Confrence

I always look forward to Conference. It is so nice to hear from the prophet and all the apostles. I also love that I know that sitting and listening to them speak is exactly what I should be doing! I don't need to feel guilty for not getting anything else done.

At the end of the last session of Saturday's conference Alden, Calvin, Benson and I went to the play Stuart Little. The boys loved the play but did not like standing by Stuart to get a picture afterwards. (They were both a little afraid of him.)

Benson

Often at night Benson will stay up for a little while with Michael and I.  He gets in this fun mood, really I think it is a tired mood, but fun none the less.  Anyways he thinks everything is funny and will laugh and smile at almost anything you do.  It brings a smile to my face every night!

I love having this little guy to hold and snuggle. I realized I don't have many pictures with just him and I and decided I better get some.  He now has 4 teeth on the bottom and two on the top.
Benson just started the full big boy crawl.  He has been doing the army crawl for quite some time but on Thursday we had gone up to Mesa to go do our monthly temple trip and for some reason he started doing the big boy crawl in the play place at chick-fila.  I love it!! I really really love the crawling stage, it is definitely one of my favorite stages, it is another thing that brings a smile to my face to see my little one crawl.

Museum of Miniatures

The Museum of Miniatures was free the month of September.  It was a museum that I thought would be interesting but was not on the top of my to visit places but since it was free we definitely took advantage of the opportunity to go.  I am glad we did, it was neat seeing all of the detail that was put into this miniature homes, rooms, towns, scenes, ext.  The boys favorite was the Christmas room.

This one was fun for Benson as well.  He had fun crawling all over the Christmas scene below him.  The one thing that was hard with this museum was most of the exhibits were too high for the kids to see and you really have to be at eye level to enjoy them.  Towards the end Michael and I were discussing things they could do to fix the problem when we saw a number of children come by with stools that collapse.  I guess we missed that at the beginning somewhere, the kids just need to carry a stepping stool with them.  We just had our boys take turns being lifted to where they could see.  This Christmas exhibit was nice because everything was at their level.

Calvin especially loved the little trains in the Christmas town.

Seeing all of the details in all of the homes made me want to add more detail to our own home.  The next day we put up our fall decorations and bought some fun Fall place mats.  It really made me think of how we need to enjoy all of these short moments in life.  Each exhibit captured a small moment and they were all so beautiful.  It made me want to make and cherish all of those small moments here in my home.  All in all it was a worth while activity! 

family reunion

I was so excited about my sisters wedding that I completely forgot to post pictures of our family reunion that we had the day after. It couldn't have been more perfect.  We spent the day walking BYU campus in the most beautiful weather.

We started the day off at the Bean Museum which they have recently remodeled.  We had our own private live show which was a lot of fun.  We all got to see and touch a number of little critters.  The best part though was hearing all of the nephews and nieces ask and answer questions!  Little things would have them asking about random things or just there answers were great.  For example, the answer to one of the questions she asked was a simple, "no". So afterwards Haven raised his hand and said, "Did you know I can say no in Russian"  Anyways it was great!

Alden and Calvin wore their birthday shirts that we received from wonderful Aunt Tara.

The flowers were beautiful as always!

Glad we got to spend some time with Uncle Austen just after this trip he headed to Thailand to teach at a refugee camp for the year. You can catch up with him here.. http://searchingforstory.blogspot.com/

Ward Campout

I didn't take many pictures, but I wanted to document that we made it to our ward campout this year.  The boys absolutely loved it! They loved being outside the whole day and having a bunch of friends surrounding them to play with.
Calvin liked it but when it came close to bed time he like me would prefer to just sleep in his own bed.  As the evening approached I had him walk back to the car with me to get some things for dinner as we did he goes, "time to go home? I want to go to Mommies house"(He often refers to our home as Mommies house.) "No Calvin, we are just going to the car to get some things, we are going to sleep in the tent that we set up earlier.  Wont that be fun!"  "No I want to sleep my bed ."
At the time he was almost in tears at the idea that we were not going to go home but after we came back and had dinner together he was happy and started playing with everyone again.
It was a great camping trip..the only thing that would have made it better would to have been able to see Michael a little bit more..he got the camp site just as we were going to bed and had to leave before we woke up in the morning.

bits of random

 I do preschool with Calvin every Mon, Tues and Wed. Thursday is Michael's day off, which leaves Friday morning to be my special day with just these two sweet boys. Lately we start it off with a bike ride to the park.  Both Calvin and Benson love going to the park and seem to enjoy the ride as well.

 Lately Saturday has been our library day. It works out great because they always have a family story time, craft, or activity. Last week we made things out of cardboard. Alden and Calvin made this robot who is suppose to help them clean up...

 Benson is almost 11 months. I love this stage! His little personality is starting to come out more and more. He is still doing his army crawl but is getting faster and faster at it. He especially loves to chase the vacuum. Makes vacuuming much more exciting so much so that Alden and Calvin like to do it just for entertainment!
Benson is full of smiles and laughs, so fun to have him by my side.

Alden's 5th Birthday

Alden had a great birthday.  He started it off with a bowl of chocolate cereal.  (He loves chocolate anything and cereal is even an extra treat since we don't eat it that much.)
I gave him the option of staying home from school but he chose to go.  He was glad because he got to be the math student of the day and got a prize bag!

When he got home we headed to Peter Pipers Pizza. Alden and Calvin had both gotten a free pizza certificate from their dentist for their birthdays.  So they each got to pick which pizza they wanted and then we rode the carousel and played some arcade games.

We then headed over to Bookmans, a local second hand book and game store, because they had sent Alden a $10 gift card for his birthday.  Alden picked out a book for Calvin and we picked out Twister for him.  (He wanted us to use the money on something and then wrap it up for him, rather then have him pick out his own item.)

Alden wanted chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and he said this year he did not want a healthy cake.  In the past he has always wanted a healthy cake because he says then he can eat as much of it as he wants.  I really have a hard time making really unhealthy things that I know my kids are going to eat...so I decided to make brownies the day before and let him try them to see if they were what he wanted.  He loved them!! And said he wanted that for his cake.
So his cake was really brownies that I stacked up 4 layers high and put frosting in-between.  The brownies were healthier than most but not as healthy as I've made his cakes in the past.  The recipe can be found here and are gluten free so I got to eat cake with everyone!

This is Alden and his birthday watch.  Alden has been asking for a watch since about March or April.  I don't know what triggered a desire for a watch but a number of months ago he had said that that is what he wanted for his birthday.  Being in school has made him want a watch even more...he says so that he will know what time it is.  The day before his birthday he must have told me about 7-8 times, "mom, you remember I want a watch right".  He was soooo excited when he opened it and has worn it every day since!

All in all I think his birthday was a success. It's hard to believe he is five. Alden is doing so much on his own and is a big helper he really is my big boy.  I am grateful that every now and again he still likes to snuggle and be my little one.  A number of nights ago he asked if I would rock him which hasn't happened for a long time, I was super excited to do it, not sure how many more times I will be able to rock this big boy to sleep I've got to enjoy the few times I get to now.