8 Months!

Do you see the size of those feet!?  I think they are as big as his face :)

Another month has gone by, and I can't believe how much my little Bubba has changed. He is so much fun right now. I can see why moms always say how FAST babies change. This is one of my favorite pictures to date. He is such a big boy! I have actually heard a lot recently that he looks like a toddler. I am not sure how I feel about that. Of course, anyone who knows me or Jared knew that our kid would not be small. With that being said though, I am afraid that he will get a complex about it! Already, people are surprised that he can't walk yet because they think he's like 18 months. I feel bad for the poor kid!

Christian is a giggler - especially when his Dad tosses him in the air or tickles him with his beard. In addition to rice cereal and baby food, he is also becoming a pro at eating rice cakes or husks and other things that he has to hold in his hand and feed himself. He still isn't crawling yet, but he is getting a lot better at getting from a laying position to a sitting position, or from a sitting position to his belly. Unfortunately, he hates tummy time and screams like a banshee once he gets on his tummy - even though he knows how to get from his stomach to his back or sitting up again. I don't know what his deal is! It's almost like once he gets on his stomach he just gives up; he hates it that much!

I don't think that you could ask for a more well-behaved baby. He will go to anyone, smile and laugh for everyone, and is all around pretty relaxed. That is, until bed time! Hopefully one day he will decide that going to sleep while other people are still awake really isn't that bad. He naps totally fine, it's the sleeping at night that he's having a hard time with! If Jared or I are up, he wants to be up and see what we are doing. If he hears his Aunt Brooke's voice or cousin Elaine, he wants to be hanging out with them! Even though sleep would be nice, I will take a happy baby with no complaints!

Halloween 2011 Part 3

Alright - It's time for...HALLOWEEN NIGHT! I, personally, am completely on board with moving Halloween so that it is always on a Saturday because coming home from work and trying to get ready for trick or treaters and make dinner and all of that madness was pretty stressful! I can't imagine getting your kids ready to take out trick-or-treating on top of that.

Since Christian is so little and I didn't want a bunch of candy around the house, I decided to skip trick or treating this year. Instead, I picked up three homegrown pumpkins, courtesy of Elena, and brought them home as a surprise for Jared. Apparently, he loves carving pumpkins...something I didn't know about him! We carved pumpkins, ate homemade tomatillo enchiladas and passed out candy to our cute trick or treaters. It was the first year that I have lived in a house since I moved out of my parents'  house, and we got TONS of trick or treaters...SO FUN!

Christian was helping me get the newspaper ready to lay out for pumpkin carving!

He picked his pumpkin!

"Seriously Mom? You are such a weirdo"

"Okay, I changed my mind, I want to play with it"

Like Father, Like Son

Christian pretty much liked the newspaper A LOT more than carving pumpkins.

Here's the first finished pumpking

Daddy hard at work

Here are the finished products!

After we were all cleaned up from carving the pumpkins, Christian helped me hand out candy to the trick or treaters

I absolutely LOVE these pictures! Don't worry - I didn't give all the melted, slobbery ones to any trick or treaters ;)

All in all, we had an absolutely WONDERFUL Halloween. I have noticed that holidays are a lot more fun when you have kids, and now I can't wait for Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's hard to believe that they are just around the corner.

Halloween 2011 Part 2

So for Halloween WEEKEND, Jared, Christian and I got dressed up so that we could go to the ward Trunk or Treat on Friday night and then my older sister Bethany's Halloween party on Saturday night. We had a great time. I think this is the first Halloween that I have dressed up since that infamous Halloweeen five years ago when I snagged Jared's attention!

These first pictures are from us getting ready and the Trunk or Treat.

A witch, Robin Hood, and THE HULK!

You won't like me when I am angry....LOL LOOK AT THAT CHUBBY FACE!!!

My sweet neice as a ladybug.

My BFF Elena and her daughter Mya (AKA Rapunzel in this photo) 

The Hulk and Grandma

These pictures are us before we went to Beth's Halloween party! I didn't get any great shots at the party though, which I was pretty bummed about! 

I'll get you my pretty!

Although it turned out to be a super busy weekend, we had such a great time at both parties. Christian was a great sport about wearing that hat all night! I thought for sure he would rip it off his head, but he actually kept it on the whole time! I am going to search through my photos and see if I can find any more of Beth's party because there were some GREAT costumes. She and my brother in law Ian dressed up as Jabbawockeez, they had someone dressed as a unicorn, a banana, Morticia and Gomez from the Addam's Family, and even the Monopoly guy - bald cap and all! It was such a blast :)

Halloween 2011 Part 1

This is the first of three different posts about Halloween! It seems a little overwhelming, I know, but at the same time, we had a great Halloween and I was good and took LOTS of pictures, so I want to be sure to write down what we did and how much fun we had :)

This is the first Halloween in years where I actually did "Halloween Stuff", and I had a blast! Our first stop was to Bishop's Pumpkin Farm. This was the pumpkin patch that Jared went to growing up, and I had never actually been there. It is way out in the middle of nowhere, so I am not sure that we will make it an annual trip, but it was a lot of fun to take Christian there for his first pumpkin patch!

Here we are at the entrance to the patch. Christian would not look in my direction no matter what I did! Too many cool things to look at, I guess.

My little man, taking it all in

After just a few short minutes, Christian was elected to Mayor of the farm...and became a goat. It was all very exciting!

I loved this little goat - he had craaaaazy eyes.



So, turns out, my son is actually a goat whisperer. We took him into the little petting zoo, with no food or anything, and there was one goat there, not paying Christian any attention. The other goats were busy running away from all the little kids in the pen. It look about 45 seconds and then all of a sudden, Christian was surrounded by 5 or 6 goats all trying to smell him!



My sweet baby :)

The handsome hubby! We are riding on the hay ride out to the pumpkins!

Christian's first pumpkin!

Jared is busy searching for the best pumpkin in the patch!

It was so bright that Christian kept hiding his face - I took advantage of the cuddling :)

Christian's new favorite place is sitting on his Dad's shoulders.



Here we are riding back - and  yes, that is a tractor pulling us!



Christian is at such a curious age. We sat him on this pumpkin hoping to get a good shot, but he was way too interested in what he was sitting on.

Yes, Christian is using Jared's hair as "reins" to hold himself upright.

The next couple of shots are actually of Jared tossing Christian in the air and I had the camera on rapid flash and got a couple of good shots :)

Do you see the absolute JOY on his face!? He loves his daddy.

And now...he's all tuckered out.

What a great time we had at Bishop's Pumpkin Farm!

My First 5k

As many of you know, I did a half marathon a few years ago and since then - I haven't been motivated to do any other races! Add to that the fact that I had a baby 8 months ago and you are starting to see why I desperately wanted to start training for SOMETHING. Do you guys know about Baby Ruby? Her story touched my heart, more than I can possibly put into words. At her passing, their family mentioned that they were putting together a foundation for her, and that they planned to try and have a 5k every year on her birthday. That was the motivation that I needed! I had to be in shape and ready to run a 5k by January! Jared and I decided to sign up for a 5k before Baby Ruby's to help us gauge where we are, and to get a 5k under our belt.

We have been training for the past two months, and although I am slow, I am working hard to be prepared for the 5k on November 19th. To be honest, with the weather getting colder and the days getting darker it's becoming harder and harder to be motivated to go out running at the end of a long day. Even the knowledge that my FIRST 5K is 16 days away hasn't been enough to get me out running as much as I need to. Then today, I saw a blog that is having a giveaway as motivation to do a 5k on Thanksgiving Day. For more information visit Thankful Healthy Blogger 5k. Perfect! So I talked to Jared and we are going to do a 5k on Thanksgiving too. We'll be down in Anaheim with my family, and how awesome will it be to run down by the beach?? I am pretty excited about it. So upcoming we have a 5k on November 19th, a 5k on November 24th and then a 5k for Baby Ruby in January (for which I still need to sign up!). Wish me luck :)