The highlights - 11/12

Last weekend (11/2) we went to the tri-cities for a couple of different reasons, but the trip was first created to support the auction that was being put on by Donna Tracy and the two stakes to help Christina and Nathan. It was a huge success! They raised over $20,000!!! I had the privilege of creating the program and that was a great experience in itself getting quotes from Christina. It was a lot of fun decorating with my mom and sister, Carrie. I almost went to tears many times through out the day just looking at everyone helping. People I knew from growing up to people I didn't know but they knew what this was going to. It was amazing! Because I had almost cried so many times, I chose not to wear mascara when I was putting make up on for the evening. It proved to be a wise choice. During the slide show Sonja (high) Yearsly put together, I was standing next to Mike and Tallia, Brian, and Philip. With almost every picture there was a memory there and you could just feel the love between us and the tears just flowed. I am so grateful for all those who helped out that night. I don't know if we made a small or large dent in their expenses, but I do know that people came together that night to show their love and that in itself helped our family immensely. 

The other parts of that weekend we got to see Cecily be baptized and baby Clark be blessed. We also got to hang out with Brian's family and my family. Jed got to hang out with cousins... Lots and lots of cousins! Here are some pictures:

He thought it was pretty cool that Merian, Eliza, and Derek were crawling with him.

He loves to play cars.

That was when we first got there, so Jed had just woken up, so that's why he looks so out of place. 

In other news:

Elijah has been amazing with his school responsibilities. He signed up for crossing guard AND student leadership both early morning things and he (mostly) gets himself up every morning and rides his bike to get to school.

Quianna loves seminary - even though it is at 6am. For those who don't know, seminary is like Sunday school, but during the day. In the tri-cities, they have released time seminary so that it is just another class during the school day where we study the scriptures and learn more about the gospel. Here in Spokane, they don't have a seminary building across the high schools and they don't have release time so the whole stake meets at the stake center at 6:00 in the morning! Quianna is even the seminary freshmen class president!

Jed has started to raise his hands when we say touchdown! It's his new trick and he loves it!

He has also has started to try and give zurberts (sp?). The other day when we were playing on the bed, my shirt came up and revealed my belly. He saw it and bent down with his open mouth as if he was going to blow on it. It was super cute. I started to laugh and then he realized he did something funny so he did it again. Now when ever he sees my stomach, he tries to do that. Sometimes he succeeds at blowing and making the sound. 

For the months of November and December we are doing a service project each week, something that we did last December for a new Christmas tradition, and this year we extended it to November.We all came up with ideas and then Brian extended family callings. Quianna is our service project coordinator. She helps plan everything. Elijah is our financial clerk - he's in charge of our budget. We sustained them and Brian gave them father blessings to help them in their family callings. I hope it will help them find ownership on our service projects. 

9 months

Jed

• 9 1/2 months actually
• He likes Bear in the Big Blue House
• Loves music
• Played peek-a-boo with me with the shower curtain.
• Loves to be upside down
• Crawls like a bear (on his hands and feet)
• Tries to stand by himself
• Has 6 teeth!
• He loves this pumpkin
• He loves to crawl up the stairs. Once he gets to the top he either has fun upstairs or yells at the top of the stairs until I get him to take him back down stairs again.When we were at the Johnsons' house this weekend (lots of stairs!) he started to try and go down them. Thanks to my mom for being there and helping him.
• He doesn't really like pureed food, but he likes to eat mac n cheese, and apple chunks, and anything else Daddy will give him off his plate.
• He loves his daddy! When Brian comes home, Jed immediately starts crawling towards him and if Brian doesn't immediately pick him up or pays attention to him, he gets upset- even if I'm the one holding him.

My attempt at doing better...

...at blogging. I figured at least I could get one post in after each holiday and maybe that will help get me in the swing of things...

Unfortunately I don't have pictures of our costumes last night. Things were kinda crazy, and there were a couple of hours that I was panicking - which I tried to avoid that this year, but it happened anyway. This year we were going to do a hot chocolate open house, but with doing the program for Bids to Bless (i'll hopefully post about later), making all 5 costumes, and preparing to leaving town the day after Halloween - it fell by the wayside. I couldn't decide what time to make it and so didn't send out the invitations, etc. I think next year since Jed will not be going out late, we will just go to a few houses then come home and have it while the older kids go for longer.

Wednesday, I was so proud of myself because I was ahead of the game - I had cut and pinned all the pieces I needed to sew for Quianna's bolero - the last costume that needed to be done. But with having three kids - one being 9 months old, other things came precedent, like dinner and carving pumpkins, and a crying baby. I started sewing again Thursday morning, but only got so far before I needed to get ready for Visiting Teaching. VT lasted until I had to go pick Quianna up from school to go to her Physical Therapy appointment. We got home at 4:15 and then it was crunch time. Make the dough for the pizza, check email to see if I received confirmation that the program was approved - didn't. Make dough for bread sticks. put pizzas together. Put one in oven. Send off program to be printed.  finish sewing Quianna's costume. Feed Jed. Quianna's friend came over. AH! one pizza burnt because Elijah didn't hear the timer go off while I was feeding Jed. Family has dinner. I eat a piece a pizza while finishing things up. Make Quianna's crown. Go get dressed. Oh crud - Elijah says their's Trick-or-Treaters coming! Get candy in bowl. Finish getting ready. Oh yay! Brian is getting Jed ready. Quianna calls for me. Elijah calls for me. Draw Elijah's mustache. Put Quianna's crown on. Head out to car. PHEW!

Ok that was how I felt, these are the good parts of the day. I met a wonderful lady who just had a baby a few weeks ago. She is coming back to the church and is new on our VT list. She was fun to visit. We had a Jack-o-Lantern pizza. That was fun. Brian was Luigi, I was Daisy, Quianna was Peach, Elijah was Mario, and Jed was Toad. I think we looked awesome. I'll have to take pictures of us tonight (probably in the tri-cities) before we give Kylee's dress back to her. We took the kids to the neighborhood next to us because nobody is in our neighborhood. The one next to us is booming with people and so almost everyone is home and ready for Trick-or-treating. After that neighborhood, we took the kids to see one of Quianna's young women leaders because she wanted to see our costumes. Then we headed over to the Heppler's house because Amy wanted to see our costumes. She had made this coconut hot chocolate. It was delicious, but thick and rich. The kids took full glasses but ended up taking only a sip. I felt so bad about that! By that time it was 8:30 and Jed was ready for bed. So Brian took me home to feed him and take him to bed while he took Quianna's friend home.

And then, that was our night. It ended up being really fun. I wish I had took pictures. Oh well, I'll take some pictures today of our pumpkins and then tonight of our costumes.

---Pictures---

Cakes by Kimberly

I have started a cake business! Here's the website: http://themecakesbykimberly.weebly.com/

The eventual goal is to do wedding cakes, but I think that might be far off. However, I am having a lot of fun doing these cakes. Check out my website gallery of the cakes I have done in the last month and a half!

My sister Carrie has inspired me, and I think I might eventually do cupcakes too. I make a few cupcakes with each cake so I ca try out the filling and frosting combination to make sure it will be delicious, so I thought, I could do it for a business too.

4 months - boy how time flies!

Jed is 4 months old today!

It has been such a joy having him in our family. Brian mentioned a while ago that he has brought a new side out from him - a side that has been gone for a long time since the kids have grown up.

 Jed has been so much fun the last month as he has developed his personality. He goes through many stages through the day, but my favorite one is between the awake and pondering stage and the tired stage. This special stage happens right before he gets into the "I'm ready for a nap" stage. In this stage he giggles and smiles so much! He starts to laugh at something you do to him and then he'll start chuckling at his own laugh, then he just keeps going! I love it immensely!

 He likes to be hung upside down - especially by Daddy! He is still a Momma's boy, but when he's in a good mood he loves to play and laugh with Brian.

 He likes to grab things and play with him in his hands. More like pinching/needing in his hands. He will grab anything next to him when he's in those moods - a blanket, stuffed animal, or my arm!

This was this morning, he grabbed the sheet that was next to him.

 In the morning he takes about a half an hour to laugh and talk and kick his legs on the bed. He flails his arms and legs around while yelling out to the air. It's like he is getting everything working after being asleep all night.

 Oh yes, the wonderful nights. He is not sleeping all the way through the night yet. I'm starting the training next week of getting him to fall back asleep by himself in the crib. We'll see how it goes. I really don't like the "cry it out" methods. When talking to Quianna I was able to accurately express my feelings on the matter. It's as if they cry and cry and cry, then finally fall asleep because they gave up on someone coming to help. That's my emotion about it, but I have also read numerous studies stating that letting a baby under a year continuously cry releases a stress hormone that can cause emotional and physical issues as they grow older. So I will be taking my sister's approach to getting him to sleep through the night. She said to rock him (we have a special crib that rocks!) back to sleep while singing to him and patting his back... if he starts to cry too much, pick him up and he'll most likely fall right to sleep because he's so tired. I figure - let's give it a go! 

I've been pretty lucky the last few months. He sleeps pretty well. He wakes up 1-2 times a night wanting to eat and then goes back to sleep very easily. I love cuddling with him in the morning. He has also started a pretty good nap schedule. About an hour after he wakes up in the morning he takes a nap. Then he takes 1-2 naps mid day/afternoon. Sometimes one in the evening and then falls asleep between 8:30-9:15 for the night.

One of my favorite things he has started lately is grabbing my face and giving me big kisses... I love it!!!

 I don't know how much he weighs exactly but I do know he has doubled his birth weight at over 16 lbs! He's a pretty solid and chunky baby. My sister Carrie calls him chubs.

This was his first parade. He fell asleep right before it started and slept through the whole thing.

I love it when he wears a t-shirt and shorts. He looks so grown up!

This was just taken of him. He's sleeping so peacefully.

He loves screens. This was him looking at the TV while Phineas and Ferb was on.

Sorry the pictures are blurry... I don't know why...