Outrageous October Orchard Outing

What can I say? We love having Brigg & Havalah visiting, playing in large piles of leaves, being buried in said leaves, having picnics, picking pumpkins, drinking cider, eating donuts, petting small animals, soaking up fall sunshine, eating hay (that only applies to Hunter), and riding in the fastest, bumpiest SWEETEST horse-drawn-hay-filled-wagon ride ever!!! We'll be back next year...or maybe next week!

Papa Wilson

My Papa Wilson passed away a couple of weeks ago. My parents were so generous to fly my brothers and I to California so we could be at the funeral. It was so wonderful to be with my family and to see so many extended family members that I don't get to see very often! (24 out of the 27 grandchildren were able to be there) It was fun to hear so many stories of Papa (and plenty of ones I hadn't heard before) and to celebrate his life. He has been sick for a long time and it is nice to know that now he feels no pain and that he has been reunited with many family members.

Hyrum and Jeremy were able to spend a lot of one-on-one time while Hunter and I were gone. They went to the library, played at the mall, played frisbee outside, stayed up late to watch a movie and went out to eat at a restaurant. It sounded like they had a blast, and Hyrum's favorite part when I asked him about his weekend was that he was able to drink juice and water. Wow! Sounds like I missed a lot :) (thanks to Shannon and Laura for watching Hyrum during the weekdays!!!)

General Conference

The first weekend in both October and April our church has a General Conference for the church worldwide. Our prophet, his two counselors (above) and the 12 apostles (below) and other general leaders speak to us about a variety of topics such as faith, repentance, obedience and eternal families. I look forward to this conference every six months. And although I heard maybe 25% of what was said (due to a certain 2 year old and 9 month old!) I still came away feeling extremely uplifted, edified and excited, grateful and happy to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and to know that God knows and loves me and Jesus Christ is my Savior. (I am glad I can watch them again on-line and read them later)

Second counselor in the First Presidency, Dieter F. Uchtdorf gave an inspiring talk on hope Saturday morning. Here are a couple of snippets I found especially comforting.

Hope… is like the beam of sunlight, rising up and above the horizon of our present circumstances, it pierces the darkness with a brilliant dawn. It encourages, inspires us to place our trust in the loving care of an Eternal Heavenly Father who has prepared a way for those who seek for eternal truth in a world of relativism, confusion and of fear.

Hope is not knowledge but rather the abiding trust that the Lord will fulfill His promise to us. It is confidence that if we live according to God’s laws and the words of His prophets now we will receive desired blessings in the future. It is believing and expecting that our prayers will be answered. It is manifested in confidence, optimism, enthusiasm and patient perseverance. In the language of the gospel, this hope is sure, unwavering and active. The prophets of old speak of a firm hope and a lively hope. It is a hope glorifying God through good works. With hope comes joy and happiness. With hope we can have patience and bear our afflictions.

We hope in Jesus Christ, in the goodness of God, in the manifestations of the Holy spirit, in the knowledge that prayers are heard and answered. Because God has been faithful and kept His promises in the past we can hope with confidence that God will keep His promises to us in the present and in the future. In times of distress we can hold tightly to the hope that things will work together for our good as we follow the counsel of God’s prophets. This type of hope in God, His goodness and His power refreshes us with courage during difficult challenges and gives us strength to those who feel threatened by enclosing walls of fear, doubt and despair.

Embrace and rely upon the hope of Israel, for the love of the Son of God pierces all darkness, softens all sorrow and gladdens every heart.”

Shakespear Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph

Shakespear Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph

emotional hyrum

This morning before church Jeremy asked Hyrum to make certain faces

tired

mad

serious

sad

happy

scared

excited!

*sidenote: Anyone notice how nicely Hyrum's hair is laying down? The key is to bathe your children. I know this will be gross to most of you but I bathe my kids maybe once a week, honestly, more like every other week but it is something I am working on :)

thank you, children's orchard















































I must say we are rather spoiled. Because of the amazing generosity of Jeremy's older brother and his wife (Joel & Stacie) giving us ALL of their boy clothes when we had Hyrum (and also many other gifts by friends & family) we rarely need to get any clothing items for the boys but once in a while we do need something. This year I knew we needed to get Hyrum a coat and a very WARM coat seeing that we live in the frozen tundra of Michigan. We got Jeremy a very warm coat last winter so I knew it would be expensive. So I was a little worried about how much we would need to spend.

There is a store here called The Children's Orchard that sells used clothing and toys for kids and I usually think it's rather over-priced for used things but everything there is in great condition-clean, no rips or stains. Every year this store has a tent sale where everything is at least half off of what they normally sell it for. They put everything under a tent in huge tubs and there are lots & lots of tubs. So I get there right on time last Saturday and I start looking through the 3T tubs. One minute it wasn't there and the next minute it was - in perfect condition, a big red DOWN coat just Hyrum's size! I couldn't believe no one else had snatched it up! It is so nice and warm and I think it will fit him for two winters and I paid 5 dollars for it! It was a GAP coat and I have never darkened the doors of a Baby Gap and probably never will so I had to look up on-line to see what they normally go for - yup, 50 bucks so I enjoyed a nice 90% off discount :) I still can't believe the luck! I also found two pairs of cords for Hyrum (brown & tan), each for 2 dollars, bought new at Old Navy for 20 dollars (another 90% discount), some church shoes for 3 bucks and a nice pair of jeans for Hunterbug.

in love...






































































with my baby!

shakespear sleep over

We had our first family sleep over last Tuesday night. I was telling Jeremy how at BYU some of my roommates and I would drag our mattresses into the living room and sleep out there sometimes or sleep on the couch and how it would be fun to do that with our kids once in a while. We did exclude Hunter from this one but hopefully he will forgive us someday!
It started with Jeremy taking Hyrum to the 'castle' park for almost two hours to play, then I read him some books and we popped popcorn and got out some chocolate to eat while we watched 'Tarzan'. Hyrum got really sleepy around 9:30 and just wanted to cuddle. So we got out the blow-up mattress and I slept with him on that and Jeremy slept on the couch. I didn't sleep the best that night but it was fun and Hyrum was really excited to be able to stay up later- (since he usually goes to bed at 7 and didn't go to bed until 10:30 that night!) I hope this sticks as a tradition.

hair
I gave Hunterbug his first haircut Saturday. Hyrum didn't need his first haircut until he was 17 months old but this kid had major hair over his ears and half a mullet going down his neck, so it had to go. I left it long on top and even though these pictures really don't show the difference, he really looks so different and so handsome!




























This is what Hyrum looks like after drying his hair after a bath...in case anyone wondered

mean mommy

i know that some of you may think it's mean to let your kids cry through the night to get them to sleep through the night and that is (of course) fine if you think so, but it seems to work well for us. we did it with hyrum when he was 6 months old and he has been a great sleeper since.

for some reason i didn't want to do this with hunterbug-i don't know why, it's just hard to listen to your baby cry! but as he has gotten older he has slept worse and worse at night. he was getting up 3 times a night, sleeping maybe 3 hours at a stretch and then a lot of times not wanting to go back to sleep for like 2 hours...that may be normal for a 1 month old but he's almost 8 months now.

so, being back from our travels and having visitors we decided it needed to be done. the first two nights he got up twice and cried for an hour each time, the second two nights he got up twice and cried for like 15/20 minutes each time. then the fifth night (my personal favorite) he slept from 6:45pm to 6:15am with not a peep or sound and was a happy, playful baby the next day and took 3 hours worth of naps. and he's been doing it since...whew!

oh how i love good sleep!

labor day

well we had a fabulous weekend and the only thing un-fabulous about it (except for maybe a baby with a fever) was that I didn't take a single picture the whole time! that is very un-megan-like.
we drove down to pittsburgh to spend a couple of days with my two brothers and their families and my sister in laws sister and her kids. so, there were 7 adults and 7 kids under the age of 6, 6 of them being boys age 4 and younger! it was so much fun and i think my favorite part was throwing a football around with my brothers-i miss that! monday we went to the lake with some friends and relaxed at home.
so, enjoy these pics of the boys enjoying their baths before our trip...