11 Months

      We are creeping right up on a year and I'm not sure how I feel about it! I think the best solution is just not to think about it. This last month Riggs has become very mobile. He climbs the stairs any chance he gets and LOVES it. The stairs are blocked, but he has sneaked through a few times without us realizing and it gives me quite the scare. Thankfully we haven't had any rolls down the stairs. We used our piano bench and some pillows to make a barricade, but after a while he figured out how to get through. Then we added some packages/boxes to reinforce the piano bench. Well it didn't take him long to figure out that he could either pull the boxes down or climb up and over them! That little stinker! He's by far our most agile baby with those skills. We finally caved and bought a baby gate a few days ago--it's made life much nicer not having to climb over the piano bench piled up with boxes.
    Waving and clapping kind of disappeared last month. Jill Moulton's rule holds true once again! She says that babies learn a new trick or skill and do it for about a week. Then they forget for a few weeks before it comes back to stay! Well, just before Riggs turned 11 months, he brought the waving back and is quite excited about it. He can also "pat" or give "high fives" which really have to be "low fives" for him to perform.
    Church is getting quite difficult. We go at 10:30 which is his nap time. He usually naps until 12:30 or so...which is all of church. Good thing it's the end of the year and we're almost up for a new time. Any time will be better than the one we have. At least it will be until he decides to only take one nap, then it will get tricky again. But he's still manageable at church. We can usually get him to sleep for 15 minutes or so at the end and if not, then he'll only get one nap that day. Either way, he's grumpy on Sundays...ugh.
    Riggs still hates his carseat so traveling more than 20 minutes is gamble. I keep telling myself that it will be better when he can sit in a forward facing seat. Whenever we go somewhere we pack a small duffel bag of toys for him to cycle through, it's exhausting. I also keep blocking out Christmas and any travel we may have to endure.
    Riggs LOVES playing with the kids or watching them play. When he gets on the grumpy side in the evening, we take him upstairs and let him play in the kids room. While I read Harry Potter to Brew and Lola, Riggs just cruises around the room from one toy or bed to another. The slide is his favorite but he hasn't figured out how to do it on his own, only taken a few tumbles or rides with his siblings. If he doesn't have socks on, with his clammy baby feet he can climb up the slide, which is a problem and results in damages and crying if we don't catch him first.
    Eating and sleeping are still going great! Nothing new and nothing to complain about. He's growing on scale and did pretty well getting his flu shot last month. He's spending less time in his jumper, but can really get going when we put him in.
     While Riggs is getting more mobile, he's not terribly destructive yet. He does love pulling stuff down or pulling the plastic dishes out of the cupboard, but he hasn't been very determined to open cupboards yet. I'm dreading that. He has unrolled a few rolls of toilet paper and had a dip or two in the toiled, but us bigger humans are learning to close the toilet lid and leave the toiled paper on the tank. But if I am being really honest, I hate this phase and won't be sad to say farewell once and for all.
   A few weeks after Riggs turned 11 months, Brewer was in his class play as "Perry Pig". He was so so so excited about his play. It was almost all he could talk about and he worked hard at memorizing his parts and delivering them well. We were able to all attend the evening performance and he did a fabulous job. You could tell that he liked the spotlight pretty well. It was a fun night!

Fall Festival Weekend

  While the boys were pedaling around the St. George area, I was back in the frigid winter weather trying to make sure Fall Festival would be a success. I mostly wanted it to make about the same amount of money as years past. Lucky for me, my mom is amazing and completely selfless. She flew in from Oregon the day that Phil left so she could be there to help with the kids. She did that plus so much more! It was so wonderful to have her there, like another having another brain and another set of hands. Plus the kids were excited to have her too.
    Fall Festival turned out to be pretty good. Thankfully there were so many awesome people that agreed to lead a different assignment for the event. During the actual event, there were a few hiccups that the maybe caused a little panic, but with everyone working together the problems got sorted out pretty quickly. The few main problems were not having internet to run the squares, so we could not take credit cards from the chrome books we had set up. Thankfully, Megan Bybee was sent from what could only be inspiration and let us borrow chrome books from the middle school that were already connected to the internet. It was definitely stressful, but we worked it out! A special shout out goes to Michele Bartell and Kindra Cherry for helping me work through it! We also didn't have forks temporarily--another shout out to Tiffany Wilson and Kindra for sorting that out. And lastly we ran out of prizes because we had so many people in attendance! A shout out goes to Audrey Struttmann, Lori Driggs and Kristin Weston for figuring that one out! Phew! Thankfully it was over and cleanup lasted less than an hour, which was another miracle!!
    Saturday night included a big bowl of ice cream for me and relaxing time with my Mom. Sunday was also just a chill day with the kids and Grandma. We played a lot of games that she brought and looked forward to Phil coming back home. We made a spooky Halloween dinner of ghost mashed potatoes and mummy hot dogs which were excellent because the bread dough we used was Grandma's!! Sadly, Monday had to roll around and we drove Grandma back to the airport which is always the worst part of the trip!!

Halloween

       This kids had fun picking out their costumes this year. Boyd decided pretty quickly that he wanted to be a bandit. That was easy as we had everything we needed and we added an extra nice touch in the form of a five o'clock shadow--he thought that was really cool. Brewer wanted to be the Hulk, which we thought was perfect with his square jaw. As we trick or treated, everyone we visited (all the businesses) were so tickled by him and his costume. It was perfect! Lola wanted to be Cinderella. Although when we first started talking about Halloween costumes in September, she said she wanted to be Spiderman. Ha, life with only brothers!
      Beth and Brennen came up a few weeks before Halloween and while they were here we attended the Fall Festival at MD Nursery. It was low key and really cold, snowing actually, but it's always good to get out of the house. We also ate yummy food, visited with Grandma and just hung out and played! It's always such a treat for us when they come to visit!
     The next weekend was Fall Festival at the middle school. Another activity to dress up in costume. This time we didn't paint Brew's face for the sake of time and the craziness of the day, he just wore the mask.
    Halloween itself was also crazy--part of that was due to being PTO president. After getting everyone ready in the morning and off to school, I didn't have much time before I had to scoot back to the school to help setup and decorate for the assembly. Sadly no one else was able to come help, so it took a bit longer! Then it was off to get supplies for the assembly to pie the principal. After the craziness of the assembly we gathered up the kids and zoomed home for snacks for the 3 bigger kids and a nap for Riggs. While Riggs was sleeping, I took the older kids and we went to Trick or Treat on Main. It was pretty chilly and we decided to go by ourselves this year which ended up being really nice.
     Again, it was a  quick zip home to grab Riggs, Phil and decorations for the trunk or treat. Setting up at the park was quick and we let the kids stay in the car for as long as they wanted because by then it had become sooooo cold. Riggs didn't get much of a Halloween costume. He was dressed up in his jammies that could resemble prison attire. Then he was layered up in his green snow suit which also passes for a bear. He also had a penguin beanie and I carried him around in the ergo carrier with the popcorn cover on it. So I guess he could have been any of those 4 things, but the sad part is that we don't have ANY pictures of him from any of our Halloween events! Total mom fail! The actual trunk or treating was fast and furious. The boys went around themselves and I went with Lola while Phil handed out candy in his Grandpa mask complete with the shaking his hands as he put candy into kids bags. Lola didn't even hold her candy bag, she just kept her hands in her coat pockets and I carried her bag while she said "trick or treat". It was COLD!!
    After going as fast as possible, we blasted the head and zipped down to Victor to pick up burger and took them to Grandma Greats. It's always fun to show off the costumes and Grandma Great is a wonderful audience. The kids had fun there, eating and warming up, but it was already getting late for Riggs, so we couldn't stay too long. On the way home we popped over to the Birch's, the most favorite house of all my kids. There, Bart and Jill spoil them with pop and bags of chips! Finally, we headed home, snuggled up in comfy clothes (after we thoroughly scrubbed Brewer) and watched The Great Halloween Baking Competition Finale. It was the perfect way to end the night!

Boys Weekend

   Towards the end of October, Phil and some of his buddies, Jake, Todd, Carl and Peter headed down to Hurricane for a little warmth and a lot of mountain biking! Phil mentioned the amount of miles they did on their bikes on the short two days of riding and it made my sit-bones hurt! But it sounds like they had a blast, riding old trails, new trails, eating good food, and hanging out in the hot tub to soak their tired bodies.

Lola's Birthday

     Celebrating Lola is so fun. She is just the sweetest, cutest, most thankful girl there could be. She's not sassy or disobedient, or any of the things that people have told me little girls can be like. She's still such a light of our family and we all adore her every day. Earlier in the week she helped me make the layers of her cake and loved helping with her apron. I still can't turn my back on her, she may add something or spill something if I'm not looking, but she's a fun little helper that will lick all the spatulas and beaters.
     Leading up to her birthday, we realized that Lola doesn't really like swans. The real reason is because she has 2 aprons, one pink and very girlie and the other is a swan or goose that has a cute little swan neck that wraps around the wearer's neck. She would rather wear the pink one because she loves pink so much. But she told me that she doesn't like swans. This was a problem for me. A few years earlier my Mom sent me some swan slippers that were pure magic from Restoration Hardware but they were size 4-5. I tucked them away in my closet and waited for her 4th birthday so I was a little devastated that she didn't like swans. We kept talking about it and trying to convince her that swans were great! But it wasn't working. Finally I told her that I had a birthday present for her that had something to do with swans and if she didn't like swans then I would just return her present. She looked at me and promptly said, "Well I kind of like them." Progress!! It all spiraled from there. Phil's mom found about the swan slippers and had the cutest little ballerina swan that Lola got too. The swan cake was definitely from my persuasion. She really wanted a ballerina cake, but I thought maybe that would be a better idea for when she's actually taking ballet classes. Oh poor Lola--thanks for indulging your mother and letting us celebrate you with swans. She did end up really liking the swan slippers and for some reason hopped around in them all day. It was hilarious. The swan cake she may have liked, but only had one bite of...
     We had fun making Swedish pancakes for breakfast and watching her open her presents. That same day, Lola and I got to attend a baby shower for a friend that seemed pretty special for Lola too! She was probably tickled that so many of her adult friends got to see her on her birthday and wish her a happy day. In the end we had friends over, sang happy birthday and let her open the last presents. It was wonderful loving on her extra hard on her special day!