Merry Christmas Everybody!

This is such a happy time of year. I hope everyone has a very merry Christmas and feels how much they are loved by their family and by the Savior.

Finally! ...Just kidding

About a week ago both Shayden and Gavon slept all the way through the night. Hallelujah! I got so excited I could hardly contain myself. Then the next night and since then they both have been waking up. Shayden's been sick and when she hasn't been sick she wakes up and whimpers by our bed. Gavon has done a ton better, but sometimes just wants to be held. I stopped nursing him on Dec. 7th, and since then he can sleep from 7 to 7. Wahoo! Maybe they'll repeat that glorious night...yah!

As a side note...I saw the funniest baby ever last night! He had a skinnier head with cheeks about the size of an apple. His eyes were bright blue and stuck in the wide open position. I looked at him and said woah...woah. It made me realize how awesome life is. With a baby like that, who can not enjoy life?

I also found a cool link on the LDS.org site. It had really cool ideas for families for Christmas. I really liked the idea of writing a gift that we would give to Christ on a piece of paper and putting it in a box that you open on Christmas morning. Maybe we'll do the little notes to each family member in the stockings too? As always, we'll do a Jerusalem dinner. I'm still working up other ways we can make Christmas special and centered on Christ for my family.

Gavon Turns One

Gavon turned one on the 3rd. He's been so much fun lately.


Here he is getting caught opening a gift under the tree.
He ate almost that whole cupcake! After that he even ate the leftover chicken/tomatoes/beans on his high chair table.
Here's his cupcakes.
We sang happy birthday to him and had crepes that morning. He's such a happy guy...usually.

Shayden's Jiberish

Shay has been just talking jiberish lately including phrases from movies she's seen:

It's dinner time! (Emperor's New Groove)
I'm the dragon warrior! (Kung Few Panda)
Ga ga
jub ba

Maybe it's because of Gavon?

Gavon Walking

Gavon took his first few steps 2 days before Thanksgiving. We are so excited! He's finally daring enough to venture out. The video is kind of long, but it's all I've got of him walking. Everything else is too dark or he doesn't want to walk.

Shayden's Picture

I got all excited when Shayden showed me this picture. She said it was a spider. It has eyes, a nose, mouth, and lots of legs. How cool! This was the first time she's drawn a picture. It's only been scribbles and circle/lines before now. Way to go Shayden!

Potty training is going good now. I'm less discouraged, and she's been a little more cooperative. Don't read on if you're grossed out by stuff like this.

Some of the things she's said are:

"It's not working." (Hitting the bottom of her back while sitting there.)
"Is it comin'? No, not yet."

One time she tried, and then ran to her room to play with the door closed. I heard her say, "Yuck!" I ran to the door and asked her, "What happend?" She said, "I pooped!"

This Will Haunt Me

The last few days I haven't gone running, even though the weather has been great for running. I don't feel as happy, or as healthy. Well, today I was determined to go, and this guy stopped me a half mile from home. He looked really dirty and was holding a cigarette. He said, "Hey lady! Can you help me?" I stopped, because I had to pass 1000 W, a really busy road. After pushing the cross walk light, I said, "Sure." and he came closer to me, but I said, "Stay back." He started rummaging through his pockets and said, "Where's 150 West?" I said "I have to cross. The light is turning. It's that way, toward main st." He still couldn't find the paper with the exact address, then said, "The Dept. of Workforce Services, where is that?" By that time the light was starting to turn again and I didn't want to have to wait for a whole new light so I started running away, and said, "It's that way!" I didn't even look back. I feel pretty bad about it, because I knew exactly where he needed to go, and didn't even bother yelling him directions across a busy road.

That's weird because even before I ran into that dirty guy I was thinking about how Dad brought this guy home from church for Sunday dinner in Panguitch once, and how he smelled so bad we opened all the windows and doors and we were still gagging. He lived down by the river and used only baking soda for hygiene. Dad just happened to make friends with him at Priesthood. And then I ran into that guy and totally avoided him. Hmmm...not so nice. I'm going to run into him in the after life, and he'll be sad.

Torture from Uncle Kurt

Caution: Frustration, and Potty Training

Shayden has not gone poop once in the toilet (minus when she accidentally went about a month ago). It's been 2 weeks! Should I put her back in diapers? Every once and a while she'll accidentally pee her pants. She'll look at me and say, "No!!" When I know she needs to go, or when she's in the process of going. I'll pick her up and take her to the bathroom and have her sit there, but she'll arch her back and kick and scream the whole way. Gavon has been sad and needy all day. The whole day has been like that. It's been a hard day.

No More Diapers!!

For Shayden at least. I'm all excited for her. She says, "I need to go potty," and just goes all by herself.

We're still working on poop. That's hard to figure out.

Corn Maze, Snow, and Halloween

Okay, this is kind of weird. I can't upload the pictures I want because the computer isn't working. I'll just do what I was able to get on here.

Halloween in Beaver:
I was a cat...Jared kept accusing me of being a playboy bunny.
Gavon was a little puppy dog. I like how he's holding his two suckers.

The one picture I wasn't able to put on here was of Shayden in her cow costume and Paul in his gorilla costume.

Valerie's baptism was so cool! She is one cute girl. When we went to Trisa's right before the baptism, Valerie was in her white jumper and she was jumping around the house. "I'm in a jumper!" She did that for a while. She definitely has lots of energy. She always had a smile on her face.

Paul had a ton of fun being a gorilla. At the trunk-or-treat parents would grab him and ask for him to say hi to their kids or take a picture. One dad driving in his truck asked him to scare his kids in the back of the cab and Paul climbed up acting like a monkey. The kids were pretty scared, and the dad was all happy. He gave him a thumbs up, and was smiling pretty big. Paul scared a few people trick-or-treating later that night pretty bad. We also went to the Beaver old folks home to visit Jared's grandma. Paul was trying to be quiet and move slow so the old people wouldn't be scared, and one even asked to dance with him. That was pretty cool.
Gavon at the Little Bear Bottoms Corn Maze.


This is random. I took a picture of my lunch a while ago. A random fact: I've hated tomatoes my whole life until I was pregnant with Gavon. Now I can't get enough tomatoes on anything.
Gavon just laid in the snow while Shayden and I made a snow man.
Right when Shayden looked outside and saw the snow she said, "Get my boots! Let's go!"
Paul and I are going to try and do a garden on Grandma and Grandpa Bob's property. We had fun playing in the leaves we got to put over it. Now just to till it up with some fertilizer. We're going to try and plant some swiss chard and some garlic before the snow starts to fly any more.

Shayden and Gavon on top of the straw pyramid.

These are the wrong videos I was trying to put on here. The computer shows a different video than what it actually is, but it's pretty cool anyway. Enjoy.

Gavon

This kid is sooooo cute. He looks like his daddy. Right now he can stand up on his own, copy the kissing noise, clap his hands, play hide and seek, and he crawls really fast. I've already had to sew a few of his pants so he can still use them because he crawls so much. He laughs really easily, and doesn't cry very much. That is the complete opposite of Shayden. In the bathtub last night Paul poured water on his head and he just took some sharp breaths, but Shayden would cry like it was the end of the world. Gavon likes to pull stuff out of containers and then put them back in, play in the toilet, and eat cheerios.

That's his spotlight of the day.

Birthday Goodness

I forgot to blog about my birthday. Awesome day! I went biking with Alisa up Logan Canyon...so gorgeous with the leaves on the ground, and the beautiful colors. There's something about being outside and up the canyon. I just want to breath it all in. It was so funny, too, because Alisa is hilarious. I was trying to get her amazing bike out of my van (her bike is aweosme!) and I said, "Alis, your bike is so cool." Right as I said that the bike fell out...crash. "Hmmm...it's really strong too." She's so much fun to laugh with. She even let me ride her bike after a while. After our quicky bike ride (I hate to turn around) we went home and had some yummy lentil lasagna, and Brian offered to watch our kids so Paul and I could go do something. I've been saving this passes to the Logan Rec. Center so we went to play some raquet ball...AWESOME! I couldn't have asked for a better 25th birthday. Rock on!!!! Oh...and one of my neighbors took Shayden and Gavon last minute so I could go with Alisa up the canyon. Right when I dropped them off Shayden had a HUGE poopy diaper. Now that is loving dedication right there...changing your neighbor's kid's diaper on her birthday. One of my neighbors also gave me some super yummy soup for lunch. His name is Pond...James Pond. I love my neighborhood!!!

Decorating on a Dime

My ward had a Relief Society night on "Decorating on a Dime" where a sister spoke on fun ways to decorate without spending much. This is so me! I like to decorate, but the money it takes is a little over board. It gets really expensive. So, one idea was to go on a walk and look at what looks pretty. I run a 3 1/2 mile loop that passes the city dump, but there are these beautiful weeds all along the way. I picked a hole bunch of them and decorated some #10 cans (from the cannery) with some old fabric scraps. I also saved some bean/green bean/corn cans and decorated those too. A little bit of hot glue gunning and tie a bow...wallah. Now I'm going to try and get a board and paint a quote on it with stencils. Maybe a scripture. That's where I have to buy paints...maybe I can get a cool piece of wood from somewhere where they're throwing scraps away. Then I can put it in between those two weed bouquets.
I should have gotten a picture up close. They turned out really cool. I'm all excited.

Spiders

We have a bunch of spiders in our back yard, and the other morning our grass was covered in spider webs. Cool, huh!

Daredevil Boy

Gavon has no fear. At the park he'll climb to the highest point and want to go down head first. He loves to slide down on his belly. In a room full of toys he'll go straight for a nasty garbage can, or a really hot fireplace. He loves to climb on top of the dishwasher. Every time Shayden helps him escape outside he goes straight to the road. I have to watch this guy real close. He reminds me of Eric Sheffer--he's a daredevil too.

Life is Precious

I've just been thinking of the miracle of life, and how one day, things can change. I thought about how Jordan picked up Parker after his nap and how he had his stroke. I thought about Crystal's miscarriage, and the thrill of seeing your little baby move at that first ultra sound, but finding out that there was no heart beat. I thought about Miss Christiansen, and how she died riding home on a bus from a marching band tournament; how she tried to make everyone safe before more damage was done. Heavenly Father really knows who our hearts. It makes me want to live each day as if it were my last.

Shaydenisms

From the viewpoint of Shayden:

Cat licking paw and leg, "Don't eat your leg Kitty! Watch out for cars! Bye!"
Running with Mom, "We're going to go runnin'! I want to run. I want to push Gavon."
Gavon's sitting right by her, "Where did Gavon go?" Me: "He's sitting right by you." "Whera Gavon go?" Me: "He's playing with that toy sitting right by you." 5 seconds later, "Where Gavon go?"

She's been pretending everything's a baby like my defuser, a bottle of Shampoo, etc. She likes to wear things on her head like a blanket or a strainer. Still no success with potty training. Maybe one day she'll just get it.

Conference has been awesome!

General Conference

Here it comes! I got this activity packet for primary kids from Katy's blog and I thought it was so cool. Check it out.

Things I've learned and Canning

Squash plants don't do at all well in a pot. They need lots more space to grow good squash.

Milk can't be a nutritional base for a baby because the solute concentration makes it difficult for their kidneys to process and it doesn't have enough iron. It doesn't matter if they have milk, they just need breastmilk or formula as their main source of nutrition. I can put milk on Gavon's cereal in the morning and it doesn't matter.

Babies can't have egg whites because the allergens may cause the baby to be allergic to eggs later on.

Yah, so I thought that was interesting.

This canning season I was able to do:
10 quarts peaches
7 quarts and 8 pints pears
7 quarts and 3 pints roma tomatoes
7 quarts Joanna's salsa
8 quarts applesauce

Yeah for canning!

More From Michelle

State Fair

We went to the state fair on Saturday after bottling peaches and pears with Crystal.


Big Bessie. She was huge!

Karri with her blue ribbon temple. Way to go Karri!

Pettin' a goat.

Belly Flop

While talking to Sheila on the phone I got Gavon just walking along the couch and belly flopping onto the carpet like he's done it his whole life. He's learning so fast. He still army crawls every now and then.

Michelle Hansen

Michelle, our old neighbor, did pictures of our family. You did so good Michelle!

Facebook

I thought this was funny...Facebook
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07Ndh2y0m8E
Thanks Teri!

Daddy's Birthday and Gavon's Haircut

Paul turned 25 on Saturday. The lucky guy got 2 big birthday dinners. Hamburgers with dutch oven potatoes, and then grilled chicken with beans and rice. Thanks everyone for coming!
Gavon's first haircut. Before:After:
Shayden pullin' a cheeser.

Potty Training...Here We Go

We just started thinking, hmmm, maybe Shayden's ready to be potty trained. She has always liked to sit there and pretend to wipe, but she's only actually peed twice. She's scared of going. When I know she needs to go I tell her, "Let's go potty!" and she says, "No!" So, we bought some new underwear and got some stickers. Still, no success, but Gavon's been having fun in the meantime.

Ryan's Place Park

Some of my neighbors and I rode our bikes with a bike trailer over to Ryan's Place Park. So fun! That's a really cool park. We just got a bike trailer at a garage sale for $10. Yeah! I have the coolest neighbors ever. They're all runners/bikers/hikers/sewers/gardeners.

New Stages

Gavon's new favorite thing is to crawl head first off the diaper changing table. I can't let him go when I change his diaper. I've resulted to tickling him the whole time so he stays still.

Shayden has been harder to feed lately. She doesn't want to sit down for meals, and then doesn't eat when I get her to sit. She's resulted to stealing a string cheese from the fridge bottom drawer whenever she can. She's repeating everything I say, and she tells me what she sees. Editing media for her has really become a priority for me. "Oh look, man on fire...those birds hit wall..." Or something like that. She loves Spiderman, and wants to watch the movies a lot. I let her watch them once and I had to turn it off...too much cooking, I mean, killing. Wow, I'm out of it right now. I should probably sleep. Shayden has also all of a sudden become scared of tigers at night. She doesn't sleep good anymore, and has to have me sleep by her in the middle of the night when she wakes up. When she falls asleep, and throughout the night she cuddles her water bottle...strange, huh.

Shayden's Surgery

Shayden's surgery went well. He said it might bruise because he had to cut a little more than expected. She has been surprizingly alert and hungry all day. She was awake and tried to get up when I went to get her in the recovery room, and she kept awake and happy until we left. Her throat is raspy sore from the breathing tube.She would put this mask on and say, "Like Parker."
After we got home today.

Before surgery


After surgery

Shake it Gavon

Willow Park Zoo

We went to Willow Park Zoo with Grandmother, Jennifer and Brenna. Here's Gavon feeding the ducks.

Kit and Celia

Kit and Celia were sealed soon after Kami and Levi. We are so happy for them.

And then, here are some pictures of the kids waiting at the temple.

Shayden's Hernia

We're going to Primary Children's Hospital to fix Shayden's hernia. It's an in and out surgery, but it's always scary to do stuff like this.

Giving "The look." I was actually trying to take a picture of Gavon crawling onto a box, but Shayden stole the spotlight. She's one amazing little girl...learning so much.