Update

Josh has been so cute lately and is actually smiling for the camera. Here are a couple of pictures I have taken in the last couple of weeks.

I am really excited about this picture -- Josh puts his reading books up on the piano and then "plays" from them. Hopefully he will learn to love playing the piano as much as Brandon and I do.

My mom let us borrow this horse that my brothers played with growing up. Josh can now get on and off all by himself (although it is really SCARY!).

I thought I better get an updated picture with Josh in his new snow clothes (snow pants, gloves, boots, the works). He had a much warmer snow experience.

Christmas Cards

This year I decided to make my Christmas cards. I worked on them from the beginning of October until I finally finished/mailed them the week before Christmas. That is almost 3 months of making Christmas cards and I LOVED IT! Here is a sample of a few of the cards that I made.

Snow!!

Monday night we went out to watch/help Brandon put some Christmas lights on our house. Josh was as bundled up as we had supplies for -- a jacket and coat, thin adult gloves, and rain-type boots. He loved walking in the snow and we stayed outside for a good hour. (Of course the sun was down so in all reality it was absolutely freezing.)


I got too cold and had to go inside but Brandon played with Josh in the snow (I think this involved walking around the yard some more). In talking to my mom, who provided the boots, I found out that they are supposed to be worn over shoes. Josh just had socks on inside them. His hands and feet were FREEZING by the time he came inside.

We'll work on upgrading the snow clothes for future snow outings. Hopefully then we can have fun and stay warm!!

Crazy Boy

I started teaching piano and violin this fall. When my students come I let Josh know that I am going to teach a lesson and he needs to go play in his room. Josh now likes to put books on the stand and say "lesson". Then he leads the "music" or turns the pages to new "songs". What a funny boy.

Josh absolutely loves his daddy. He also loves to crawl in the smallest spaces he can find and invites everyone else ("By Josh?") to do so as well. This was daddy sitting by Josh reading books. I wasn't about to crawl back there.

Josh likes when he gets to play with Grandpa. They are making music/messes with empty perscription bottles. Safe? We'd like to hope so. He had a good time anyway.

And this picture is the reason that I titled this post crazy boy. What other kid tries to stick to cups in his mouth at the same time to take a drink? "Look ma, no hands!" Josh really is a crazy boy!

Halloween

I recognize that Halloween was almost two weeks ago but I am still posting our pictures. Brandon and I carved these pumpkins for him to take to his work pumpkin carving contest. My 'wicked' pumpkin even won a prize!!

Josh was the cutest lion for Halloween. We went trick-or-treating to Brandon's work and Josh quickly caught on to "trick-or-treat", take a piece of candy, say "thank you" and move on to the next office. He brought in quite a load of candy.

Brandon's work really gets in to Halloween. He wore his crazy witch doctor costume to work all day and then to the party we went to that night. Talk about uncomfortable. Here is our family picture at Jenny's Halloween party.

We're Having a Baby!!

We are having another baby in March of next year. Today we went in for our 20 week ultrasound. Everything was really hard to see on the ultrasound but as far as the tech could tell we are having another boy. (I guess we'll know for sure in a few months, right?) If it is a boy we already have all we'll need since Josh was born at the end of February two years ago. If it turns out to be a girl -- we'll go shopping!

This was probably the best shot that we got from the ultrasound...a good profile of the baby's face.

We have a little bit of work to do to get ready for the baby. We are going to finish one of the rooms downstairs to the point of mud/texture. We'll move the office down there and then the kids will have separate rooms (none of this waking each other up all night long). Everything is going well and the baby looks good so far. We're looking forward to having another little boy around!

Putting in the Yard

I am finally taking the time to share some pictures of us putting in the yard. It was a lot of work but anyone who has done a yard knows that. We got the grass planted right before the weather turned really cold so we'll have to see if it grows or if we replant in the spring.

The first picture is of Josh being cute. He loves to climb on the chairs at sit like a he's a big boy. He is growing up pretty fast.

Brandon and Josh spent many nights out picking rocks while I was pulling the HUGE weeds between our yard and the neighbor's. Josh was pretty good at filling the wheel barrel with dirt.

Brandon's dad was a huge help in leveling out and grading the yard. He was here many days/nights working on the tractor or 4-wheeler to get everything ready for planting grass. Josh really liked to ride on the tractor with (or without) Grandpa.

We had curbing put in around the house. Then we mixed in compost (thanks for the free compost Dad) and covered the flower beds with landscape fabric (thanks Lynne and Jess for all of your hard work). Hopefully the fabric will keep the weeds and the newly planted grass out!

We only have one flowerbed in the yard. I think it will be lovely once we get some trees planted in it.

We actually finished the flowerbeds and planted grass the weekend of September 26th (it takes me forever to post about things). Even though we have had some pretty cold weather, when we look closely we can actually see blades of grass! Hopefully it will keep coming in and look good this spring.

Home Sweet Home

Well Josh and I survived Alaska. The flight home was crazy -- we left Doug and Erin's at 9:15 pm and landed in Idaho Falls at 10:20 am. That is almost 12 hours of airplanes and airports. Yikes! Josh was an angel though. Here are a few pictures that Doug and Erin sent me. I still have to post the ones that I took (although I am going to warn you that the quality is not good at all. I took our very old camera since our nice one took a dive in the river right before we left for Alaska).

Here is a picture of Josh and I heading off to church the day after we got there.

Josh being cute before we headed out to the airport.

All the boys having fun one last time before we headed out. They were all pretty cute in Brenden's bed.

Hopefully I can get some more pictures posted soon for your viewing pleasure!

Alaska Part 2

After two days of rain both night and day it was finally sunny and "warm" yesterday and the boys and I were able to play outside. The boys all had jeans and long sleeve shirts on and I was finally able to take my jacket off. It was a good change for all of us. After dinner we went for a walk. You should have seen us...Brenden riding his bike, Nolan riding/walking his scooter, and Josh and Ethan strapped into the double jogging stroller. It was a nice outing though. I may be a bit starved for adult interaction -- I call Brandon quite often and then rotate through calling mom, Grandma, Felicia, and Sabrina. Too bad it has only been three days of me and the boys...no adult interaction for five more days (not counting church where I will probably be in nursery with three of the boys). That is all for now. More to come later.

Alaska

Josh and I are currently in Alaska watching Doug and Erin's 3 boys while they are in Cancun. Talk about weather extremes -- they left here in shorts and I was dressed for winter (and that is almost what it feels like here). I will have to take pictures of the boys playing together. They are fun to watch -- most of the time. It is never quiet when all four boys (ages 6, 3, 2, 1) are home together and awake. We are having a good time so far. My house will seem so quiet when we get home...which may not be a bad thing. More later...

Hike, Water Fun, and a Luau

We have been pretty busy lately. I think we have had an activity every weekend for the last two months -- I love summer! Brandon, Josh and I went to Utah and stayed with Brandon's grandparents in Daybreak. We hiked up to Timpanogos Cave (tough hike up...quick hike down).

Here are Josh and Brandon getting ready to head up the trail. It rained on us for the first bit of the hike. Nothing like getting soggy in the first 20 minutes.

We borrowed Felicia's hiking backpack which worked really well with Josh. He enjoyed most of the hike and was happy for the majority of the time.

They told us the cave was pretty cold and to bring jackets. Brandon and I thought it felt nice so we used Brandon's jacket for Josh's legs. It was perfect.

Josh was getting pretty tired on the way down the mountain. I was suprised when I looked over and saw this....

We had a really good time. I would definitely do it again. The next day we took Brandon's grandparents to the Hogle Zoo with us. Josh was giving Brandon hugs in the reptile house. He is pretty cute if you ask me.

This is a picture that I took of the Oquirrh Mountain temple on one of our nightly walks. We were able to go through the open house of the temple. It is a very nice temple.

Josh is fun to watch run around all day. Sometimes I can even sneak a cute picture of him before he runs on to his next project.

One of Josh's favorite things to do is look out the sidelight of our front door. He likes to make sure that he isn't missing out on any action that may be going on outside.

On the 4th of July Josh played in the water and Grandma and Grandpa Squires' again. This time he had his cousin Brynlee to play with.

That night we went to the Melaleuca fireworks in Idaho Falls which I think is one of the best parts of the 4th of July. I did not take this picture (my brother-in-law Dan did) but it was on my camera so I am posting it. Josh enjoyed the fireworks more this year than last year. He was only 5 months old last year and slept thru them. This year he had to fight to stay awake but lasted the entire time (until 10:35 pm) before crashing in the car on the way home.

Long before our house was built Brandon and I started buying/collecting luau items. We finally had our luau and it was a BLAST! We had 7 kids (all under the age of 2) and 15 adults. Brandon and I decorated Friday night and all Saturday but it was well worth it. We had hawaiin haystacks for dinner, upside-down pineapple cake and ice cream for dessert, and pina coladas for a snack later on. These pictures don't quite do it justice but the house was very tropical.

Thanks to everyone who came. We had a really good time! I cannot wait until we have a yard so that we can move some of our games outside! We'll have to wait a year or two for that.

Strength of Books

I am a faithful blog checker. I am always excited when people post new blogs and find myself wishing they would do so more often. I suppose that I should take my own advice and keep our blog updated better. Here are some random pictures that we have taken lately.

Brandon's sister took this picture of Josh and I at Grandma and Grandpa Squires' house. Talk about cheesing it!


Last Sunday we (Mom, Dad, Greg, Kirsten, Brandon, Josh and I) took a trip to visit Grandpa Boehme in Geneva, ID. We had a good visit. Grandpa has a few toy tractors lying around and Josh was more than willing to play with them. He loves pushing the tractors around while making tractor noises - he was in heaven.

Our friends (Marshal and Jessica Andersen) moved to Montpelier, ID (15 minutes from Geneva) where Marshal works as an RN at the hospital in town. We were close so we decided we needed to stop in and say hi. Josh loved playing with Reve and Lexie. He was excited to see his friends again. Thanks for letting us come visit!

We had corn on the cob for dinner the other night. I kept trying to feed Josh corn that I had cut off my cob and he wasn't all that interested. We were having a tough time eating because Josh wouldn't eat anything on the table but wanted food. Finally we handed him a cob of corn which entertained him as well as gave him something to eat. He liked it a lot better this way!!

Josh really likes to read books (as do I). He often leads me into his room to grab books off the shelf for me to read to him. Today while in his room reading he decided to move from my lap into his rocking chair. I thought it was so cute that I ran to the living room to get my camera for a picture. Josh followed me with book in hand and tripped. He landed on the book (which was vertical on the ground) with his eye and nose. It's hard to see but his right eye is bright red turning black. It took a long time for him to be interested in reading books in his chair for this picture.

Next time I'll have to be more discreet when I run to get the camera. Thank goodness he forgives quickly!

Busy Little Boy

Here are the 4 batches of jelly and 1 batch of raspberry freezer jam. (It doesn't look like much work but believe me it is.) This does not inlcude the 8 batches that are already in the freezer. Thanks mom for helping me learn and putting up with my messes!!



Like any little boy Josh loves being outside. Over Memorial Day weekend we went to Brandon's parents house. They have a canal right by their house and they flood their lawn with water from the canal instead of using sprinklers. Josh had a blast playing outside in the water puddles (which slowly became larger and larger). It was pretty cold water and everytime he fell down he would gasp for air but he kept on trucking!

Josh is a daddy's boy and he likes to be just like daddy. These pictures show what a proud little man he is when he is doing what daddy does. "Look Mom, I am wearing dad's gloves......and they almost fit!"

Brandon was shaving one morning and Josh wanted to participate. Here is our little shaver loving that he looks like dad.

It is a little early for Josh to be learning about video games but it was too cute a picture to pass up. They were working hard to "save the world" as it is so often put.

What cute boys! At least life is never boring with these guys around. Love ya guys!