9 and 10 months old

I am really bad at updating my blog on time but Oakley turned 9 months on November 5th and is now 10 months old! Oakley is such a funny little baby. Up until about a week before he turned 9 months old, he had absolutely no interest in growing up and moving around on his own. Sure he sat up and rolled around but he would not crawl! He wanted me to pick him up and carry him everywhere he wanted to be. Even now when he scoots around, he will not do it when I am watching. He doesn't want me to know he can move around by himself.
Oakley weighed 14 lbs and 7 oz (.08%) and was 28 inches long (42%). He is just a little guy. He does not have any teeth yet. Not even a inkling of a tooth! He loves eating food and will even eat his vegetables. Bananas are his favorite. He loves playing with remote controls, books, and Canyon's toy cars.

Oakley loves Canyon! He gets so excited whenever Canyon walks into the room. Canyon is really sweet to Oakley 4 out of 5 days. He shares his toys with him and lets Oakley know if he is leaving the room and tells him "I'll be right back Oakley, it's ok." They are starting to play together more and more which is really cute. Canyon always watches out for Oakley and tells me that Oakley wants a treat or different toy. He also wants to get Oakley up from his nap in the morning so he can play with him.



We love you Oakley Bear!

Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Night Terrors

We had a great Thanksgiving. We spent Thanksgiving with the Nickels this year. My grandma from Wisconsin was able to come and spend the holiday with us which was really fun. It was also Oakley's first Thanksgiving. He loved the holiday.

He ate...
and ate...
and ate....then spit up all over.
Canyon had fun playing with Max. After dinner, they were pretty tuckered out and watched a movie together. It was a very peaceful household for about an hour.

Our family with Grandma Ruth. It was so nice to see her. Because she lives so far away we don't get to see her that often.


After Thanksgiving dinner my sisters, my mom, and I hit up our yearly tradition of Black Friday shopping. We skip out on sleeping that night to wait in the freezing cold weather to get the best deals on toys. It is always an adventure. However this year I discovered something. When people step into Walmart, they lose all sense of civilization. I have never seen people go so absolutely crazy over cheap movies and legos and completely disregard all forms of human life around them. Needless to say, there were some injuries.
Meanwhile back at the house in the middle of the night, Daniel was home alone to deal with Canyon's first night terror. Daniel had no idea that night terrors even existed so when Canyon was screaming, inconsolable, and totally out of it, Daniel was pretty freaked out. (I got this call while I was fending for my life inside of Walmart). Luckily with the help of Daniel's sister and her husband they were able to figure out it was a night terror and finally got him calmed down and back in bed. Canyon remembered nothing of the incident. We had a pretty eventful Thanksgiving to say the least :)

Happy Halloween!...and other festivities

For Halloween this year I wanted to do more Halloween activities with the kids. Our first activity: getting Halloween donuts from Krispy Kreme. Delicious!


Canyon definitely approved. I think we will make this one into a tradition.

We also made Halloween cupcakes for some family members and neighbors. Canyon had a blast making them.

Our finished product. This is about as crafty as I get.

This year we had a pumpkin hunt. We didn't mean to have one but it turned into quite the task finding good pumpkins. We usually go to Verd's but they closed early for the season. So we went to a family owned pumpkin patch in Orem-but they were all out. We ventured to Harmons but their pumpkins were too expensive and were covered with pumpkin warts. Next we tried Macey's but the pumpkins their were so massive! Finally we went to Smith's. (5th times the charm) Their pumpkins were just right :)


This year we went to the pumpkin walk at Centennial Gardens in Orem. People entered pumpkins that they carved and they were displayed throughout the garden. The best part was there was they had free donuts and apple cider at the end.
This was Canyon's favorite pumpkin.
This was Daniel's.
and this little active orange pumpkin was mine :)

Another fun activity we did was go to a haunted house. There is a house in our neighborhood that loves Halloween and each year they put on a little haunted house. They don't grow grass on half of their yard all year in preparation for Halloween. Every year they have something jump out and scare you. This year they had a vulture fly down at you from the living room window. I thought Canyon might be a little to young but he loved it! He still asks if we can go see the scary house.


Spooky!!
We also carved our pumpkins. Canyon was very concerned when we pulled out the pumpkin guts. We also have a tradition of cleaning the seeds, cooking them, and then eating them. YUM!


Oakley did NOT like carving pumpkins.

Our finished product. The first pumpkin is a vampire biting a lady, then an evil baby pumpkin with a binki, and Daniel's skeleton master piece that he installed with a strobe light.

Finally Halloween Day came. We had two really cute Disney characters.......
Hint: Who's the leader of the club that's made for you and me?

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

(Doesn't this picture make you want to die of a cuteness overload. Seriously!!!)

And my little Nemo :)

We went Trick or Treating at Macey's and got to decorate pumpkins cookies and drank free homemade root beer. We also attempted to go to the ward trunk or treat...which was over too quickly and we were a little late. Luckily a friend from the ward saw Canyon, Oakley and I walking home and filled up Canyon's basket with candy. We went trick or treating to the grandparents and had a very fun Halloween.

Random Pics and St. George

My two crazy little boys are growing up way too fast...

One day Oakley was so tired he fell asleep sitting up :)

Woody and Woody...we have been going through a Toy Story phase.

A few weekends ago Daniel and I went to St George for a mini vacation. We went swimming, watched movies, and I got to go shopping all by myself without any kids. It was great. We went out to eat and bought way too much frozen custard. It was just what we needed.

Canyon loved being able to go swimming again. He is a little fish and not at all scared of the water. Even when he fell in the hot tube because he jumped onto the cover and went completely under the water, he popped back up and swam by himself (without floaties) until Daniel was able to rescue him.

He loves jumping into the water. Daniel and Canyon then found a really fun game of holding hands and jumping in together. Little Oakley was wearing a 0-3 month size swimming suit so the shirt was a belly shirt :)
We also went to Snow Canyon. I love Snow Canyon!!! It is so beautiful and has great hiking areas.
We decided to have lunch in Snow Canyon and while I was feeding Oakley, Daniel and Canyon went exploring. A few minutes later they were waving at me from on top of this mountain!

Boys are very wild and accident prone-well at least my boys are. Canyon fell into this stone picnic bench where we were eating our lunch. It turned into a black eye and he had a huge scab-it is still not healed all the way.
We also played on the sand dunes. Here is Canyon trying to show Oakley how to play in the sand. Oakley was not impressed.

I wish we could be on vacation all the time :)

Hoogle Zoo Here We Come!

A few weeks ago Daniel had work off and school off and did not have any other engagements (which very very rarely happens) so we took a spur of the moment trip to the zoo. We packed a lunch and headed up. While we were driving the skies got darker and darker. We thought it would just be a cloudy day but about 15 minutes after we got to the zoo, it started pouring rain! We didn't want to leave because we just spent a bunch of money to get in! We decided to make the best out of the situation. We put on our rain coats and braved the storm. We went from place to place that had some sort of cover to offer when we got there.

Daniel wrapped up Oakley in his coat.

We covered Oakley with Daniel's coat when we had to go long distances and covered Canyon's legs with a plastic bag from our car so his legs wouldn't get wet.

It rained for about two hours! But the best part was, everyone left! So when the storm was over and the sun came out, it was a really fun and beautiful day at the zoo with hardly anyone there. It was great.

No this is not Sigfried or Roy :)

We rode the train and the carousel and played on the playground. It ended up being a great day at the zoo despite the few set backs we encountered.