Fall in Portland

Right after Nate got back from his trip to LA, we left for Portland (he got back about 1am and we left the next morning). He had a week off of school to do internship recruiting, so we took advantage and spent a few days in Portland with my sister and her family, and Nate talked to a couple different companies there. We had a great trip – it was so fun to spend time with them and to see the kids play together. She has 3 boys and Bennett loved following them around. Landon even got him to eat peas because Bennett wanted to do everything Landon did.

Some of the highlights of the trip were going to the pumpkin patch (separate post to come), going shopping (Jess and the kids and I), walking along the river downtown, finding frogs in the yard, and going to the beautiful Rose Gardens so I could take some family photos for them. A few pictures from our trip:

reading books with Jess before naps, and James and Ryan playing together

 

walking along the river downtown – it was beautiful!

 

Davis watching Ryan – the cousins were all really cute to play with Ryan and just loved watching him. And here’s Bennett lining up all the Cars cars on the table

  

and our family (Ryan was there too, just in the stroller) downtown.

Thanks for a fun trip! After we got back, Bennett kept asking where Landon, Davis and James were – he must have had fun with them.

Grandpa’s Pumpkin Patch

A couple weeks ago, while we were up at Nate’s parents’ house for Sunday dinner, we made our annual pilgrimage to the Bennett’s grandpa’s pumpkin patch. They had lots of gorgeous pumpkins and the kids had fun picking theirs out. Bennett didn’t dawdle quite as much this time and chose a nice pumpkin for himself, then helped me pick out one for Nate and Ryan. We attempted to take pictures of all the grandkids with their big pile of pumpkins, but it didn’t go so well (at least the ones I took). Here’s Bennett with his pumpkin and with a couple cousins and the trailer of pumpkins.

Nate was out of town that weekend for a MBA job fair-type thing in LA, and was still there on my birthday that Tuesday. It was a pretty low-key day so I appreciated all the phone calls, texts, emails, and facebook messages. My sister Camille came over for dinner that night, then we went to Costco and tried out their gelato. It was delicious! We opened a few presents (we being mostly Bennett opening them for me). Here is my sole bday picture (you can tell Bennett just wants to open the picture. Ignore the piles of junk behind me – those were Halloween costumes in progress):

And if you haven’t seen enough pumpkin patch pictures from us, don’t worry, more to come :)

Soccer

Bennett has been really into soccer lately, so although it was supposed to just be for 3- and 4-year-olds, we snuck Bennett into the MBA spouses’ association soccer club. It was just an hour a week, and they would practice the first half, then have a little scrimmage the second half. It took Bennett until probably the 3rd week until he was willing to go out there and play without Nate or I either holding his hand or running alongside him. He still never had a week when he played successfully by himself the whole time (one time, he was upset when he had to put his ball on the sidelines for the scrimmage and wouldn’t go play without it; the last game he ended up in a 3-kid pileup when they were going for the ball and he wouldn’t go back in after that). But he at least improved and seemed to have fun. One of my favorite moments was when, at the last practice, the coach told them to dribble the ball a little bit, then do a big kick into the goal. Bennett was first in line, and when the coach told him what to do, he picked up the ball and started dribbling it like a basketball. It was pretty funny. I think he enjoyed it, even though he had a hard time warming up each week. I took a few pictures of him at the last practice – he insisted on holding his capri sun – let’s be honest, the snacks at the end are an important part of soccer anyway, right?

Pumpkin Patch, Part II

(beware: picture overload - Bennett was in a smiling / posing mood) On Tuesday, I took the kids to “Jaker’s Jack-O-Lanterns” pumpkin patch in Springville with the MBA spouses’ association. It was a free pumpkin patch that had a few fun activities for the kids. They had a corn pit (I guess that’s what you would call it) with big corn kernels – kind of like a ball pit. Bennett & Ryan both liked it ok, but weren’t having a ton of fun. Bennett’s favorite was the little hay bale maze. He played in there forever, and would run around a corner then shout “peek-a-boo!” at me. The first couple times he did it, I had him smile for me, so after that, every time I would come around a corner he would say “cheese” and have a big grin. It made for some fun pictures :)

 

We went on a little hay ride, then I let Bennett pick out a pumpkin. He was pretty funny – I would point out ones I thought looked nice and he would look at them closely but say he didn’t want that one – they were either too big or too little, or dirty (I tried to explain that they would all be dirty but he didn’t go for it). He kept saying his pumpkin was all the way at the end of the field, and at one point said “I’ll just wait and get one at Grandma & Grandpa’s house”. We walked all the way to the end of the field before I convinced him to go back and get one of the first ones we’d seen. I didn’t realize he would be so particular!

  

Bennett also liked seeing the animals. It was pretty funny as we walked up to the petting zoo area – I said “Hey Bennett – look at the … animals”. At first glance I wasn’t actually sure what any of them were. There was a kangaroo (which I didn’t expect to be on a farm so I didn’t realize what it was at first), an Alpaca (thought it was a llama but wasn’t sure), a baby goat (which I obviously did know was a baby goat but it was in the cage with the Alpaca so that threw me off) and two Shetland ponies. Bennett liked trying to feed them rocks and trying to pet all of them – I was impressed at how brave he was.

  The one mishap was when Ryan, whom I was holding in the Bjorn, reached up and smacked me (really, it wasn’t very hard at all) in the nose, giving me a nosebleed. Fortunately I had a bunch of tissues in my bag in case of runny noses. It was a little embarrassing though. Overall it was a fun trip to the pumpkin patch, especially for it being free! (except for pumpkins we bought).

Cornbelly’s

Last Saturday night, we decided to sell our tickets to the BYU game because the game was really late and it would be cold, so we wouldn’t be able to take the kids. We didn’t especially want to get a babysitter because my sister & brother-in-law had watched them the night before while we went out to dinner (one funny story: Bryce played memory with Bennett and it was pretty entertaining. He had Bryce wrap the blanket around him a specific way because he was cold. Camille was sitting on the couch holding Ryan and Bennett told Bryce that he needed to “get Mill a blanket”. When they played he would turn over about ten cards at once and pick out the matches.). Anyway, since we weren’t going to the game, we decided to go to the corn maze & festivities at Thanksgiving Point. I’ve wanted to go each of the past 4 years, but we’ve never made it over there. This was also my first corn maze – not sure how I made it through BYU without ever going to one.
We were pleasantly surprised by the number of activities they had that Bennett loved. We went on the cow train, rode the inflated horses (see video), went down lots of slides, did the duck races, jumped on / ran through several bounce houses or inflated obstacle courses, jumped on giant pillows, watched pig races, and rode dune-buggy-type things (with petals, not motors). By the time we finished the corn maze at the end, both kids were asleep – Ryan in the Bjorn and Bennett being carried by Nate. It was tons of fun! Unfortunately, it was pretty dark when we were there and moving objects don’t photograph well with the flash, but I’m not above posting slightly blurry pictures :)  (especially since you can see how much fun Bennett was having).

  

  

6 Months

Wow – I can’t believe Ryan is 6 months already! There’s not much that brightens my day more than to hear his little squealing laughter. He has a big smile and is usually a pretty happy little guy. He has started to scoot – not quite crawling but he pushes up high with his arms, and basically does a pushup with his knees off the ground, then he launches himself forward. Of course he stopped doing it right as I turned the video camera on. Right now he’s lying on the floor watching Bennett, who is doing acrobatics with the soccer ball and narrating his every movement. Ryan thinks it’s pretty funny. He has had a cold the past week or so and is usually not too bothered by it, except when it’s time to sleep. We’ve had a few sleeping problems lately and I’m hoping they are due to the cold :(

He’s been doing a little better with babysitters – my sister and brother-in-law watched him Friday night so we could go out to dinner, and Camille’s report was that “Ryan hardly ever cried and if he did cry it was just funny because he has a cold and sounds like an old man” :) I can’t really think of much else to report – we take him to the doctor later this week so we’ll see what his stats are. He still seems like he’s on the thin side, except for his cute chubby little cheeks! We love having him around and watching him explore and grow! Here are a few pictures of him at 6 months.