Where does the time go?????

     So I had a baby the other day...and now he's almost sitting up, trying to roll over, playing with toys and (most recently) eyeing our food.  In fact yesterday while I looked away (for a fraction of a second) Tony definitely gave him a little taste of his whipped cream.  (Sigh)  Where did the time go??  I mean this child (you know, my little tiny 4-and-a-half-month-old baby boy?) is wearing 12 month and even 18 month size clothing!!  I swear if he starts scootin' around and walking as fast as Lily did, I'll cry.


     And speaking of Lily...she used to be my big girl.  Something happened around the time she turned 13 months old (I think we call him TJ) that made me start seeing her as bigger than she really is.  But then something happened in the last few months.  I started to consider whether or not I should put her in preschool next year.  NEXT YEAR?? But she's my little baby girl!  She's only three...shouldn't she be at home for the next... few years? Seriously lately now I've started seeing her through different glasses, and everything she does makes me think of her as my cute little baby girl who needs to stay home with me forever.
      She's getting really big though.  She's starting to color in the lines, and randomly practices letters without my help.  I find pieces of paper everywhere that just have 5-10 random letters that she's been writing for practice, and they're starting to look really neat and big-girlish.  (There is usually also a picture of a girl/princess at the bottom too.)  She also recently learned to button up buttons.

     TJ is getting big too. He thinks he so funny, and always cracking jokes and making us laugh.  The older he gets, the closer he and Lily get it seems like...and the more they fight as well.  Mostly because he thinks teasing is hilarious.  Sigh...I have fun kids.

So...I wrote this and hadn't quite finished it the day before our unexpected trip to Canada, so it's kind of outdated by a few weeks, but I thought I'd share anyway. :)  BUT the reason I really got on the computer tonight was this:

Jaxon loves sweet potatoes.  I thought you would like to know. 

He inhaled them, and got frustrated when I didn't keep them coming fast enough.  And it was cute.

Life

     So much has happened in the last few months that I meant to blog about.  I even knew what I would write and how...and just never got around to it. 

     This fall has been a kind of ridiculously crazy one for my family.  My awesome brother Nick went on a mission (with no notice). 

...And I wished I was there.

     My absolutely amazing sister welcomed a beautiful baby girl after months of bedrest/ hospitalization, 10 weeks early.  Emery Hope was a tiny 1 lb., 13 oz. of perfection.   

And I wished I was there.

     Alisha and her family have blown us away with their hope and trust in the Lord during this very difficult time for their family.  I truly wish we happened to live in Lethbridge right now so that we could help lighten their load a little bit.

     Not only were a bunch of crazy things happening at home that I wished I could help/ be there for, but every 6 months or so I get homesick anyway, and that was really starting to kick in. About 3 or 4 days before Thanksgiving (the Canadian variety) I got tired of wishing and I started looking up plane tickets to make it happen.  And then remembered how expensive last minute plane tickets were...and and went back to wishing.

     The very next morning my mom called to let me know my Grandma Leavitt passed away.  About 12 hours later our whole family was packed into a mini van about to drive 30 hours to get home.  We made it just in time to have the first Thanksgiving dinner we've ever had with my side of the family.  I got to see family I haven't seen in years, got to help my mom a little bit, and visited with my Grandma Johnson a lot more than we usually get to.  (We stayed with her because on the same day that my Grandma died, my parents' basement also flooded.) 

     It was so nice to be home to remember and celebrate my Grandma's life.  She will be very missed.  She was honestly one of my very favorite people.  She was always there for me, and supported everything I did.  She was fun and happy and just someone who really made a difference in my life. 

I know that she must be so happy now though, being reunited with her beloved husband.  She talked about him always, with sooo much love in her eyes.  And I can't help but smile at the tender mercies of the Lord in the timing of the family reunion she arranged for us.  If she had to leave us this fall, it feels like it was for me that it was that week, because it ironically saved me from falling apart.  I need my awesome family in my life.



    But now we're home.  And with my family fix I feel like I can move forward (I kind of have to, so might as well:)  And yesterday was Halloween.  And it was sooo fun.  We cleaned our whole house up/ decorated it with paper pumpkins.  I made Lily a Princess Aurora costume (she wanted the blue dress) and a coordinating Prince Phillip costume for Jaxon.  (TJ had an opinion about what he wanted to be this year so I couldn't get him in on the theme.  Anyone want to guess what he was?).  Tony rescheduled karate and we went to the trunk-or-treat at our church.  And then we came home and had a little party with a few awesome friends.  The kids had a blast.  I was totally exhausted at the end of the night.  It was worth it.

Prince Phillip

Thomas The Train

 And Princess Aurora.  She had a very specific image in mind when she told me she wanted to be Princess Aurora, in the BLUE dress.  I spent all evening on it one day last week, and when she woke up she came in and saw it.  I thought she'd be so excited, and I said, "Do you want to try it on?"  She politely said, "No thanks.  I'll wait 'til you finish sewing it."  "Um...it's done." I said.  She looked at me super confused, "where's the spikey things, and the white spikey thing," she said pointing to random places on her body.  After looking at a picture on the internet to understand what she meant, and about 3 hours of work later, we had the dress she was imagining.  And she was right, she looked much more like Princess Aurora, even down to the very red lipstick lips that she insisted she needed to have. 

 The Princess looking happily at her Prince

 

At trunk-or-treat.  Yay for little friends!

Helping set up our live angry birds booth at trunk-or-treat

Party!!!

    We had a lot of fun, and looking at all of these pictures I think I'll put some of them up on facebook.  I love pictures of my kids on Halloween, I took a million!  I hope everybody else had a fun time!