Happy Halloween

We hope everybody has had a Happy Halloween.  It was really fun dressing Jared up.  He was so completely adorable! It was nice to because he liked his costume and Mark and I could dress up to match him really easily.  I present:

Jared the Giraffe

With his parents, his branches with leaves.  So Mark and I wore long sleeved green shirts and brown pants so we could look like tree branches with leaves. The best part was how much we paid for Jared's costume,  Any guesses?  Way lower

$4.03!!  

We saw it at Babies R Us and it was marked $7.50 so we thought okay we can handle that and then Mark took it to the register and it came up as $4.03.  

Sweet! 

 Doing what Giraffes do, walking on all four.

These were all the leaves I could find in our backyard.  I remember spending HOURS raking up leaves growing up. Then we had a blast jumping into huge piles in our backyard.  Not so much here. One day we will find some big leaf piles for our kids.

And here are our 2010 Pumpkins: 

 

 I chose this pattern because the Ghosts looked like they were caroling, I am really excited for Christmas music.  It was the first time since we have been doing these patterns that I actually finished before Mark. 

Till next year!

Got it!

So today was randomly really warm (77! whereas two days ago it was 43 crazy; yet great Colorado) so we went outside to play and I finally got a picture of Jared's little teeth.

 

Crazy Growling face!

He looks like he is getting ready to make some really important announcement. 

 

So awhile back I bought two large Tupperware containers so in the winter I can bring them into the kitchen and Jared can play since it will be too cold outside. One currently has the sand and the other one I use for water (or beans when he is old enough and won't eat them) or maybe some birdseed.  I really am so grateful that I worked in a preschool for one year because it really gave me some fun ideas that I can't wait to use Jared just needs to be a little bit older. And if you haven't seen this website that a friend of mine started and you have toddlers you should most definitely check it out.

We LOVE our little backyard! It's just right.  

Jared has figured out how to slide open the screen door so on nice days I just leave the glass door open and he can just crawl outside and play till his heart's content. The only problem is that he hasn't quite mastered closing the screen door so I hope bugs don't come in.  It's totally worth it though.

Scarecrow Days

One of the things I find myself constantly looking for are fun at a minimal cost, community events. I have even subscribed to a couple of newsletters and "calendar of events" deals on facebook to make sure I don't miss any opportunities for some fun. Once September comes around I really start looking up festivals and seasonal activities that we can participate in.  In Old Colorado City (which is where you go here if you want the cute downtown shops, not downtown Colorado Springs) they put on Scarecrow Days every October.  Businesses decorate scarecrows to match their store.  So we went down on a beautiful fall evening and checked out the displays.

I thought that there would be more scarecrows but the ones we saw were pretty cute and it was so nice to stroll down the sidewalks with the pretty fall colors and fantastic weather.  We also found the Colorado Creamery and this amazing BBQ store that offers samples which we have to check out another day.

And we of course made our traditional Halloween Sugar cookies.  All that's left is pumpkin carving and dressing up.

This picture makes me laugh because typically if someone in our family is having part of their head cut off it is Mark not me, but Mark and Jared look super happy so here it is.  

FINALLY!

1.  Jared's two bottom teeth broke through his gums.  I swear this kid has like impenetrable gums. 
2. The primary program is over!  I feel like the whole month has been a big headache.  (Which is very sad because October is my favorite month.  I hope I can do the program the last week in September next year so I can enjoy my favorite month)  I have just felt consumed by it.  Haven't there been many many talks about simplifying things in our church?  Anywho.  It went fine if you were wondering despite our pianist not being there and someone having to fill in... (she did find someone to fill few days before, that was a HEADACHE!) The kids did really well though.
3. I don't have to think about or plan any more quarterly activities till like January!
4. I got 3 names approved for callings now they just have to say yes.
5. The Program is OVER!  (Yep its worth mentioning twice)

In other news.
I have a super sweet husband who brought home flowers for me last night to wish me good luck today.  I was always so envious of all the people in choirs and plays and dance productions who always got flowers so it was really sweet of Mark to get me some.

And Jared and I got a package in the mail from my amazing sister Susanna.  She is doing an excellent job keeping me in cute holiday decorations a slight obsession of mine.

Cute huh?   

So life is really looking up.  It's nice.

The Great Outdoors

We were planning on going up to Denver to go to the zoo today and then go visit some friends in Greeley but that didn't work out so instead we decided to go check out some waterfalls nearby. We are so glad we went because it was super pretty! There was a nice little hike, it was pretty steep but just the right length. It was in a really pretty canyon and to get there we got to drive by a really nice side of town with big big trees and fun houses that look all different from each other. I think it would be great if Mark could get a job over in that school district. It's a much older side of town.

 

We were so glad that there were still some colors left.  It's been such a nice fall.

We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful place.  We only had to drive about 30 minutes to get here. It made me want to go camping. Mark has one more day off then its back to school.  But that's okay because it means we are that much closer to Christmas, only 65 days!!

Pumpkins!

Today we went out and picked out some pumpkins.  We decided to skip a pumpkin patch because Jared isn't even walking yet so it just seemed like it wouldn't be as much fun for him.  Next year we will definitely hit one up.  But we did find two great pumpkins at a pumpkin stand and got them for $7.00 which I thought was great.  So we tried to get Jared to take some pictures with our pumpkins but it was really hard to have him sit still long enough to take the picture or any picture.

In other news our little pumpkin did pretty well at the doctor yesterday.  Mark came with us since he is out of school which made me feel slightly better about Jared's anguished cries when he got his shots.

At one year Jared is: 22 pounds 31 inches

At birth he was: 7.5 pounds and 20.5 inches

He still has NO teeth but two very large bumps on his bottom gum where one day they will come.  He is getting better at standing by himself and likes it when we help him walk somewhere. Maybe he will start walking before he gets any teeth?
He is basically right where doctors would like to see him and perfectly healthy.  I wrote a really long, detailed journal entry about him so I won't put that all here.  He loves reading books, pushing anything (chairs, his pack n play, books, toys, balls), opening cupboards in the kitchen, and playing outside. He babbles a lot but doesn't say much that is recognizable.  The closest is blanket and yes he still loves his blanket! His favorite foods are: bananas, strawberries, hard boiled egg yolks and oatmeal. It was nice to talk to the doctor and get the green light to give Jared what ever he wanted.  Today he ate a very small peanut butter sandwich and thought it was so great.  It was also the first time in a year that I did not nurse Jared and I think that's great.  Jared did really well and I am so glad that we could make it to one year but I don't feel the need to go any longer (I don't think he does either.) I love it when he will cuddle with me and his little laugh. We love our little pumpkin. It's amazing to think that at this time last year we were still in the hospital with him.  He has truly blessed our lives.

What a year!

Jared is now officially one year old.  (As of 9:12 p.m. today) What a happy year it has been! We have been so blessed to have Jared in our lives.  He made the transition to parenthood so smooth for us. He is so sweet and easy going. Tomorrow we are taking him in for his one year check up and will give the full report tomorrow. But here are some fun birthday pictures from today.

Blowing Kisses.  

Awhile ago Mark taught Jared how to make a kissing sound. So I decided to teach him how to blow kisses.  He will do it, only without moving his hand.  It's cute though.

 

We got Jared a pop up tent with a tunnel attached.   He seems to like it.

THE park

 While we were in Gunnison we found a super fun park.  We have taken Jared to parks a few times but he really hasn't seemed to interested. So it was fun for us to see him have fun there.

I love how he is looking at Mark here. I wish I had more of Mark's profile, oh well.

We had him slide down sitting up a few times but he thought going down on his tummy would be more fun. I don't really blame him because for awhile there I had him go down the stairs like that.
Can you see that crazy playground equipment in the back left corner?  It was huge!! I could not believe how tall it was or how steep the slides were.   I should have taken a picture of just it!  One other fun thing about the park was that instead of just having benches for people to sit on they had porch swings!  They set up an open frame and then attached a porch swing bench to it.  It was so great.  I would love to have a park just like this nearby.
*In the first picture you can see half of one of these bench swings behind Jared.  They were so GREAT!

Yellow!

So last weekend we drove over to Gunnison to try to find some nice fall colors and we were successful!  Colorado mostly just turns yellow which is very nice but I am always excited to see lots of colors.  That is the one things I miss about Utah, lots of colors so nearby. Jared did really well in the car and pretty well in the hotel.  He woke up about 3:30 in the morning and would not go back to sleep (I think if we would have let him cry a few minutes after comforting him he would have fallen asleep but there were people in the next room and we like to be considerate. ) which was not fun but eventually after hearing every primary song I know he fell asleep in Mark's arms. Mark's favorite part about the trip was the Huckleberry smoothies we found.  They are his all time favorite and hard to come by so that was pretty exciting.  Here are some of the highlights of our trip.

  Our hotel was right on a golf course so we took a nice stroll Friday evening and saw deer right on the green!

Gunnison is a pretty small town but they had so many trees and they were all this yellow/gold color.  It was great. 

If you look hard enough you can just make out the deer to the left of Jared's right shoulder but he is super cute so you don't really need to see the deer.

I have always wanted to find a road just like this only maybe with a few more colors but I will take it.  So fall like to me.

Mark was trying to get Jared to be happy, it worked only Mark ended up looking a little goofy, just a little though.

 

 

 

Spire Rocks

 

 

We did find some spots of red which was super fun.

 

 There are so many more pictures but you can get the general idea. We are glad we found a nice place to go to see the colors. 

I thought I would put up lots of pictures for all the readers of this blog who live somewhere that doesn't have pretty colors.  I know I would want to see someone enjoying FALL!! I remember I even asked my sister to take some pictures for me when we were in Egypt.