Fall Break and October

These pictures are in no particular order. Let's be honest, it takes way too much time to cut and paste them. 

Cameron fell asleep one afternoon holding onto my thumb like so. He did not want to let go and I didn't want him to. I sat there for a good long time just admiring his sweet little face and tiny little fingers. 

Mason has refused naps since he was about 2 years old. Sad, I know. He used to be happy even through the 5pm bewitching hour, and then i'm not sure what happened but he turns into the biggest grump around 4pm. He needs a nap so bad but wont take one. 

So I had to document his cute, grumpy little face sporting Ellie's pink princess bicycle helmet one afternoon.

It was around mid October when Cam started busting out the gummy smiles freely. Melt my heart. 

Have I mentioned that Ellie is a fabulous sister? She can always get Cameron to smile. 

We took Ethan to see Meet the Mormons in the theaters. We all loved it. It was so inspiring and uplifting. Definitely one that we will be buying for our home!

We are beyond blessed to live so close to so many temples. We took our kids through the Phoenix Temple's open house and they behaved SO much better than when we took them through our Gilbert Temple. It's a lot of work and effort to bring our kids to things like this, or church history sites, or heck..even to church but we feel as if any opportunity we have to strengthen their little testimonies is worth any mount of effort! 

The temple is simple and yet so beautiful inside. 

Just some more of Cameron. 

He fell asleep sitting straight up like this. Pretty sure I could do that at any given  moment too. 

First time in the Bumbo. He loves being able to see everyone in this thing.

He turned 2 months old in October. 2 months is just starting to enter my favorite stages. I mean, I love little newborns, dont get me wrong...but the sleep deprivation does a number on me and we always have babies with some sort of medical issues in the first few months so... it's hard.  

2 months is wonderful though!

He has been by far our chunkiest baby! Wrist, Elbow and Thigh Rolls...Oh my! Seriously, I could just eat him up.

Justin's brother Davin, and his wife Stephanie had their sweet baby Truman in November. Mom Smith and I attended Steph's baby shower before the little guy arrived. They were definitely showered with lots of good things!

Ellie is in tumbling and is constantly practicing her kartwheels, handstands, etc. around the house. She accidentally did her kartwheel into a wall and hit her head. She immediately went to the freezer for something cold to put on it and grabbed my breastmilk storage bag. Picture worthy!

For the FHE before Halloween, the Wagners invited me and the kids over for some pumpkin carving, Justin was out of town. 

Just so you know, this is how you carve a pumpkin.....

It was taking us for forever to just get the tops off so Clay took matters into his own hands and came up with a solution.  He sawed those babies right off! Awesome, right?!

Tripp and Ellie cleaning out the pumpkins...

The finished pumpkins!

Halloween is always so much fun in our neighborhood. Justin flew back into town that day, and took the kids trick or treating and I sat outside with our neighbor, Angie, and passed out candy. 

We have an Elsa, a Mario, and a Jake and the Neverland Pirate!

This costume cracks me up with the black hair!

I felt brave and took the kids to the zoo. We always have so much fun when we go.

She's now ready to work at  dairy!

It's always fun to go over to the Smith's house after church on Sundays to eat dinner and play with the family. On this particular Sunday, the boys had a game of basketball going on. 

Mom and Dad Smith just started teaching a mission prep class at their home on Sunday evenings, so we will miss doing this for the next few years!

Chalene is such a fabulous aunt. She is so good to our kids. 

Over fall break, a few of us Smith's rented a gigantic cabin up in the mountains for 2 days. I love living so close to cooler weather and snow. but I also really love enjoying for a few days and then being able to go back home to beautiful 70 degree weather. 

There were lots of games and activities there for us and the kids to do. Hillbilly Golf, Corn hole, and horse shoes are always good ones. 

The cabin was right by some hiking trails that we ventured out on one afternoon.

This is Uncle Nate. 

The sunsets were spectacular. 

And last but definitely not least, Cameron was blessed by Justin this month. it was a beautiful blessing and we are so lucky to have a support group nearby.

I really could not imagine our family with out this sweet, sweet baby. He has brought so much joy to us. We are pretty blessed to be his parents. 

A Little Bit of September

Our neighbors, The Wagners, are awesome. They have 4 kids like us and 2 of our kiddos are the exact same ages...like were born within 6 weeks of each other. It's pretty fun. During the summers, they blow this huge water slide up and invite our kids over. Hours and hours of fun right there. 

Maybe this summer, when I'm not 9 months pregnant, I'll put on my bathing suit and join them! It looks like a whole lot of fun!

Oh I just love this kid. He is one cute little 2 year old with personality plus. For awhile, he was on a kick of always wanting to wear a bike helmet.

Tripp and Ellie are still best buds. They play with each other almost everyday and they always prefer to play with each other rather than any other friends that might come over to play. I hope they are always good friends and watch out for each other in high school. 

Mason gets on little kicks of obsession with different things. For a long time, it was flags, and it now has turned into Jake and the Neverland Pirates. I bought him these figurines at the Disney store and he spent all afternoon carefully lining them up and playing with them. We quickly learned that we always need to have replacements! If one gets lost, Mason is a very sad little boy. 

In September, we were still sleep deprived. I do not have much recollection of the months of August and September.  I came home one night and found both my boys asleep on the couch. Being a newborn must be rough :)

Cameron has been my only kid so far that I have not been able to nurse. 

To make a long story short, He was both tongue and lip tied...meaning his frenulum was too short to allow him to move his tongue around (which makes nursing super hard for him) and he wasn't able to bring his upper lip up and over the bottle and or breast. So basically he was chomping down on me.

What that meant for me was that it was 3 weeks of absolute torture. I was so cut up and ripped to shreds that I could not latch him on with our shaking and crying in pain every.single.time. So we got his tongue fixed at 3 weeks old but it grew back. I cried. After we found out his frenulum grew back, I stopped putting him to the breast and pumped to allow myself time to heal up.  And by his 8th week of life, we finally got everything fixed and healed on both our ends. Since I had kept up my supply by pumping, I tried to nurse him again. After 2 days, I was ripped to shreds again and I said forget it! I continued pumping for him until my milk dried up when he turned 3 months old. Had he had been my first or even second kid, I totally might have pushed through and figured out a way to still nurse him but he's my fourth. I still had 3 other little energetic children to try to keep up with.

Pumping completely takes the convenience out of everything but I'm glad I at least made it 3 months so he could get the good antibodies out of it. Once the guilt of not nursing left, I realized just how nice it is to bottle feed.... I have lots of willing helpers while I fixed dinner, and they love being able to feed and hold him. 

 

Cameron turned 1 month old in September and was gaining weight like a champ!

Ellie is an amazing sister and helper. She is the first to help out and is so kind and sweet with her younger siblings. From our bathroom, I went into our bedroom to change and when I came back, Ellie had put layers of towels, clothes, whatever she could find I think, on baby Cam so he wouldn't get cold.

These two love crafts. Even something as simple as painting. 

I should do this more often with them. 

Look at Ellie's wild and crazy curls!!

We are SO blessed to be able to live in such a fabulous neighborhood. Not only is it aesthetically beautiful but there are so many neighbor kids to play with. Here Ellie is with 2 of her very best friends, Brinnley and Alexa. They do tumbling and preschool together. 

I caught Ellie fixing Mason's hair one day. She was saying things like, "Now hold still" and "Don't move!" I wonder where she has heard those things from. :)