Pumpkin Patch Fun

We went to a fun little pumpkin patch with Drewbee and Megan last week - and Livy thought it was the coolest thing ever! We got a lot of cute pics out of the event and one ginormous pumpkin that will soon be sporting the same carving that we do every year and will continue to do - the Y!

The fam:

The pumpkin enthusiast:

The small one:

The love birds:

The loot:

7 Month Mayhem

Here is my CUTE little 7-month-old. His rolls are still going strong! He turned 7 months on the 2nd and I kid you not, THE DAY of his 7 month birthday - all sorts of crazy things started happening.

He started...

1. Legit crawling everywhere
2. Pulling himself up to stand
3. Walking across the couch while holding on (what!?!?)
4. Signing "more" and "milk"
5. Eating real food - I can just hand him a full cracker - and it's gone within seconds - and there's no choking!

6. Giggling at EVERY crazy thing his sister does - and then tries to join in on the "fun." But alas, someone does and always will end up in tears. I've just decided to accept it now.

This kid is getting so big! We were at a family thing a couple days ago and my family kept saying he was so "healthy." No need for euphemisms - this kid LOVES to eat - and he's a chunk! I love it, though! He's still so cuddly and definitely loves him mama more than anyone else in the world. Unfortunately, it's turned him into a bit of a momma's boy - we're working on it. But it's so hard to deny this little smile!

Livy Louly 2 1/2 Years Later

This is my 2 1/2 year old American Girl Doll. (This is a result of a boring afternoon.) Anyhoo, she's insane and sassier than ever! She loves to fight me on everything! I was watching Modern Family the other night and they were complaining about getting in fights with their most challenging kids and the other person said it was because that child had become JUST LIKE him - long story short - that's me and Liv. Apparently, I'm extremely spicy... I completely deny this - but I'm sure Matt would tell you differently.

Anyway, Livy is such a talker! She never stops, but she is really good at it. She is constantly giving me the play by play of every TINY thing she does. She also loves to be quite the bossy pants.

Liv: Mom, I'm going to go to the bathroom, k?
Me: Okay.
Liv: Mom, you stay here (puts her hand up to halt any movement I might make), k? You stay here, I go poop, and then wash hands, k?
Me: Okay, just go.
Liv: (Takes a few steps) Mom, I do it myself. Don't come. By myself. I poop. Then I wash hands. Then I come back, k?
Me: OKAY!

Funny little sayings/quirks:

*We have put a babyproof door handle thing on the inside of her room so she can't get out for time out and bedtime. Every night as we're putting her to bed, she asks us about a billion times not to shut the door. As we walk out of her room she's saying, "Goodnight! Don't close door! Love you. Don't close door! I going to sleep. Don't close door!"

*After being put in time out:

Me: Livy, are you ready to come out?
Liv: No, Mom! Say sorry to me right now!

*Apparently, I tell her to do stuff "right now" A LOT. She is constantly bossing all of us (including Adam) to do things that she asks RIGHT NOW!

*She is always, ALWAYS singing. She sings what she's doing ALL OF THE TIME. And she usually puts it to the tune of "I Love to See the Temple" or "Ring Around the Rosies." Also, her favorite song is the intruder song. Today, I was on the phone with my mom and I was telling her that something was "so dumb." And Livy immediately started singing, "So dumb. So dumb..." It was hilarious!

*She loves to take like an HOUR to eat these days. She'll eat everything on her plate - but she will make it take FOREVER, just to spite us! Just kidding - although I wouldn't put it past her.

*She LOVES babying Adam. She wants to carry him around (by the neck) and tell him what to do and make sure everything is okay with him. She can be the cutest little mommy sometimes.

*She loves asking if we remember things - especially after the event has just happened. But she also asks if we remember things that happened months ago. It's pretty impressive.

*She's not shy at all and I doubt she ever will be. I refer to all little people as friends - because they are all potential friends - but anyway - she goes up to little kids and asks if they want to come over and play. She's very outgoing.


*She's a total goofball

*She loves putting things back where they go or closing drawers that have been opened - which she didn't get from me - I'm definitely the messier one out of me and Matt

*She loves buckling herself up in the carseat

*She always asks us what's happening while watching a show. This better not continue - there's nothing more annoying than a billion questions while you're watching a show! Her cuteness and honest curiosity are the only things letting her get away with this habit right now.

The All-Stars of the Moving Extravaganza

The one thing we really learned during the moving process was how awesome our friends and family are. Everyone we know totally stepped up and helped us out BIG TIME in anyway they could. We feel so blessed to know and to be served by these amazing people!

So here is the All-Star line-up:

First, we have my AWESOME Aunt Rachel. For our going away gift, she had a DVD player installed into our Swagger Wagon - which made it about a billion times cooler! It was the greatest gift EVER! It helped so much with the ridiculously long drive. We are so grateful for her awesomeness!

Second, we have the Happy Helpers Duo: Grandma Sherrie and Aunt Amy. I'll be getting pics of their time here, but these two came the day before and kept the kiddlies out of the way as we started taking care of all of the last minute nonsense before we packed our lives up in the moving truck. Sherrie also helped us pay for the truck AND paid for our cleaning ladies which made my life a gazillion times less stressful! THANK YOU!!!

Third, some awesome guys from our church and Luke came over to play tetris and fit everything into our moving truck. They succeeded! It was awesome! And it was no easy task - we weren't planning on taking our washer and dryer AND queen sized mattress so we got a smaller truck, but we got lucky and everything important made it in the truck! There was NO space left unused in there.

Fourth, we have my parental units and brother from another mother. Just kidding, Ky. I promise you're not adopted! (Quick side story: Drew and I use to tell Ky that he was adopted and when he said that our mom told him that we were just trying to be mean - we would tell him that she had to say that so he wouldn't find out and start crying. I mean, we were pretty evil!) Anyhoo, my mom came to drive the van so I could man the two kiddlies, my dad drove the truck, and Ky drove with Matt to keep him awake. Of course, we left at like 4 in the morning - both my dad and Matt are insaniacs - and for some reason - they always get to determine when we leave on road trips!

Fifth, some awesome guys from our church, some friends, and some family showed up all at the perfect time to help us move into our place! It was awesome! We couldn't believe how many people who didn't even know us - showed up to help us move in! Unfortunately, I forgot to take a pic.

Here we are on our last night living in CA. A lot of tears immediately followed this pic - mainly from Matt and Marc... or maybe Raquel and me. :) actually more like more like :,( - does that look like a crying thing? haha

Here are Liv and Cos that night. Poor Livy keeps telling me she wants to go to Cos' to play. It's so sad.

But we are almost completely settled and excited for the upcoming wedding!!! Livy took this pic of Drewbee. Yay for Drew and Megan! All of this is helping pull all of us out of our little Debbie Downer state of minds!

I Love Reminiscing

I love looking through old pics every now and then and today I came across this one...


It looked so cute, but I needed a pic of just these two and so I decided to try to get myself out of it and turned it into this..

I like it. I actually have a pic JUST LIKE this one with me holding my baby brother, Drew. I think I'm going to get this one printed out and put it up in their SHARED room. That's right. I'll post pics of the new place soon, but I did decide to put them in the same room and so far - it's been a little shaky, but okay.

Anywho, the other day, my mom was having fun reminiscing and sent me some of these:

Me and my uncle Steve when he got home from his mish, I'm assuming? I guess me and my cousins really missed him because while he was gone, we would play Little Mermaid - I was Ariel because of my red hair, my cousin, Whitney, was Prince Eric because she had short hair, my cousin, Tay, was flounder and my brother, Drew, was Steve (???) So you would hear us playing and say, "Come on Ariel! Come on Eric! Come on Flounder! Come on STEVE!"

Happy Easter 1991! Drew's bow tie and hair is the best.

I remember feeling so fancy in this dress :)

Sweet bow.

Oh the 90s and the jeans extravaganza.

From the left: Flounder, Ariel, Eric, Steve

Why was I allowed to go outside looking like this?!? Also, sweet socks and sandals, Drewbee.

Apparently I thought I was a sweet gangsta.

There were several more - but they were just a bit too embarrassing to put on here just yet. Suffice it to say - I thought I was the bomb diggity when I was a teenager...

(Post Sign: General Conference is the best - especially with popcorn at 10 in the morning - I think that will be our new tradition - Pancakes and Popcorn. It fits our family perfectly. Weird, but awesome! :) )

Failed BUT Noteworthy Attempts

Matt and I have both made failed attempts lately - but got so close to S-U-C-C-E-S-S!

Here's Matt's story...

So our dryer stopped getting hot a couple weeks ago. Matt talked to some people at our church and one man came over and offered a couple suggestions as to what the problem might be, so Matt decided to try to fix it himself. Apparently, he was still riding the high he got from installing our car stereo - so he set about fixing it in pure confidence.

He popped open that sucker and started removing and replacing all sorts of parts. It started getting too costly, but there was one more part he wanted to replace.

However, it was too late and the place was closed and we hadn't been able to do laundry for a week, so we decided to give up and call a fix-it guy (which turned out to be a fix-it entourage). Anywho, they came over and lo and behold - it was that last part that Matt wanted to replace for like $20 - instead the fix-it posse charged us $90. We were depressed, but I was so proud that Matt had gotten so close. AND everything he replaced will now make our dryer last FOREVER! Good job, babe!

And now for my sad story...

I've mentioned that I've never cut Liv's hair. It was so uneven and it's been bugging me for quite some time, but I've been WAY too scared to cut it - so I finally bit the bullet and attempted.

I was feeling good as I was brushing her hair out and looking at what I needed to even out. Then I started cutting with these scissors:

They were so dull! But they were all I had so I just tried my best. And then when I was right about to cut the hair on one side - Livy looked up and I cut a chunk of hair way shorter than the rest. By the end of this horribly failed attempt - her hair was no more near even than it was before - the left side is seriously struggling right now. Bleh! So lesson learned - I need to go get some descent scissors and wait until she's sleeping I guess (?) haha

Here's the hair she lost. She does look older now though, even with the failed haircut. She's getting so big!

(too embarrassed to post a pic of the final hair cut...)