Woes of Motherhood

I have been blessed with great sleeping babies...until recently. One week of all of us being sick was all it took to regress to baby-just-came-home-from-the-hospital sleeping patterns. Take tonight for instance. I give the exhausted kids their baths and put them to bed at the typical 7pm. Usually, it would be sing a song, say a prayer, tuck them in bed... 3 minutes, tops. I then skip down the steps singing silent 'yippees' in my head after surviving yet another day. Tonight, after 59 minutes of rocking, frustrated lullaby singing, screaming/crying (by them), and a pounding headache...they're STILL AWAKE.

Scott's Birthday

Scott hesitantly turned the big 3-0 a couple of weeks ago. Although he is feeling old (which I remind him that he is) and that he would rather be 20 again....look at the little cuties the last few years have brought him. Life is good!

Messy Cuteness

Go Go Gadget arms! How does Ryan reach these things while he is in his high chair?! He obviously poured an entire box of cereal out all over the floor. It made quite the mess!

He looks a little apprehensive here...but don't be fooled. He was pretty proud of his handiwork.

He's been really good about helping me clean up all of his messes lately so here he is with the vacuum attachment ready to help. All he really did was push them all around the floor. oh well. What a good helper!

Hat Hair

This kid gets in way too much trouble in his high chair

Ryan has been SO obsessed with Finding Nemo. I'm embarrassed to admit how many times we've watched it and even more embarrassed by how many times I have actually quoted the movie recently. So here he is the morning after Halloween wearing his football costume, eating his pretzels from his candy bag, and watching finding Nemo. All at 7am.

What happens when I give my "I'm tired and want to go to sleep cry" and mom still says "just a minute, sweetheart" over and over? I take matters into my own hands.

My mom made this dress for my oldest sister when she was a baby. Since then, all of the girls in the family have worn it for pictures. Macey is a really long baby so it looks a little bit more like a shirt. Oh well-at least we got a picture of her in it!

I LOVE THIS BABY! She had already taken her barrette out, but she looks so cute in this little dress. She is just so huggable and has the same kissable cheeks that Ryan has. She has, thankfully, gotten over her fussy stage and now is all smiles and sleeps like a champ. I just love my little cuties.

I think I may be losing it...

A few weeks ago I was shopping and I looked down at Ryan's feet dangling from the cart and I noticed that his shoes were on the wrong feet. I took advantage of the 'teaching opportunity' and explained that his shoes were on the wrong feet. (It's okay honey, let's just switch them around. Here, I'll help you, etc.) I was halfway through my mommy talk when I realized that I was the one that had put his shoes on him! :) Oops.

It doesn't end there. I was at church last week and I looked down at Macey sitting on my lap while I played the piano in primary. She was kicking her feet as usual and guess what....yup I did it again!! For those of you thinking baby shoes don't have a right and a left...these do. I had the velcro going the wrong way. Two strikes for me!

Other signs I may be losing it:
1. I brought Ryan to church a few weeks ago with no shoes...or socks. Although we can chalk that one up to miscommunication between me and Scott. All that rushing out the door and we were still fashionably late.
2. Another week I brought Ryan to church wearing black pants with an outfit so obviously coordinated for navy blue. We didn't even notice until we were at church taking him out of the car. That's the last time I pick out his outfit in the dark!
3. I backed into Scott's car in the driveway. I could rationalize and try to explain, but it's just not worth it.

So it's been decided- I need a vacation.

Halloween!!

We had such a fun Halloween. We started with trunk or treat at church and Ryan had a blast there. The actual trick-or-treating on Friday night was a little less successful. We were out for 30 min and only visited about 5 houses. Ryan kept getting distracted by everything else: the pumpkins, rocks, disney statues on someone's porch, and the boys playing catch with a football. But he had a good time even though he didn't totally get the whole candy thing.

Getting-ready-for-Halloween Fun

Ryan has been going to Playschool on monday mornings. It is a little preschool class for little ones. Last week we had a little halloween party and it was so adorable. This is Ryan's new "cheeeeeese" face.

Here he is "stirring the brew" as part of the singing activity.

BOO Game: For FHE last week we BOO'd our neighbors by dropping treats on their doorstep. We designated Michaela as the runner and she totally got caught! Scott and I were laughing so hard as we watched Michaela hide behind the neighbor's car and the neighbor hide behind the side of the house...neither of them wanting to be spotted. We had a great time and we were definitely glad that we designated Michaela as the runner.

Here is our little bag of DELICIOUS cookies with the poem attached.

Ryan and Scott laughing after Michaela got caught.

Michaela in action

Ryan wore his skeleton shirt A LOT the week of Halloween. Here he is enjoying his favorite pasttime...Everyone told me the day would come when pots and pans would override the millions of toys he has...but I didn't know it would be this annoying. He likes to pour things in them and I'm so sick of washing pots and pans! Good thing he's so cute.

The Haunted Trail with the Millers

We went to the Haunted Trail a few weeks ago. It was freezing outside so we all bundled up in grandma and grandpa's clothes and headed out.In the end, Michaela, Grandma and Grandpa Miller were the brave ones while Scott and I stayed back with the kids.

Macey enjoyed her toasty little seat.

and Ryan enjoyed his ride in the backpack.

When we got home Ryan pulled up his little chair next to grandpa and they watched football together.

Lately, Ryan has been obsessed with holding Macey. He was holding her and I peeked over and caught him giving her hugs and kisses. How cute is that?! But, when he is 'all done' holding her, he kind of just pushes her off his lap...so we have to be prepared for that. What little cuties!

Apple Orchard in Michigan

A couple of weeks ago I took the kids up to MI to see everyone. We had a great time, as usual, and we took all of the kids to the apple orchard for cider and donuts and did a lot of other fun things.

What a sweet face!

Where else can you find an apple this big...?

Look how cute all of these little ones are. This was the best picture we could get. We were able to get two 'good' pictures and Macey looks traumatized in both of them and Adria was either turning around or picking her nose...I decided to post the turning around picture.

I think he thought the geese were real because he ran away FAST to get to them

We celebrated Cole's birthday and one of the gifts we bought was this transformers mask that has a voice changer so the kids sounded a lot like Darth Vader. It was pretty hilarious. Ryan was wearing it in this picture.


Ryan thinks Cole is the coolest person. They were watching Tom and Jerry and Ryan kept looking at Cole to find out when to laugh. Then he would do this hilarious fake laugh.

Here he is in the playland thing in the middle of the mall. He worked up a sweat running around in there. It was a pretty good time.

Jumbo Post

This is what happened when I tried to help Ryan perfect his fine motor skills by having him color, with colored pencils, a picture of Blue from Blue's Clues (who happens to be a girl...did everyone else know that?). Plan backfired. I turned my head for what I suppose was a rather long minute and I'm pretty sure he reached the box of markers and ate one.

Ryan helped me bake a carrot cake the other day by emptying out the entire tupperware cabinet for me. He did such a great job, I let him lick the spatula when I was done frosting the cake. I think he inherited my sweet tooth because his face lit up when he tasted it!

Grandma Miller wanted to do Macey's hair after her bath the other day. Voila!

Snug as a bug! Macey LOVES her swing and that means that I LOVE her swing too :)


I have a lot of pictures of her in the swing...I think in this pictures she's rubbing it in that she kept me up all night and then she got to sleep all day.

I thought this General Conference was great, and it's the first one I didn't fall asleep during, in...I don't know, ever probably. We went to our friends' house to watch it and Ryan enjoyed their toys as much as Scott and I enjoyed conference. It was a win-win situation.

We ran down to the park for a break between sessions. At the park, Ryan ran away to the basketball court where he found a lone basketball sitting in the grass. It made his day. Shortly thereafter, we realized that we were being followed at an uncomfortably close distance, by a teenager that appeared out of nowhere. It turns out that it was his abandoned ball that Ryan was playing with and he wanted it back. Bummer.

Just some fun outside.

Ryan has added football to his sports repetoire and he has learned how to hike a football. He usually uses his little one and got frustrated because the full-sized ball was too big to fit through his legs. Pretty cute anyway!!

Watch out LeBron

Highlights of the Week

1. Ryan labeling items in a book, and upon seeing a lion, says 'mom' over and over. That's nice.
2. Ryan climbing on the table while I'm putting groceries away, and falling off...twice.
3. Ryan wiping desitin all over the dog.
4. Ryan drawing on the walls for the first time.
5. Ryan flushing the toilet so many times while I'm feeding Macey that it overflows
6. Last but not least....Ryan covering Macey's head with a tupperware bowl because she wouldn't stop crying. Awesome.

As you can see, I've had a great week. So thankfully I have these cute pictures to remind myself that although Ryan is an 18 mo monster, he is still a little angel



Well, it's official. Macey is one big baby! She is so sweet too. I can't get enough of her!

Ryan saw Macey holding his teddy the other day and that didn't go over so well. So it was time to give Macey hers, which also didn't go over so well because now Ryan thinks he has two.