October 2013

So right after we got called as a Primary Presidency we had a kid graduate from primary, then a baptism, and only 3 weeks before the primary program!  It was a pretty crazy month trying to figure out everything to do with my new calling, and trying to stop doing my old one!  I definitely think that has been the hardest change of calling for me, just because I work so close to the person that took over my old calling, it was very hard to not do what I used to be doing since I was still in the middle of that kind of stuff!  So for a little while there I kept trying to do way more than I should have been!  All other calling changes have been when we have moved out of a ward so I wasn't anywhere near the old calling!  It's been good though, it definitely forced me to learn to delegate better!  My 1st counselor is the same lady as before, which was so lucky that she stayed the same since she was in charge of the primary program!  It could have been very crazy if she would have changed callings!!  Also since it was close to the end of the year right when we finished the primary program we had to jump right into the plans for next year, birthday gifts, baptism gifts, getting new manuals ready, this years Christmas gifts, etc.  Then on top of all those we also found out that we were in charge of the board in the primary room, the one with the theme for the year and also spots for us to put of the months theme and scripture!  It was a busy crazy couple of months for us as a new presidency!

This primary program was Hunter's 2nd and he sat up there a lot better than the year before!  This year since I was the president and not just the secretary I was up on the stand too.  We had practiced with him his line (I can be honest, or something close to that, I can't remember for sure) but when he got up there he had to have my counselor tell him what to say.  I still don't think he did much singing either, but he definitely did better with it than the year before!

Well on to some cute pics of my kiddos:

This was how Aspen decided it would be best to clean up toys!  She was cracking me up!

This is where I found her one morning after I got out of the shower, sitting on the counter eating chips and candy!  She is a candy-holic!  I swear she can sniff it out!

First time in underwear!! This attempt didn't last long!  She kept having accidents every half hour or so and would come running through the house to find me, screaming about it, with a trail of pee left behind her.  I don't handle those kinds of messes very well... So we only tried for a couple times then went for pull-ups instead.  Ya... I'm a terrible potty trainer!

I had my first doc appointment and we were 11 weeks so we decided it was time to let people know we were expecting!  We sat the kids down and handed them these papers and proceeded to take pictures of them while we told them about them:

This is when we were reading the papers to them, Hunter was like ya I'm getting even bigger, and Aspen with her recent attempt at underwear thought that's why she was a big sister, Haha!

This is after we explained what they meant!  I think they look pretty excited!

Then to tell our families we took them over some cookies and an envelope that said "Guess what's cooking in our oven?!"  then the collage above was inside.

The next day I realized I had taken all the pictures on my camera and I needed one on my phone so I could text it to the family that lived out of town, so they got to pose for me again.

There is a group of us stay at home moms that get together either for park days or at someones house to learn something new every Monday.  I was way excited for this week because one of the moms her mom owns a bakery so she was having us decorate cupcakes with fondant!  Kira has done fondant and after I made Hunter's dog birthday cake I called her and told her I needed her to show me how to use fondant because his frosting was melting off him and he would have been way cuter with fondant!  So even though I knew Ben was going to be home that day (it was Columbus Day and he just had to do rounds then was going to be home) I still went!  I couldn't miss my opportunity to learn to use fondant!  I had a blast!  Her and her mom rolled out the fondant so really all we did was put it on our cupcakes, then we got to help with all but the baking of the cake pops, which were not fondant, they were dipped in white chocolate, then drizzled with it.  I'm sure I probably drove her and her mom crazy, I wouldn't stop asking questions!  The black on my cupcake mummy's eyes hadn't dried yet so it smeared all over him when I put it in a bag to bring home, but I think they turned out way cute!

This was how Ben decided to shave his hunting beard after the hunts!  Can you tell who he is???? Wolverine!  This was pretty funny, luckily his beard grows in pretty fast, so this only lasted about a week, then it was trimmed back to normal.

For Hunter's Headstart preschool there are parent officers, ya somehow I ended up getting put in as the secretary.  It all happened kind of fast, I can't even remember who nominated me then all of a sudden it was getting seconded!!  I really wanted to get to be involved in his school so I accepted, and at that time nobody (except his teacher, since his teacher is Dixie) knew I had just been called to be the Primary President, and I don't think many of them knew I was pregnant either!  It definitely became pretty busy between all three of those things!

For the October parent meeting (we had to plan one for every month) we went to the local Pumpkin Patch/Corn maze.  When you get there you had to park along the road then walk down to get tickets, then they had a trailer hooked up to a tractor that would take you to it.  This is Hunter and Dixie on the trailer.

Aspen was scared to death!  She was not wanting to get on the trailer and had been crying until it started moving!  She liked it a lot better on the way home, when she knew it wasn't scary!

The headless horseman would ride along the side of the trailer to guide you in.

They had all the animals right where they dropped us off so that you could pet and feed them.

I've always been curious what a pig felt like, I finally got to find out!

They had this hay tower, Hunter loved climbing to the top of it!

Then they had a kids hay maze as well as the larger corn maze.

The kids had a blast, then we even got to pick out a pumpkin from there pumpkin patch!  I'm pretty sure they had more people come than they had expected (it was their first year doing it) because most of the pumpkins had been picked so it looked like they had gone and bought some from the store and just set them out in the pumpkin patch so you could still go pick one.

Cute purple frosting mustache!  For one of my duties as Primary Pres. I went to the 11 year old scouts Tuesday activity, and since Ben's calling is in the Priest group I had our cute kiddos with me.  Lucky for them the Young Women were decorating cookies that night so they both ended up getting one!

Practicing for her Halloween costume, this isn't how it ended up looking, but can you guess who she is?

Hunter made sure I took a picture of this rainbow!  It was very pretty and very clear!

And this cute little thing slept through seeing the rainbow!

Halloween day arrived, and Princess Leia was ready to go!

We went to the library's Halloween party in the morning, with Tucker and Brandi.

Then in the afternoon we quickly carved our pumpkins!

I love the faces every year as they first go to pull out the insides of the pumpkins!

Mom I found a seed!!

I'll pose for a picture...

but this is what I really think about it!

Here is Aspen's completed pink angry bird!

And Hunter's trio of angry birds!

Hunter's preschool wasn't allowed to do any holiday things this year, so instead they had a pajama party!

I think they turned out way cute!

Leia and Vader ready to get some candy!!!

I thought she was too cute with her guns!  They looked huge in her hands!

Family picture complete with Darth Maul, Vader, Padme and Leia!  Can you tell I was already getting a little baby belly?!  Ben's brother took like 10 pictures and this one turned out best...

Most of them Aspen looked like this, she kept blowing raspberries at Cason!

She was definitely doing a lot better with Ben this night!  When his costume first got here she was terrified of it!  Even when she watched him put it on she was absolutely terrified!  When he first put it on I was going to the bathroom and she backed into the room shaking and backed into the little space in between me on the toilet and the wall!  I had to have Ben shut the bathroom door just so that I could convince her to come out so I could even wipe!  It took a lot of working with her for her to finally be ok with that mask!

They made it through the night!

This was my hair at the end of the night.  It didn't turn out as good as I had hoped but close enough to the movie.  I had to keep re-pinning a couple of the pieces throughout the night!

Haha, I thought her hair was awesome when we took it out!  Happy Halloween!!

September 2013

 I didn't realize how busy our 2013 year was until loading the pictures!  I feel like I can't do several months together like I was doing to catch up in 2012, I don't want to miss things!!

 This is Hunter getting some practice in with his sling shot before heading up the mountain hunting with Ben.

 He loves to pose for pictures!

 Hunter turned 5!!

 And Aspen had a blast with his balloons!

 It always cracks me up watching my kids open envelopes, I think they must think it's like wrapping paper or something because they always rip them to pieces to get the card out!

 And I love how excited they get for cards!  Ben's grandparents always send everyone a birthday card and it always arrives right before the birthday, they are amazing at keeping on top of that!!

 I love catching the excited faces!!

 Only one present open and he was ready to play with it and forget the other ones!  He went to the other ones pretty quick after we reminded him they were there.

 He wanted to show me that he knew how to use his new shovel.

Haha I just had to throw this one in!  I love Aspen's face in it!

 I think the presents were a success!!  My only complaint was when we opened that bin of Legos that we pd $35 for and took all the Legos out of their plastic packages and dumped them in the bin, it barely filled the bottom of the bin!!  I had no clue there was going to be that few Legos in it!!!

 Hunter was again telling me that he wanted a train cake with Spiderman on it, I think he was just trying to add more to the last 2 years cakes!  I finally convinced him to try to think of something different though and he decided upon a dog.  I used 2 bread pans to cook the cake in, the body is one of them, then I cut the other cake up to make the rest of the dog, I love how the shape of him turned out!  I used peanut butter frosting on him, which tasted great, but since it was a hot day the frosting was kind of melty, after I got him done I texted my sister Kira and told her I needed her to show me how to do fondant!  He would have been so much cuter with fondant so he wouldn't be melting!

 Look!  I even put a tail on him!  Hunter showed me where, what color, and how big to put all of his spots, then he also put the candles in him too.  Even though he was melty I think Hunter liked how he turned out, and that's what really matters!

 I wonder if he put the candles all close for this moment, or if he's still too young to have thought of how much easier his candle placement would make it to blow them all out.

 The day after his birthday he had his 1st day of Preschool!!  His birthday is 3 days after the deadline, so even though he just turned 5 he still has another year before starting Kindergarten.

 1st day!!  He was pretty excited!

 And since his birthday was the day before he got to celebrate it with cupcakes for his class the very first day!  I let him put the sprinkles on all himself, he loved it!

 He went out dove hunting with Ben, and they managed to walk through a mosquito nest!

 This poor guy was miserable for several days after!

 Aspen and Tucker playing in the rain!

 Got to love borrowing older cousins swimsuits!  It kept trying to slide off!

 I was getting ready one day and turned around to this.

 She was just too cute all posed there I couldn't help but take a couple pictures!

 We went to Sizzler's for their all you can eat shrimp (well Ben went there for that, I got some chicken pasta) and Hunter got "too tired" so he laid down on Ben's lap and kept having Ben feed him shrimp!  What a goofball!

 I can't believe how big he's getting!!  He got in trouble and I had him lay down on the couch for a rest and to calm down, well he ended up falling asleep there.

 Ben got him a nice buck!

 When Ben got home from work one Friday night we decided to go camping.  In the morning we shot the 22.  I think Hunter liked it!

 Aspen did not want to do it!  But she did end up pulling the trigger a couple times with Ben's help.  I don't blame her for being nervous about it though, Ben had been shooting one of his bigger guns before this, and while we watched the shells kept hitting where we were sitting.  One of the shells ended up burning the back of her arm!  It was so sad!  I felt so bad!! She was sitting on my lap when it happened and I kept moving away but I didn't get far enough away before that happened...  It was pretty funny the next day at church she was telling everyone that she got her owie from daddy shooting her.  I thought it was so funny I kept having her tell people how she got her owie.

 Since it was already dark by the time we got out there we had no idea that we were sleeping on this!  If you look close there are several caterpillars.  They were everywhere!!!  I don't even want to know how many we were probably laying on!  Of course there was a tent in between us and them but there's probably caterpillar guts on the bottom of the tent now!

 This is what Hunter thought of all the caterpillars:  He loved them!!

 And this is what Aspen thought of them:  She did not like them and went around stomping on all of them!!

 We went for a little hike, and Hunter decided to climb up this little mountain.  If you can't tell those rocks are loose and it was pretty slippery but he went up it no prob!

 He was pretty proud of himself for making it up it with no help!

 Then Ben followed with Aspen in tow.  She looks like she loves it right?!?!  Well that was posing for the picture before I told her to smile so I could take a picture she looked like this:

Absolutely terrified!!  I did manage to get up it too (with a little help from Ben) and I couldn't believe I was already feeling a difference from being pregnant!!  (Yes by the way we finally were pregnant!!)  It really wasn't much of a hike but I could feel that my body was having a rougher time than it should have.  Oh well, at least we finally were on the way to baby #3!

I also got a call from Bishop this month.  He called and asked if Ben was home when I said No he asked when he was going to be home, when I told him he was gone on a hunting trip, he asked if he could still come talk to me.  For the like 10 min it took him to come over there were a million thoughts going through my head, our primary president was moving (I knew this because I was her secretary) so I did wonder if it was maybe that, but I also wondered if he was calling for something for Ben since he was asking when he would be there.  It's amazing how fast and crazy a brain can move!!  When he came he at first just chatted with me and the kids, then he extended my new call...... wait for it..... yep one of my crazy guesses was right!  He called me to be Primary President, and while he was talking to me about it I was thinking "do I tell him I'm pregnant and see if he still wants to call me????"  But he did mention a couple of times that him and both of his counselors had had the feeling that I was the one for the job.  With how confident he sounded I decided to keep my pregnancy a secret since it didn't sound like it would change anything and we like to wait til at least the first doc appointment before we tell anyone too.  It was pretty overwhelming thinking of being the Primary President!!  So then over the next couple of weeks I went to work praying and pondering until I finally had my counselors and secretary called and ready to work with me.  They are some amazing ladies and this journey will also continue in the next posts.