Yeah, I know

It's been AGES since I posted last. Sorry, been a bit busy and a tad overwhelmed. But at last, the crazy semester is officially OVER! Hooray! But due to the mountain of stuff I have to do to get ready for this wonderful holiday season (that, combined with the fact that my camera died--so sad! :(--and I don't have many new pictures to blog about and get depressed every time I think about how many Kodak moments I'm missing out on with my cute kids), this will be a short post:

Guess who's walking!? Yup, Alaina finally took her first steps on Sunday! It's so cute! I love how little she looks with her skinny little legs toddling around! She thinks it's so scary and so funny. She hesitates to start and then when she gets close to me she dives at me and laughs and flails her arms. So funny! I tried to get video of it this morning, but she was not cooperating. Maybe next time...Sorry about the picture quality; our phone cameras are good but not THAT good. I guess it's better than nothing though.

And just because she's so stinking cute! Here are some pictures of Alaina's mousie ears that she wore for Halloween (yes, I know Halloween was a LONG time ago. I have a lot of catching up to do!):

And mostly because I've been waiting a LONG time to show off my crafts (some gifts were in the mail and I didn't want to spoil the surprise), here are some pictures of baby carriers I've started making. They are called Mei Tai (pronounced may tie) carriers and they are the BEST! I've tried just about every kind of carrier out there (all homemade because I'm too cheap to fork over the dough for these pricey things but I LOVE them) and this is my favorite. The weight sits over my hips and lower back and it's super comfy and versatile. And reversible--two different patterns out of one carrier! I can wear Alaina on my front, back, or hip for just as long as I want (well, sometimes cooking with her on my back starts to strain from all the bending and leaning over) and hike for hours. The only thing I don't like about it is putting it on outside when the ground is wet. I haven't found a way to keep the straps from dragging and getting dirty as I put it on. This one was my trial carrier to see if I could do something this intricate (my sewing skills are just developing). I was pretty happy with how it turned out!And this one I made twice; once for a friend who just had a baby and certainly needed an Asian carrier since her hubby is from Hong Kong and, therefore, their baby is half Asian, and once for myself. Blue on one side:
And a gorgeous green Asian fabric my mom gave me for the other. Fitting, for an Asian-style carrier, don't you think?

After the holidays, if you want one for yourself or to give as a gift, let me know. I'm going to try selling them and see if I can help Brice out with the family income by doing so.

Okay, I really need to be doing other things right now while Alaina is asleep so I've got to run. After the holidays I'll try to get back on track with all the blog-worthy events I've been saving up over the last few months...

Merry Christmas everyone!

Another Ryker-ism

Ryker came down with a bit of a sore throat and a cough yesterday and he said, "I feel like I have a disease." Does he even know what a disease is?

This morning it has changed: "I feel like I have a tummy ache flu."

Don't worry; he's really not that sick (yet) he's smiling and laughing at Alaina's new clapping talent as I'm writing this.

I love this boy!

Oh Ryker, you are such a joy! The other day Tia (AKA my sister Gina) was over and asked Ryker what kind of a baby he thought she was going to have. His response: "A POODLE!!!"

Then, after her ultrasound to find out that she was having a BOY and not a POODLE, she said to him, "See Ryker I'm having a baby boy!" And he said, "A boy POODLE!!"

Fall is here (yay for pretty trees, boo for cold)

Okay, okay. I'll conform. Clearly Blogger wants me to put the label or caption for pictures before the actual picture and I always put it below. But the way they have it spaced is starting to get to me, so I'll just do it their way. Are you happy!?

Moving on...

Despite the cooler weather, we still love going up the canyon. I especially like to go up and make dinner over the fire. Brice doesn't like the prep, but after he eats whatever yummy dutch oven concoction we came up with, I think he realizes that it is so worth it!

Raelin likes to go up the canyon so she can climb trees. Sometimes she thinks she's stuck, but she's getting good at figuring out how to get unstuck on her own.

The kids love the park at Jolley's Ranch and I can't think of a prettier backdrop!

Ryker wanted to plant potatoes this year and even though I was out of space in the garden, I just couldn't say no and squelch his excitement. So we harvested them last week and they were so yummy! Ryker did a great job of watering them and mulching them and I loved his enthusiasm all season long about his potatoes. He never tired of telling everyone about the potatoes he was growing in his garden in true Ryker fashion--completely animated. My favorite comment from Ryker as we were digging up potatoes: "I'M SO PROUD OF THEM!!!!"

Brice is adding dog houses as a facet to his shed business. Here's his first one:

And this is my most favorite Alaina face. She makes this face and blows in and out her nose. She started doing it to express discontentment but she got such a great reaction from me and the kids that she does it just about any time we ask her to. SO FUNNY!

And here's her fishy/kissy face.

And, guess who's going to be a new momma!!!!!

Yup! Gina and Toby are expecting a baby boy on April first--which is also our dad's birthday!

Alaina loves bananas and I can just give her the whole thing and she just chows! And makes a giant mess.

So cute!

Alaina loves to swing!

"Squeeeeeeeal!"

See, now you know why I take pictures of her all day! I could just eat her UP!

Cute cousins

STANDING!

The end

Addendum to Summer Posts

I found another file of pictures on my computer from this summer that ought to be on the blog, so here they are!Brice riding horses at my parents house.

I love taking pictures of Alaina. As I was going through this file, Ryker was watching and labeling all the pictures as I clicked through them. It went something like this: "House, Ryker, Alaina, Alaina, Alaina, Alaina, Ryker, Zuma, Alaina, Alaina, Raelin, Raelin, Alaina, Alaina, us eating corn, Alaina eating corn, Alaina eating corn again..." You get the idea.

Ryker loves his sister! He's such a good big brother--always willing to help with anything Alaina needs.

Me and Ryker being silly.

Ryker posing as a cool dude.

This is how Daddy gets Alaina dressed.

Daddy helping Alaina be a cool dudette.

Alaina loves baths!

Zuma and Alaina are so funny together. They're constantly snatching things from each other. Zuma's faster but Alaina is more determined. Alaina will find a toy (usually paper or a crayon or something) and Zuma will come up and grab it out of her hands. Alaina doesn't get upset; she just reaches over and takes it back. Then Zuma takes it and runs across the room with it and Alaina crawls over to wrestle it away from her. I love that Alaina isn't afraid of the animals (she squeals and laughs whenever they are around) and I love that Zuma has a soft enough mouth that I don't worry about her biting the baby.

Goofy face, but she's STANDING! (And falling in this picture) She's up to about 30 seconds now and she usually does it when she's not thinking about it. Once she realizes she standing on her own, she slowly sits down. Yesterday she was outside on the grass with a rock in her hand (why do we buy kids toys?). She doesn't like the feeling of the grass on her legs so she was crawling on her hands and her feet. Then she wanted to look at the rock and play with it with two hands. So instead of sitting down, she just stood up! She stood up playing with it for a few seconds and then sat back down. I was amazed! She's SO strong! Especially for being so little. At her Dr. appointment yesterday, she'd fallen off the growth chart completely and is in the negative 3rd percentile or something. But since she can do things like stand alone and go from crawling to standing, I doubt there's anything wrong with her.

The Power of Prayer

Sometimes I wonder if Brice and I are doing enough to teach and model the gospel in our home. Let's face it; we don't read our scriptures daily and our kids certainly don't see us doing it, we lose our tempers with the kids and I have a hard time saying sorry, and I'm horrible at remembering my personal prayers. We are good about FHE and family prayer and church attendance and other things, but I often wonder how much better we would fare if we were better about some things. Well, my feelings of guilt were diminished somewhat the other day by my sweet little Raelin.

Me: Raelin, I've noticed that you haven't been sucking your thumb as much lately.
Raelin: Yeah.
Me: That's really cool! Did you decide you wanted to stop or is it just happening by itself?
Raelin: Well, I said a prayer a while ago that Heavenly Father would help me stop sucking it and He is helping me.
Me: Aaaawww! Raelin, that's so cool! Don't you love how Heavenly Father answers our prayers?
Ryker: I'm going to say a prayer that Heavenly Father will help me stop sucking my thumb too. Dear Heavenly Father, Please help me to stop sucking my thumb. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. Now I will stop sucking my thumb too!

Don't you just love the faith of little children!? Such good kids! It makes my heart happy when I hear that they have really internalized some of the gospel precepts. I think that our whole family's testimony of prayer has been strengthened over the years to a large degree because of our animals. Sounds weird, I know, but when we pray about our animals, our prayers are so immediately and tangibly answered. For instance, Raelin's snake is an escape artist (yes, we have a had a snake loose in our house on a number of occasions). Every single time she gets out, we get everyone together and look for her. We look and look and look, but have not once been able to find her until after we have knelt on our knees to ask the Lord for help. And then we find her within literally one minute. With our dogs (ALL of them) they have gotten lost, ran away, escaped, you name it and we are left wondering where to look, what to do, and how in the world to find them. We find ourselves leaning on the Lord to reunite us with our dogs. It's interesting; with Jax we always felt to walk or drive and call for him. With Cooper, we are prompted to just wait for him. But in any case, until we turn it over to the Lord, we have no hope of finding and of our lost animals. But the instant we do turn it over, we find them. It's interesting the amount of love we feel from the Lord when He helps us find our animals. It's kind of a silly thing for us to always be pleading for His help on behalf of animals, but it's like He's telling us, "If I'm willing to help you with this, what more do you think I would be willing to help you with if you will just ask?" I try to remember that as I struggle to raise these precious kids who are more His than mine. I need to learn that, not only am I incapable, but I am also not expected to raise them by my own strength, will, and determination. If He knows us so well and is so willing to help us with something as simple as finding our dogs and snake, He would of course want nothing more than to help us live the gospel so that we can return to live with Him!