We LOVE Halloweens Past!

My sister-in-law had a great idea to post about their past Halloweens! So I'm going to copy it! (I hope you don't mind Tiffany.)

Halloween 2003! This was our first Halloween with Carson. He was a cute little spider.

This is Halloween 2004. We had the big John Family Halloween party at our house this year. Carson was sick and would not put on his costume. But here we are! We announced we were 12 weeks pregnant with Michael at this party!

Still 2004, but Halloween night, Carson LOVED this costume! I never did get a great picture of him in it.
Halloween 2005, our super cute Giraffe and Peter Pan!
Halloween 2006, most of our costumes explain themselves. But, Shan decided to be Flava-Flave(sp?) this year! Carson told everybody we were expecting Blake at this party.
Halloween 2007, Shan is "Gods gift to Women" and I was a bag of Jelly Beans. Shan won best costume for the second year in a row!

After the family Halloween party Carson decided he really did want a new costume. So we found his pirate costume on sale at Target for $8. Michael wanted to be a "super puppy", so I got to use the puppy costume for the third year. And Blake was the hand-me-down giraffe. So Halloween cost me a total of $8. I felt like a super shopper last year!

This year the boys costumes are finally going to coordinate! Yeah! I took them to get their pictures taken in their Halloween costumes this morning. They were little terrors, but I ended up getting an okay picture. But, I think I'm going to keep their costumes a surprise until Halloween!

My Little Nursery Boy!

Blake got to attend nursery for the first time this Sunday! It was definitely a day Shan and I have been looking forward too. He did great. The nursery leaders said he would get kind of sad every once in a while, but was easily consoled. Yeah! Hopefully he will still do good next week when he already knows what's going on.(That he's going to get left.)

Michaels First Trip to the Dentist

This last week Michael had his first dentist appointment. He tends to be a little nervous around strangers, so we were worried about how he would behave. We thought he might not open his mouth and would probably just cry that he wanted to go home. But, we played pretend dentist and talked about it a bunch. And he did great! Way to go Michael.

And the best news of all, NO CAVATIES! Yeah!

I feel horrible because I forgot to send the camera with Shan to take a picture of him in the dentists chair. I remembered about five minutes after they left. So, I took this picture of him with his new toothbrush that night on his way up to bed. Hope he doesn't feel too bad when he grows up!

Carsons Club

For weeks now Carson has been talking about having "Club" at our house. He wanted to invite all his friends over and have a bunch of activities.(Sounds like a birthday party to me!) So this Monday we finally decided it was a good day to do it. We ended up with 12 kids at "Club". And Carson and Michael had a lot of fun.

We started out throwing water balloons. Michael wanted targets to throw at. So I decided to draw some pictures of some boys that they could throw the water balloons at. Looking back that was probably not a very wise mom decision. Something else would have been better to throw at. But, they really liked throwing the balloons.

Then we put up the big water slide and let them play on that(without water).

Michael invited over two of his buddies too. They had fun.

After the slide I had made sugar cookies for them to decorate. They had a lot of fun with that.

Especially Blake! Um, um, Good!

Then after half the kids had left for dinner the rest played turkey, turkey, gobble and duck, duck, goose.

It was fun to have some planned activities for the kids, but definitely a lot of work. I think "Club" will have to be just an occasional activity!

Eighteen Months!

My little Blake is eighteen months old already! It seems like the time has flown by. I have really, really enjoyed him as a baby. It's probably because he just loves me SO much. By this age my other boys had already started to really like their dad. But not Blake. I am definitely still his favorite. And I love it.

I think everything he does he so cute!

Just today he started to say "Cheese" when I take his picture. Maybe a sign that I take too many pictures because he only says about 15 words total. But, so super cute!

He has already learned how to say Mark, Set, Go! Cute!

He's always pulling up his shirt and showing his belly, because he wants you to tickle it.

And just last week he started to blow on my arm, my leg, my neck, any skin he can see, just to get the silly noise.

Today I was in the nursery putting away a bunch of grown out of clothes, feeling a little emotional, because I was feeling like I may never get to use some of those clothes again.(Maybe I'm a little too attached to them, but they hold lots of memories) Little Blake came in and couldn't get enough of the baby toys. He was so excited. It cheered me right up. I love this boy!

Anyway, here are the stats from his doctors visit. He's a little squirt, but so are the rest of my boys, he fits right in!

Height: 31 1/4 inches - 23rd percentile

Weight: 23 pounds - 15th percentile

SO Excited!

Last week the boys and I went on a little walk and on the way home we stopped to get the mail. In the mail was one of the boys long awaited costumes. We didn't know who's it was, so we rushed home to open the package. Carson was SOOO excited. This was our conversation on the way home:

Carson: Mom, did you know that sometimes when people cry it's not because their sad. It's because they're so happy.

Me: Yes, do you think you're going to cry.

Carson: N0, but maybe.

He was so excited! And so am I. I love this time of year. I love the weather, the beautiful leaves, the kids playing outside, nightime walks, decorating sugar cookies, and finally starting to get out all the decorations. Do I think I might cry? No, but maybe!

A hunting we will go!

There has been tons of hunting going on around here! Of course Shan has been hunting and hunting and hunting. But last week was the muzzleloader deer hunt. So our whole family went out two different night. The boys have fun being outside and it's fun for me to see Shan doing what he loves.(Even if it is a little different when he has us with him.) My cute Blakes pants would not stay on. It was so funny!
Shan has been gone for the last 5 days elk hunting. We've missed him and can't wait to have him home tomorrow night. This is his last hunt this year, so we finally will get to have him home a little more! But as nice as it will be to have him home, what is even better is that no animals were killed this year! Yeah, no deer meat in my freezer! That means I am free from the monthly "Why don't we ever have deer meat?" conversation with Shan! This has to have been my favorite hunting season yet!

And the doctor says....

It's a girl!

Yesterday afternoon we went in to check out the baby. We took all three boys, the older two were SO excited to see the baby. Carson even got to miss a little school. The doctor says it's a girl, but would only say he's 80% sure! What's that, I was looking for more like 95%. Oh well, I guess we'll go shopping but keep the tags on.

The doctor says the baby looks healthy. So that's great. But my placenta is a little low, so I get to have another ultrasound around 32 weeks just to make sure it has moved. I'm pretty excited about that. Maybe we can bump up that percentage a little at the next ultrasound! She's also in breech position which makes me a little nervous. Blake was in breech position when we had our first ultrasound and then he never flipped, which is why I ended up having an emergency c-section. So, were crossing our fingers this baby will flip.

Shan has been saying it was a girl for a couple weeks now. I should just listen to him, he's been right every time. The boys are excited, Carson has been wanting a girl from the beginning and Michael wanted another brother, but he's okay with a sister. So now I feel like I'm starting all over in the baby department. I have to redo the nursery, make all new quilts and blankets and buy all new clothes(I think that will be the fun part for me, I've been looking at all those cute girl clothes for a few years now!) It all seems like a lot to do with three kids hanging around!

In honor of our little girl, for the next couple days I thought we would have a pink blog. Don't my boys look cute in pink!

A big thanks to Louise who was so sweet to try and watch Blake for us! And she also brought us our first little girl gift last night. A big bag of girly clothes! Thanks for being such a good friend and neighbor!

Any Guesses?

Tomorrow is the big day! We are finally going to have our ultrasound to make sure this baby is healthy. It's always so exciting to get a first look at your little baby!

Also we are going to try to find out if it's a boy or a girl! I'm thinking it's definately another boy. Everything has just felt the same as every other pregnancy. And everyone I know, with one exception, is pregnant with a girl right now. So I'm thinking all the girls have been taken.

What's your guess?

No training wheels!

On Monday Michael decided it was time to take off his training wheels. He did so good! He just took right off, no fear! He has only practiced a couple times since, but he's already getting pretty good! I'm pretty sure his main motivation is getting to ride the motorcycle. I'll have to see how much longer I can delay that! (Don't worry, he did wear a helmet while practicing! All of my pictures were blurry, so this picture was taken after he was done, he just hopped on for a quick picture.)