Halloween 2011

Halloween has ALWAYS been my favorite holiday!  Jay thinks I am weird, he says "My favorite holiday is the devil worshiper holiday".   What other day can you dress up and be somebody else?  Plus, it's when I have an excuse to listen to "Thriller"!  This year was awesome!  No wearing coats, hats and gloves, the best part NO SNOW!  It was 78 degrees at 8:00 pm!

My day started out getting Brighton dressed up for his Halloween party at preschool.  He was so stinkin' excited to be "Batman that lights up"!

Next was on to the Halloween parade at Autumn's school.

 Autumn and her BFF Camille is behind her.

After that I went to Autumn's class to help out with her Halloween party.

Autumn and her teacher Mrs. Trujillio.

Our family all dressed up for the Annual Neighborhood Halloween Party (our first of course).  We ate hot dogs and chili.  I was impressed at how many people showed up, not to mention how many adults dressed up.  A great place to meet all our neighbors!

Brighton as "Batman that lights up".

Autumn as "Butterfly Princess".

Aspen as "The devil".  She is now too cool to be any fluffy princesses now! :(  All she wanted to be was a devil, witch or vampire.  Aspen is too old to dress up for school anymore too.  But her teacher ordered pizza and they went to a park for the afternoon.

 Brighton with his best buddy in our ward, Bryce.  Don't they look alike?  Not to mention I have never met any kid as hyperactive as Brighton until Bryce!  Although Brighton is still louder!

The butterflies, Autumn and Aggie.  Believe it or not Aggie is Brighton's age.  Autumn is just our little midget!

What a great night!  Brighton now calls me "The Princess Super Hero".  The kids are all hopped up on candy now!  We passed out around candy to 200-225 trick or treaters.  I love our new neighborhood!  Everyone is soooo nice!

Brighton's First Day of Preschool

Today was Brighton's first day of preschool.  

He was super excited!

He has to bring a snack to preschool everyday and so in addition to the backpack he had to have a lunch box.  He has been begging me for one for a long time, he wants to be just like his big sisters.

There was a little boy crying and clinging to his mom.  Brighton just couldn't understand this (i.e. the look on his face).  He kept asking "Why's that boy crying?"  My reply to him was "He doesn't want to leave his mom."  Brighton's reply back "He's being a baby, maybe he just shouldn't go to school."

All the kids lined up and the parents had to say goodbye.  Brighton was off to his first day of class.  He didn't even turn around to look at me!  It's probably a good thing he didn't because I started crying!  My baby boy isn't such a baby anymore.  I didn't know what to do with myself, our house has NEVER been so quite!

When I picked up Brighton from preschool he asked "Where is Aspen and Autumn?".  When I told him they weren't done yet, he wanted to go back to class until night time.  

When I asked Brighton how preschool was, his reply was "It was AWESOME!"

Winner, No School, Hair Cut

Last week Jay took Autumn and Brighton to the Math & Science Fair at Autumn's school. Aspen was at Activity days and I had to do a workshop for the Young Women. At the fair they had snakes, Brighton loves snakes. He saw a big white snake and told Jay "look a worm" Jay replied "That's a snake". Brighton got very scared and started to back away. I guess he likes them plastic or in pictures but not the real thing.

There was an estimation jar with gummy lifesavers. Jay and Autumn put down their estimate.  The next day when picking up Autumn up from school she was holding the jar! She had the closest guess and therefor won the jar filled with 206 gummy lifesavers.

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On Thursday the kids didn't have school.  Don't ask me why, all I know is they had the day off.  Since the weather had been so nice Tirzah, Rebecca and I decided to take the kids to the park and have a picnic.  It turned out the one day they didn't have school was the coldest day we have had in awhile, at least it was sunny!  I am so going to miss Tirzah and Rebecca!  Tirzah is going to Ohio so her husband can finish his residency and Rebecca's husband is finishing his fellowship in a couple of months and they are moving to Idaho.

Brighton, Kaytie, Autumn, Aspen, Anna, Ryan, Sarah, and Zach.  We are missing the other Katie, she was too cold!

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Saturday I gave Brighton a haircut.  Normally I dread this day.  He will not hold still and I end up cutting myself several times.  Today, however Jay told him he would get a treat if he held still.  I didn't cut my finger once!  He held still most of the time, of course it helped we was watching Aladdin too!

Oh So Sleepy

Yesterday while doing yard work Brighton was riding his bike around.  He kept riding into the street, I was constantly stopping him and explaining why we don't ride out into the road.  After probably 7 times, although it felt like 100, I warned him if he did it again I would take his bike away and he wouldn't get to ride it.  He then looked at me with that smirk and rode right into the street.  I took his bike away and he threw an all out meltdown.  I am sure the neighbors thought I was beeting him!  I took him to his room and told him to stay there until he could be a happy Brighton.  Lately he is all about telling us his emotions; happy, sad, mad, cranky, tired.  After a few minutes I went upstairs to see if he had calmed down and found him like this.  He looks so darn cute - guess it makes up for the pitching fit!

Everyday Life

Nothing special, just stuff that happens in everyday life.

Jay has to pop air popped popcorn every night, usually after the kids are asleep.  Brighton has caught onto this and has realized that Dad will have sometimes have leftover in the morning.  Brighton gets excited when he sees the blue popcorn bowl on the counter.  He is already taking after his dad!

Brighton helping Jay fix the kitchen sink.  Since then he has tried to fix the sink all by himself many times.

Last Friday I went to take the girls to school and the van wouldn't start.  We had to sit around and wait for Jay to get done with surgery so he could come and get us.  Luckily he only had a couple of surgeries in the morning and then had a break.  Autumn wouldn't take off her coat she was too busy playing on her iPod while she waited for dad.  In front of her is her "bling walker".

Yesterday Jay put a new cast on Autumn. 

She picked red this time.

How many kids are lucky enough to have their dad put their cast on them.

I think every kid (well at least mine) goes through this stage where they don't want to sleep.  Aspen used to make every excuse in the book not to go to bed and would sneak out of her room and hide behind the couch and watch whatever we were doing.  Autumn used to wake up in the middle of the night and watch TV, we would see a light and go into the family room and she would be watching TV.  We would have no idea how long she had been up.  Brighton has them beat, I know, what a surprise!  Every night we tuck Brighton into bed he has to have his monkey, dinosaur (dine door), and moo cow.  He will wake up and we will hear him open and shut the door several times. Then if we don't go to him fast enough he will open other doors and shut them.  Well the other night he woke up and went into Aspen's room, turned on the light and said, "wake up Aspen".  Aspen was not happy to be awoke from a dead sleep in the middle of the night.  I am about ready to put a lock on the outside of his door. 

We are TRYING to potty train Brighton.  He has a mind of his own!  We have had a little success, but now he thinks he can take his clothes and diaper off and run around the house naked.  I cannot begin to tell you how many times a day I find a diaper on the floor but he is nowhere around.  This morning I found him in Aspen's room, naked, dancing to Hannah Montana.  This kid could belong to a nudist colony and be proud of it!

Pink Eye

Yesterday as I was on my way home from my post-op visit I get a phone call. It was from Autumn's school telling me that she was in the office with pink eye. If you know Autumn you could imagine what I thought, she tends to freak out about everything. So you can also imagine what I thought when I walk into the office to get her and she has a big grin on her face and says, "look mom, my teacher says I have pink eyes. Aren't they pretty?". For her sake I am glad she didn't understand. We took her to the doctor right away and indeed it was pink eye.

Jay later picked Aspen up from school.  Aspen asked him where Autumn was and he said she had pick eye and would have to stay home for awhile.  Aspen then asked if she had to stay in bed and Jay told her no, she just has pink eye.  Aspen then said "it's no fair, Autumn always gets the fun stuff". 

We have to put drops in Autumn's eyes that look like gel. She absolutely hates this and won't open her eyes forever after we put them in. So last night after she took a shower I put the drops in her eyes she walks up the stairs to her room with her eyes closed. She gets to the top of the stairs and thinks there is one more step and face plants it. As her head hits blood goes splurting everywhere, well if you know me you can imagine that I started freaking out. I don't do well in these situations and neither does Aspen who is also freaking out, which doesn't help me. I call Jay (who is on call) and he tells me to get the bleeding under control, find out where it is coming from, put ice on it and if it won't stop call Micah (our neighbor who is also a resident). Luckily I got it stopped pretty quickly.

Autumn is at home today. I have tried my hardest to keep her away from Brighton but it's not working and so I have given in and am waiting for him to get pink eye. They have turned our family room into a fort. Here is a picture of them in the fort with their cups of ice, my kids have an obsession with eating ice lately. I don't know if you can tell in this picture but Autumn's eyes are bright red and on her left side she has a fat lip. It looks like I have beaten her.

Brighton's Big Boy Bed

We finally put Brighton into a big boy bed!  Jay originally built this bed for Aspen but when we moved to Arizona she wanted a pink room.  We have been storing this bed ever since.  It's a good thing we had a boy we could use it with.  We first started putting it up and Brighton really didn't know what was going on until we took down the crib.  When he saw his new bed all set up he got super excited.  Anyone that got near his bed he would say "no, go away, my bed".  He didn't even want to take a bath, he just wanted his dawanies (pajamies) and he loves baths.  The first night he did pretty good but the second, third and fourth nights weren't so good.  He realized he could get out of bed.  He would come downstairs in the middle of the night and put his face right in front of mine, not say a word mind you, just scare the crap out of me when I woke up and saw something staring at me six inches away from my face.  For the last 2 nights he hasn't got up at all.  I'm crossing my fingers that it stays that way.

Right after we set up Brightons bed

Brighton after his bath all ready for bed

Brightons Fight With the Mosquito

The day before we left for our trip to Mexico Brighton woke up looking like this! We found out he has a severe reaction to mosquito bites. We called our doctor on Saturday morning which went straight to his cell phone and he said he would meet us at his office, what normal doc would do that? He put Brighton on steroids, antibiotics and told us to give him a double dose of Benedryl every 4 hours. This is Brighton that afternoon after all the drugs, he could actually open his eye a little bit.We don't know if it was the Benedryl or the steroids that turned our happy little boy into a monster for our plane ride to Mexico the next day! I will post about our trip a little later but we just got home and I realized a couple of hours ago that it is my turn to teach in Relief Society on Sunday and I have to get a lesson put together.

Good Big Sis

I had told the kids to get their pajamas on and meet in Brighton's room for prayers. I put Brighton's pajamas on but as usual Autumn plays around and you have to physically put her pajamas on while she is singing or whatever. I came back into Brighton's room to find Aspen reading to Brighton. How come he doesn't sit still like this for me?

My Baby Boy Turns "2"

Brighton turned "2" this week. I can't believe it has been two years since he was born. It seems like yesterday that I was pregnant with him. We had a lot of fun for his birthday. Grandma & Grandpa Hoggan were here visiting. We were going to go to Chuck E Cheese but when we got there it was closed due to Chuck e Cheese catching on fire the night before. We were so disappointed (I should say the kids were so disappointed). So we looked up another place like it and went there instead. We still had a lot of fun. Afterwards we came home and opened presents and beat the pinata.

Brighton fell asleep on the way to Chuck e Cheese.

Brighton's birthday cake. He was so excited to have a "George" cake. It is the only show on TV that we can get him to watch. That is how I get my shower every morning.

Just let me eat the cake!

Brighton blowing out his candles.

Brighton riding the merry go round. I can't tell you how many times he rode this. We couldn't get him off. If you ever hear me talk about his smirk this picture diplicts that completly. Whenever you tell him "no" he just looks at you with this smirk and does it anyway!

Aspen & Autumn in Fred Flinstone's car.

Brighton beating the pinata. Sorry for the bright glare off his jacket, it is a reflector.

Autumn beating the pinata.

Aspen beating the pinata.

Brighton received a bubble blowing machine for his birthday. This is him chasing the bubbles.

Brighton opening one of his presents.

Brighton may have just turned two but he hit the terrible two's awhile ago. Brighton is very strong willed. He has a ton of energy and keeps us on our toes every second he is awake. It's a good thing he is so darn cute!

Buchin & Icecream

We put up our trampoline a couple of weeks ago and Brighton has become obsessed with it. All he wants to do is jump, or as he calls it Buchin (jumpin). With every jump he takes he says buchin, buchin the entire time. When he can't buch on the tramp then he will on someones bed, the couch but most of all we can't get him out of his crib. He cries when he wakes up but then you go up there to get him and he starts buchin and we can't get him out.

Brighton buchin with his hammer, yes he is obsessed with that too!

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Last week Jay had a conference he was at all weekend. I went to put Brighton down for the night while the girls watched a movie. I came downstairs to find them each with a spoon and the tub of ice cream. When I asked why they couldn't use a bowl and sit up to the counter they said "we didn't want to dirty the kitchen or any dishes after you just cleaned up the kitchen" with a big grin on their face. How can you get mad at that!

Ahhh, the Sun Still Exists

This weekend was awesome! It started out on Friday morning with the sun shinning in through the kitchen windows. Yeah, the sun is out - I wonder how long it will stay today? The sun stayed out all day long, there was not even a cloud in the sky, can you believe it? It reached 68 degrees on Friday. We went and bought sand for the sandbox and came home and let the kids play in the backyard. Then Saturday it reached 75 degrees and the sun was out all day long! We worked in the backyard, well, actually it was the woods behind our house. Jay is trying to make little pathways for mountain bike trails, and clear out an area for a fire pit. I just got a couple of pictures of Brighton playing in the sandbox - he LOVES sand!

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