All Things Halloween

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I love that once a year I can still play dress up! I also love all the pumpkin, apple cider and crunchy leaves. We have had a really weird fall so far. Snow one week and warm the next but we still managed to visit the pumpkin patch and corn maze.



 Pumpkin carving FHE with our friends.

 Jax loves to kiss baby Julian and to try and be a big boy with Emmett.

The finished products!

 Happy Halloween from the Avengers! Bax was not sure he liked being dressed up or that he liked Jax playing with his hammer.

I love Halloween but I do not do scary. My Halloween tradition since college is to watch the movie Clue and pass out candy. We figured Jax was too small to appreciate Trick or Treating so we stayed home and continued the tradition. This is one of my favorite parts from the movie.

The wind was blowing like crazy so we decided to have hot chocolate and cider for all of our Trick or Treating friends who needed a break from the cold. Jax was the center of attention with the big girls and the little kids decided they needed to watch Tangled.

Family Pictures

Family picture time! With the adoption finalized I wanted to take pictures to celebrate us becoming an official family. It is such a stressful thing deciding clothes and who will take them (I should have majored in photography). We got rained out a few times but we finally got a beautiful day. The high school cross country team was practicing in the park so we were taking pictures in between them running laps and Jax decided he was still tired after a two hour nap but I think they turned out great. I have such a great family and not to brag but my baby is pretty much the cutest baby in the world!

Cabin Fever

Luke was sick for about a week and a half and we didn't go anywhere but church. And while I loved having Luke home all day with us (he slept a lot) I was getting cabin fever. If you have never seen Muppet Treasure Island this is exactly how I felt:

So Luke offered to take me on a pine cone hunt since I've been wanting pine cones to make a fall craft. It was a crappy cold and windy/snowy day but we bundled up and went out. Jax's favorite place to be is on top of his daddy's shoulders. He loves his Daddy and loves to be tall! We drove around town and couldn't find any pine cones so we headed up Sinks Canyon. It was cold but pretty so we had to stop and take some pictures. A fun day with my boys! Baxter was loving running around exploring.

It's Official!!

The moment we have been waiting for has finally arrived! Jaxon is officially/legally ours! Our papers were signed by the judge on September 18th and we received them on the 20th. It was such an exciting day for us!! Once we got the papers we immediately called and made our appointment at the temple.

 On September 28th Luke, Jax, and I were sealed together as a family for eternity in the Saint George temple. What a spectacular day! A lot of our family were able to be there with us to share in our special day. It was such a special experience. Jax, who is normally a wiggly chatty guy, was quiet and just observing everybody while we were sealed together. The Spirit was amazing. Families are forever and I love my little family so much!

Visitors

Hunting season is here! Luke's dad Philip and bother Zach came to go hunting so Jax and I got to hang with the girls and the kids. Zach and Jayme came down from Alaska and we got to meet baby James. They are in the adoption process as well.

James is just a couple of weeks older than Jax. Both so different but oh so smiley and cute! James was a good sport letting Jax crawl all over him. Kelsey and Caleb were so excited to play with them pushing them around in their walkers and playing with them all day long. We got some pretty serious rain. Caleb and Kelsey had lots of playing in the puddles.

There is not a whole lot to do where we live so we went to visit the dinosaur museum (it is an hour away). Kelsey and Caleb enjoyed it at least!



The guys were up in the mountains getting rained and snowed on. Nobody brought a tarp so they got pretty soggy and packed it in a day early! I was pretty excited about that. The girls were pretty bored. Everybody was happy to have the boys back to help entertain us. We are so exciting everybody left a day early! I keep hoping someday we will live a little closer to family :)

Dirty Dash

So I kept seeing ads for different kinds of runs with obstacle courses and somehow got it into my head that it would be fun to do one. At one of the baby showers for Jax my friend Kara said she had signed up for the Dirty Dash and I should join her team. I convinced Luke and my sister Lindsey to do it with me. As I started to try and get in shape all I kept thinking was "Why?!?" One thing to know about me is I absolutely hate, hate, hate to run! It is not fun. It is torture. It is also exercise so that's good at least.

Here we are at the beginning all nice and clean :)

Our theme was Harry Potter.

Slightly muddy.

 Extremely muddy!!!

There were so many people we had to wait in line to do the obstacles so I didn't really need to worry about being in shape.

It was a lot of fun but I probably won't be signing up for any marathon or 10ks anytime soon or ever :)

Surgery



Over 4th of July weekend we noticed that Jax might have a hernia. After a visit to the pediatrician and an ultrasound they thought it was a cyst and so we were sent to consult with a surgeon in Billings. He decided that is was a hernia and that he would have to repair it surgically. Since we had to drive so far to get there they fit us in for surgery the next day. We stayed the night in a pretty shady motel. The next day at lunch our waitress told us that where we stayed was probably the worst part of town. Needless to say we found another hotel for the next night. It was much nicer and had a swimming pool. We took Jax swimming for the first time. We weren't really sure how he felt about it. He didn't cry but he didn't really look happy about it either. The weather was super hot so we thought that a movie would be a good way to pass the time. We saw Man of Steel. It was such a change from our crappy theater. The screen looked huge and there were no mysterious loud noises disrupting the movie. So nice! The next morning he had the surgery. He was so happy and smiley while they were getting everything set up. He had all of the nurses in love with him. After a 45 minute surgery they had us wait for an hour to make sure he didn't have a bad reaction to the anesthesia and then sent us home with a stuffed mountain goat. He did amazing!