Baby thoughts from kids

Baby brother is coming soon and we have been talking off and on about his arrival to Liza and Max.  The other night while putting them together we told them that the baby could come anytime and so if they wake up one morning and mommy and daddy are gone someone else might be here to watch them.  Liza wanted to know about her arrival.  We told her she didn't want to come out of my belly so finally had to go to the hospital to have them give me some medicine.  She said, "I didn't want to come out because I was so warm and cozy?"  Then she followed with, "When you went to the hospital did they put something cold on your belly?"  I was confused at first why she would think they put something cold on my belly.  Then Jeremy made the connection to her comment about her being warm and cozy in my belly and so in her mind they needed to make it cold so she would come out.  Love to get a glimpse of how she thinks.

Max on the other hand in a little more worried about himself.  Jeremy was telling him that I wouldn't be able to hold him as much when the baby comes because I will have to hold the baby.  He walked around for days with a sad look saying, "Mommy not can hold me."  It was very sad and cute.  I assured him I would be able to hold him sometimes.  That brightened him up and now he just says, "Baby brother come, mommy hold me little bit."

Let me next adventure begin.

October out takes

UVU has this bulletin board next to their campus right off the freeway.  Every time we get off at this exit Maxwell points to the sign and says, "Daddy!"  I don't know why he thinks it looks so much like Jeremy but he is sure it does and says it every time.

Two of my good friends, Lisa and Karianne, took me out to celebrate the upcoming arrival of baby.  We went to dinner and then since it was still early decided to stay out a little longer so we wouldn't have to put kids to bed.  Since we are super exciting we ended up at Walmart picking up some things that we needed.  I know, kind of lame for our night out to end up at Walmart but at least it was uninterrupted shopping time and as a mom that is a big deal.

For family night we often play hide the pirate/car/ring/etc.  Max is always peeking so Jeremy or I usually put our hand over his eyes.  However, last time he decided to fix the problem himself by hiding under the couch pillows while the object was being hidden.  It was very cute.

Hero's in a half shell

I'm so happy with how our costumes turned out this year.  They were cute, comfortable and the kids loved running around pretending to be ninja turtles.  As always it took a little longer to make the costumes than I was expecting but I enjoyed the process and was glad that I started plenty early.

The Saturday before Halloween we went to the Central Utah Gardens pumpkin walk.  It was a beautiful day and they had some fun games, cool carved pumpkins and a craft.

Here are the kids doing ninja moves.

Before our party that evening Aunt Janiece came over and took a few photos in our yard.

Max kept saying he was the bad ninja turtle and "hi-ya'd" everyone and everything that he could with his "baby sword".

Halloween day I took the kids to Springville Main Street for some trick or treating.  

When we got home they were thrilled with my proposal to watch a show and eat some candy.

As true ninja turtles we made and ate pizza for dinner.

We each had our own individual pizzas to put whatever we wanted on.

While they cooked we danced around to Halloween music and did ninja poses.

After dinner we went trick or treating to a few houses in the neighborhood.  Then back home to consume lots more candy.  The perfect Halloween.

Funny story about choosing ninja turtle characters.  Liza was stressed because she couldn't decided if she wanted to be Leonardo (because her name starts with L) or Donatello (because she wanted to be purple).  She was having a really hard time deciding and there was a small mention of letting Leonardo be purple.  Jeremy quickly jumped in and said absolutely not.  He had to draw the line and preserve the integrity of the ninja turtles - there would be no color switching of characters.  It made me laugh.  In the end she chose to be purple Donatello and loved it.

Halloween party!

The Saturday before Halloween we had a fun party with friends.  It was fairly lo-key with kids playing, parents chatting and fun snacks to eat.  For Halloween growing up my mom always gave us donut coupons to Albertson's where we could go and get about 10 glazed donuts anytime throughout the month.  Ever since Halloween always makes me think of donuts so I thought it would be fun to try a donut bar at the party.  I was worried about not having enough so I told Jeremy to make a lot of dough and in the end we had more donut holes than we knew what to do with.  Jeremy was frying up donuts for at least an hour and a half.  I made different toppings that people could choose to dip the donut holes in. They were yummy!

Even though we kept things low key for the party we had to have at least a few games.  We decided on some Halloween themed Minute to win it games.  

We had a dizzy mummy race,

created Frankenstein masks,

used vampire teeth to transfer marshmallows,

and also did a candy corn stack and a bone throwing contest.  It was a little crazy and disorganized but everyone had fun.

Here is the whole gang!

After everyone left I sat at the barstool with Max and before I knew it he had taken the spoon from the bowl of sprinkles and was eating the sprinkles by the spoonful.  Silly kid.

38 weeks pregnant with 8 kids

Last week Liza, Max and I packed our bags and headed to Bountiful for the week to watch Cherie and Jared's kids while they went on a trip.  Everyone I talked to thought I was crazy watching over 8 kids by myself when I was 38 weeks pregnant.  The most often heard comment was, "watching 8 kids is going to make you go into labor."  Luckily it didn't - although I did a little research into where the closest hospital was just in case :)

Everything went pretty smoothly for the most part.  Liza and Max loved playing with cousins all the time.  However, I think their favorite thing to do was play (aka: watch cousins play) video games.  One time when I was getting Max down from his highchair I said, "Go play some video games but don't ruin your brain cells."  His response, "I won't momma I just boom, boom guys."  Transitioning from damaged brain cells to killer wasn't exactly what I had in mind.

During the day the older kids were at school so I just had the littles at home.  They got very into coloring pictures and wanted to make lots and lots of pictures for Conner for his birthday.

We celebrated Conner's birthday a few days early.  I think the other kids were more excited about the presents and cake than he was.

The kids also got to get dressed up a couple of times for various Halloween parties at school.  Spencer was a great brother and woke up at 5:30AM with Anna to help do her zombie makeup.

To bad I was the mean aunt/babysitter that made her take some of it off before she went to school.  I let her keep most of it but thought the gashing cheek oozing blood might not be appropriate for the elementary school Halloween parade - lots of scared Kindergarteners for sure.

Not in any rush to have 8 kids anytime soon but we made it through the week pretty well.  Kids might have been eating hot dogs for breakfast but at least everyone was alive and I didn't go into labor so I count that a success.

Country Farm Fest

Fall is such a fun time to get out and explore, especially since the weather has been so nice.  Last Saturday we headed to a farmhouse in Payson to celebrate their Country Farm Fest.  There were hardly any people there - which was great for us - and it was fun to participate in the different activities they had.  We fished for prizes, made crafts, watched a woodcarver and saw some animals.

Curiosity...

Ally and her girls had school break so we decided to meet up and introduce them to the Curiosity Museum.  Max was a bit of a grouch but in general everyone had a great time.

Jeremy the Magnificent

For National Chemistry Week (who knew there was such a thing?) the BYU Chemistry department put on a couple different magic shows for the community.  Jeremy was in charge of the Friday night showing.  We met up with some other family members beforehand for some pizza at the botany park just south of campus and then all headed up to see the show.

As expected we were all dazed and amazed by liquids changing colors, things getting lit on fire, and exploding concoctions.

After the show we headed to BYU creamery for some tasty ice cream.

Pumpkins!

We went to the local pumpkin patch to play and pick out our pumpkins.  The kids had a great time in the corn pit, maze, petting the animals and going on a hay ride.  (As an aside...Jaker's has the most random collection of animals in their petting zoo.  They have huge hundred pound pigs, donkeys, kangaroo, down feathered geese and sheep/cow things that I'm not even sure what are.  Very bizarre.) 

We got 4 pumpkins to carve that night with Jeremy.  Liza had it all worked out in her mind and gave Jeremy very specific instructions on what she was hoping for.  Max just said "yes" to whatever you suggested.  Neither of the kids liked cleaning out the middle.  They both thought it was super yucky and didn't want anything to do with it.

Maxwell's attention only lasted so long before he decided his time would be better spent putting on a princess gown and dancing around.

Obviously we enjoyed listening to Christmas music while carving, told spooky stories in the basement while waiting to see who's pumpkin would stay lit the longest and finished the night off with some tasty donuts.

Here are the finished products from left to right: Rochelle, Maxwell, Jeremy, Liza