Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving festivities this year started off with spending time with Kent and Lalo. It is always a pleasure to have them around. The kids love them and we truly appreciate all they do for us.

Playing games is a tradition we have whenever Grandpa and Grandma Koenig are in town.

Thanksgiving day was spent with my side of the family. My parents, Holly, and Garrett all joined us for our feast. The food was delicious and we enjoyed a nice conversation at the dinner table talking about all of the things we are grateful for. 

Dallin decided he couldn't wait to eat his meal!

After dinner and pie we were tired. Maya and Brianna were both in the thick of colds and I had one settling on me strongly that evening. Garrett and Holly had moved two days before so they were also exhausted!

Dallin says, "Happy Thanksgiving!"

November Life

Welcome to the November report!

Maya and Brianna have enjoyed doing puzzles lately.

We went on a date to have sushi and then saw Thor Ragnarok. It was delicious food and a surprisingly hilarious movie!

Did that hair thing a few times this month.

Brianna and I sit on a bench near her classroom while we wait for Maya to get out of class. I feed Dallin and she does silly things. 

Dallin decided to try out a pacifier! I haven't gotten him to take it again since then, but it brought pretend tears of extreme joy to my tired mama eyes. He usually likes to chew on the pacifier instead of suck on it, so it doesn't have the desired effect. I won't give up!

The girls gave Dallin his first ride in a stroller of mini size.

We went to the library one evening. Brianna picked out a chapter book with a horse on the front cover (she has a serious thing for horses, unicorns, ponies, and pegasuses at the moment) and sat down to read it.

Hair. It happens.

Another fun activity while I nurse Dallin.

I threw my keys down and they landed like this!

I took Dallin on a stroller ride of regular size! It was a beautiful day so we went to the park for a little while before lunch. Brianna doesn't have a strider bike yet but still wanted to wear her helmet anyway. She ran the whole to the park with her helmet on. It was so cute and silly.

Right after this I took us down the slide and his face returned to normal.

We found a cute tummy time partner for Dallin.

More of my little hobby...

There is a sickness of nastiness going around our house. Coughs, headaches, fevers, pink eye, and ear infections. It's on me at the moment, and I have all of the above. I was coughing like crazy when I was trying to burp Dallin and he kept making this face. Clearly he's over the illnesses too!

Dallin - 4 Months

Dallin turned 4 months! 3 weeks ago.

He can now roll in both directions. He hasn't decided to start adventuring around with this new skill yet, which is fine by me!

He is on a pretty predictable schedule now, at least during the day. He wakes up and eats around 7 AM, naps 9 AM - 10:30 AM (which is when I take the opportunity to exercise and shower), eats at 11 AM, naps 1 PM - 2:30/3 PM, eats at 3 PM, an oatmeal dinner at 6 PM, nurses at 7 PM, and in bed between 7:30 and 8 PM. It is SO nice to know when he will need what. Even if his morning start time is off a little, at least I know when he will need what by adjusting my mental clock.

His nights are still really inconsistent. Most of the time he's waking twice a night, but I try to only feed him once. Every few nights he will only wake up once, and there has been a couple of glorious nights that he slept all night long. I tried getting tough with him and sleep train him, but it was causing me a lot of stress and frustration so I'm backing off of that for now.

He is now 13 lbs 5 oz (8%) and 25 inches long (42%). He's a little dude!

He likes to blow raspberries and make funny humming sounds.

He gets to eat baby food now! I feed him 3 oz of baby oatmeal mixed with 2 oz of breast milk for his dinner every evening. He has also tried carrots and bananas and so far hasn't disliked anything.

All in all, he's doing great and life with him is grand!

Halloween

Halloween was so fun this year! We did a few activities and enjoyed the holiday. Our costumes this year were a blue butterfly, peacock, WWI pilots, and a wartime officer.

The Friday before Halloween we attended play group at the church. We haven't gone to play group in a long time, especially since now the girls have school on Fridays. We made an exception this time and the girls had fun seeing their friends.

That evening was our ward Halloween party. We had soup, rolls, and salad for dinner and then played some of the games they had set up for the kids.

Maya got a strike on her first try!

Fun little costume parade. 

We, of course, decorated and carved our pumpkins. Brianna chose to paint hers all yellow (her new favorite color. When I asked her why it changed from purple she said, "Because my heart told me I love yellow now." So there you go.) and Maya painted a mummy on hers.

Dallin was a smiley participant, who eventually ended up in the baby carrier while I carved my pumpkin. 

Ryan carved an owl and I did a dancing monster. 

On Halloween day Ryan's work had trick or treating and goodies for the kids.

That evening our friends, the Techeras, came over to have dinner and go trick or treating with us. We are so glad they joined us!

Here is our themed costumes for this year. Ryan had the brilliant idea of turning the baby carrier into an airplane. He constructed the plane out of cardboard, painted it green, and attached it with metal clips in the pocket of the carrier and a web strap around his body. We got a lot of compliments on it! Good job, Ryan!

Off we go! The air was chilly but the kids did great. Not a single complaint about being cold, even though none of them wore a coat. Dallin enjoyed scratching his plane wings as he flew around.

"Trick or treat!"

Happy Halloween!