Chambers is the BIG 18 months

I am sad to report that my baby is 18 months.  He is at such a fun age.  He is hard because he is for sure starting to have an opinion about things, but I cherish every second with him.  

Right now:  

he is such a little imitator

he loves mama

want to feed himself everything

refuses to drink out of a regular cup

is a great sleeper

he asks to go to bed when he is tired

probably says about 20 words

babbles a lot

he's starting to fall down to have tantrum

takes 1 nap for about 3 hours

loves his pacifier (which I know I need to take away)

started hitting Cardon

screams if you take something he wants

wears 18 month clothes

yells mom in the car over and over

we call him "cheeser" because of his awesome grin

got his first haircut

is becoming quite the climber

is liking to get in the bath

wants to go outside after he eats

likes me to turn on the music so he can dance

goes to the pantry and fridge and says "eat" all the time

likes to copy what we say

gets a little picky about what he eats

is old enough to go to nursery!!!!!

he is BUSY

he is all boy

he sits down to look at books

I absolutely love this sweet picture my dad snapped of my two boys stripped down to their nothings so they could hop in the pool when we got to their house.  I love the special moment he captured between these two.  I wonder what they are saying or thinking about when this was taken.  What a special thing to have a sibling.

 Wonder how many more times Chambers will let me rock him to sleep.  I had Jer take a picture because I know that these times will slowly fade.

Hanging out with dad at Truman's soccer game.

This day he discovered how to dip the same fry over and over while he licked of the ketchup.  When the fry got so soggy I couldn't stand it I threw it away and gave him another one.

Love this boy of mine so much.  Like all my kids I'm so grateful to have him in my life.  Being pregnant and having c-sections is so hard on me, but in the end it's all worth it.  He brings stress, and pure joy into my life all at the same time!  I love watching him discover new things and become his own little person.  I was sad to hear the older kids saying he is becoming a toddler now.  Sometimes I even miss him when he has been asleep for a while and I want to see his face and hold him.  I know that he is part of God's plan for our beautiful and crazy family.  Love you my sweet boy!

Work Trip North

Jer at the last minute had to pick up a company truck to drive back down to St. George so we planned a quick family trip.  We didn't get there until Friday evening and left Sunday, but we fit a lot in considering it was raining most the time!  Friday night we decided to head to Lagoon before the storm hit and I'm glad we did because Saturday when we planned on going would have been too wet.

Jer's phone takes the WORST pictures.  Anton took us on a great hike at Brighton at Silver Lake.  It was muddy and rainy, but beautiful.  The clouds were really low and the leaves were changing colors.  It was a perfect hike for all the kids minus the fact that Tacy somehow slipped and fell in the water.  That shook her up for the rest of the hike, but other than that they had a great time.  I would love to go back.  We were all pretty wet by the end but we grabbed some hot chocolate and headed home.  It was great to get out.

Saturday night we braved the weather and went to the Pink Floyd Australia concert Jer had gotten us tickets to before we knew what the weather had in store.  Wasn't sure how it would go but the weather cooperated and the concert was a fun change from what we would normally do.  We did happen to sit in front of the most annoying and drunk person at the whole concert.  But as annoying as he was, he was also entertaining.  Luckily I managed to keep Jer from getting mad at him.  We are SO grateful to Anton and Liz for watching the kids so we could go.  My mom had originally planned on watching them, but she had to stay because my Grandpa ended up getting 5 stints for his heart the day before.  Luckily he is recovering and will have a much better quality of life.

The kids of course loved hanging out with their cousins.  It is their favorite part of going north.  Jer and I always enjoy hanging out and talking with Anton and Liz.  And Jer has a new fondness for fried jalapenos thanks to Anton!

September Updates

This little one is still growing up unfortunately!  He insists on feeding himself everything.  And most the time I let him because he's such a better eater.  It means some big messes.  He manages to have something gross in his hair after every meal.

The kids found the biggest toad in our backyard one night while they were helping Jer spray for black widows.  They insisted on taking it to Grandma Debbie's pond to let it go so they could hopefully see it again.

Truman has been working on speeches, posters, and interviews for the last couple weeks to try to be on student council.  I was surprised how much he wanted to do this.  He put his heart into it.  Unfortunately there is only one person from his class who gets to do it and he found out yesterday that he didn't make it.  I felt so bad for him.  It's hard to see your kids not get what they want!  But I do think he will learn from this.  You can't win everything.

Many of Cardon's days are spent refusing to take a nap and then falling asleep at the worst times.  He is horrible to wake up so I just can't seem to win this battle.

On this particular day he had fallen asleep in the car to get the kids.  After I dropped them off to music I came home and put him on the couch.  Then 45 minutes later I put him back in the car to pick them up (he is still asleep) and then again unloaded him and put him on the couch.  Chambers did manage to wake him up a little by bothering him.  He was pretty proud of himself.  It started off so cute and then Chambers decided to see what he would do if he started hitting him.  It was the first time I have notice him doing this, so I'm sure there will be more to come.

Last week was picture day for the kids.  I'm always glad when it's over because it's a little stressful for me. Luckily we had curled Tacy's hair last year, so this was the year to keep it straight.  It made things a lot easier.  I was going to just take pictures of the older two but everyone wanted in.  Good chance to get all the kids in a shot I guess.  I haven't seen the pictures from school yet so I'm looking forward to that.

Labor Day Hike

I was trying to pull off a hike through the Narrows over Labor Day, but when our friends invited us to do another of our favorite hikes we switched plans.  We went with the Howards to do the Knaraville Falls hike, and we had 8 kids between us.  Luckily the kids had a great time because it was the busiest we have ever seen this hike.  By the time we made it to the first ladder the line was so long with people taking turns to go up and down, we decided it was a good time to turn around.  I was anxious to go further, but it was probably good we did turn back because by the end Cardon especially ran out of energy and was dragging by the time we made it back to the car.  This hike used to be a bit of a secret, but it seems more and more people are finding out about it.  I hate it when that happens!

Chambers fussed for a few minutes when we first got him situated int he backpack so we were a little worried about how he would do, but I can believe how great he did.  He seemed to enjoy sitting up in the backpack and watching all the action.  I swear I hardly heard a peep out of him.  What a good little hiker.

The water was freezing and at first it was too cold for us.  But I know from experience on this hike that once your feet get numb enough, it's great and it doesn't seem cold anymore!  I wish I would have gotten a family shot of all of us, but here's one of all our cute kids.  The big kids raced ahead most of the time and I stuck with Cardon.  That kid has no fear.  He was making my nurse friend Lindsey pretty nervous.  I had to keep from falling over as I clutched his hand through the water trying to keep up with him as he pulled me along.

Jer probably got the best workout hauling this kid around.  Jer has done so well working out lately and is in pretty good shape but his back sure was sore that night.

We didn't make it up to the slide that the kids were anxious to go down because of all the people, so leave it to Truman to find a mini slide that made all the kids' day.

These are the many poses of Chambers sleeping on the way back.  What a little sweetie!

Loving that we got out and did this.  We all had fun.  Makes me want to go plan another hike.  That night we had my grandparents over for a barbecue to end a great day.  The kids quietly watched a show in the other room so we were able to catch up with Grandpa and Grandma.  Thanks to my little Tacy for being such a great big sister and helping take care of the little boys so we could do that.
Now let's get this short week started.  We have more fun family fun planned for this weekend.