Happy Halloween

Prairie in her organ grinder monkey costume, Ben in his gaucho costume and Atticus and Autumn in their Frog costumes.

Halloween was a success at our house. I always loved halloween as a kid. My dad really loves this holiday and has made it a tradition to come to our house for every halloween with Autumn. This is the first year that we did REAL trick-or-treating with her. Anyway, when I was a kid every year my dad would take all of our candy and lay it out on the floor, dividing it by candy bars, then types of candy bars and then write extremely creative entries in our journal about our stash. So each year we would want to get more candy than our sister did and also more candy than we did the previous year. As a parent I have a much different view of halloween, I do NOT want Autumn to get a lot of candy because I have just noticed in the last week how quick an effect candy has on her, she can be snuggled up on the couch almost falling asleep, have one single starburst and then be bouncing literally off the couch and I can not get her to sit still. Even though I don't know how excited I am about her having a lot of candy, we went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood and then I had to lay out her candy in the sam way that my dad always did.

Ben was pretty shameless. He took Prairie's pumpkin around for trick-or-treating and collected candy at every house for her, even though it is pretty obvious that she is not old enough to eat candy, but atleast he was dressed up as a gaucho (Argentine cowboy) in authentic clothing that he got last year in Argentina. Autumn was really shy at first, she didn't want to ring the doorbell, she wouldn't want to say trick-or-treat, pick out the candy or say thank you, she wanted me to do all of that. Then when she got around some older kids, and she saw them running house to house, she started to get it down, and started running and called after me, ben and my dad to hurry up. Ben was impatient with her at the beginning because she was really getting in costume, she got on all fours, and was trying to hop and really be a frog, she was also ripbitting, and Ben wanted to hurry so that he could be so generous and get a lot of candy for Prairie.

Autumn with her 2006 Halloween stash

Autumn in her costume

A close up of Atticus in her frog costume

Autumn and Prairie in their halloween outfits

halloween outfits again, but smiles this time

My family when I was young had some halloween cookie cutters, a pumpkin and a ghost. One halloween we made so many sugar cookies, we filled up up all of our kitchen counters. Jennie and I have been kind of reminiscent of that, so my mom bought some cookie cuters for Jennie this year. Jennie was too busy with school, so she didn't get to actually decorate, but she will get to eat, but we made sugar cookies and decorated them this afternoon before it got dark.

The halloween sugar cookies that me, Autumn and baba Russ decorated today

Baba Russ with Prairie

Baba Russ and Autumn pretending to be asleep after reading "I wish that I had duck feet" together

This is our family after church on Sunday on our way home. We usually walk and love having our double stroller for this. I walk to places as much as I can.

Halloween costume and other projects

Atticus and Autumn in their matching frog prince(ss) costumes.

I am a lot like my mom. We had a church halloween carnival tuesday night. I had been wanting to make Atticus a matching costume with Autumn's, but I wasn't sure I would have time. Well tuesday morning I just decided to start it, even though I hadn't finished Autumn's costume. So I sewed as much of that day as I could, of course not the whole day because I was taking care of the girls, making the pattern up as I went along. Well I got most of Atticus's costume done and then at 6pm, I was like I really better finish up Autumn's so that she can wear it. We showed up at the carnival a half an hour late, but they looked so cute.


Autumn was such a teeny baby, that the costume that my mom made for her at 1 year fits Prairie really well at 5.5 months, so Prairie is monkey.

Prairie alseep in her stroller after Halloween story time at the library.

Autumn fell asleep at her night time reading her new Dora the Explorer book

Ben brought home a present for Autumn and Prairie after his trip to Austin, Texas in the fine tradition of his Poopa. He got this Dora book for the girls and this is Autumn enjoying the book. Autumn in really in to Dora right now, I think that is what she wants her birthday cake to be.

Autumn the loca coca

The happy Prairie with her Aunt Jennie

Ben rebuiling the clutch and putting the engine back together in our kitchen.

The saga continues...but hopefully will be coming to an end. Ben got a free broken scooter from his brother-in-law in the beginning of June, and it has been is obsession since then. It turns out that parts are extremely difficult to come by for this model type. Ben first off didn't have a key, so he had to research and research to figure out the year and model number, after many hours was able to figure that out, and then had a key cut from a computer. Then he took it to a shop and they told him what was wrong, the parts weren't that expensive, it was the labor, and it was more money than Ben had to spend on it. Anyway to make a long story less long, Ben bought the repair manual off of ebay, and been spending hours and hours and hours on this this. He has already worked on the scooter for 6 hours today, spent 3 hours the day before and probably 5 hours the day before, and this is when he keeps telling me that he is almost done.

This is a picture of a 1972 Yamaha U7E, Ben's seat is a little torn up, and his has a little more rust, but this is more or less what has taken over Ben's life.

Anyway parts are almost impossible, but anyone that knows Ben, that knows once he wants something, nothing stops him unless it is literally impossible, he was able to find these tiny tiny parts in Japan that Yamaha has discontinued, that would fix his clutch. He was able to get the last one that Ben knows of in the United States of this one part for his clutch that is very difficult to find. Anyway, Ben who has never been very mechanically driven, has rebuilt the clutch, has learned all about small engine repair, and is hopefully just a few days away from a working moped, one of his dreams will be fulfilled. So he is hoping that the engine will be working by the end of the day, and that his battery will come into the shop by wednesday and then it will be a running bike ... so keep your fingers crossed.

Homecoming

Last week Ben had the annual AAMFT conference in Austin, Texas. He left late Tuesday night and didn't get back until Sunday night. I was worried about being by myself for so many days with two kids, but once Ben was gone I really realized how busy he has been lately, because it didn't feel like I was doing more work than I usually do, so me and the girls did just fine while Ben was gone to Texas.

It was Homecoming Week at BYU. Autumn was really excited to see the Y lite up at night, and has been really disappointed this week that she hasn't seen it lite up and keeps asking me why there isn't lights on the Y.

Autumn eating blue pancakes and watching the parade. She insisted on wearing my hat because
Prairie had a hat and she didn't, so my wet hair froze.

On Saturday morning me, Prairie and Autumn went to the Homecoming parade. I am not a big parade person, and I didn't really intend on going to the parade, but I saw on the list of activities for the week that there was a free pancake breakfast Saturday morning, and I thought that sounded fun. So we all got dressed up in blue and white and biked down to the duck pond to eat pancakes. Well it turned out that the four locations of pancake breakfastes were along the parade route. Autumn had a really good time eating blue pancakes and seeing horses and getting candy from the parade.

Prairie in her hat and enjoying the festivities.

Autumn being loca on campus while we walk around and play.

Then after that we spent a little over an hour just walking around and playing on campus, doing exactly what Autumn wanted to do. I was Autumn and she was pretending to be my Mommy. We played on the stairs, went in some buildings and played on the elevators. We had a really good time.

Autumn with her favorite friends to play with.

I haven't updated everyong on Autumn's newest "friends", which are the spanish Harry Potter books. She never plays with the english ones, just the spanish ones and she has names for each one of them. Daddy is volume number 5, Mommy is volume number 4 (those two are her favorites) then I think Autumn is one and Prairie is one, but she doesn't play with volumes 1-3 as much as 4 and 5.


The "friends" get hungry of course, so Autumn got all of my measuring cups out and filled them with goldfish crackers. When I took a couple of to eat she got very upset at me and told me that Mommy was eating that and that she was hungry, so I need to ask Autumn for crackers and she will share her crackers with me.

Prairie rolling around and grabbing toys.

Prairie is such a happy baby. She really is a joy, she loves people so much. She lites up whenever someone looks at her and she loves being held. She isn't all that fussy when you don't hold her, but you can tell that she just loves interacting with people. I am wondering if when she is Autumn's age if she would rather interact with other kids instead of bozes, laundry detergent bottles, books, etc.

Prairie has gotten really grabby recently, I am amazed at what she can reach especially when she is in her bumbo seat, she knows how to turn her back, arch it whatever to get a hold of everything that she isn't suppose to get a hold of. She also loves smacking things now. She will smack her bottle when she is drinking it almost the whole time, last night she was just laying on my bed next to Autumn, and just laying there so happy while she smacked her diaper cover and heard the sound it makes. She seems to be really tactile sensitive. She loves touching things, and feeling texture, and crunching bags to feel the texture and hear the sound it makes. She just smiles so much, anytime you glance in her direction you get a huge smile. The teeth and really starting to grow in and she really doesn't have a gummy smile anymore, she is getting a toothy smile, i love it and I love being her mom, especially since she goes downn for bed so easily.

Snow on the Mountain and Pictures

Autumn in black and white

Me, Prairie and Autumn leaving our front door to go take pictues of the mountain.

Yesterday it was a rainy day in the valley, bit it was cold enough that above the Y on the mountain, it was snow. Autumn had fun putting her big winter coat on to take pictures.

This is the house that we live in the basement of, and that is the mountain behind our house. It looks even cooler in person because you can see all the fall colors and then the snow above the Y.

Autumn burping baby Atticus.

Autumn has really enjoyed recently playing with her doll, Atticus. She wants to change her diaper at night, put pajamas on, and then feed Atticus, just like I am feeding Prairie. She had me wrap up her doll, and she insists on burping her baby and then wants to me smell the pretend burps on her burp cloth.

Autumn playing in bed and posing for the camera.

Prairie asleep in her bed, sucking on the same two fingers as her older sister.

The Two Teeth

This is my attempt at taking a picture of Prairie's two teeth.

Nothing Special

Prairie and the camera catching the oddest expression on her face.

It seems like our life is finally starting to take a normal pace. We have had two weeks in a row without any family visiting from out of town. I feel like our family is starting to really getting adjusted to having two kids. This past weekend Ben was really sick and Autumn was pretty sick on Friday. She literally laid on the couch the entire day and was in and out of sleep basically the whole day while she watched movies. As soon as she woke up on Saturday it was obvious that she was back to her perky self. Ben spent about 4 days straight in bed, yesterday evening he was finally feeling back to her normal self.

This is the infant carseat coat.

I used all the time that Autumn was sleeping on friday to do some sewing. I had a baby shower I was going to on Saturday and I decided that I wanted to sew a gift, so I found enough supplies already at home that I made something completely from leftover other projects. This is a coat for a little baby to wear, that can be used in the carseat, where you pull the latch through the hole. I designed the pattern off of some baby clothes patterns that I have. It is so satisfying to imagine a project, design the pattern, cut it out, sew it up and then be really pleased with the finished project, so I really enjoyed working on this project.This is the Autumn's halloween costume from last year, and the fleece fro the carseat
coat was leftover from this project.

I keep thinking up more sewing projects that I want to do for Autumn's birthday and for Christmas, but I need to be realistic so that I can actually finish them all.

Cutie Prairie, with those big rosey cheeks!

Prairie is doing really well. We seem to be the healthiest ones in our family, or atleast with a good immune system, neither one of us seemed to have gotten sick at all. Prairie is not just rolling onto her tummy consistently now, she is starting to really transport herself with rolling. One day she rolled one direction about 6 feet and then back the other direction about 8 feet. It is so fun to have her getting mobile, I love it so much, except when I am changin her diaper, she has almost rolled off the counter twice now. I am going to have to be more careful when I change her diaper.

My other announcement for Prairie is that she has her two bottom teeth visible now. I haven't gotten any studio portraits of Prairie in her blessing dress, so now I need to hurry so I can still get that gummy looking smile. I would post a picture of the teeth but Prairie is asleep right now, so another day.

Prostitute or Princess?

Autumn's Aunt Laura came over a couple of times this past week. One night she came over and they were trying to do makeup with this little cell phone makeup thingy Autumn got from Targer, it is really just lip gloss. So Laura came over the next night and brought her box of makeup and let Autumn do anything she wanted pretty much.

This is Autumn putting the makeup. It is pretty funny to watch her put makeup on, because you would think that she had seen someone do this (you know I don't wear makeup), so gently closing her eyes and applying the makeup.

After she had finished her makeup, it was time to do Laura Katie's makeup.


This is Autumn, Laura and Katie with their makeup on. Laura was just beginning to say that she looked like a prostitute and then Autumn went, "we look like princesses" in this really geniune, happy voice. So everyone knows a princess needs a crown.


Katie then proceeded to make a crown out of tin foil. If you look carefully you can see it on Autumn's head.


Then Autumn wanted to pretend get married to Katie. Katie told her that she wasn't going to marry a girl, so Autumn told her that she was a pretend boy. Then I helped her get some clothes to be a boy. She used her baba Russ's suit coat that he left behind for her, the tie her poopa left for her and used her dad's hat, and there you have it.

Here is Katie, Autumn and Prairie posing for pictures.

Katie and Prairie

Autumn feeding Prairie bananas

Prairie has entered the wonderful world of solid foods. She has been eating cereal for about a month, but I decided it was time that she got to try some real foods. So I was feeding her bananas for the first time and Autumn really wanted to help, being the older sister that she is, she ended up dumping most of the banana baby food all over the stool while I was trying video tape - that ended her short career as a baby feeder.


My baby is growing up so fast. I can't believe how much bigger she has gotten (how much less hair she has). Prairie has really mastered rolling onto her tummy, and is doing it all the time, but she keeps forgetting that she knows how to roll back to her back, so she will start getting fussy once she got the toy she wanted by rolling over. She isn't really an infant anymore, she is a baby. She smiles all the time - she is so happy, she loves being around people so much. It is hard to be down when you have Prairie there smiling these huge smiles back at you.

Conference Weekend and misc.

This past weekend my mom and step-dad flew in from New York for the semi-annual general conference. They got a couple of suites in Salt Lake City, and my family, my sister and her husband and my step-brother and his wife all came up for the weekend. It was a lot of fun to be together for conference weekend.

Prairie went swimming and loved it. The water was a nice temperature, at first a little got in her eyes, and she wasn't too jazzed, but then she got used to it and she was just kicking and kicking, she really loved it a lot.

This is Autumn with a chocolate milk face.

This is Autumn sitting in her baby stroller. She then proceeded to use her feet to wheel herself around the kitchen and told me that the stroller was her wheelchair.

Prairie after an emergency bath, because of a poop-plosion.

Autum having some quality snuggle time with her Aunt Jennie on our couch.

Prairie, Grandma Ciccotelli and Autumn at the hotel.

(edited for content)

This is one tired mommy. This is me after a fun busy weekend with everyone. I fell asleep pumping, and didn't even stir when Ben started taking these pictures of me.

Autumn plays this game where I am Autumn and she is the mommy. This works out pretty well until I need to feed Prairie. Yesterday I was acutally daddy, so when I needed to feed Prairie she told me I couldn't because I didn't have bones. For some reason she has understood that Prairie is getting milk from my "bones" (and she knows that only girls have "bones"), so today she asked me if I was going to feed Prairie with a bottle or with my bones.