Santa Visit 2013

Merry Christmas! Yeah, that's topical in March. But here are a few of the Santa pictures. They turned out so well. I went during a school time on a week day and we breezed in and out without any fits or breaking anything. Banner day in Firth life.

Fall and Winter 2013

 One of the challenges of blogging for me, is that I use my laptop for my pictures, and I take a lot of pictures. So my memory fills up and I have to blog before I send all the pictures to the external hard drive. I could blog using the external hard drive, but it's a pain in the tuchus already, and I know me. It's not going to happen. So in order to get pictures off my camera or phone, I have to catch up on the blog so I can dump them here again. Whatever, it's as boring to read about as it is to do. I guess the point is, is that it is March. I have a new child, and yet I am about 4 months behind on blogging. I can't even blog about Hugo yet! SO! Catching up. Here are some miscellaneous from the Fall/Winter season to clean up the computer! There may be a few posts out of order coming ahead. Sorry. Not like anyone reads this anymore anyways, but it is my only form of journaling, so I truck on!

Eleanor decided to try and dress up like Jessie one day. She kind of nailed it, the only help I gave her was braiding her hair.

 Cute.

 At Allie's house. They played dress up, and up and up and up... for about 2 hours. I only got shots of a few of their costumes. 

Here is ballerina girls.

 

 And flying girls.

 And my favorite, it's very subtle, but here they are "shopping girls". They had shopping bags and purses and pretended to run credit cards. Awww, so cute, ha ha! They come by it honestly.

 A lunch date with my men at JCW's.

 

WINSTON! He is so dang cute sometimes.

 

 Snacks for Eleanor's preschool. This is back when I cared more, ha. I saw this idea on Pinterest and had to try it. Note to others- it was a pain in the neck! So hard, so much work! Never. Doing. Again! At least I got a picture. (I sent a "healthy" snack too, this was just for fun.)

Clayton's (and mine!) good friend, Larissa met the one and tied the knot. Here are Mr. and Mrs. Rob Ferre! Their reception was amazing. First of all, they had smart cookies, so I was instantly on board. She changed out of her big dress for her party dress (seen below), their first dance had a baton throwing solo in the middle, they had a fun photo booth, incredible music (that's his business) and after we left there was even a 12 foot T-Rex that made an appearance. I don't quite understand how, but people who were there were suitably impressed.

 Woo hoo! Guess who didn't dance at their wedding? Yep, the squares on the right. Hey, I was pretty pregnant. Nothing more awkward than a pregnant lady getting down.

 Mom and Dad took us and the kids out to eat, and in the parking lot is this truck with a parrot on it. No owner in sight. Randomly, my dad knows the guy who owns it and asked him later how he gets the parrot to not take off. He replied that he honestly didn't know it was getting out. He would leave it in the truck with the window cracked (It was Autumn, and very reasonable temperatures, in case you were wondering.) and it was always back in the truck when he returned to it. Ha! Well, it brightened my kid's day anyways.

2013 Summer Catch Up

  More odds and ends, but holy moly, I am almost entirely caught up. HUGE DEAL for me. Just saying.  It's been a fun, albeit painfully hot, summer. We just haven't ventured out for much, and I feel all kinds of guilt for that, but what can you do? Get heatstroke? Anyhow.

Cute boy thinking he's cool with his glasses on in the car. He kind of is.

Yet another bump on the head, this one is not related to the others. As I mentioned, he is an active boy.

Like this, for example. I hear him stomping around in his (crazy-messy) room and go to investigate. Oh dear. He climbed onto the piano bench, to the piano, to the dresser to the china hutch. Yes, there are entirely too many pieces of furniture in that room, but what can you do when the kids bedroom is also the previous den?

 Oh man. This is his "knows he is being naughty, but is so delighted about it" face.

Sassy girl in her favorite outfit. The slip.

Looking like a different kid some days.

 Eleanor took this picture. She loves to take dozens of pictures of her dolls and toys, most get deleted. But I love that she put Rapunzel and Buzz in the high chair together. They look like they are on a date.

 How Winston decided to get a better marshmallow to cereal ratio, ie: 1 marshmallow bit to 0 cereal bits. We're so healthy.

 A self portrait.

 Fun with braids. Or fun with praying.

E with her sweet lamb that we got when she was 5 months old in Michigan.

 I couldn't help myself. You know when they are just being so danged cute?

 Winston's super-sad/angry face when Clayton had the audacity to leave the house.

 DAAAAAAAAAAD!!!!!!

And helping uncle Adam fix grandma's computer. He was nearly on top of Adam for most of it, honestly thinking he needed to help somehow. Funny boy, he and E both adore Adam. Funny story: I am driving E home from church and am asking her about her class. They learned about loving your family. She asked who I loved most of all, so I made her guess my top three. She'd guess, "Eleanor?" Me: "Yes." E: "Jenni?" M: "I love her a whole lot, but she's not in my top three!" Finally we whittled it down to Clayton, Eleanor and Winston being the three people I love the most. Then she has me guess. I start with me, yes, Winston, yes, Clayton... "I love him a lot, but he's not in my top three!" (Yikes! Ha ha.) So after guessing most of the family and a few friends, her top three end up being me, Winston and Adam. Not sure if she quite understands ranking, or is just not as enamored of Clayton as Winston and I are.

 Hiding in the flower stand.

 And Eleanor hiding somewhere else. These are blurry, as if child protective services calls, I'd rather not have super-clear evidence of my negligence. I should have stopped it right away, but there is always time for a photo-op when they are behaving badly, right?

E crawled in, and Winston was eagerly shutting the door. She would push it back open and he would try to jam it closed on her arms and then push buttons. Thankfully this was a VERY short experience, and now we keep that door locked. Rascals.

My cute niece, Caitlin had her baby shower! Here are she and her husband John awaiting presents. It was a darling affair, held at Meditrina in Salt Lake City. The food was incredible. It's a great tapas restaurant that I would highly recommend if you are looking to try something new and amazing.

Mom and Emma.

Abby and Megan.

Opening presents, this is the blanket my mom knitted for little baby Eva. It is a gorgeous cable-knit in the sweetest peachy-pink color. While she was working on it, I kept joking that I wanted to find out the gender of my baby so I could steal it and get Caitlin something store bought. Ha ha, kind of.

So close to being caught up! I love it!

Zoo Day 2013

 In early July, we took the kids up to Salt Lake to go to Hogle Zoo. We met up with Clayton's parents, his sister Monica and her family, and his sister-in-law Rachel along with her Audrey. It started out ok, well, actually, the minute we got Winston out of the car he started running. In the parking lot of course, right in the roadway. Luckily (ha?) he fell so I could catch him, unfortunately he got a nice bonk on his forehead. A few tears and one bloody shirt later (Clayton's), we were on our way. 

They set out African drums near the elephant show area for people to play on.

 Winston was still a bit subdued from his fall, and didn't put his heart into it like I thought he might. Normally, he freaking loves drumming.

 You can see his sad little head in these shots. Notice, however, that his forehead is still shaped correctly. Foreshadowing. (Get it? Foreshadowing? Forehead? Ok, dumb.)

Kathy, Eleanor, Natalie and Rachel flashing gang signs. That's what you get when you invite your So-Cal relatives.

Well, this is where the group candids and any animal shots end. Clayton had to leave us to attend a meeting in downtown Salt Lake so we went inside the covered building to watch Rocky the polar bear. We let Winston out of his stroller and he takes one, two steps then trips over a kid and falls flat on his forehead. Again, for the second time in about 3 hours. It was that super slick, hard concrete too, and when he hit it, it sounded like someone dropped a watermelon on the floor. I raced to him and he was livid, naturally. Instantly a giant button popped up on his head. Like, a two or three inch round area that had sharply defined sides. Like this. Ugh.

A bunch of other moms came dashing over and all of us check his eyes and try to assess the damage. I am losing it. I was honestly scared that this was the bump that would make him forget everything, that he would be our special needs child. It didn't help that he had a pretty good head bonk just the month before when he walked in front of the swings. That time he threw up and everything, but I didn't take him in, so I wasn't going to take chances this time around. Also, remember, he hit his head in the same spot just three hours prior! I know I sound dramatic now, and spoiler alert: he's fine, but right then I was horrified. It was such a sick fall. You could see it in the eyes of the other moms that they were freaked out too, all of them were encouraging me to take him to the hospital. Poor Winston, he was hysterical and wasn't calming down. He's never cried like that before. I left Kathy with the girls and ran with Winston to find a first aid station or Rex, who I was hoping could drive us to the hospital. Well, this was hideous for more reasons that just poor, hurt Win. If you haven't heard yet, I am pregnant, and was right in the midst of the "morning" sickness phase, so I was already nauseated and miserable. I asked a few employees, but they said there wasn't a first aid station. (There is.) I got some ice which he wouldn't let me put on his head of course. Add in an unreachable husband, triple digit weather, stress and trying to carry this very heavy two year old (33 pounds!) who is losing his mind, and it made for a pretty pathetic scene. I made it from the bears to the elephants before I had to just sit down and phone for help. I had to wait for my groups to catch up to me and then we all made it to the exits. Rex gave Winston a blessing in the car, which helped me probably more than him, then he fell asleep on the ride to the U of U emergency room (it was past his nap time, so I wasn't terribly worried about this). It was nice that there is an emergency room so close to the zoo, and one that specializes in just children! 

Here is my poor boy in the car on the way there. At this point the bump had lost it's defined edges and instead had just made his entire forehead swell to twice it's size.

 And a profile view, I don't have another for comparison's sake, but trust me, this is wrong.

 

 We get to the hospital and he wakes back up and starts screaming again. He just wasn't being Winston and I was heartsick. We get sent to a room and the doctors come and check him out. His is spazzing out at everything they try to do, he wont talk or anything. I knew that for the most part they would just monitor him, but it was comforting to learn that the front of the head is best if you have to get bonked, as the skull is thickest there. They could tell it hadn't fractured and said it was ok for him to go to sleep. That they would wait a few hours and then try letting him eat. Of course, the second they leave the room, he pops up off the pillow and says in his usual cheerful voice, "HI GRANDPA!" Oh man. That kid. He proceeded to play with his toy motorcycle, check out the whole room, scoot chairs around, do all his tricks and answer every question correctly, and basically assure us that he was right as rain.

Here he is pushing chairs around. He would peek out the window there and say, "Oh! So many!" Talking about how many doctors and nurses there were.

 We got someone's attention to let them know about the sudden change and so they let him have a popsicle right away. Here he is with grandpa Rex enjoying it.

 

 Grandpa got the other half.

We still had to wait a few hours before leaving, and Rex and I were both starving, but we made it through this little adventure at the hospital. It was nice to have Rex there for support, and I learned a ton about him that I never knew. Some fascinating stories, if they were mine, I'd wear them on a shirt telling people how cool I am. But that's Rex, quiet and humble. And can I say, all the doctors and nurses were so lovely, I really appreciate what they do and what they know. And I appreciate a Heavenly Father who truly looks after us in our time of need. I am so grateful for my kids and I recognize that most people don't have such positive experiences at the emergency room. I wish I could say that I have a new found patience for Winston's shenanigans, but I think now I just have an increased knowledge of how quickly that kid can break himself. I hope his armada of guardian angels do not depend on just my faith, ha ha.

Winston's 2nd Birthday!

 Sweet Winston! Our smart, athletic, energetic, hilarious, little man. He turned two mid June and we celebrated in true second-child fashion: half-heartedly! Just kidding, but I definitely put a little less worry (not thought, just the stress) into the whole thing. I took them to McDonald's for lunch and we went INSIDE! Hey, that's a big deal for us. And the play-land was surprisingly clean and kind of fun. They had all of these cute instrument-themed toys that made music when you danced on them, slid down on it etc...  The played for about an hour and I felt like we did something that they actually wanted to do versus what I want them to do. And it was air-conditioned, so, yay.

 Geetaah! (According to Winston.)

 Opening some presents while Eleanor and neighbor Charlotte look on. He got a train set, a bunch of cars, a road play-mat carpet and a motorcycle from the Dollar store that stole the show. I love that a dollar can make his life.

 Blurry picture, but oh man, is that they cutest face ever? It is.

 I bought cupcakes. I bought cars. Voila, he was happy.

Again, the $1 motorcycle stole the show.

  My parents got a swing-set for their backyard. Or, actually, my dad got Winston a swing-set for their backyard.

 

Despite the look on his face (hilarious) he loves the swing. It's been a real shame that it's been so miserably hot outside that I rarely let them out to play on it. Come onnnnnn Autumn!