guess who's walking.....

That's right my 8 month old is walking!!!! He just wants to keep up with his brothers so bad! And here's the proof! He took his first steps October 10th. The day after he turned 8months! I swear we just skipped the whole little cuddly baby stage he is in too much of a hurry to grow up! 

Happy Halloween!

I had some fun today taking pictures of this cute little pumpkin butt! haha Drake will be 8months old tomorrow! I can't believe it! Where is the time going?!

 I gave him some cereal so he'd stand there and hold still and  it worked! He was a great little model! I also just added food coloring to his diaper rash cream so his little bum wouldn't get irritated by paint or anything. Worked like a charm. :) He liked having his little bum painted hahaha

Hahahaha I just love this picture! lol 

Well Happy Halloween! I'm hoping to post pictures of all the yard work we got done this summer really soon! And also some fall family pictures! 

What we've been up to!

My boys and I on my Birthday! :) My birthday was Saturday Sep 7th and Lee had to work until 2pm boo! But atleast it was only 2pm. He had the rest of the night planned out for me and wouldn't tell me where we were going. 

 Lee took me out to eat at The Hickory! It is soooo good! It's a new place in rexburg and so yummy! We have never eaten there before so it was extra fun to get to go. 

 This was the create of fries that came with Lee's 1 pound burger! it was huge way too many fries to possibly eat! the crate of onion rings was half the size of the fries. 

This was My burger! it had grilled cheese sandwhiches for buns! lol it was a half pound burger and HUGE! it was so tall I couldn't fit it in my mouth and yes I did try too lol I had to take off a layer of the grilled cheese but it was soooo good! I didn't finish the whole thing of course but it was fun to order something huge and delicious and not usually something you see on a menu! :) After dinner we went to the cheap theatre and saw Man of Steel which we loved! we'd been wanting to see it forever but just didn't get the chance until then. :) Overall it was a great birthday :) 

Here's Drake on my Birthday present! I finally got a gliding rocker! AND I LOVE IT!!! I've been wanting one for 3 kids now! haha I finally got it and I couldn't be happier!

Me in my rocker with my new hair my sister in law Amie Dyed it for me monday after my birthday. I finally got the grown out blonde gone! I love it it actually has 3 different shades in it one is a dark dark brown one is a red brown and the other is a more natural golden brown. this picture doesn't do it justice at all but in the light you can see all the colors in my hair and I absolutely love it! It's a great fall hair color :) 

                           We were working outside and Zeke fell asleep on the horse swing! haha 

 Zeke and his outfits. lol He's my little naked boy  he's always taking off his clothes and diaper and only wearing shoes in this case I asked him to get dressed and he went and put on his cowboy boots. And as you can see he also colored on himself. He likes to do that alot as well. 

                                                          Drake just being cute lol 

   A picture of me after I got ready for a date with Lee I don't curl my hair very often cuz it's sooo thick it takes forever but I felt like being extra girly for our kidless night out! 

 In other news! This cute little guy is finally taking bottles!!!! I couldn't be happier! He has two RAZOR SHARP bottom teeth and his bit me 7 too many times! I've been weening him for two weeks or so now and today is the first day of no more nursing! once he finally caught onto the bottle and liking the formula I would only nurse him 2 times a day once in the early morning and once before he went to bed. Then several days later or so I cut it down to once a day usually in the early morning and now i'm completely done nursing as of today and he's full time bottle. yay for no more being bitten! haha he's my worst biter for sure!

 This little dude is potty training! I figured if he's going to keep taking his diapers off and wanting to be naked it was time to potty train him so he doesn't poop on my floor! haha We've been potty training for 2 or 3 weeks now and he is doing really well! He does better totally naked. when he wears undies if i'm not constantly on him to go potty he'll pee his pants. but he's getting there I make him wear his undies cuz he likes to wear them and he needs to learn to go before it's too late. He's really good about going potty on his own too! He'll just go in there and sit down by himself! It's great! He get's M&M's for treats and a scoop of ice cream if he goes #2! Also another big milestone is we have gotten rid of his binky!!!! he is a binky free kid now! He occasionally will find Drake's binkies and sneak them but lately Drake is refusing his binkies ( i just moved him up to the 6month size binky) He just spits them out or plays and chews them he won't suck them. I can rock him to sleep without one just fine too so I'll be putting all his binkies away where Zeke can't find them and we'll be binky free until our next baby. It's kind of nice not having to worry about any binkies! 

 Landon is my ninja turtle boy! He oves watching the old cartoons and playing with Lee's old Ninja Turtle toys! :) Landon is doing preschool this year so he can do Kindergarten next year! It's a long story but all my friends last minute bailed out on me couldn't do joy school and it was too late to sign him up into the local preschools around here cuz they were already all full and the elementary school wasn't doing there program this year so anyways I'm just doing it myself and teaching him. We've been working on his handwriting and tracing letters and writing his name a lot and it's so fun to see him writing! we're also doing math and shapes and all sorts of fun preschool things. I get most of my printable worksheets off of Education.com and i'm also doing chalkpreschool.com so he doesn't have to listen to just me all day. I'm also going to get him a pre k computer game.

Here's another picture of Drake. This one I took when he turned 7 months this month! I made the bow tie he's wearing :) I made one for all the boys and they are sooo cute especially when they're paired with this shirt from one of their sunday suits. They love the bowties too :) I plan on making them a bunch of ties as well soon. Drake is on the move now for sure he crawls (fast) everywhere! he climbs up the stairs and walks with any and all furniture! He is even starting to let go of the furniture and just stand by himself! Crazy kid! He's just too anxious to keep up with his brothers! 

So besides weening, potty training, and pre schooling I've also been canning peaches! I have to squeeze it in at night when the kids are all in bed and I have Lee's help to make it go faster. we made a bunch of Peach jam and it is sooo yummy. especially on fresh out of the oven homemade bread! yuuuum! my kids are pbj nuts so we go through lots of jam and i don't buy the jam or jelly from the store because they almost all have High fructose corn syrup which is so bad for you that I make the extra effort to avoid products that have it. jam is super easy to make anyways :) And I have a box of Strawberries coming as well so we will have strawberry jam too! my favorite! 

Seattle Vacation!

 We went on a vacation! My cousin was getting married in Seattle and my mom decided to make a family vacation out of it so we went with our family and my brother and his little family and my parents and sister as well. We left Tuesday night August 20th after Lee got off work drove half way slept in our suburban at a rest stop then arrived in spokane wednesday morning/afternoon! My moms work is by riverfront park so she took a break and we walked to the big red wagon!

The kids loved chasing the geese more than the slide haha

Thursday (aug 21st) we headed to Seattle my parents drove our suburban and we got to lounge in the back with the kids. we checked into our hotel and swam that night and then Fri the 22nd we went to pikes place market, we rode the Big Wheel that you see in these pictures behind us. and we went to the aquarium :)

This is us on the BigWheel! A view of the sky scraper! the middle picture is a picture of my parents waiting with the stollers we were at the very top and they are above the frog i put in the picture. The restroom sign was at pikes place market..hilarious. 

This was us waiting outside the aquarium and walking around seeing the sights. :) (notice Andy written on the bottom of zeke's shoes? He might just be a little obsessed with toy story and asked me to do that for him lol)

At the Aquarium! So much fun the kids loved it! sooo much to see! It's crazy what kinds of things live in the ocean! They had a touch and feel zone where you could stick your hands in the water and touch star fish and sea urchins and anemones!  

  

 a collage of the many colorful living things we saw! 

The boys and sophie! they just love sophie.

After dinner we went into the city center and Lee and I got to go up the sky scraper! So cool :) They take your picture as you went inline to go up and email it to you for free but ours turned out hideous so i'm not posting it to say the least! lol they take your picture in front of a greeen screen and then you get to pick your skyscraper background which is cool but we looked gross so its not being shared lol. we went up as the sun was going down too so we got to see the lights turning on all around it was cool. it took forever to wait in line for an elevator ride back down though....that was the only annoying thing was waiting for the elevators. but it was worth it. 

Landon palying on the sculptures outside of the space needle. 

Saturday (Aug 24th) we went to the woodland park zoo! the kids had a blast of course.

Drake slept almost the whole time in his backpack and the other two ran around enjoying everything.

little monkeys.

This was my favorite part of the trip we went to holwarth park and walked down to the ocean after we were done at the zoo. :) The kids loved it even more than the zoo i think! They didn't want to leave but we had to go get ready for the wedding.  I almost wish we would have just skipped the zoo and done the park instead and just relaxed it was the perfect day for it. 

Drake really loved it! He only put the sand in his mouth once and didn't do it again haha he was crawling towards the water and digging in the sand he thought it was great!  he didn't mind the cool ocean water at all.

The kids had a blast running and jumping in the waves and playing in the water and sand.

perfect day for the beach. sadly we had to cut it short in order to make it to the wedding in time. Which we did...barely! haha

The boys love their cousin Sophie they were just dancing around to maker her smile it was too cute! Sadly these are really the only pictures i got of the wedding because i didn't have any free hands to take any with until after dinner was served. which btw the next morning we woke up with food poisoning! YUK! we're guessing it was the mac and cheese cuz thats the only thing the kids and Lee and I ate that my parents didn't and my parents weren't sick. Luckily I puked that morning and got better because the car ride back to Spokane was a PUKEY one! ugh! And luckily my parents were there to drive for us cuz lee was miserabley sick. that made for an interesting drive home for sure. luckily we had Monday in spokane to ourselves so we didn't have to do so much back to back driving that way Lee and everyone got over their puking before we headed home to Ashton. But overall it was a fun trip. it went by way to quickly! oh and on the way back to spokane we got to stop in wenatchee and see my old roomie Jannica and her little guy Kobe and her hubby Lane too! 

 Kobe and Drake :) just hanging out

 us :) 

So much fun seeing lots of family and friends wish we could've stayed longer. That week went by way too fast :)