Thanksgiving

When I went to visit my sister Connie in September, we found these matching onesies on the clearance rack at her local outlet store. She brought hers when she was here for Thanksgiving so that our babies could match. Her baby, Pax, is just 3 weeks older than Skyler is.

 One day before Thanksgiving the temperature was in the 50s, so we decided to go for a short hike up Payson canyon. We quickly realized it was reminiscent of our hike last Thanksgiving when we were in Colorado. You would think one of these years we would learn that though it may be warm at home, the mountains are cold and snowy in the end of November.

 Yes, that is my kid wearing shorts while hiking in the snow.

 And yes, those are flip flops on my snow-hiking feet. It got a bit slippery when they got coated with mud and then I had to walk on ice. Hmmm.

This kid is such a good baby. He'll sleep just about anywhere if he is tired. 

It's hard to believe he is already 6 1/2 months old. He is getting so big! One night I set him in Kylee's pink princess chair, and he loved it. He lounged there for like 30 minutes. 

On Thanksgiving night after dinner, Kylee and her cousins were playing around in grandma's exercise room, and Kylee managed to fall off the treadmill and slice her head open on grandma's weight set. I was just getting ready to go Black Friday shopping with my sisters, but instead Andy and I took her down to the ER for 11 stitches. We got out in time for me to still hit the stores that opened at midnight (Kohl's!) This photo was a week later, when we went to get the stitches out. They actually did a really great job, and her scar doesn't look too bad.

Skyler at 6 1/2 months old. He's a happy little guy!

Misc.

 Kylee is really helpful with Skyler. She sings to him, dances for him, reads him stories, etc. He loves to just lay there and watch her, and when she dances, he laughs. It's so fun!

 After Skyler turned 5 months old, he started whining when we would eat, and try to grab our food. He had the most pathetic looking puppy dog eyes...so we started giving him food. He LOVES food. He will pork an entire container of food, and then cry like his life is over when it is gone.

 Kylee also took Community Education dance classes again this fall. She really likes it, so someday when Andy is done with school and has a good job, I'm definitely going to sign her up for regular dance lessons. This fall we opted to pay for preschool instead, so she goes three times a week, and loves it there. She's getting pretty good at reading. They taught her about "blending sounds", so if I accidentally say, "Kylee, just sound it out." She tells me, "Mom. I'll just blend it. That's what you do." Oops. Silly mom.

 We also still go to Home Depot Day each month. We missed November because we were at the Cyclocross race, but Kylee's cousins go every month now as well, so they got the kit for us to make while they were there. It was this cool turkey napkin holder.

So far this year we've had just one big snowstorm. Kylee's first idea was to go out and ride her little old bike in it. Then she found all her friends and they went sledding. A few days later, construction started on the lot at the bottom of their sledding hill. Kylee came running inside to inform me: "Mom! I'm completely heart broken! They're digging a hole RIGHT where we sled!" As if there aren't enough other hills around. She's so dramatic about everything!

Halloween

This year Kylee was Tinkerbell for Halloween, and Skyler was a chubby little lion. I took them to the Spanish Fork Main Street trick-or-treating, and Skyler pretty much slept the whole time. I hung a bag on the side of my stroller though, and a bunch of the stores threw candy in it for me! 

Fun Things

My friend Kristen had tickets to the Carrie Underwood concert in October, so we went to see her. I haven't been to a concert in a long time, and it was really fun! 

 Now that 24-hour racing is over, the guys in our family need something else to occupy themselves. Andy's brother Pat discovered Cyclocross, and Andy went with his brothers to do a race in Midvale a few weeks ago. It was actually pretty fun to watch, because the course is short, so you get to see them go past several times as they're doing all their loops.

This year was the last 24-Hours of Moab race. In recent years, not as many teams have been signing up, and the guy who runs it decided to be done. We all made the trip down there one last time.

I'm not sure why there's not smile here. I guess it's all serious.

The kids got these little yellow cowbells, and had fun ringing them for all the riders coming through the finish line.

I found these green socks at Shopko last year (women's Halloween socks, baby!) and got them for the guys. They are so helpful, because we can see them coming from way down the road.

The kids all brought their bikes (this was the week after Kylee learned how to ride hers without training wheels, and we weren't sure how she'd do off-road), and they rode all over the place. They had a lot of fun.

The 24-Minutes of Moab is what finally convinced Kylee to learn to ride her bike without training wheels. She wanted to ride in the race when we went to Moab, so she practiced a ton. Here's all the cousins getting ready.

 Kylee rode in the girl race, and all the cousins were in the boy race.

And of course, since it is a kid race, everybody wins!

 They also had a bouncy slide there, and the kids had fun playing on it.

 I tried to keep Skyler's bald little head covered up the whole time, but after we got home I realized that I somehow managed to sunburn his cheek and nose a little it. You can see it in this picture. Oops! He did really good, though. I was worried about the night, because we camp in tents and the temp dropped below freezing, but I brought plenty of warm stuff, and he slept just like at home.

Fall Leaves

One Sunday in September we took a drive up Payson canyon to see the pretty leaves. It was a cloudy day, but the leaves are super colorful!

I'm not sure why Kylee has such a weird smile....

Riding a Bike on the First Day of Fall

About a month ago Andy took the training wheels and pedals off of Kylee's bike to try to teach her how to balance. They went out a couple of times to work on it, but Andy decided she needed to get her balance first some other way, so he borrowed a little razor scooter, and we've been having her try to balance on it while she rides down our driveway and the path to the mailbox (both are downhill). It only took her a couple of days to really get the hang of it. She wants to ride the 24 Minutes of Moab (kids race) in two weeks when Andy rides the 24 Hours of Moab, so today after dinner he put the pedals back on and took her out. She caught on in less than 1/2 hour, and was cruising up and down the street *almost* like a pro. I was actually amazed at how well she did. I really think the scooter helped a TON! Now she just needs to work on starting by herself, and turning.

Skyler laid on the grass and ate his fingers and his puppy while I watched Kylee learn to ride her bike.

This was when she was learning how to stop. She kept almost falling, because she didn't realize she had to put her foot down. Nice recovery!

Rolling Over

Okay, this first picture has nothing to do with rolling over, but one day I was working on my computer in our front room, and I asked Kylee to play with Skyler. His head started out on the monkey blanket on the side of the picture. When I heard that Kylee was watching cartoons, I went to check on them. Skyler had kicked himself around and was watching cartoons with her.

When we went to Colorado, Connie's baby Pax had just turned 4 months old, and had just started rolling over. For some reason I was thinking that babies rolled over more like at 5 months -- I guess I forgot when Kylee did it. It was fun to see Pax, and realize that since Skyler is just 3 weeks younger, he'd likely be hitting the same milestones soon. Sure enough, earlier this week, a few days before his 4 month mark, he started rolling over. He doesn't prefer to be on his tummy, so he'd roll, then get mad, and I'd roll him back. Less than a minute later he'd be on his tummy again, getting mad. Finally though, he rolled over and didn't get mad. I thought I'd leave him on his tummy for awhile, because it's good practice for holding his head up. Apparently he didn't think so. He decided that if he was going to be stuck that way, he might as well take a nap.

I took this video yesterday morning, which was his four month birthday. He thinks he's quite the pro now.

Colorado

I found really cheap round-trip airfare from the Provo airport to Denver, so I decided to take the kids to visit my sister Connie from Sept. 1-12. Andy is in school, and is super busy with homework, so I thought it would be fun to take a trip. Kylee had never been on a plane, and she was really excited. We had two carry-on's, a huge diaper bag, Kylee's backpack, the stroller and two car seats, all of which had to be taken through security and taken to the gate. I bought the tickets before my arm was injured, and having that issue didn't help at all! Luckily, people noticed I was struggling, and helped me lift all my stuff onto the security belts (because you actually have to carry your baby, and put the stroller and everything through the x-ray machine), and then they also helped me lift it back off. When we got to the gate, different people helped me collapse my stroller and put my carry-on's into the overhead bins. Those same people appeared after the flight to help me get them back out and get my stroller and car seats back. When we got to Denver, I didn't realize you had to go on a train to get out of the airport, and it was super crowded with no seats. When I was turning to make sure Kylee was on with her carry-on, I TOTALLY whacked some guy with the diaper bag I had slung over my shoulder. Luckily, he just laughed and offered to hold onto my carry-on so I could hold onto Kylee. On the way back, different people helped us a whole bunch as well. I don't know that I'd want to try that again really soon, but it definitely saved a lot of time over driving!

When we were in Castle Rock (suburb of Denver where Connie lives), we hiked up to The Castle Rock. It wasn't a long hike, and it was a great view from the top.

My sister's baby Pax is just three weeks and a couple of days older than Skyler. Skyler is a good 3 inches taller though, and so he weighs about the same as Pax.

I got Skyler this little dog-blanket at the Carter's outlet store in Castle Rock. He loves to hug it and lick it to death.

 While we were in Colorado, Skyler finally started lifting his head up better. He has a pretty big head, and it's really heavy, so he's been having a hard time lifting it up.

 He also makes some really weird faces. Maybe this is him digging deep for the energy. "Must...keep....head....up....!"