Happy Thanksgiving!

We are in Price for a few days and we had a great Thanksgiving yesterday and ate way too much food. All of us except for Ashton that is. He pretty much only wants to eat Eggo waffles these days and he got hungry about 45 minutes before our dinner was ready and ate one of those, so he sat at the table long enough to say what he was thankful for (being at Nana & Papa's house and all the food), then got down and didn't eat anything till later. Oh well! He has had a blast playing at Nana & Papa's house and with his cousins.

(Hunter & Ashton)

Thanksgiving of course has had me thinking about all of the things that I am thankful for...

• Of course my two beautiful healthy little boys
• That I get to stay home with them
• My great husband who goes to work and works hard for us everyday, then comes home and plays with the kids and cooks dinner a lot of nights and helps with lots of other things too!
• Our home in the town that we love
• Both of our supportive loving families that we get to spend time with a lot more than some people do.
• My health that I take so for granted sometimes until I'm sick!
• All of my great friends and neighbors :)

I could go on...I'm always thanking God for all of the blessings in my life...we are so lucky!
Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving too!

Gunnar is 8 months old today!

Another month has already gone by...way too fast. I can't believe my baby is 8 months old! And wow did he learn to crawl fast. He gets all over now and especially likes to follow Ashton around and try to get into whatever he's playing with. Ashton is still pretty good with him, but he doesn't so much like to share his toys with him (big surprise there).
Lars likes to say he gets that from me...to this day my sister still calls me an "un-sharer".
Remember the good old days Kelli? :)

Anyway some of Gunnar's favorite things right now are playing with everything he can get to, taking his baths in the big tub and splashing like crazy, being tickled & laughing, and he loves getting out of the house whether it's just for a walk or to go shopping or whatever. He loves eating cheerios and graham crackers (and anything else he can get his little hands on...I found a big piece of carpet in his mouth the other day!) and he still stares longingly at everything else we eat, but for now he still loves all of his baby fruits and veggies.
It won't be long Gunnar I promise and you'll get the good stuff!
Oh and by the way Gunnar, you are 8 months old now... you're not a newborn. Let's try not to get up every 2 hours at night anymore! Actually I had him about sleeping through the night (okay he slept through one night last week), then we stayed the next night in Salt Lake and that ended that. So since then he's back to his horrible sleeping habits...I guess when we get home I'll start over trying to get him back to sleeping better. Last night I looked at the clock every time he got up and it was 11:30, 1:30, 3:30 and 5:30...at least he's consistent???
Little stinker!
He's just too cute though...I can't get mad at him.

(I had to sneak back in and take this picture of him after I laid him down last night...I love how he sleeps on his belly with his arms tucked in and his bum in the air!)

Happy 8 months buddy!

My sweet little Gunnar...

I've been meaning to write about last Tuesday when Ashton was at preschool. Lars dropped him off, so I was at home with Gunnar and I've usually been trying to get him to nap while Ashton is gone and that day he did actually go down for his nap a little after 1:00, so I was able to get a few things done, but then he was awake by about 2:00. I keep expecting him to at some point start napping for longer, so I was getting kind of irritated that he was already awake. I tried to get him to go back to sleep with no luck...he cried for a little bit, then I went in and just picked him up and he gave me a big hug like he always does...he wraps his arms around my neck and squeezes like he's so happy to see me and so glad that I picked him up. I couldn't help but feel a little guilty about how irritated I had been getting that he was interrupting me from getting things done...so I just held him tight and sat down in the rocking chair and rocked him for a long time. He was so content to just stare at me and play with my hair and lay his head on my shoulder and smile at me. He smelled so yummy and I reminded myself again that time is going by so fast and he will only be little once and that I really need to spend more time enjoying him...looking at his beautiful blue eyes and adorable little face and tiny hands and toes, and listening to his sweet little voice that now says mama! Oh I love him so much. That day I just sat and enjoyed him for a long time. He was in such a good mood when he woke up...that's the thing about Gunnar...you would think he would be cranky a lot of the time with as little as he really sleeps, but he is such a happy baby. After I rocked him I took him into my room and took a bunch of pictures of him on my bed. I wanted to remember just how he looked that day and just how I felt holding him and rocking him.

My sweet little boy...

I love this little white tank top on him...(thanks Bettie, see it fits!)

Crashing & Crawling...

"Crashing"

It was another really nice day here today...pretty warm for November, so we decided to go for a walk down at the Logan river trail and let Ashton ride his bike. He was riding along pretty fast and I was walking not too far behind him and Lars was pushing Gunnar in the stroller a little ways behind us. Next thing I know I see Ashton kind of staring off to the right and his bike is veering off to the left, so I'm yelling for him to pay attention, but not soon enough before he goes right off the left hand side down a little hill into a bunch of tree branches and leaves!

(here's what he landed on)

I ran as fast as I could to get to him and he was face down in the sticks with his bike on top of him bawling! I hurried and pulled his bike off of him and got him up off the ground.

The only thing I could see was this little cut on his chin...Thank goodness he was wearing his helmet! And I'm thankful that one of the many sharp tree branches he landed on didn't go into an eye or something! I think it scared him more than anything. Plus had he gone off the other side of the trail it would have been straight into the river! Poor little guy. As I was asking him about it later tonight while he was in the tub he said "yeah it was kind of fun when my bike rode off the edge."

And I said yeah...until you crashed hu?

So we finally got him calmed down and talked him into getting back on his bike and riding the rest of the trail...then we stopped off the side and let him play in all these trees on the way back. I got Gunnar out too and let him play in the leaves.

He just looked too cute, so I had to take some pictures of him playing. As we were stopped, an older couple walking by asked us if we wanted them to take a picture of all of us, so they took a few...this one was the best...

"Crawling!"

Well it happened...Gunnar took his first little crawls today! He's about 7 1/2 months old. My favorite stage of just sitting didn't last very long :(...since he really has only been sitting up good for a couple weeks. Oh well-it's so cute to see him trying to crawl. He's been getting up on his hands and knees for a long time now. Here he is trying to get to my phone...

Playing at the park...

Friday was a nice day after being so cloudy and rainy for a few days, so I decided we needed to get out of the house. I called Lars and asked him if he wanted to meet us at the park for lunch.

I knew Ashton would have fun once we got there, it's just always a battle to get him dressed and out of the house.

(that and getting him to use the bathroom are my main pet peeves these days!!!)

Lately he is such a homebody, he'd rather stay home and play around the house in his pajamas than do anything! (not that there's anything wrong with that...I know he gets it from me), but I wanted him to get out and run around before it gets really cold.

Gunnar on the other hand LOVES to get out of the house...here he is enjoying the beautiful day...

So we packed a lunch and headed to the park. Ashton actually sat and ate his lunch before he went to play, then he and Gunnar both had fun swinging for a long time. I think Gunnar likes it as much as Ashton always used to. When we used to take Ashton to the park when he was little, that is all he wanted to do the whole time...swing, swing, swing.

Pure Happiness...

A few weeks ago I finally printed a bunch of pictures (almost 350 of them!). I hadn't printed any for about 5 months. Anyway this is one of the ones I printed and I have it hanging on my fridge and it makes me smile every time I walk past it.

Ashton & Gunnar stuff...

Here Ashton is doing one of his favorite new things...

He loves to eat sitting right next to Gunnar, so that he can tease him with his food and get him to try to grab his plate and then pull it away from him before he pulls the food off of it. What a little stinker...

He must have actually been tired today because he was playing Super Mario on our old Nintendo (he's actually gotten pretty good at it!) and I told him he could play for a few more minutes, then he was going to come upstairs and have a nap (yes I still try to get him to nap a lot of days knowing that I will be unsuccessful a lot of them...but hey it's worth a try! Especially on rainy days like today when we haven't even left the house!)

So today he actually said to me...yeah I am going to sleep, I'm tired. Comments like those never come out of his mouth! So he's actually been sleeping for almost 2 hours now. If only I could get Gunnar to nap at the same time. Yeah right...I know he's tired, but he won't let himself fall asleep!!! He's currently bawling his cute little head off in his crib...Some days I feel like I spend all my time trying to get one or the other of them to be quiet so that the other one can sleep!!! It's so hard having their rooms right next to eachother.

We had to move Gunnar's mattress down a level the other day so he doesn't somehow pull himself out of it...now that he is so close to crawling and constantly up on his hands and knees or feet. I love this picture of him I took right after he woke up.

The other day driving home from somewhere Ashton started asking me all sorts of questions about God and heaven. ( I think he thinks about it a lot and worries about dying already at

3 1/2!...he went to my Great Aunt's funeral with me a couple months ago and that brought on a bunch of questions...one about being buried. I told him back then that when we die our bodies get buried in the ground and our spirit goes to Heaven)...so this day driving home at one point he asked me if we'll be able to see God when we get to Heaven...so I said yeah we'll be able to see him. Then he sat there for a minute and thought about it and said to me "Even without our eyeballs??"

(of course he was remembering me telling him about our bodies being buried!)

Sometimes it amazes me the stuff that he remembers and how his little mind works!

Here he is getting ready to go to preschool...these are the types of smiles I get out of him these days. Preschool is going great by the way! He never freaks out when we drop him off anymore and he leaves nicely when I go to pick him up. I think he's really liking it...he's always talking about all of his friends there. Even the girls. Interestingly when I asked him what girls he's friends with, the one that he mentioned was Sydnee (yes the one he had the incident with at the beginning!) I'm glad they're friends now :)

Thanks Nana & Papa

Lars' parents came to stay this weekend and watched Ashton and Gunnar for us Friday and Saturday night while we went to our church "Casino Night" fundraiser. Lars was in charge of the poker room...imagine that.

On our way out... It actually ended up being pretty fun. Well for me anyway. I think it was a little stressful for Lars especially two nights in a row. But I had fun playing in the poker tournaments he was putting on. I took 2 second places the first night out of about 10-11 players...then Saturday night I didn't win at all, but it was still fun to get out and I actually really like playing poker and never get a chance to.I think it also earned quite a bit of money for the church-so that was good!

We also got to take Ashton to the new Madagascar movie that came out this weekend while they stayed home with Gunnar. It was only the second movie Ashton has seen at a movie theater. He's so funny... Lars got him the little kid's tray of popcorn, a treat and a drink and after he had eaten all of his popcorn, he said "okay, my popcorn's gone...let's go home." I think he liked the movie, but was getting bored sitting there.

We talked him into staying though and he did really well.

Anyway thanks Ken & Nora for staying with the boys!

We'll see you soon :)

Halloween 2008

Our Halloween turned out pretty fun....

When Lars got home from work we got the boys back in their costumes and headed down to the Halloween Carnival that the elementary school was putting on. I think the rest of Providence was there too-it was so packed! But they did a pretty good job with it. There were lots of fun games and activities, but the only one Ashton wanted to do was to go through the spook alley. Twice with Lars, then after looking around to see if there was anything else he wanted to do, he wanted to go through again so I took him.

I took this picture as we were walking from the truck to the school.

I love it!

I just think it's so cute of all of my boys and I imagine myself years down the road looking back at it and smiling at the memories of this Halloween.

After the carnival we took them to two of my friends' houses.

Angie and Ann really wanted to see them dressed up.

Thanks for the treats you guys!

Then we figured we'd better come home and get a little something to eat before we started around the neighborhood. Plus everyone was still at the carnival, so there would have been no one to trick or treat to yet anyway.

Finally around 6:30 it was time to go out and knock on some doors...the moment was finally here...but after Ashton having been so excited to trick-or-treat, we only ended up going to 4 or 5 houses before he was done and wanted to go home! This is all the candy he ended up with...but that was fine with me. (and yes I helped myself to that Reese's peanut butter cup :)I think he loved the idea of being a ghost and really liked his costume, but after wearing it for awhile it got uncomfortable and hard to see out of (especially when it got dark) because just like usual as soon as we got home he stripped down to his shorts and t-shirt. Then he had a blast handing out candy to everyone that came to our door. He loved seeing all of the costumes and picking out a certain piece of candy for each kid.

With the beautiful weather we could have stayed out till 10:00! It never did cool off and I think it was about 55 degrees while we were trick-or-treating. I never remember a Halloween like this. Usually it's freezing!

Gunnar of course loved getting out and didn't mind his costume at all!Lots of people commented how cute he looked as a monkey and one lady at the carnival even asked us if she could snap a quick picture of him with her cell phone because she loved it so much!

All in all a great Halloween...Oh and awhile after we got home Ashton said

"Hey Mommy, I never did see any real ghosts did you?"