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...

four years with my babes

4 years seems like it should be a short amount of time when you think about it but it's hard to remember life without my lover! jeremy is the best thing that ever happened to me!!! we celebrated our anniversary in texas and jeremy "re-created" our first date...how fun! i love you!

lu & havi

brigg and havalah came for a visit on their move to pennsylvania! i am so excited they are living a mere 4 hours from us...they did a super job entertaining the kiddos and even found time for a little yard work...come back soon ya'll :)

texas flavored

I apologize for the big ol' post, but hey everything is bigger in Texas, right? We had a blast on our two week vacay to Austin in August. We were so-looking forward to it and it flew right by without pausing...I still can't believe it's already over.
For every picture posted here there are probably 20 more we have from the trip so it was hard to choose. (thanks Joel, Jennie & Abbie for the pics I stole from you!)
We went to Innerspace Caverns, Georgetown Lake, out to Nana & Poppie's land to see the cattle and horses, played in the fountain, rode a train, went to parks, ate delicious food, fished, played with cousins, ate ice cream at Amy's, bought lots of books, saw our good friends the White family (wish we could have hung out for days!), went to my very first circus (it was also a first for Hyrum & Hunterbug), watched movies, went on dates, helped Jennie & Matt move to Houston, met a new cousin baby Michael, and the boys did a lot of in-the-car-sleeping.
We did a lot but it was relaxing as well. Thank you Shakespear family for such a great time!!!