Thanksgiving Point...

The weekend before last we drove down to Thanksgiving Point to meet Lars' parents (Papa & Nana) and his sister Shelley, brother-in-law Mat and Ashton and Gunnar's only cousins Ali and Hunter. It was a beautiful day and the kids had a blast at the Scarecrow Festival (or whatever it was called) that was going on there that weekend. They mostly played on about 15 different inflatables for about 3 hours. At least the boys did. I also took some pictures of all of them for Christmas cards.

(I'll get them in the mail to you guys soon :)

Then we went over to the Dinosaur Museum. After we left Thanksgiving Point, we of course had to go to Cabella's since it's right there and I love it so much (ha!) Then we went to dinner at Tepanyaki which is a lot like Beni Hana's (no clue how to spell that)...where they cook your food at your table right in front of you. The very first time I ever met Mat and Shelley when Lars and I were dating, we met at the Beni Hana's in Salt Lake, and I've never been back since. I knew Ashton would totally LOVE the experience of it and I was right. He thought it was so cool. He never took his eyes off of our chef. The best part was when the chef throws shrimp and tries to get them in your mouth. A few of us (not me) caught them, but poor Ali got smacked right in the face with hers HARD! It was actually pretty funny! And she was a good sport. So after we all had our food Ashton got out his chopsticks and started being our chef pretending to fling food at all of us.

When we were done, we said goodbye and had to stop back at Cabella's ( I just didn't have enough time to see it all the first time :)...actually Lars couldn't get help at the gun counter because it was so busy, but they had the gun he's been looking for, so we went back so he could try again. The boys and I sat in the car and Gunnar finally fell asleep at 7:00 pm... ...and Lars walked away with his beloved gun. Merry Christmas hun!

It was a fun day!

(Thanks again for dinner Nana & Papa!)

Random stuff...

First I wanted to post some funny Ashton comments from the past couple days (mostly for me to look back on later and laugh). On Friday we were getting ready to go out to the Pumpkin Walk with his preschool and as he's getting dressed he says to me "Mommy I think I'm sick." So I say "Oh really Ashton, what's wrong with you?" To which he replies in all seriousness "I think I must have caught the slime flu." I kind of laughed thinking I must have heard him wrong, so I said "What do you have?" And he said again..."the slime flu". I love it! Obviously he must be hearing all the talk and that's how he heard it.

Last night Lars was trying to help him learn how to tie his shoes. Ashton was getting pretty frustrated, but kept at it for quite awhile. So long that when he tried to stand up, his foot was asleep. So he asks Lars..."Why did my foot fall asleep? Is it really, really late?"

Funny boy!

On Sunday I went and took some pictures of Gunnar's Godmother Angie and her cute family. Don't worry I'm not going to post them all...just this one that I love.

Arianna...

Isn't she so cute??

Fall fun...

Lars looked over my shoulder as I was on the computer with my blog on the screen tonight and said...hey whose blog is that? So I told him it was mine and he said I need to put some stuff about our family on it instead of other people's pictures...(hey sorry...that's what I've been up to lately!)

So anyway here are a few fun fall pictures and what has been going on with our own family...

This is by far my favorite time of the year. I love everything about it...leaves changing color and falling off the trees and walking through them when they are in thick piles on the ground (I don't know why but it is one of my favorite things), back to school, fun fall clothes, of course Halloween, Thanksgiving, (yummy pumpkin/chocolate chip cookies I made today)...I just love it all!

Speaking of leaves...this is what we did a couple afternoons ago while we were waiting for Lars to get home. We don't have a ton of leaves in our yard yet, but we do get some off of one of our trees and our giant bush. So I talked Ashton and his buddy Jace into going outside to play in them. Gunnar never has to be talked into going outside (if I even mention the word, he runs to the laundry room and grabs his shoes), but Ashton is back into his wanting to wear pajamas all day and stay inside mood. But that day they all had fun raking up the leaves then jumping in them over and over, then having leaf fights, ...then I buried them in leaves. They loved that!

Before...

(their smiles are the best!)After... These are my new favorite pictures of Gunnar (and me). As I was taking pictures of the boys in the leaves, he got behind me and I see him doing this......so I hurried and turned the camera his way. Too funny!

This is how we feel about eachother......SO in LoVe. I could just eat him, he is so cute and fun right now. This age is the best. He gives me kisses and hugs all day and is just saying the cutest, funniest things! I love Ashton to pieces too of course and totally remember this age with him and how much I loved it. So I'm enjoying every minute of this time with Gunnar. (even when he throws his little tantrums that are becoming more often).

Every day Ashton asks me when his Halloween costume is "ever going to get here". And really if I'm being honest...it's already here, has been for weeks, but I will not let him have it till a few days before Halloween, maybe even the day before. He is the kid that would wear it every day for about 3 days, then get sick of it and want to be something else. Or if I did tell him I had it, but not give it to him, he would bug me endlessly to let him wear it.

I too can't wait to dress them up and have Halloween finally be here, but it's only 1 more week. We can all wait!

Stay tuned for the costume post...hee hee!

More pictures...

Here are a few cute pictures I took of my friend's little boy Cutler last weekend. He's 6 so it was a little easier to get him to pose and smile.

Of course bribing with candy always works too...

My first attempt....

...at taking someone else's pictures besides my own kids! My friend Melissa asked me to take her family pictures, so we went out and did them on Saturday. Luckily she is super laid back and went into it understanding that it would be a first for me (and therefore may not turn out at all!) and that I was really nervous. It also helped that she has a really cute family! It was great practice for me and a lot of fun...here are a few of my favorites... Bowen...

he totally reminded me of Ashton running around goofing off, but he did stand still long enough for a couple of cute ones...

Campbell...

Isn't she so cute? She was the easy one...she just kept smiling and posing away!
Then there is little "Bea" Beatrice...she is ADORABLE! But didn't want to give up any smiles for me...But that was okay...look at that face!She felt better if her sister or her Mom were close by...Thanks again Melissa! (Oh and Kevin for being a lot more patient than lots of husbands are with family pictures)!

Fun pumpkins!

I wish I could say that these were my very own idea but they weren't. I saw similar ones on Studio 5 yesterday and loved them, so I had to try it out today. It was a fun afternoon project for Ashton and me while Gunnar was napping. We all know how much Ashton adores anything to do with Halloween, so he was super excited when I told him what we were going to do. I let him use the spray paint on a couple of pumpkins (under close supervision) and he totally loved it.

Quite the little photographer too...he took this one!
Aren't they fun??? And so simple...just metallic spray paint (that dried actually really fast), pipe cleaners and ribbon!

I'm still looking for a little cuter ribbon, but this is what Walmart had...

Hello 18 months...goodbye binkies!

Gunnar turned 18 months old 4 days ago on the 28th of September and as I got ready to put him to bed that night I decided to just do it...I cut the ends off of his binkies. I knew I just had to make myself do it and not turn back. When I first handed one to him and he put it in his mouth, he immediately took it out and looked at it funny, then looked at me funny. Then proceeded to put it back in his mouth and chew on it. So that night I let him take it to bed and as usual as of lately, he woke up a few times in the night, but that night I never went in his room. Each time he cried for a few minutes then put himself back to sleep. Then the next night he took his binky to bed again and actually slept through the night. Yesterday I cut more off of them and then it was like he completely lost interest in them! Really I did not think it would be this easy...he loved them so much! Last night he didn't even take one to bed and slept through again. Today I put them away for good and he's forgotten them already.

Success!

I'm so proud of him (and of me for doing it...I'm patting myself on the back :)

He's also down to one nap a day. He goes down around 1:30 and sleeps a couple hours.

My baby is growing up ...

But he sure is cute and fun!

(and he wants to be just like Ashton (or Aggie as he calls him).

He put the helmet on himself......then I fixed it for him.

He loves to ride Ashton's scooter :)

He is saying (or trying to say) everything now. Some of my recent favorites are "otay...he says this in reply to everything we ask him to do (assuming it's something he wants to do) Otherwise it's a firm NO (with kicking and screaming)!

Yesterday we were pulling into the Hobby Lobby parking lot and Ashton was asking me why they call it Hobby Lobby, so I was trying to come up with an answer when I hear a cute little voice repeating "hobby lobby" over and over.

All day he loves to ask me "where Daddy?" and he knows that I'm going to say "at work", so he just laughs when I answer him. Fun little game for him.

We got Halloween decorations out yesterday and he loves to pick up one of the fake pumpkins and carry it around. He calls it pumpy.

This is such a fun age! I love it!

Here's Ashton when he was about the same age...