Ben-Misty-Hunter-Aspen-Timber: August 2015

Ready or not here comes... the end of summer and back to school!

Our friends Codie and Rachel got sealed in the Payson temple the 1st of August. Their daughter Sadie was also sealed to them, but they weren't able to seal Codie's son Payton to them yet, they didn't get permission from his mom in time and still haven't gotten it. They are hoping to eventually get to also seal him to them. This was also the weekend that Kira and Jordan were blessing Harper, unfortunately for us they chose to bless her in Kanab so that it would be easier for the families to not all have to travel up to them. So Brandi took our kids to Kanab with her Friday evening so that Ben and I would be kid free to go to the temple on Saturday. Their sealing wasn't until 5 so right after the sealing we headed back down to Kanab instead of going to dinner with them and their family so that we wouldn't get back to Kanab too late. It seems like every event we have had lately has been back to back with another event so that we haven't been able to fully enjoy any of the events lately. We are definitely glad that we were able to go to both the sealing and then the blessing, just a bummer that we didn't get to spend as much time with either of the family or friends involved.

Hunter and Aspen love to build things, well mostly Hunter and Aspen is his assistant. They built an even bigger giraffe than this one but knocked it over before I got a picture of it.

Timber is starting to really pick up on the signs we have been teaching her. This is how she signs for "done."

We had quite the collection of weeds coming up where our grass used to be. We fried it with fertilizer (we've never had a yard before so didn't know you have to flood it after you put fertilizer down!). So in trying to save our lawn we ended up killing it. So anyways since it was a rainy day we went and pulled a bunch of the weeds out. When we got started on it it was very lightly sprinkling but shortly after started raining pretty hard. We don't have gutters so the rain will run pretty heavily off the roof. Well the older kids thought this was great fun to play in... So Timber followed. But then didn't know how to get out of the huge flow of water! She got drenched!! And as you can see she wasn't very happy about it! That ended out weed pulling very quickly and we hurried in to get dry and get her warmed up!

Got to love those random moments when your kids are all laying on the kitchen floor with their feet in the air!

The elderly man that I had to convince to be the Grand Marshall for the Pioneer Day parade had a surprise 90th birthday party that we were invited to (I think most of the town was.) Ben was gone scouting for deer the day of his party, so me and the kids went to it. I even got a kiss from the birthday boy!! Haha!! He seemed pretty excited to see me there and when I went to tell him goodbye he gave me a kiss... on the lips! Ah! When I told Ben about it he just laughed and told me that's what I get for flirting with old men! Ben's grandpa kissed me once too, so I'm thinking it's just that generation, but I'm even an awkward hugger, so a kiss definitely caught me by surprise and I'm sure I was bright red! He is such a sweet man though and yes I still go visit with him in the library most weeks, and yes he does hold my hand for a bit after he's done shaking it, but his wife always smiles and chats with me anytime she sees me, so she doesn't think much of our apparent "flirting" as Ben calls it! Ha! I would definitely not call it flirting! Visiting with a sweet elderly man is all it really is.

Surprise!! This is our kids looking at the ultrasound pictures after we announced to them that we were pregnant with baby #4! We have video of me actually telling them. They were all sitting on the couch together and I showed them the ultrasound picture and asked them if they knew what the pictures were. Hunter mumbled "I don't know" at the same time Aspen started poking each individual picture while saying baby each time. I told Aspen she was right then said that these were pictures that the doctor took of my belly when they had been getting babysat by Karston's mom. I asked them what they think that means, Aspen said that there was a baby in the belly, I asked her whose belly, she said Karston's moms. Haha, I guess I threw them off when I said the pictures were taken when they had been at Karston's house, and probably made more sense for them to think that considering Karston's mom was 6 months pregnant at the time! After Aspen said Karston's mom and said no... it's a baby in my belly. Aspen said, "Right now?" I told them yep! There's a baby in mom's belly, what do you think of that? Hunter said awesome and Aspen said cool. Timber got excited with them, but I'm sure had no idea what she was getting excited about! They were pretty cute about it! We had found out we were pregnant right before our 4th of July trip to Delta, which is also why July is when we planned on weening Timber from nursing. Maybe she sensed the other baby and that's why she weened herself?? Babies due date is February 29th, yes it's a leap year! So Timber will be 2 months shy of turning 2 when baby comes, these two are our closest together, and yes I still feel a bit crazy about it. But both of our parents had babies even closer than that, so we should be able to handle it right?? I just feel bad for Timber really, I feel like we are stealing her baby-hood. We manged to get pregnant the first month of trying this time, it took a few months with Timber so we decided to start trying a month earlier than when we really wanted to have baby thinking that it would probably take at least a month of trying... but nope! So we were wanting March, but got February instead.

Funny story about our trip to Codie and Rachel's sealing, when we left the temple we stopped at a gas station to go to the bathroom before our drive to Kanab. There was a line in the girls bathroom, when one of the stalls became available, the lady in front of me looked at me and asked if I needed to go first, glanced down at my belly and said "I know sometimes you need to." What?! When I got back in the car I asked Ben if I looked pregnant in my clothes and told him what had happened. I was very nervous to go to Kanab after that, we hadn't even had our first doctor appointment yet! The day that I turned 8 weeks my brothers wife sent a text out to let us know she had just had a miscarriage and that she had been about 8 weeks. I felt horrible! How was I going to face my whole family knowing that she had just lost a baby and I was pregnant and due within days of when she would have been! I always wait to tell people I'm pregnant until usually about 12 weeks, at least after the first doc appointment, but if a random lady in the gas station could tell I was pregnant how was my family going to miss it?! Well I'm guessing that since my baby was only a little more than 1, none of them even thought to look at my chubby belly, they probably just thought it was still baby chubs from Timber, which I know part of it was.

After we told the kids we were pregnant we had them facetime my parents and tell them, then we took the ultrasound pictures over to Ben's parents and let the kids tell them. And that was the extent of our telling people. All the rest either our parents told them, or it just kind of randomly came out in conversation. I was still feeling crazy at how close this baby would be to Timber and also felt awkward because of my sister in laws miscarriage. I didn't want to make her hurt anymore than I figured she probably was. I left it up to my mom to tell them, cuz she usually tells people pretty fast, well... she felt the same awkwardness about it as I did and didn't tell them! I finally ended up texting them and letting them know after they were the last ones in the family left and it would have just been rude for them to find out any other way. I talked with Brandi a lot about it, she had a couple of miscarriages, one of which happened when someone else was pregnant as well, and she said it didn't really bother her. I still felt bad, but once I did tell them it was a relief and they didn't seem bothered by it, they were very sweet and just congratulated me.

This cute girl loves corn! The whole family does really, but she is just so cute eating it I had to get a picture!

I wanted to do something fun with the kids before school started up again, so we headed to the Children's Museum. We had heard from several people that it was way fun, so we decided it was time to try it out. It was a blast! The kids had a great time! The only thing that wasn't great was that right when you walk in there are stairs, no ramp. I took the kids by myself so I thought it would be smart to take a stroller for Timber. Ya... luckily there was another dad there that saw my need and came and helped me carry the stroller up the stairs, luckily I had at least brought a small stroller not our usual huge double stroller! When I got home and told Ben about it, he asked why I didn't just take Timber out, have her walk up the steps and fold the stroller up to carry it up the stairs then put her back in... Thanks honey... I already felt pretty stupid about it without you pointing out a very obvious easier solution. With how small Timber is though I don't think the dad or any other witnesses of my stroller struggles would have guessed for me to do that, even the person that gives out the wrist bands didn't give Timber one thinking she was too young and would just eat it.

The girls loved dancing on the stage, while Hunter thoroughly enjoyed picking the music for them.

This thing was just amazing to me. It's an interactive game on the floor! It had different games that it would change from every few minutes, there was one that there were bubbles that you had to stomp on to pop and another where you have to jump on frogs on lily pads to get points, etc. It was pretty cool! Even Timber enjoyed stomping on the ground, although she didn't really understand why she was doing it or where to stomp, but the other kids were doing it so she joined in.

I really wanted a picture of my Anna and Elsa, but Timber was a bit too heavy for Hunter to hold her up there for very long, and of course my camera took a few seconds too long to get open and focused so this was the best picture I got of them. They really had so much fun and were so good at the museum! Any time they see the pictures from there they always ask when we are going to go again!

The day after we went to the Children's Museum was the opening day of the county fair. The first night they do all the rides for 1 ticket so Ben's parents take us and pay for the kids to ride all the rides. We always go right when it opens and eat dinner, ride the rides then get a snow cone as we leave. The back cart that you can fully see has Hunter and Aspen Smith, then two carts up is my Aspen in pink and in front of her is Tayten. Joslyn's boys were with their dad, also at the fair but not riding rides with us, so Joslyn and Tyson just had his kids this year.

The 2 Aspen's are in the middle cart on this one.

Tayten and Hunter bringing up the rear.

I'm pretty sure Tayten was bored with this ride, haha!

And cute Timber got to go on the merry go round! She didn't have much of a reaction to it, but Aspen enjoyed it!

The fair opened the night before school started, so as soon as the tickets were gone we left so that Hunter wouldn't be exhausted for his first day of school! We did still get snow cones on the way out and we were excited on our timing, they had just started the show with elephants on the lawn, so we sat there and ate our snow cones while watching the elephants and mini ponies, it was just the perfect length for us to finish our snow cones and then we headed home.

Here's our handsome Hunter ready for his first day of 1st grade! He started the dual immersion program this year and will be learning Spanish. Both his English and Spanish teachers are in our ward, I was pretty excited about this since I know them both pretty well.

Timber has found Aspen's old hat and loves to wear it all the time!

The Saturday after school started is the opening of the archery hunt, so while Ben was gone for that me and the kids had a pizza movie night. We have those quite often on the weekends, we will lay a blanket out on the living room floor and have a pizza picnic while we watch a movie. I must say I enjoy pizza with the kids, especially when it's just me to get all their pepperonis! I would say I scored, they used to eat their pepperonis but more often lately they will take them off, I'm totally fine with that.

See what I mean? She doesn't even need clothes but still needs the hat!

I painted Timber's fingernails for the first time. Normally I just do her toes, but when Aspen was getting her fingers painted she thought she needed hers too. Since she sucks on her fingers so much I only painted the non-finger sucking hand. She thought it was great!

We love every minute of daddy time we get during hunting season! And for me it's very entertaining to watch all 4 of my favorite people battling bad guys with guns and swords!

I must say though, this particular time Aspen was my favorite! Look at that concentrated glare, and what other person do you know that can pull the trigger with their pinky!?!?

Hunter getting them with double swords!

Hunter asked if he could get him some more rice at dinner, I told yes but be careful since it's hot. A few moments later Ben caught my attention and motioned for me to turn around. Hunter had gotten out an oven mitt to get him some more rice! Haha, I don't think it's that hot!

What a sweet brother to help get his sister some more too.

The second weekend of the archery hunt Ben decided to take Hunter with him. I asked my parents what they were doing, thinking that me and the girls might head to Kanab. They happened to be taking their new trailer out camping, and they just so happened to be camping about 20 minutes away from where Ben and Hunter were hunting. So me and the girls decided to go camping with my parents. And it worked out perfect for Ben and Hunter to come sleep there too, and then Ben was able to leave Hunter with us for the morning so that him and Cason could hike in a bit further looking for the deer.

The lady on the right is my mom's aunt, her and her sister and their hubby's go camping in their trailers all the time, so since my parents have gotten their trailer they have gone camping with them a whole bunch of times.

I have met my great aunts a few times, but it's been many years since I have seen them. They were so sweet to my kiddos! They brought them over a bottle of chocolate milk and some mini muffins in the morning.

Can you believe this cute girl can still where this shirt?? This was her Halloween costume shirt from last year!

Timber hanging out with daddy during church.

Look how long Aspen's hair is!! I don't straighten it very often, so I had to get a picture of how long it is when it's straightened before she got in the shower!

The very next day after I took the picture of her long hair I took this picture. The poor girl was so sick that she fell asleep on the toilet with her head in her throw up bowl. It was a very rough day for miss Aspen!

This easel has probably been the best $10 I've spent! I got it on clearance right before conference and thought it would be great for that and we have never put it up! They color on it almost every day! We have had to put the chalk and markers in baggies clipped to the top so that Timber can't get them and color on everything though.

Timber has discovered bracelets! She loves them and will quite often have a whole arms length of them on!

This is Aspen's preschool playground equipment! Luckily she got over her sickness fast because she had her preschool assessment 2 days later and then the next day her orientation where they showed us where everything in the classroom was and what she would do each day. We had applied to be in Head Start with Dixie's class like Hunter did, but we were over income so didn't end up getting in. So we signed up for preschool through the elementary school instead. It also goes by income and we had no probably getting into it, so who knows why they were that different!? By the time we figured that we probably weren't going to get into Head Start and signed up for the other preschool we only had the option of the afternoon time. Luckily Timber is more flexible with her nap times than Hunter and Aspen were! Most days we nap her in the morning so that she can get a full nap, but if we have things going on in the morning she does fine to wait until we take Aspen to school for her nap. Aspen's school is only 2 hours long and because of drive time Timber only ends up getting about an hour and a half nap on those days. On Fridays and weekends we do Timber's naps after lunch, which really works best for her and then she can get the 2-3 hours that she normally takes. Thank goodness she is flexible with it though, otherwise weekdays would be a nightmare!

Timber has decided she needs Aspen's bike. It's pretty scary watching her try to get on it, she's too short to put her leg over it by herself, so instead she climbs on the back basket thing and climbs over the top! I'm amazed she hasn't gotten hurt from doing that yet!