Our Family Fall Activity :)

Last weekend we joined Dave outside while he raked up all the fallen leaves.  Leah was fascinated by the whole process and just stood there and watched for the first ten minutes or so, giving an amazed "oooooh" every once in awhile.  Then she decided to sit in the leaves:

Then she decided she didn't like how they felt

She began following Dave back and forth between the pile of leaves and the trash can...until he accidentally dumped a bunch of leaves on her, at which point she decided to stay farther away from the action.

She also had a lot of fun following him down the road to dump the leaves for the city to come pick up.

Dallin and I sat and watched the whole thing.

I feel like fall is just breezing past, and can't believe that Thanksgiving is here.  We are leaving in 3 minutes (or are supposed to) for the airport to join Dave's family in Boston for the holiday and are so excited to be with them soon.  We are so thankful for the many changes that our lives have undergone in the last two years - it's been a bit of a whirlwind and most days I feel like I don't have time to catch my breath, but the busy-ness is part of the blessing (even if it isn't always easy).  Happy Thanksgiving...I hope you have a wonderful holiday!

This little bug of mine...

Dallin is four months.  I think I'm supposed to say "I can't believe he's already 4 months!" but I feel like, "He's only just now turning 4 months??!"

For one thing, he's a big boy...we'll get his official stats on Thursday for his 4 month check-up, but he's quickly catching up to Leah in weight.  It's time to start looking for a new car seat for him because he'll have grown out of the Graco Snugride before too long.  He wears mostly 6-9 month clothes, but even some of those are getting kind of snug on him, so he wears some 12 month clothes (funny, because Leah also wears some 12 month clothes).  He also wears the same size diapers as Leah, which makes purchasing and carrying around diapers easy because I don't have to worry about two different sizes.

We love Dallin so much.  He's such a loveable little cutie and he LOVES to cuddle...if he could that's what he'd do all day.  Nothing makes him happier than kisses and hugs (really, it's adorable the way he grins in response to affection).  He has a HUGE open-mouth grin and he soaks up attention from anyone who will give it.  He's also very tolerant of love from Leah...she loves to lie on top of him and just hug, hug, hug him - it's never seemed to bother him so we let her do it.  

The two things he struggles with the most lately: car rides and naps - or any falling asleep process.  He DOES NOT like to ride in the car, especially if it's at night.  Sometimes he'll do okay during the day, but if you want to go somewhere at night, pretty much count on him crying the whole time.  Loudly.  Luckily, Leah has learned to completely ignore his wails in the car, so we're only dealing with one crying baby, not two.  I'm HOPING HOPING HOPING he grows out of this. Soon.  Leah had a little trouble around 2-4 months with car rides (particularly at night) but nothing like Dallin.  

As for the sleeping issue...I've spent quite awhile at this computer trying to figure out how to briefly describe the problems we're having with his sleeping, but can't succeed to my satisfaction, so let's just say I have tried a score of different strategies that have gotten me nowhere, and I'm feeling a little discouraged (and very, very, very tired).  I will say that he has been sleeping 11-12 hours at night for nearly a month now...let's just hope we can figure out his sleep during the day as well.  

(You may wonder why I'm so tired if he is giving me so much sleep at night...my best answer is two-fold: two babies under the age of two is very tiring when there are little to no breaks during the day, and because he is struggling so much with naps during the day, I get very, very little done and so I'm trying to squeeze things in after he goes to bed at night).

Once again, no "official" four month pictures, but here he is the morning he turned 4 months, relaxing on our bed after his breakfast.  I feel bad that he's so serious in all these pictures, because he's a very smiley little guy.  I'll make sure to get more happy shots some other time.  

We love you so much, Dal-pal!

Melissa's Visit Part 2

On Melissa's last full day with us, we decided to drive out to the monuments again.  Melissa had been to DC before, but that was before the WWII memorial (and, obviously, before the MLK memorial was built since that was just completed last December).

I don't think to put my sunglasses on very often, so Leah was fascinated with seeing me in them (and naturally wanted to try them out herself).

Melissa, me and Dallin with the Jefferson Memorial in the background

The whole family by the side of the tidal basin

The fall colors were beautiful!

Leah was itching to get out of that stroller and run free 

The impressive MLK memorial

Doin' a little jig

Not sure how well Leah complied with that last rule... 

I'm free!!!!

Leah loved Melissa...we all loved having her with us for a few days and we miss her!!

Melissa's visit, part 1

One of my best friends from high school came to visit us for a few days this weekend...and those few days were NOT enough!  Melissa was the perfect guest to have...she was so much fun to talk to and reminisce with, she was patient with the hectic activity at our house, and she was amazing to step in and help out wherever she could (particularly when she unexpectedly had to make our entire Sunday dinner...thanks, Melissa!).  We loved having her here, and I was very sad when she had to go.

In between the chaos that we sometimes refer to as Leah and Dallin, we managed to fit in a little sight-seeing here and there.

First sight: ANNAPOLIS!  We chose to go here the day Dave had to work since we go here almost any time someone comes to visit...it's one of our favorites :)  We didn't do a whole lot here besides walk around a little bit, but that's pretty much all we ever do in Annapolis.  We also didn't take very many pictures, but here are a couple (courtesy of Melissa!).

I love this little crooked house

Annapolis has lots of cute little Inns/B&B's like this one

Second sight: FORT MCHENRY.  I was incredibly disappointed to find that, though I remembered my camera on this one, I did not remember to take the card back out of the computer from my last upload and put it back in the camera...so, once again, these pictures are courtesy of Melissa.

I did not realize until recently that we lived so close to the place where the "Star Spangled Banner" was written.  We began our time at the Fort listening to a "Ranger" (basically a tour guide), but Leah only lasted about 40 minutes with him, so moved off on our own to tour the fort and then ended the day watching a video about the significance of the sight.  The coolest part about the video was at the end when they began to play the National Anthem and the movie screen then raised up to reveal a huge window that looked out on the Fort and the American flag waving proudly.  It was very moving (even for a mother worn out from chasing a toddler and who was anxious to leave instead of watch the video).

Dallin did really well in the stroller (he usually prefers to be held more than anything) 

Leah kept getting in the middle of the tour group and grabbing random people's legs, so I pulled her away for a little bit to give everyone a break 

Inside the fort

This replica was the exact same size as the original flag that was waving when Francis Scott Key wrote the song (I think that's what he said...Leah made it a little tough to concentrate...so don't quote me on that one.  If I have the chance to verify that is true I'll erase this disclaimer)

That's a proud little girl walking along the whole path all on her own!

"Oh, just a second guys!  All that running around makes me thirsty!"

A few more random moments

Leah's Grammy gave her a fun clown hat that she likes wearing...and now also likes putting on Dallin.  Who knows if he liked it?

Please excuse the spit-up! (we've had an abnormally large amount of that lately....)

Doesn't that smile just melt your heart?!

Another fun hat from Grammy...Leah didn't want to take this one off!

Happy Halloween!

Our ward Halloween party was 16 days before the actual holiday, so by the time Halloween rolled around, it felt like it had been over for awhile.  I completely spaced buying any candy, so we were one of "those" houses with the lights off and shades drawn all night.  

But I never did get a good picture of Dallin in his costume, so I put it back on the other day to try and capture his cuteness. Unfortunately, I did it right before he was heading down for a nap, so I couldn't get him to make any happy faces...this was the best I could do.  Happy Halloween!

Impromptu DC Visit

Here's the (I'm sure) long-awaited pictures of our last-minute outing to DC a couple weeks ago.  Believe it or not, I took a long time to narrow down these pictures.   Forgive me! 

This is out of order, but at the end, I fed Dallin in the car while Dave walked along the Potomac with Leah.  A beautiful end to a fun evening (we choose to forget about Dallin subsequently crying the whole way home).

I think he enjoyed himself... 

Leah was ALL over the place...

Non-stop!

Doing a little dance in front of the Washington Monument

Again...can't stop!

She LOVES pushing the stroller - or any stroller she finds (this can sometimes be a problem in public...you'd be surprised how many empty - or not empty - strollers she finds to push around)

We were impressed by the newly erected MLK memorial (more pictures of that in a different post)