mountain hoods

Halloween 2010

Pumpkin Carving for Family Home Evening.

Dad did the carving.

Caleb climbed up and down enjoying the excitement and refreshments.

Alice decided it was too gooey and insisted mom help.

Julie meticulously cleaned hers out a few seeds at a time, determined to finish herself.

Dad let them pick the faces they wanted.

They turned out great! : )

Later in the week they became the topic of a discussion Caleb and the girls had about decay after an episode of Sid the Science Kid.

Ward Dinner and trunk or treating on Wednesday was a lot of fun.

We took spiced pumpkin and shrimp soup (sounds odd but it turned out really well, it tasted Greek), some cupcakes, and off course candy for trunk or treaters. Leaving the house was chaotic and we forgot the camera, but they dressed up again for the down town parade and trick or treating on Friday.

Alice went as Abby Cadabby (wings didn't make the picture) and Julie was a Red Spider Witch (she loved the hat).

Caleb was teething and did not want to wear a costume...we couldn't find one without a hat or hood or mask...but the Cookie Monster pull-over kept him warm enough and as soon as people started putting candy in his blue plastic pumpkin he decided it wasn't so bad.

The girls had so much fun! They LOVE to dress up. They are already coming up with costume ideas for next year.

It all started when Julie was born. Grandma Grant came to South Carolina to visit. While waiting for Dad, Mom and Julie to come home from the hospital, Grandma was busy completely spoiling 15 month old Alice.

Alice loved her new dress-up clothes (which she has been playing with ever since) and her new Sleeping Beauty Chair and smoothly adjusted to the roll of big sister.

As soon as baby Julie learned to sit up, Alice would let Julie sit in the chair on occasion and even hold her big bird with close supervision.

Julie loved the princess chair, too, so for her 1st Christmas Daddy got her her very own Cinderella chair.

When baby Caleb became mobile, he realized how comfy and perfectly sized the little foam chairs were. When one of his sisters got up to go play he would quickly crawl (and as time went on toddle and run) to take their spot. Dad realized we were going to need a boy version of the little foam chair so after months of searching....

Ta-Da! Caleb Edward has his very own Toy Story Chair and is anxious to tell everyone all about it!

(Thank you Aunt Lilly and Grandma!!!!)

For the first few hours of ownership he would cautiously take a few steps from his chair and glance around...expecting one of his sisters to run for it, like he did for theirs, but soon realized they were more interested in their own.

Now they can all relax together in harmony...for a little while anyways....Alice realized her's is getting a little small for her and has begun to talk with Dad about a possible 5-year-old-sized bean bag or possibly rocking chair..... Thus, the cycle continues.

Summer

This summer has flown by, as time usually does when our family is together. We were planning to rebuild the bathroom floor, but after a bad wind storm in June the project for the summer changed to learning how to roof.

After we got it cleaned off (two layers of shingles with a random layer of insulation that doesn't belong on a roof, causing the top layer to bake and crumble prematurely in the wind, and a lot of nails and staples that had to be pulled) and put down a layer of tar paper we had another wind storm and had to redo most of that. (Caleb: I make the roof look smaller than it really is.)

Grandpa, Uncle Ben and Uncle Jerry all came to help so that we could be finished in time to make the 4th of July Party at Aunt Lilly's.

Cousins Rachael and Mina got to stay over for a few days. We had a lot of fun playing!!!

We spent a lot of time at the pool this summer. Alice and Julie have learned to hold their breath under water, kick around in their floats and jump off the side into the deep end.

They have figured out where they can reach in the big pool to play all by themselves. Alice looks forward to being able to swim well enough to go off the diving board!

Grandpa and Grandma Grant shared a trampoline with the girls at the beginning of July and it is their new favorite outside activity!

Caleb is a little nervous about the ground moving below his feet and prefers to watch from the swing. He is getting better at bouncing when he is on by himself and has Daddy's undivided attention and praise.

Grandpa and Grandma stopped by on their way up to Flaming Gorge. Grandpa Grant likes to jump on the trampoline, too. : ) With all this work and play summer has flown by.

Baby Picture

Here is our handsome baby boy at almost 10 months!

This post was written back in February...in word..which is where it has been since...

We'll start with Halloween since that is where we left off.

Here is a couple of fairy princesses getting ready for a night out,

and a bumblebee hibernating.

During Thanksgiving we relaxed and visited and Caleb grew a beard for a week.

Alice had a Sleeping Beauty party for her 4th Birthday.

She was a beautiful little princess for that day and many since.

We enjoyed lots of festivities leading up to Christmas. We went to our first Enchanted Forest, an elaborate Christmas tree silent auction, to hear Caleb's choir sing. Then Caleb and his friend Fred finished off the night with some Christmas carols. We dressed up like shepherds and angels for "A Night in Bethlehem" with our ward family (the girls were excited to wear their costumes again). And we spent precious time at home together relaxing and playing.

We all got to open our new pajamas Christmas Eve.

The girls had a blast opening their presents.

They were so adorable to watch!

Everyone was glad to help baby Caleb open his. Of course his favorite part was the wrappings.

We enjoyed visiting with family over the break and seeing our beautiful canyons covered with snow. We misplaced our camera sometime during our travels so there's no pictures of the damage the deer did to our van, Uncle Norman's beautiful wedding or Katie's Birthday. We thought maybe we left it at someone's house or it fell out in the van (which was stuck in the shop for two and a half long weeks). Eventually we found it safe and sound, buried in the bottom of the diaper bag, just in time to get a picture of Caleb's birthday/anniversary present, which rounds off our holidays.

Painting Pumpkins in the Style of Dali

For family home evening this week, we decided to paint pumpkins to get into the spirit of the upcoming pagan festivities. Everyone took a different approach to pumpkin design. Caleb opted for the beach ball effect. I'm sure you've already noticed and made a comment to the person in closest proximity to you about his fantastic dragon shirt. Just another way to get into the holiday spirit.

Alice started out by anthropomorphize her gourd, but liked daddy's idea better...

Katie came up with this spook-tacular (I couldn't resist!) idea and helped the girls with their creations.

Julie decided on the the Salvador Dali 'Melting Pumpkin' approach. She was also the only one to manage to get paint on her face.

Katie's pumpkin (front-left) does have a lovely pastel face that you can't see in this shot. Alice's artistic creation went the way of S. Dali in the end. All in all, a fun and successful activity.

Nap Time

Perhaps it was getting used to Daddy's no-nonsense nap time regime over the summer or just getting older and not thinking they need as much sleep, but September and the return of school brought all kinds of new antics to our nap time. Here are a few of them.

The Stall Tactics: