Halloween Adventures

Wow it has taken me forever to post this! We had a great Halloween though so enjoy!

The day before Halloween we carved our pumpkins. Hunter didn't really get into it this year. We have gotten new movies (Chip and Dale rescue rangers) a few days before and he had been watching them when we started carving, I thought for sure he would be so excited, he had been talking about carving them ever since we bought them! He came in long enough to see me gut part of his, pick a pattern, and taste the pumpkin :) That was my idea :) Growing up my dad would always eat raw things like potatoes, corn, etc. So now I always try everything! He saw me taste it and I asked he wanted to. That was the only thing he would come back into the kitchen for, to take another bite! It was so funny!

This was the few seconds he was there after Ben started to cut the pattern Hunter had picked. Notice the power tool? I did some blog reading of how best to carve pumpkins :) Ben used his sawsall (I don't know how to spell it) to cut the top off (only one cuz the battery died and I was too impatient to wait for it to charge) And tried his drill for some of the bigger sections in the pattern (that was his own idea, and I don't think he cared for it cuz he only did it for a few seconds.) Then I used my melon baller from pampered chef, it's a loop like thing rather than a circle so it worked really well to scrape out the insides. It was the cleanest I've ever gotten them! (The blog I saw had a certain tool for cleaning the inside but that was the closest I had to what they had and it worked awesome! So much faster too!)

I thought this was cute of Hunter :) By the way he was pretty much just posing for the picture then left to watch his movie again. Oh and Aspen was napping during the whole thing.

I ended up gutting all 4 pumpkins, Ben wasn't really into it this year :( He carved Hunter's pumpkin and I carved one, then we decided to carve the others after the kids were in bed since it was getting later and we go and visit Ben's parents every Sunday. So we headed to his parents and what did we find....

They were also carving their pumpkins! Ben's sister and her kids now live up in the garage where we lived while building our house. Joslyn was at work, Dixie was busy helping Logan with his pumpkin, so I got to help Landen with his! If your keeping track I gutted 5 pumpkins and carved 3!!!!

Here is our porch after we got home and finished our pumpkins. Ben did the one on the far right and the one on the far left (that's the one Hunter picked.) I did the other two. I love carving pumpkins!!

Ben carved the left one, me the right.

Ben the left, and me the right. We had already carved the other 2 from our pattern books from past years before we thought to look for different patterns online. Hunter was pretty excited when he saw the Mario one :) He almost always picks Mario when he plays Mario Kart on our Wii.

Halloween morning my sister invited us to go to story time at the library. After the stories the kids did a parade around the library to show off their costumes. Then after the parade they got to go make spider balloons and get a bag of treats. Hunter loved it! When we got in the car after and I told him what else we were going to do that day he got all excited when I said go trick or treating. Apparently he had thought that that was the trick or treating!

Her is Aspen during the parade. Totally fuzzy but for some reason I thought it was really cute, and I think you can kind of see her teeth in it :)

Me and Aspen during the parade. And by the way I noticed that my camera has a fuzzy spot on the same spot in all these pictures, I think I might need to clean the lens :)

After lots of asking Ben finally agreed to dress up! That decision was made as we were driving to his parents the night before and Hunter told him he should be Spiderman like him. Then I had the great idea that he should be Spiderman, but without the costume, so here is Peter Parker! He really needed a hair cut so his hair was perfect length for the part! (By the way before and after shots of this years hunting beard will be posted soon!)

And what would Spiderman or Peter Parker be without MJ? Sadly most people didn't even know who MJ was, even when we told them. Oh well. As a side note, make sure if you ever decide to use the spray on hair color... DO IT OUTSIDE!!!! My whole bathroom was red. When we got home from trick or treating at 9, the kid's bedtime, I decided I better go clean up the bathroom a little before they came in for tubby time. The red had settled by then and was everywhere! I cleaned the tub, then realized when they got out Hunter would step on the floor so I had to clean that, then realized when he goes to the bathroom he would get red, so cleaned the toilet. Then remembered he would be leaning on the counter when he brushes his teeth so had to clean that. With how red everything was it took me almost an hour to clean it up! It was a nightmare! And then I remembered that I still had it in my hair so I had to clean me before them so that I didn't get them red either! If you look at the couch in the picture above you can see where my nephew left some red from his color hair spray on my moms couch. Oh wait they had cleaned it up from him and then I got it on the couch in the same spot! Sorry Mom!

Here is a close up on Aspen's outfit. What a cute ladybug!

She had a beanie to go with it, it was cute it had antennae on it :) But as you can see it didn't really fit, it barely made it to her ears :)

Hunter getting ready at his first door! Whose behind it?

Grandma! Both of his Grandma's love and spoil him so much that he didn't really need to go to any other houses! Lucky for us he is still young enough that he doesn't really care. So after we went to Ben's parents we went across the street, they make homemade donuts every year. We ate our donuts then headed to Ben's Grandma's just a couple houses down. After visiting there for a little bit we headed to my moms:

I think her costume was the best! When she came out in it I couldn't stop laughing! I thought it was so funny!!

My mom gave Aspen a sucker which she loved! And they played with Grandma's tigers for quite a while. We then went to Ben's used to be supervisor (they just recently moved the supervisor to a different area so Ben has spent most of his time at the water district with him.) He has a parrot and usually dresses up like a pirate :) He wasn't dressed up this year but we still got to see the parrot! Then we stayed and visited for a while. Hunter was playing with their Grandson (who happens to be just a few weeks younger than Hunter) and all of a sudden came running through the living room where we were. I can't remember if I asked him what he was doing or if he just yelled it to us. He said, "I got to go poo!!" And he kept running down the hall, which luckily is where the bathroom was. He must have toilet intuition or something :) It was so funny! And he made it in time! He has only had 2 poo accidents since the time I posted about potty training, I think that's been like a month! I think he is doing awesome! Still no luck on the pee but it sure seems like he is pretty well set on the poo!

Here is the whole family, Peter Parker, MJ, Spiderboy and our baby ladybug!

Happy Halloween!

Eavesdropping

I know I probably should be doing a post about Halloween but I heard a few conversations today that I just wanted to remember, don't worry though you will get to see our costumes and our awesome pumpkins soon!
Today I was getting ready for church in the bathroom, Ben comes in jumps in the shower, and of course Hunter follows. I still have felt fine with Hunter being in the room when I shower, but after today that may have to change.... Hunter looked at Ben in the shower then says, "Dad you have hair on your wiener!" I about died trying to hold my laughter in! Then he turns around and informs me of his new discovery. Then tells me he doesn't have hair on his and whips it out to show me! Then asks to see mine! Oh the things going through my head!! First thing "Crap he is about to go to church, so hopefully he doesn't go whipping his man parts out to show everyone in nursery that he doesn't have hair on his" Second "Great now I have to explain about the difference between boys and girls!" Third "Now he for sure can't have baths with Aspen anymore" I'm sure their were about a million other thoughts too. After processing for a minute I gave my response of "I don't have a wiener" Hunter "Oh" Me "And yep daddy has hair and you don't." Hunter "Ya!" Me "Make sure you only ever show your privates to mom and dad ok?" Hunter "Ok" And that was it he was done and moving on to picking out what shoes I was going to wear!
The other funny conversation was only a few minutes later when Ben went to get Aspen dressed. I was still in the bathroom getting ready and hear "Dad, here's Aspen's bummy thing" Ben's response: "That's her underwear." I'm sure your thinking what is a 7 month old baby doing wearing underwear? Well I guess bloomers do kind of look like underwear and yep they go on her bummy :)
And just a couple quick updates. Hunter is totally in a my mommy said this phase, the best example was a few nights ago my parents came over and brought dinner with them. Hunter wasn't eating very good and had asked me if he could have candy and I told him not unless he ate his dinner. A little while after that my dad was eating some candy and went and handed Hunter a pieces, and what did Hunter do.... He chucked it across the room and said "My mommy say no! I need to eat my dinners!" It was so funny! None of us could help laughing that time.
Aspen had her shots on Tuesday, they had to do 3. The first one she didn't even cry! The next 2 she did but as soon as she had her bandaids on and I stood her up she was fine and didn't cry again! She didn't even act like they bugged at all! She's a tough little girl! She also finally broke her 2nd tooth, I noticed it on Thursday. We could see it trying to come ever since her first one broke though so it's been pretty sad. Her one lone tooth was far enough in that you could totally see it, I though it looked pretty funny all by itself.
Well hopefully tomorrow I will get our Halloween adventures on here, I've been meaning to since that night :)

Potty Training 101

Don't we all just love potty training!! I think I would take the newborn stage of no sleep over potty training! It's horrible! I have totally cried because of it, and not just once! I can't remember if I have ever posted anything about the potty training adventures so I will just give a short review. For a long time (so long I have no clue when but I know before I got pregnant with Aspen) we have had Hunter go potty before he gets in his bath at night. Otherwise he would pee in it every single time. We got sick of having to get new water for him and what a waste, I mean my dad and my husband both work for water companies :) Anyways... he took to that pretty quick and he knows that that is what happens at night, he very rarely ever forgets and even rarer ever complains about it. We thought that would get him interested in the potty. It didn't but we didn't really push it, we really didn't do much of anything else at that point.

After I found out I was pregnant though I really didn't want to have to bummies (yes that's what I call them) in diapers. So we tried the 3 day potty training thing. It didn't work out so well, we even did it for 4 days. I had Friday off, so we did Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. We were both scheduled to work on Monday but were so wanting it to work that on Monday Ben got of work a little early so I could go to work and we could tag team and still keep to the training. All that really did for us though was made him realize he could hold his pee. The 1st day he peed every 20 min, by the 4th it was more like 2 hrs in between. So we gave up.

Then a little after I had Aspen decided to try again. I took him to the store and we picked out a new candy he had never had (a bag of mini airheads) and named it his "potty candy." This was advice from our neighbor, and also reconfirmed to be a good way by a friend I saw while at the store getting the candy. So we were pumped! Well it didn't last long. He didn't really get excited about it and it was hard since he would want it at night when he went potty before his bath which was not at all the point of the candy. He already knew how to do that, and we were trying to get him ready for bed and he is a super slow eater, it just got frustrating! So we again gave up.

Well a few weeks ago I decided to try the potty chart method. So we went to the store and I let him pick out a toy and some stickers and explained what they were for. I don't know why but for some reason I just always felt like he wouldn't care about a chart. Well he did end up liking it. He would get excited every time he got to put stickers on:

I kept the toy up in the window so he could see it as a reminder but he couldn't get it. And the chart is taped right over the toilet.

Here's a close up. I found the chart online, but it only had 5 times going potty on it so I shrunk it and put 6 little ones. Then we made his name in paint, we were pretty excited to find a lightning bolt :) And I let him pick the paper and he helped me glue it all on too. All the different characters had a thing to do by them, they were pulling your pants down by yourself, sitting on the potty for a while, going potty, flushing the toilet, and washing your hands. So he loved that he got to put 5 stickers on every time!

Here's his toy. It's pretty cute, you push the top and his eyes change, then push the wheels and his mouth changes. I thought for sure he would do so good so he could get him...

Well he was excited when he finally got him but it took a while. The first day he went 5 times, then 6, then 1, then 4, etc. He started out like a champ and would have a few good days here and there but lost interest pretty fast. Again I was stubborn and didn't want to give up so I told him the last one had to be a poop one which made it drag out a few days longer and we started just putting 1 sticker instead of 5 when he would pee. Once he got it I have kept asking him through out the day if he needs to go pee but again gave up.

The pee diapers don't bother me too much but the poo ones really frustrate me. He has such big poos that quite often it will come out the back, of course it doesn't help that he is wearing those slip on diapers right now since they have had several sales on them I've been getting those. I also figured they would be good to be like a pull up during the potty training. An example of this was when me and Brandi went to watch Kira dance (she is on the Badgerette team at Snow college) the day before her birthday. That was Oct. 8th, it was at their football game and we made a huge sign (one letter per poster board) that said "Happy B-day Kira Sue" (although the e got lost so it said su instead) that we had people hold up while she danced. Afterwards we went to her apartment and visited with her roommates then went out to eat and came home, it was way fun. Well while we were at her apartment Hunter went poo and you could smell it through the whole apartment! It was very stinky! He started to lay down and I have come to know to check the back of him before he lays down when he has those diapers on so I rushed over and barely stopped him from laying down. Which was very lucky! It was clear up his back, so I took him into the bathroom to get cleaned up.... It was the most poo I have ever seen!!!! It wasn't just up the back it was also up the front and the entire diaper was completely full too! It took most of my wipes to get him cleaned up. And luckily I had brought extra clothes! I never bring extra clothes, it's probably been since he was 6 months or less since I've brought extra clothes on a day trip. It had been raining all week and he can't stay out of the puddles so I had brought them in case he got soaking wet at the game (which ended up not raining on us at all, just cloudy.) I almost wanted to cry on this one, until I saw that it was up his front too, then I almost laughed. I was amazed that little body could produce that much poo at one time. Sorry if I'm grossing anyone out but it was just so crazy!

Well the moral of this huge story is that I think we have finally found some advise that works. It is the hardest advise ever (or at least for us) but it seems to finally be working! Drum roll please......... Just wait til they do it on their own! For the past 3 or 4 days Hunter has done every poo in the toilet! The pee is still not hardly ever but I personally think the poo is a HUGE step! And of what I've heard, that is usually the hardest part for most kids, so I'm totally OK if he learns that first! Almost anytime we are at a store he will end up going pee in the potty, he must think that it's fun there or something. So hopefully he is finally on his way to potty training!

Wild Woman!!

My wild woman Aspen is 6 months old!! Half a year, it's so crazy how fast it goes! She had her 6 month check on the 4th and she was 15 lbs exactly which was in the 30% and 25 1/2 in which was in the 40% I can't remember what her head was but it's percentile had gone down to the 74th or something. So she is starting to grow into her head :) Her are the proof that she is a wild woman:

She now eats baby food! And this weird girl seems to like the veggies better than the fruits!

She is also trying new fashions....

Here is her handsome designer.

She started out with a pillow above her head and one to the side and when I went to check on her this is how she was sleeping!

That crazy nap left her with some crazy hair too!

When I try to put her on her knees this is what she does! And then rolls over.

And she is getting quite a bit of hair on top but not enough to really do much with. I love this picture!

She is a fun little 6 month old girl!!

A few hours after I posted this I noticed that Aspen has her first tooth! I've been wondering if they were coming for a few days now. Last night I was sitting there rubbing her gums for a while and thought for sure that it would be coming soon and today I can now see a little white spot and feel it!!

Sandhollow Family Night

2 weeks ago we got invited to go out to Sandhollow for family night with Ben's parents, sister, and the Young's. Our kids had a blast!!

Hunter was rubbing mud all over his legs.

And as he walked by Aspen he splashed mud on her. The pic is fuzzy but you can see the mud on her chin. Oh and she is now sitting up! Now that she can do it she gets mad at me if I lay her down, she wants to be up!! She started sitting up a little after 5 months.

Here are Aspen and Suzy! Such cuties!

P.S. only one post away and I will be up to date!

Scrabble and Loving "Idiots"

Now for my family I know all of you knew exactly what this post was about from the title, to all friends you are about to hear a few stories about an amazing woman. That woman is my Grandma Robinson. She was the ripe ole age of 92 and going strong just a few months back. She definitely didn't get out and about much but she was still just as feisty as ever. Just a little bit before I had Aspen (I think a week before) she caught her foot in a chair as she was turning the lights off for bed, it tripped her, she fell to the ground and wasn't able to untangle herself. That fall caused her hip to break. They sent her to St George for surgery and then about a month of physical therapy before she was able to go home to Kanab where she checked into the nursing home. She spent the next few months there up until Sept 6th. She passed away peacefully, but not before having a few rough months. She ended up falling again while in the nursing home and breaking her arm, it was really hard to see all of this unfold. She was already so tiny (she claimed she was 5' 2" but by the time I stopped growing also at 5' 2" I towered over her, so I don't know if I ever even saw her at that height) but somehow she managed to get even smaller.

It was even hard for us to get her to play Scrabble with us. That was one of our families favorite games to play with her, she was amazing at it and it was always my goal to beat her, I could have cared less if someone else won as long as I had more points than her then I felt like the winner, but... I only ever beat her once. This was one of my favorite stories to tell just because of her reaction. I won the game because of 1 word. Fet. Most of you are probably thinking that's a typo. It's not. You see I always struggled with the option of trading your letters in for your turn. Ya, sometimes you really do have crap letters, but that's your turn! No points! Just new letters! So instead when in that situation I would make up a word and hope she wouldn't challenge me. It drove her crazy. Most of the time she would challenge me, every now and then she would ignore it, of course the times she ignored it she had 50 to 100 points more than me and something big to lay down. So naturally when I put fet down she challenged it, especially since it would give me a ton of points if she didn't. I was extremely overjoyed, excited, shocked, and a million other emotions when we found that it was a word! It means to fetch, it's the abbreviation of fetch. The rules of Scrabble say no abbreviations. But...it was the official Scrabble dictionary that said it was a word, so all because of my made up word I finally beat her!!!! After we finished the game she did pull down the Webster's dictionary and fet is not a word in that dictionary. She was very very mad about it. Just imagine a used to be 5' 2" lady from England that had lived most of her live in Kanab (an awesome English/southern accent) mad, she was so funny mad! I think we all loved when she was mad especially for the "idiots."

The word idiot is like a legend in our family. You aren't a member of the Robinson family until you have been called an idiot by Grandma! Somehow even though she was calling you an idiot you could still just feel the love seeping out of her! Over the weekend after she passed we got to share memories of Grandma as we gathered for her funeral and I don't think anybody missed telling an "idiot" story!

Grandpa passed away 11 years ago. That's a long time to be without your one true love. I don't have a ton of memories of Grandpa. I can remember sitting on the porch just watching the cars go by, and tripping on his oxygen cord, and that he wouldn't ever let you leave without a hug. And I can remember how he smelled. Kind of crazy the things you remember. I grew up with them living next door to me my entire life. They were always so good to me and they will both be so missed!

They had 3 children. My dad, Uncle Al, and Aunt Darlene.

For all I knew my Grandparents only ever ventured away from Kanab to go gamble in Mesquite, and in their younger years went to the horse races. It was really fun when Darlene found all these pictures! There was one of my Grandpa at the beach (we were all guessing it was probably close to when they met) and his swimming suit was barely more than a speedo! One of my Grandma she was in Paris (if I'm remembering right) and she was totally striking a pose! It was so fun to see these glimpses into their past!

I got to come the day before her funeral and help dress her. At first I didn't think I could and I told them so, but my sister convinced me to come and it was amazing! I didn't help, they really didn't need any but it was so cool to get to see her before! I thought it would be scary or creepy and it was the exact opposite. My sister cut her hair and my mom and Darlene dressed her. The Mosdell's did an amazing job! Everything was so perfect and my grandma looked so peaceful. There were several times that I looked at her and could have sworn she was just taking a nap on the couch like she always did.

I don't think you could ask for a better Grandma. She always helped with anything and everything. Even if was letting us borrow the car that she never learned how to drive.

All of the great grandkids were given paper and crayons so they could write or draw Grandma one last picture.

They all gathered around and put them in the casket with her. It was such a sweet moment to watch them all gathering around her.

The funeral program was wonderful! All the great grandchildren and 3 youngest grandchildren sang some primary songs. Hunter hid in and played with the plant next to him the whole time. After their song he sat on my mom's lap with Talee and ended up falling asleep just sitting there! He stayed asleep through the whole thing even with Talee occasionally trying to talk to him and then having to be passed to Al so my mom could get up to sing!

My dad, Al, Gregg, Paul, Derrick and Ryan.

Dad and Al saying their final good byes.

Grandma and Grandpa's head stone. My dad also got to do one last service of his own. He was the one that dug her grave. He used to dig most of the graves but doesn't dig any of them now. I thought it was so cool that he chose to dig Grandma's.

Of course when you get all the family together their is going to be a bit of craziness! We gathered to say our good byes to Grandma and realized that it was the first time in years that we had all been together. There was mourning for Grandma but also so much laughter!

It isn't a Robinson gathering without some handstands. And for the record I always won... Although I did always have the wall to help me and nobody else needed it. :)

And there is ALWAYS wrestling!!

We all gathered in my parents living room and really just chatted while the kids entertained us! This is Hunter and Talee if you couldn't tell.

I loved this picture of Aspen. I actually forgot my camera so thanks to Gregg and Jennifer I have tons of pictures without ever having to take 1, thanks you guys!!

Grandma passed away leaving behind 3 children, 9 Grandchildren, 15 Great Grandchildren and 1 more on the way!

P.S. The spellchecker doesn't think fet is a word either :)