Cody-man

This little guy is growing up SO fast!! He's ten months old today--I can hardly believe it. Here is some interesting info on our Cody:

• He weighs 21 pounds
• He talks himself to sleep at night, and we are often woken up in the middle of the night to his jabbering. If we go check on him, we find him fast asleep but talking to himself. It's cute, but can be quite annoying at 2 am
• For some reason, he holds his middle finger up on his left hand ALL the time, and all the neighbor kids think it's hilarious that he's always flipping everyone off. I was actually wondering if there was something wrong with his finger and he couldn't bend it, because it's ALWAYS in the upright position, but there's nothing wrong with it. Then Chris's sisters pointed out that both Chris and his dad always point with their middle fingers, so I guess it's a genetic trait!

Here are a few pictures to update you on our favorite Coder-dude. He LOVES all kinds of food, but especially loves sandwich cookies. No matter what he eats, he always makes a huge mess. He's old enough now that he rips off all of his bibs, so his shirts are always a mess. Thank heavens for Spray 'N Wash!

He pulls himself up to standing and walks along things--he'll be walking all over the place soon!

He crawls everywhere and is into EVERYTHING!!!

He loves walks outside and being in his stroller. I can't do much yardwork with him around because he eats the dirt.

He is still the happiest kid on the planet. He's so much fun, and we love him to death!

April Fool's Day

As my kids get older, I'm starting to realize that I'm a little bit of a party pooper about some things, and April Fool's Day is one of them. For me, it's something I roll my eyes at and then ignore, but for my kids it's an awesome day to attempt to pull all kinds of tricks. I told them on Sunday night that Wed was going to be April Fool's, and they got so excited and started planning what to do. There was no salt on a toothbrush this year (that was Sarah's prank last year to Robbie), but Rob did hide all of Chris's protein powder so he had to search for it. Talia just kept doing silly stuff all day long (like hiding her coat behind her back and then telling me she couldn't find it) and then saying "April Fool's". I decided to get into the spirit a little bit and I made "dirt cookies"--I found the recipe on allrecipes.com. and they were actually really good cookies! I didn't think they looked like dirt, bu the kids and all their friends did (see picture of said cookies below)


The classic prank of the day went to Sarah. On Tuesday night, after I tucked everyone in, she came downstairs and changed the plastic bags inside the cereal boxes. The Kix went in the Apple Jacks, and vice versa. On Wed morning Robbie got up and poured himself a bowl of what he thought was Apple Jacks, and as the Kix came out he just stared at the bowl and said, "What the......?!" It was classic! Kudos to Sarah for thinking of that one all on her own!

What has Talia been up to?

She is the best of frenemies with her sister.

She was a gumdrop in her dance studio's Nutcracker performance in December.


She is a social butterfly, and each day she doesn't get to play is a major tragedy. She loves her cousin Josie (shown in picture) and her BFF Addy.

Her hair has grown into the cutest pixie cut ever! It's been cut once since the big cut last October, and now we'll just keep getting the back trimmed up until all the layers grow out.

She still falls asleep all over the house in weird places. She's the one I have to go check on every night before I go to bed, because I never know if I'll find her asleep in her bed, under the bed, in the closet, on the stairs, under the desk, in the bathroom, in Robbie's room, etc, etc.

What has Sarah been up to?

She lost both her front teeth.

She had a great Christmas! She got spa factory, girl crush, and a crayola glow board. She had fun sledding in Brigham City at her grandma and grandpa's house. She had pneumonia at the end of the Christmas break, which was NO fun!



She was St. Lucia at the Shippen Christmas party. Doesn't she look beautiful?!

She was a mouse in her dance studio's Nutcracker performance. She LOVES dance!

She turned 7 years old! I can't believe she'll be baptized this year! Where has the time gone?

Where Have We Been?

I know it's been FOREVER since I blogged, but lately it seems it's all I can do to get the basics done. Here's a short list of what I've been up to:

• Working out--I'm doing my best to lose all this pregnancy weight, and so far I've lost about half of the extra weight I ended up with. I swear, sometimes it's a full-time job to try to lose weight!
• Scouts--I'm a wolf leader now. It's like planning a birthday party every week! Luckily, my co-leader lives next door, which makes planning and executing activities more convenient.
• Chauffeur--dance, gymnastics, swim lessons, preschool, basketball, baseball--for all these activities, someone has to get them there!
• Feeding--yep, still feeding the Cody man. It's impossible to be productive when you have to sit down every 2-3 hours and nurse a baby!
• Laundry--I don't know what it is about the 4th child, but it seems to be the straw that broke the laundry camel's back. All of a sudden there's a TON of laundry all the time, and I can't ever get on top of it. I swear I have nightmares about folding an unending pile of laundry.

There are many other things going on, but frankly I can't think of them. My brain is way too gone by this time of night. I'll try to do better at updating!

Fall Festivities

What would the fall season be without a trip to Gardner Village to see the witches? My kids love to go, and this year Chris joined us for the first time. He'd never been to Gardner Village before, and after having been decided that it's just a place for women to spend money. However, the kids and I enjoyed seeing the witches--Talia remembered from last year the one that looks like she splattered into the side of the mill, and was very excited to see that witch again. We went on a hay ride and listened to the witch tell stories, and ate soup and bread from the bakery. Thanks to Jay and Melissa for letting us tag along with them!

Another annual tradition is our pumpkin-carving evening. This year was a little hectic, because we did it on the night Chris got home from fishing in Montana, which made the evening last pretty late. Robbie carved AF in his pumpkin for his AF football team, and Sarah and Talia came up with their own faces for their pumpkins. Great fun!

Halloween

Halloween this year was great--the kids were old enough that there was really no whining during trick-or-treating, and that's a first! Robbie went with his friends, and they were much faster than us girls were. There is a gated subdivision next to us where a lot of people hand out full-sized candy bars, and Robbie and his friends devised a plan to hit that neighborhood twice. They went once, came home and changed costumes, and then went out again--pretty sneaky! They were able to hit all the homes twice in less time than it took Talia, Sarah and I to do one round. After we got home, we separated all the candy and put all the peanut stuff up and let the kids go to town. There's still plenty of candy left, but they're working on depleting it as fast as they can! Rob's first costume--the second time around he went as a football player.