Why is there nothing in the world sweeter than the way a baby sleeps? I love that Pampers commercial with Silent Night playing in the background and all the pictures of different babies sleeping. I tear up every time I watch it because it is so sweet.
I have loved sneaking in, in the mornings or at naptime and just watching my babies sleep. I love holding them long after they have fallen asleep just to watch them. I love the way they curl up their little fist and put their hands up by their head.
Hunter used to love to sleep with his hand over his face just like Deke does. Avery would suck her thumb to fall asleep. Emma loves to be swaddled or have a blanket up by her face. She looks so tiny laying on our big bed.
Yeah she stills gets snuck in to snuggle some mornings. She is such a little princess. Today I snuck in during naptime to watch her sleep. She was all swaddled up with her chunky little cheeks oozing to the side. She has such a perfect little nose and beautiful long eyelashes. Since she is sleeping I am able to take in all the details of her and once again marvel at the power of creation. So incredible. I sat there and watched her and listened to her breathing and the sound of her sucking on her binky.
I was remembering when Avery made the transition to a big girl bed. Months kept passing by and every time I would think about taking down the crib I just couldn't handle the thought of it. You would think that seeing an empty crib all the time would make it harder for me but it actually did just the opposite. Avery was out of the crib for a year before we ended up getting pregnant with Emma. I love that there are now two little girls occupying this room.
I love walking in and enjoying the girlish things in their room. The shelves with the dress up clothes hanging and princess shoes. Their bow holder filled to the brim with all sorts of fun hair things. Avery's vintage looking quilt on her bed and Emma's blessing dress hanging on the wall. The sheer net hanging over the crib that gives it such a feminine look.
As I look into the crib my heart is full gazing at its beautiful little occupant. I wish I knew what she was dreaming about. I sat there and watched her (it is a wonder that I get anything done :) ) until she started moving and stretching. She stretched and grunted and slowly tried to pull open her eyes.
After looking around the crib for a few minutes she finally sensed my presence and then tilted her head back and looked up at me with those big baby blues and grinned that cute little toothless grin. The picture is kind of blurry but that is okay because it will always remind me of this sweet little moment.
I watched her unwrap from her burrito and start rolling around. Playing peek-a-boo with her from the side of the crib and tickling her chubby thighs. So ready to pick her up and munch on them.
I was proud of her for choosing and doing this all by herself. She is so independent. The next morning I heard noises in the kitchen and hurried out to find Hunter finishing the process of "making breakfast" for all of us. I smiled as I looked at the table with four bowls with spoons in them filled completely to the brim with milk. The ratio being 3/4 milk to 1/4 cereal, the gallon jug bought just yesterday three quarters of the way empty. Multiple drip trails of milk leading from the counter, across the kitchen, to the table. A water bottle at each seat. "Surprise," he yelled as I came around the corner. There is another part of the surprise too, he added. On the counter sat this... "I made my lunch for you". He said beaming from ear to ear and unzipped it to reveal a prepackaged Lunchable and a water bottle. "Wow, I am so surprised, thank you buddy" I told him. By the way I love the handwritten message at the bottom.
With the kids inspiration I even tried some smiley faces of my own and ironed every single dress shirt and pants in Deke's closet. This is a big act of service for me since it really helps Deke and I really hate to iron. The next morning Hunter was taking a particularly long time getting out of the bathroom after his bath. I kept knocking on the door trying to hurry him along so he didn't miss the bus. "Mom, come look at this," he told me. When I walked into the bathroom he stood there completely ready for school and had been busy on a project. He had drawn a full tub of water with bubbles and toys in it. He had a towel folded on the toilet lid with Avery's favorite princess lotion and a small stack of Q-tips next to it. Sitting on top of the towel was a smiley face paper for Avery. I called her in into the bathroom and I wish I had had a camera at that moment to capture her surprise. She looked around and then smiled and sort of giggled as Hunter explained what he had done for her. Then she went over and gave him a big hug. It was so sweet. Over the week they were busy surprising each other and us with their acts of service. Avery who is an amazing big sister about always including Emma decided to help organize Emma's toy basket for her and fold her blankies. It was such a fun experience for our family. We are so proud of the way Hunter and Avery listened to the lesson and then took the challenge. I can't wait to go to church on Sunday and hear them report back on what they did during the week.
Emma with her newfound love of putting things in her mouth so far that she doesn't have to use her hands to hold it. Cracks us up. 
There were so many cute things at our RS Super Saturday this year that I wanted to do. So I waited on a few of them and then did them a little later.
One was this cute pumpkin with vinyl, super easy and cute. 
I am definitely having fun making them for people as Thanksgiving gifts. Hunter and Emma were playing with Rusty together one night before bedtime. Hunter can always make her laugh it amazes me. He always knows silly faces or noises to make that make her giggle. I love watching him play with her. I love this picture of the two of them together in their jammies smiling so cute. 
She is a female version of him at this age. There are so many times that I pick up Emma or 
I am bathing her or just watching her and I feel like I am with Hunter as a baby all over again. It is really neat. I love that she looks like him. 
Here is a picture of Hunter and then a picture of Em at the same age. I think now I have a good idea of the signature things that our babies will have. 
A quick picture of the kids after church in their Sunday stuff. The girls little Thanksgiving skirts. 
Emma who is now a pro at sitting up allowing me to take a few shots of her displaying her new talent for me. 
When they announced that they would be having an Elder's Quorum Pine Wood Derby I knew that Deke would be game. I was however surprised to find out that this was Deke's first time getting to participate in a Pine wood derby race. 
The preparation started out good he went over to Dev's and carved a sleek body style. Then put graphite on the wheels. 
Busy with work and all his other projects he did not get back to it until the day of and then added a black paint job with glow in the dark bright orange racing stripes. We could find any tape weights so we literally had to "tape" weights onto the top of the car.
Which led to not being able to see its paint job. I had a lot of different visions in my head of what the whole process would be like and it was definitely different than I had thought. The track was cool and it was fun to watch the screen to see when you would race. 
We hadn't realized that any family member could race too which would have been fun if we had known. Most of the families had cars for each member. One families little girl had a cute car named "Strawberry Shortcake" that indeed had a Strawberry Shortcake figurine on the top. It was adorable but not quite thought out when it went down the track and Miss Cake hit the top of the time clock at the finish line and was almost decapitated. Someone had literally carved a fish with his block of wood and turned it into a car. It looked awesome and ran really well too. Our Elder's Quorum president who is extremely competitive about well pretty much everything had a car for each family member. Their cars took the first three spots. 
I about laughed out loud when he brought out a small metal case that was padded inside and brought out a pencil thin car named...Unrichus Domination. Hilarious. That is when we learned that you can and obviously should shave down your wheels until they are paper thin. We learned a lot that night and it was fun. Stingray-our car raced times right around the middle of the pack. 
If anything it was a great learning experience on what to do next time when it is Hunter's turn and we are actually taking it a little more seriously. The only drawback was how lengthy of a process it became and watching the cars go down for like forty eight heats began to get monotonous. Krispy Kreme donuts helped the process. 
Even though the game wasn't very exciting we still had fun talking, eating, laughing at the drunken people surrounding us and having some time without the kids. There is nothing like a stadium hotdog and a giant cookie or rice krispy treat to make any outing more interesting. 
Lou did such a great job we really appreciate her. It is not easy to try to get three kids to smile let alone keep them looking at the camera. It was a lot of fun and we got some great ones. I can't wait to get some printed to put up in the house. 
