Meet Nick's bear.... England!

My grandparents (Ahma and Ahba) started a tradition of giving all of us a build a bear with a little voice memo just for us. Nick just got his in the mail and it is the cutest thing ever!  Ahma recorded the sweetest message (that my kids keep playing over and over) and dressed him in a cute BYU outfit. They name the bears too. Meet "England"!!

Brothers

They fight and tease each other the most....so as mom I live for these little moments of sweetness. 

Nick's (almost) 6 Months Stats

This cute boy isn't 6 months until the 13th, but he had his visit today.  He weighs 19.9 lbs and is 66cm long, head 45.5. That's 91% for weight, 25% height, and 70% head circumference. He loves solid foods, yams, peas, butternut squash,  carrots, and applesauce. He is pretty independently sitting up now...but I still stay pretty close since he still topples over. Still cant roll over...I think his tummy is too big!  Still not a great sleeper, hates the car, loves bath time, loves eating, loves grabbing your face for painful kisses, loves Hakuna Matta, wants to eat whatever you are eating, little bit of a busy body,  and loves his dance party lights. Has two bottom teeth too!

Avebury Nov 2 2019

On our way to have dinner with friends we stopped at Avebury to see the manor house and stones (related to Stonehenge).  Unfortunately weather was not on our side and it rained and rained and rained on us.  It rained so much the roads were flooded!  It was a cool house in that you could touch things and lay on the beds....but we really couldn't enjoy exploring it since we were in a rush and it was so miserable weather.  We will just have to go back!

Pumpkin Baby!

We had to give this a try.  Christopher carved a pumpkin for Nick to sit in.  Full disclosure he had to open the leg holes and inside several times before Nick could fit.  True full disclosure there is no back to this pumpkin....because his little legs couldn't fit!  Oh this sweet boy.  And yes, after we did this we thought it would have been better to line this pumpkin.  Opps.

Ben 16th birthday surprise party!

Ben is turning 16 this year and I really wanted to do something memorable for him, but he wasn't making it easy!  Every time I'd ask him what he wanted to do he would reply, "I don't know".  It was driving me mad!  Simple decisions, like what kind of cake he wanted, was answered with "ask me when I'm hungry.  I can't pick out a cake when I'm not hungry".  We were actually traveling around Cornwall when we were discussing this and on a random day I asked him, "Ben are you hungry?" To which he replied yes.  I then asked him what kind of cake he wanted....and he was so impressed I actually remembered to ask him when he was hungry!  Haha!

What he didn't know is I had already planned a big surprise for his 16 birthday.  Working with his friend, Brodie, we planned a surprise party for Ben.  Ben had to take his Geography GCSE that morning, and wasn't feeling his best.  We had prepped him a few days in advance to let him know Dad would need help doing a service project after his test.  Ben wasn't thrilled about it, but was being a good sport.  It was a cold rainy day and he really didn't want to go and dig ditches.

The time finally comes and I have to suddenly run a quick errand with Nick (we had rented a big van, but had to move his party by one day and couldn't extend the rental...so we just took two cars).  I went to town to meet up with his friends and Chris and Ben followed a few minutes later.

When Chris and Ben pulled up Ben was kind of hurt that all his friends had gone into town without inviting him...and told Christopher to just drive on by.  He was so confused when Chris stopped next to them.  This is a picture of Christopher explaining to Ben that all his friends were here for his surprise birthday party.  Ben was totally confused!

He finally gets out of the car and everyone hugs him and tells him Happy Birthday.  He is still totally out of it!

We take all the kids paint-balling at our favorite paint-balling place in Andover.  Afterwards we came back to the house for a taco bar, caramel brownies, root beer floats, and video games.  Hopefully it was a birthday Ben will always remember!

w