Happy Halloween!

Stephen played with the bowl of candy at Grandma and Grandpa Smith's house for about half an hour tonight. He kept picking up the candy and tossing it and giggling. He reminded me of a piarate opening a chest of gold and letting it run through his fingers.

Here we are waiting for trick-or-treaters at my parents' house. That's me in the front row - second from the left. Just in case you couldn't tell...

Harry Potter and a Clown (Cousin Talan) hanging out at the Smith's. They had so much fun throwing Tootsie Rolls all over the house and crushing some Reese's Cups inside the wrappers!

Carving Jack-O-Lanterns

For FHE we went to the Quist home and had a "Pumpkin Night." My mom made pumpkin muffins, cookies, and pie and then we went out to the garage to carve pumpkins. We had so much fun designing and carving our jack-o-lantern. I designed the face and gutted the pumpkin, then Scott took over and did the carving. Stephen was entertained by my parents' beagle, Indy. He crawled around on the ground the entire time, giggling and getting completely filthy. I was so impressed at Scott's carving abilities - I had no idea he was so talented in this area. It just goes to show that you don't know everything about your spouse! Scott did an awesome job and even gave the back of the pumpkin a semi-transparent "S" monogram. It looks really cool with a candle in it! If you look carefully at Stephen's feet and legs in these pictures you can see how gross he was.

Harry Potter

Ok - here is the standard ward trunk-or-treat post. :) I never thought it would happen to me, but I will admidt it - I am one of those crazy moms who spends hours sewing a costume for my little one...I made it big so that he can wear it a few more years. Mostly it was just fun form me to have a "project." Steve enjoyed the party more than we expected. He got a kick out of watching all of the "big"kids walking around in their constumes. All three of us liked eating cotton candy. We left just as they started the "trunk-or-treating." One-year-olds do not need candy. One-year-olds' mommys also do not need candy. One-year-olds' daddys do not eat candy. (At least that is how it is in our family!)

Wild Nights

We have always been fortunate because Stephen is a great sleeper - he rarely wakes up during his 12 hour nights. . . but every now and again (just when I start to gloat) he has a wild night like last night ...

8:00 pm - Stephen goes to bed.

10:30 pm - Scott and I go to bed - (this is early for me)

11:21 pm - Something wakes me up - after a while I realize that it is Steve's Lights and Sound Aquarium playing full blast. (You have to know that his room is in the absolute opposite end of the house, but the sound carries!)

11:23 pm - I am trying to ignore the music - it will shut off soon - but I am also wondering why Steve turned it on?

11:24 pm - I am awake fully now and go down to check - Stephen is fast asleep under the aquarium with full sound and lights flashing. I turn off the aquarium (with the grown-up button) and go back to bed.

12:07 am - Stephen is crying now - he does this occasionally for about 15 seconds and then goes back to sleep, but this time I am not so lucky - he is not going back to sleep.

12:15 am - Ok he is really not going back to sleep so I go and check on him. I give him a drink and some Tylanol (he is teething) and check the diaper. All very standard procedure. Finally, I take him to sit in the rocking chair for a while. He is very content and as he starts to relax, some toots start coming. Of course - I should have known!

12:25 - I put Stephen back in bed. (He must feel better now). After 5 minutes of fussing he is back asleep.

12:27 pm - Aaahhh, now I can go to sleep finally!

12:28 pm - Scott starts snoring and something is dripping in the bathroom. . .

12:30 pm - Put ear plug in one ear...thats all I remember.

So the question still on everyone's mind is "Why did Steve turn on the music?" I don't think we will ever know...

By the way, these pictures were from a different wild night. I am not entirely sure how he got his arm through the neck hole, but this is how he was when I got him out of his crib. Also, you can't see it in the picture, but one leg was up inside the pajamas.

A Slumber Party

My sisters, Chery and Celsea, came over for a sleep over one night this week. They were on fall break and we took the opportunity for some real "girl time." We have had several of these sleep overs in the past but I don't remember Stephen ever getting so involved. While we were doing pedicures in the bathroom he kept crawling over and throwing random stuff in the bathtub (which was full of water). We tried to wait to make the marshmallow popcorn until after he went to sleep but he was in a really cheeful mood until nearly 9:30 and didn't really want to go to bed. Finally, I put my foot down and he went to sleep. My sisters and I then enjoyed our movie (Serendipity) and popcorn. The next morning Stephen was so excited to see his two aunts still at our house. He had a lot of fun climbing on the trundle bed and pile of sheets and blankets. We finished off the whole party by making crepes for breakfast. Over all, we had a lot of fun.

Our Big Decision

As many of you already know the last six months have been extremely difficult for our family. After Scott lost his job in May we have gone through a series of ups and downs as we came up with plan after plan for our future lives. Because of our financial situation, we are now onto plan ZZZ - we are going to have to move out of our beautiful home into an apartment in November. While it has been a struggle, it has become clear that Heavenly Father must have something in mind for us to do and learn and the only way to accomplish it is to move! We are sad and a little excited at the same time. We are sad to leave the beautiful surroundings of our wonderful little home and sad to leave the awesome ward that we love so much. We will also really miss seeing our awesome neighbors as often. We are excited because we hope that when we are situated in our new place we will find that we can breathe a little easier and not have to stress about money so much. Who knows, maybe we can afford to go on a little trip to California or go to a movie every now and then. But the best part of all is that now we will be able to really focus in on getting Scott through school. To help myself cope with the move I took several pictures of our house the way that I would like to remember it and I want to share them.

One of my favorite rooms in the house is Stephen's bedroom. I love it because we worked so hard on it to get it ready before he was born. Scott spent hours painting the room and making the stripes on the walls perfect. All of the bedding and paint matches perfectly and we spent MANY hours refinishing the dresser. I am very proud of this room and I regret that we will not get to enjoy it any more. Luckily, the most important part - Stephen - will still sleep just as sweetly wherever we go and I wouldn't trade that for anything!

Stephen spent several minutes hidding in the closet earlier today while I took these pictures. He liked going behind the closed part and getting really quiet. It was pretty funny.

In case anyone is wondering where we are going to move to, we found some aparments only about two miles from our current home. They are called San Angelin and are located on Baseline and Sunnyvale Road between Higley and Recker. They were built in 2006 and are a great deal! Here is a picture of the pool and some of the buildings.