to be about a month and a half ago, but I waited to order his costume until it got a little closer figuring he would change his mind...but he has stuck with his first choice and is so excited to wear it! I haven't given it to him yet, because I know he would wear it every second till Halloween, then might be sick of it by the time he's really supposed to wear it.

Stay tuned to see what he chose!

Oh and of course to see how cute Gunnar looks in his :)

A cold night at the Corn Maze

We have been telling Ashton the past couple weeks that we would take him to a corn maze (not that he really knew what it was...but he was excited anyway), so last night we finally did. First we went to Arctic Circle to get a kid's meal because they have little Halloween flashlights as the toy and he wanted one to take to the maze. Then we drove across the parking lot to Old Grist Mill, so Lars and I could get some non-fast food. Then off we went to The American West Heritage Center to check out the corn maze & everything else they have going on out there. By the time we got there it was just getting dark...and colder than I thought it would be. I had packed hats for the boys and me, but no gloves for Ashton and he just had on a t-shirt and jeans and a fleece pullover. Gunnar had on a little fleece outfit and I had a blanket for him. I guess I wasn't really thinking it would be that cold or I would have packed winter coats and gloves! It was pretty darn cold. We went inside and bought our tickets, then went and got on the wagon pulled by horses to go out to the corn maze. As the horses started off it kind of jerked the wagon and I swear Ashton almost fell out the back! It scared me to death. I grabbed him and put him on the other side of me and made sure I held onto him the rest of the ride. After about a 5 minute ride, they dropped us off (it was completely dark at that point besides all of the Halloween decorations & lights), so we walked around for a few minutes, then found the kid maze..which Ashton LOVED! It was just made out of a bunch of hay bales and to him it was like a giant fort to play in. I think he would have been happy to play there for hours. But we figured we had better check out the corn maze before it got even colder. So we got a map (which ended up being pointless) and headed in. It was huge! And thank goodness for Ashton's little ghost light because it was really dark too. The girl we talked to before we went in that worked there said that you could get through in about 25 mintues if you knew exactly where you were going. So after we were in there for awhile I kind of started to freak out that we could be in there with two little boys freezing for a couple of hours. At that point I started praying to St. Anthony that we would find our way out quickly. Before we went much further Lars and I decided we should probably try to backtrack the way we came to get back to the entrance rather than get even further in. Luckily we made it back out in about 15 minutes and we went into one of the buildings they have there where there happened to be an LDS activity night going on and they were nice enough to offer us some hot chocolate and donuts. That is one thing Ashton can't say no to-he loves donuts and Gunnar would have loved one too if he could have had one! So we warmed up for a few more minutes, then Lars took Ashton out to play in the kid maze for a few more minutes while we waited for the horse wagon to come back and get us. Then after a cold ride back to the truck we headed home. Even in the cold Gunnar never got fussy-I've decided that he loves getting out of the house-he was happy the entire time. It doesn't hurt that we packed him around all night too. Other than the cold it was a fun night!

Pumpkin Head

So we had just gotten home from our walk this morning and I laid Gunnar on a blanket on the living room floor and Ashton was just playing there with him, so I ran downstairs for no more than 3 minutes when I hear Gunnar crying. Not so unusual if I leave the room, but this time it was one of those "I'm in pain" cries that had me running up the stairs fast to see what happened.

So what did I find you ask???

This...

Stuck on this...

Yes I mean stuck on Gunnar's head!!! His head wasn't all the way inside of it thank goodness, but it was kind of wedged into it so that I couldn't get it off for about 30 seconds and it really kind of freaked me out. And of course me freaking out freaked Ashton out, so he started bawling and saying over and over..."I was just playing with him, I was just playing with him!"

I was seriously picturing myself walking into the emergency room with this pumpkin bucket stuck on my baby's head!

Finally I kind of pryed his head out and he was of course still bawling, but not nearly as much as Ashton was. Gunnar calmed down after about a minute, but Ashton felt so bad he kept crying about it for a good half an hour. I think he thought he was in big trouble! He loves that pumpkin bucket and is always walking around with it on his own head, so I'm sure he thought it would be fun to see if it would actually fit onto Gunnar's smaller head. I truly know that Ashton wasn't trying to hurt him or anything, he was "just playing" like he said. Even with all of the acting out since Gunnar was born, he has always pretty much been nice to him and I know he wouldn't purposefully hurt him.

Of course I didn't stop to take a picture of the actual incident, so here is my lame attempt at re-enacting it...

The only mark that I can see that it left is this little welt by his right eye-the pumpkin was kind of wedged on there sideways. Anyway it doesn't show up too well in this picture. Luckily he survived...I told Lars about it and after finding out he was okay he laughed and said if this is the worse thing one of them ever does to the other than we are in good shape!

It's only a matter of time...

Gunnar is already constantly up on his hands and knees or tippy toes rocking back and forth...boo hoo, I can't believe how quickly it's happening this time. He doesn't even know how to sit up on his own yet and I think he'll be crawling in the next week or two!!! It is pretty darn cute though especially when it looks like he's doing little baby push ups! He also sits in the little high chair seat that we had for Ashton that attaches to our counter and he LOVES it. Give him a couple of measuring spoons and he's happy for a good 10-15 minutes. He still just stares down our food every time he sees us eat and is really reaching for our plates now too. So, so different than Ashton who never did that and who never fed himself a single thing till he was about 13 months old! And when we would try to put a cheerio or anything like that in his mouth he would gag and throw up! I rememer the first time he actually put food in his own mouth (it happened to be a little piece of enchilada) I cried! I was so excited to see him finally feed himself!

(here he is at Gunnar's age :)It was nice however that he never put anything else in his mouth for us to worry about him choking on. That will be hard with Gunnar to have to really pay attention! Especially now with all of Ashton's toys. We really need to be going through everything and putting away anything with little tiny pieces. I can see it in his eyes when he watches Ashton that he just can't wait to follow him around and play with him-it's so cute! He gets so excited and just stares and him and smiles all day.

This was so cute the other day...Gunnar was sitting up at the counter and Ashton came up and sat by him and shared his beloved "lovey" with him!Here's Gunnar sitting up more in his little tub too-Ashton was "helping" us bath him...(dumping water over his head) his hair is looking really red in this picture!

Pumpkins, cornstalks, ghosts, and more pumpkins

Last Saturday after sitting around for the first half of the day (well Lars and Ashton went grocery shopping I guess)...we decided to go get some pumpkins and cornstalks to start decorating a little for Halloween. I heard that Zollingers tree farm, about a mile away from us, had some of both. So off we went in the rain. We picked out a few pumpkins and a couple bunches of corn stalks as it started hailing on us! Then we went to the craft store and got a couple other decorations. Ashton is just SO into Halloween this year and comments on every pumpkin or decoration he sees, so I wanted to get a few things for our house that he could look at all the time. So we came home and put those things up, then I decided to make some ghosts to hang from our front lights...Ashton thought that was pretty fun too (and I think they turned out pretty cute!).

Then on Sunday we were pulling into the church parking lot and saw a truck full of pumpkins that someone was giving away for FREE!

Since we were amazingly a few minutes early we pulled over and Lars grabbed a few more including this GIANT one.

We even got some green ones. It was snowing that day when we got home to unload them! It was kind of a cold nasty weekend, but fun to get started decorating. Ashton loves the big pumpkin and thought it was pretty fun to try to stand on it, until it flipped over backward and flipped him off head first!

Luckily he barely caught himself with his hands before he cracked his head or teeth on the front step!!

About Ashton

Tagged by Cassidy

Name and Meaning: Ashton Jeremy (I think in the baby books it says Ashton means Ash tree settlement, Jeremy obviously after his Daddy)

Age: 3 1/2 (will be 4 on January 6th)

Nicknames: Ashy

Favorite Activities: Depends on the moment...Today he and Lars have built a fort with blankets and our big chair-so he's had a blast pretending it's his house-he even hooked up a pretend tv with satellite! Playing with friends is a big one lately. And just pretending, pretending, pretending with everything-What an imagination that kid has!

Favorite Foods: chicken nuggets, ramen noodles, smoothies, goldfish crackers, MILK, graham crackers, waffles, rice, salmon.

Least Favorite Foods: Pretty much everything else :) He was good about trying lots of things for awhile, but now he's back to his basics.

Favorite Music: He loves Taylor Swift and particularly the song "Picture to Burn."

Favorite Toy: Also really depends on the moment. He still really loves his Lovey...and he always gets back around to his lawn mowers and vacuum. For outside he loves his tractor. And anything that's not really supposed to be a toy or played with. Anything mechanical.

Favorite Item of clothing: He would live in just underwear if we let him. But if he has to wear something he loves pajamas. (his batman, spiderman and incredibles ones that I'm so sick of seeing!)

What makes him Happy: Listening to music and dancing, Playing with friends, being chased and tickled by Lars and me. Definitely just playing with someone...anyone. Like most kids, he just loves attention.

Funny words or phrases he says: Oh there have been so many, but lately he always says differenter (when he is describing something different), and he still can't pronounce breakfast-he says brekfrisk. Oh and I love it when he says "a few whiles ago."

I tag Angie H. with Ethan

& Mandy with Dylan

My date night with Ashton

This past week Ashton has been filling up a sticker chart when we catch him doing something nice (like being nice to Gunnar, playing nicely with friends, not hitting, doing things we ask him to without fighting etc...), so after he put 10 stickers on he earned a night out with me (he would have rather it been Lars) but I was excited to spend a night with just him. So he and I went to the little miniature golf course that is here in Providence and I knew he would love it because it's all decked out in Halloween decorations and "scary guys". He is loving everything Halloween so far this year. And he really likes the really scary looking life size decorations. There is a big dead looking guy at Sam's Club that takes his face off and he'd sit and watch it for an hour if I let him! No fear whatsoever! So after dinner we got dressed in some warmer clothes since it's really starting to cool down at night here and he and I went off on our date. I forgot how fun it was to just be with him like we always used to be. It's amazing too how different he acts when it's just him and me. I had to laugh as we were getting out of the truck when we got there-he says to me "This might be kinda boring Mommy." I don't think he had a clue what miniature golf was. So after we paid and got our clubs and balls, we went over to the little practice area and hit the balls into the holes a few times. He thought that was fun for about 3 minutes, then he decided he wanted to leave his ball and club at the first hole. Oh well-he had fun going from one hole to the next just looking at all of the fun decorations. He decided he wanted his club back when we got to the 17th hole I think-so we went back up and got him another one and he hit the ball a few more times. Then he wanted a treat, so he got a popcicle and a orange pop. A big treat for him since he rarely gets pop. He loved all of the Halloween songs they had playing too and kept dancing. I love to watch him when fun music comes on, because he just can't stop his body from dancing! Oh I love my Ashton and it was so fun to have him all to myself again if only for an hour or so.

Gunnar's 6 month stats

We had Gunnar's 6 month check up yesterday...he weighed in at a whopping 14 lbs. 13 oz. He hasn't quite doubled his birth weight! That puts him down in the 6th percentile on weight!!! For a long time I called him my

"little tiny"...I guess I can keep calling him that. He's 27 1/2 inches long putting him in the 80th percentile on height. That's how Ashton always was, but he was never that low in the weight percentage! And Gunnar looks chubbier than Ashton did at this age.

Oh well our doctor wasn't concerned since he eats so well and is healthy.

He had to have shots again, so that wasn't fun and I ended up getting him a flu shot too and Ashton one since he was there with us. (Even though he was practically yelling in the office "I am NOT getting any shots!") I was surprised that he sat on my lap and got his shot without freaking out too much. He did cry for a minute afterward, but it wasn't too bad. Poor Gunnar had to get 2 in each leg...It was so sad. He's had a little fever from them today, but otherwise they don't seem to be bothering him.

I'm so thankful for our happy, healthy little boy!

Our yearly fall photo shoot

Every year pretty much since Lars and I got married, we've gone up Logan Canyon to take pictures in the fall leaves. I LOVE fall! So tonight we finally got around to doing it with the boys. We were hoping that the colors would still be bright after all of the rain we've gotten the past few days. We found a pretty good spot...the hard part was getting the boys to cooperate. Gunnar was pretty happy for most of them, but we had to bribe Ashton to get him to take a few good ones. I kept trying to get him to sit on the ground in the leaves with Gunnar (since Gunnar can't sit up on his own yet) but he never would. Right before we left we talked him into sitting on this rock with Gunnar in front of him and I actually got two good shots before they'd both had it. After we finally got done we took Ashton to King's (as we had promised) to pick out 1 little toy and a couple of Halloween decorations for the outside of the house. By then Gunnar was starving, so I sat in the truck & fed him while Lars and Ashton went in and picked out some spider webbing and spiders and a little toy gun/phone/keychain/etc... set for $2. Then we were all starving, so we went over and ate at Subway, then came home. It was kind of a fun night! And I was excited that I actually got a few pictures that turned out cute.

Here are some more of my favorites...

Ashton the photographer

Out of town again...

Ashton and Lars weren't home from Price for long before we all left town again. This time to Wyoming. While Ashton was in preschool on Tuesday Lars and I got all packed up, then picked him up and headed to Wyoming (in both vehicles). Lars was going hunting up there and I got news on Sunday that my Grandpa's sister, my great aunt ("Aunt Tom" we always called her) had passed away. She would have been 88 next month. She was a great lady and when she was in good health I have lots of memories of her over at my Grandpa's house when we had barbecues. Ashton got to ride with Lars as far as Woodruff, then he got in with Gunnar and me to travel the rest of the way to Evanston. I thought he would be really upset when he realized he wasn't actually going hunting with Lars and had to come with me-but he was fine. He always loves going to Grandma & Grandpa Harry's house. The funeral service was on Wednesday morning and luckily they just had a little viewing and a family prayer at the funeral home, then we went to the graveside service which lasted close to an hour I guess, then a luncheon. Ashton did pretty well considering he doesn't sit still for too long usually. I'm glad we were able to make the trip and attend all of it. It worked out well too since Lars was going to be hunting all week. We spent some time over at my Grandpa's house again with him and my uncles and my cousin Neil. It was good to see you again Neil-we never see you twice in one year! Thanks also Charlie & Sam for entertaining Ashton again! We spent the rest of the time at my Mom's house. Ashton stays entertained for hours helping her outside with her chores and playing in his little sandbox and on the swing set...so it was somewhat of a break for me. Gunnar was pretty good too besides sleeping. I think I got a total of 8-10 hours of sleep in the four nights we were there!! I don't know if he was just finally catching up last night or if it was all the food I tanked him up on at 8:00, but he actually slept from 9 pm-4 am! He hasn't slept that long of a stretch since he was 3 months old!! I hope it will become an every night thing! We got up yesterday morning and got all packed up and left Evanston around 10:00. I was sooooo tired driving and it rained hard the entire trip. It was such a relief to finally get home. Luckily Lars got home a few hours after we did. He got drenched hunting too...and said they saw a few bucks, but didn't shoot anything.

(Darn!)

Hopefully we'll all be home for awhile. I had thought Ashton and Gunnar were pretty much over the little colds they had last week, but while we were there Ashton's nose started really running again and he was coughing a lot. Now Gunnar sounds like he's getting something again. Grrrrr....

Here are some pictures from our trip...

Gunnar sitting on the porch with Grandma wrapped in a towel since I forgot his blanket!

Gunnar's first ride in the swing! Ashton roasting hotdogs with Uncle Sam on my Grandpa's patio (wearing my sunglasses to keep the smoke out of his eyes)

My cousin Neil and me :)

Gunnar on Grandma's couch

The boys playing the piano with Grandma