October Round-up

We met up with Amber, Jaxon, and Dylan for a visit to the Kennecot Mine Visitor's Center. It's always amazing to see those huge huge trucks!

Kevin took Cora and Violet to see Aladdin at Tuacahn. They changed the rules so you have to be 3 to watch the show, so it just didn't make sense for us all to go. The girls had a great daddy-daughter road trip! 

 The kids really like the Home Depot workshops that Kevin takes them too. It's on the first Saturday of every month and we go as often as we can (even if it's tricky for Kevin to help 3 kids with hammers at one time!). Luke was especially proud of his firetruck he made, he insisted on an up-close shot. 

 Violet lost her first tooth on October 9th! She was so proud, and happy to receive her own dollar from the Tooth Fairy. She is pretty young to lose a tooth, but her teeth came in early as a baby, so it's not completely unexpected. The dentist said she'll just be ahead of schedule tooth-wise and will probably get her six year molars when she is 5. 

 With all of our littles, we have lots of early mornings! I can't remember the last time we've slept past 6:30. Ah, who needs sleep anyway when you have these munchkins to play with? 

Family breakfast at Kneaders on a Saturday morning. Delicious french toast!

And, a bit of October on Facebook...

October 5th: Tonight I let Kevin choose if he wanted to change Evelyn's dirty diaper or read the requested Strawberry Shortcake Meets Cherry Jam to the big kids for bedtime (5th time this week). He chose the dirty diaper. Lucky for me it wasn't a Tuesday meeting night or I would have been stuck with the diaper AND Cherry Jam! Parenting is funny.

October 27th:

Evelyn has been sick for about 3 weeks with successive colds, and hasn't slept more than 30 minutes at a time during the day. This morning she took a 3 hour nap! I couldn't believe how much I accomplished during that time. It was nice to remember that I am usually busy meeting her needs, and that it's not because I'm lazy that normally nothing gets crossed off my to do list!

October 29th:

Weekend funnies: Cora, after a cranky morning and napping from 9-11am "Mom, I feel SO GOOD!".... Violet, during dinner tonight "I like this salmon a lot better than the fish salmon we had before" ... Luke, after spotting Cora up on the stand for the Primary Program at church yelled "Hi Cora!!"... and Evelyn, sporting cute banana smile while eating and producing such loud baby belches.

Happy Halloween!

The kids are the perfect ages for Halloween! It's been fun celebrating the holiday. 

Kevin is in charge of pumpkin carving at our house. The kids loved it! 

  

 Pretty spooky!

The kids had lots of opportunities to dress up. Here they are at Kevin's office after trick or treating around the cubicles and outside the ROB. They also dressed up for our ward's Fall Festival party. 

Cora's school did a Halloween parade! 

 Violet and Luke both had parties at their preschool/playschool too. 

                                  Cora was a witch, Violet was a cat, and Luke was a fireman. 

                   Evelyn was a caterpillar. She didn't like it too much for out and about, but she didn't complain too much about being snuggled in it in her stroller. 

 Kissie came over for Halloween night. She manned the front porch and handed out candy while Kevin and I took the kids out trick-or-treating. Luke did pretty well and stayed out for 45 minutes, then came home with me. Violet stayed out a bit longer, and Cora hooked up with a friend and stayed out even longer, getting the most loot of all! 

Halloween at Hee Haw Farms

We bought a groupon and did an evening at HeeHaw Farms. They had lots of activities there including a cow train, pumpkin patch, hay ride, huge slide, pig races, and corn box. It was a windy evening, but we still had a fun time. 

  

We bought some feed for the kids to feed the sheep and goats. But holy cow, they must have been starving because they were super eager! The kids all were too scared to feed them so I got to have a go. 

Violet was willing to pose for one picture--doesn't she look thrilled?

These little piglets were so cute! 

Even Evelyn got to take a turn in the corn box! 

Ride to the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins!

 

Evelyn at 6 months

At the end of September Evelyn started sitting! She loves the new view, especially being able to watch her siblings run around her. (This beautiful blanket was made by her wonderful Aunt Liz!)

   

  

  

She's also doing successive rolls, but not too many in a row. 

Evelyn is completely binkie free now. I wouldn't have minded her taking it for a bit longer, but this is nice for the long run. 

She's started getting very distracted while nursing. I can't read and nurse at the same time anymore, the crinkly books are too noisy. 

At her 6 month appointment, Evelyn weighed 16.53 pounds (59th percentile) and was 27.36 inches tall (94th percentile). 

About a week after her 6 month mark, we started making her put herself to sleep instead of  rocking or nursing to sleep. This is the earliest I've tried this for any of the kids. I should have done it this early with them all! It only took a few nights of screaming, and she is sleeping in much longer stretches now and seems a lot happier. It also helped her a lot with her stranger anxiety, I think she was always exhausted before. And it's much better for me too of course. The fog is lifting! 

I just love how babies cheeks squish up against the pillows!

Evelyn's hair is starting to grow in thicker. It looks like it is going to be straight like Violet's! 

She loves crinkly toys and the Costco wipes packages, she has such a great laugh, and she prefers being on her tummy and will always roll over from her back. 

"The Wheels on the Bus" continues to be her favorite song that will calm her down faster than just about anything else. 

When she's in the front pac she loves to pull my hair! She enjoys her exersaucer and bouncer still, and loves to touch her toes. 

She even gets tiny bits of tv watching in. She loves the songs and bright colors I think.

And, maybe most exciting of all, Evelyn started eating solids! She got her first taste of rice cereal the end of September.

She liked the bananas a few days later a lot too!

Still working on that tongue thrust!

Here's some punchy laughs-- She's such a cutie!