Photo Phun

My friends have some adorable kids! I decided I must take advantage of this and take a few fun photos of them. It was so fun. I am going to say fun a few more times... fun, fun. First I did Riley's pictures at the Boneville Trail. He just turned two and was hilarious. Most of the time I was just running after him. There were a lot of blurry pictures from that shoot. And then I did baby Aiden's pictures who just turned two weeks. He decided not to nap the entire time, but was such a good baby. We only got a few of him, and he is a keeper.

The Golden Child

We had one last day of sunlight before the dredge of winter hit. I took advantage of it and we threw Jack in the car and headed to the Boneville Shoreline Trail for a few quick pictures. Logan was kind to entertain Jack and make him laugh. I love how warm and glowy the pictures turned out.

Walker Texas Ranger

I think we can officially call Jack a walker. Or as we like to call him, Walker Texas Ranger aka Chuck. He took his first steps on Halloween and since then he can't seem to get enough of it. He cruises around the house tearing it to pieces. He has even somewhat acquired the skill of"kicking" a ball. He is a live one alright.

At the end of the day....

I knew Logan and I were going to have some good looking kids. Here is Jack after a long Sunday. A Button up shirt with left over remains of fruit loop vomit, grey sweat pants, one sock, with Crayons in his mouth. This is what he usually looks like at the end of the day. What can I say, we know how to procreate.

The one armed bandit

Logan recently had surgery on his right shoulder. Somehow underneath all that muscle is some weak little girl tendons that can't seem to keep his shoulders on right. We knew this day would eventually come, but we thought it would be years down the road. Well a church softball game back in July proved us wrong and when his shoulder popped out and would not go back in until sedation and doctors came to the rescue, we knew it was time. We went to the hospital early Thursday morning around 8 a.m. After about two hours of tedious medical tasks and waiting, it was time for me to say my goodbyes and leave. The surgery lasted about an hour and a half and everything went really good. I was summoned back to the hospital around 12:30. I was a little disappointed to see that Logan was pretty coherent and the anesthesia had somewhat worn off. Last time they put him out, he was hilarious waking up. He seemed fine, except for his intense shivering and all he could seem to think about was being cold. After about and hour we were able to leave and I drove him home. The next couple days have mostly consisted of lots of sleeping (for Logan, not me), pain meds, ice packs, and some movies here and there. We are so thankful that everything went so well and that Logan seems to be recovering quite nicely. Also, thanks to everyone who took care of us too. My only complaint about all this is the fact that the rat duties have now been put upon me. Sorry rats, I just don't care for you like I used to. We can't wait until we get to do the other shoulder. Hooray!

There are some stiches in the front of his shoulder and in the back. I love the high-tech medical system of labeling YES on the shoulder you want to operate on. Real clever.

Camped out for a while...

The four fingered boy

Jack takes interest in the most random things. One interest he has is dead dandelions. Every time he spots one in our yard, he must crawl to it and pull all the little white tendrils off and make them fall to the ground. And obviously because he does this, we are never short on dandelions, and so the cycle continues. As you can see from these pictures, Jack is about to de-tendril a dandelion with his four fingered grab. This is a habit he has developed, tucking his thumb, and we can't seem to break it. Perhaps his future is the four fingered villain from The Princess Bride...

Our new tradition

I think I post about this every year so we will say it is now a tradition. We took advantage of this unusually nice fall weather and did our traditional hike to the wind caves. Of course we toted the boy along in a backpack that Staci was kind enough to pass along to us. Unfortunately Jack didn't allow us to make it all the way to the wind caves, but we got pretty close. If we could keep a stick of some sort in his hand he seemed happy. Maybe we'll have to make another attempt.

The start

Such a pretty view

I just like this picture because Jack is sneezing

Stick happy

Show me the True Blooded Aggie from Utah...

Homecoming was a couple weeks ago. We love Aggie games; even the lame football ones. (Our football team isn't so hot, but our Aggie basketball is awesome). My favorite song is the Scotsman:

Show me the Scotsman who doesn't love the thistle.
Show me the Englishman who doesn't love the rose.
Show me the true blooded Aggie from Utah
Who doesn't love the spot . . .
Where the sagebrush grows!

We attended the homecoming parade. It was beautiful weather and full of free stuff so we couldn't complain. We headed to the game a couple hours later which started off great. Then the rain storm hit and we were soaked with in minutes. Especially because we were doing everything we could to keep Jack dry which we successfully did. He had a great time. Our little fan group lasted until half time and then we couldn't take it. Turns out they lost anyway. Oh well, basketball season is almost here.

The parade

Jack loved all the music. Aren't marching bands the coolest!? That was not a sarcastic comment.

Rain Rain

Logan and Jack, The Carliles, and the Lloyds

All Hallow's Eve

Our Halloween October was perfect this year. It had everything you can ask for in a Halloween: pumpkin carving, corn mazes, The Logan Pumpkin Walk, a murder mystery and trick or treating. Fall is probably one of our favorite times of year and it was fun to have the Jackster around to watch him have his many fall "firsts." He has eaten many leaves and licked numerous pumpkins.

Our carved pumpkins this year. Both the pumpkins and the over sized zucchini are home grown from our garden. Unfortunately, we had 6 more pumpkins but someone stole them. We feel it may have been because of Logan's bad karma from stealing my uncle's pumpkins in high school and smashing them. What goes around comes around.

My good friend pranked us and put a huge stack of pumpkins on our doorstep. Jack's favorite thing to do is to knock each one off the porch over and over again.

Our Halloween costumes; a dinosaur and cave people. They weren't as awesome as I had hoped. We didn't end up doing much on Halloween so I didn't put in too much effort. But we did get to take Jack to a couple relatives houses to trick or treat.

The murder mystery dinner I hosted; "The Chicago Caper." It was a 1920s theme and so fun. Everyone did a great job getting into their characters and playing along. We did it at our stake center and had a three course meal to go with it.

Everyone playing the game.

At first we couldn't get the tape to play; a crucial part to the game. Luckily we found an old tape player at the church; probably from the 1920s and it worked!

Molly and Ernie

The gang at the Speakeasy. Harrow, Silky, Molly, Ernie, Billy, Torchy, Scoop and Socks.

Turns out Silky dun it.

Jack discovering pumpkins.

And tasting them too...

The Pumpkin Walk in Logan. Jack was thrilled to be there.

Builder Jack

The corn maze. We decided to go with the Tippets because Brad worked for a corn maze back in the day and knew the insider secrets.

Jack was a trooper. We started the corn maze at 630 and didn't realize the maze becomes haunted at 7. He endured many masked men with chainsaws and creepy corn people. He seemed fine, but I am sure these memories will haunt him.

Yay we made it to the end!