Last Hoorah!

With summer days coming to an end we tried to fit in as much fun stuff before school started as we could.  The boys love anything that has to do with water so we visited Noah's Ark at Thanksgiving Point.  It was so fun, and later there was some wrestling at the park with a picnic.

The Big Shots

More Rushton Reunion 2013

There's not much to say about these pictures other then we had a lot of fun at reunion:)

Our Home

"Hey Brett, remember that time that we decided to move and sell our house with a two week old?  We found an amazing spec home in a great area that we fell in love with.  We decided to put our house up for sale and have it ready to show when we went on vacation.  About two weeks later is was under contract.  We loved picking things out for our new home and planning out what we would do with more space and a bigger yard.  Then our buyer backed out.  After putting the house back on the market we realized that keeping the house in perfect condition with a newborn and three crazy boys in the summer was just not working.  I had a couple of exhaustion meltdowns and you helped calm me down.  Then we decided that our family and getting ready for school was more important than a new home right now.   We were both a bit sad about losing the spec home but we feel like we both learned some valuable lessons and are more prepared for a move when it does happen.  That was pretty crazy, huh?  Sometimes we are crazy."

I love our view.  I will probably miss this view more than anything else when we end up moving. 

One Month

I've been afraid to say this publicly in fear that I will jinx it, but Emmett is seriously the best baby EVER!  He really is amazing.  He rarely cries.  He loves just looking around and especially loves staring at fans.  This is the big thing. . . . he sleeps. . . . at night. . . and it's wonderful!  We have had three pretty awful night sleepers in his older brothers.  I pretty much just assume that babies don't truly sleep through the night until they're close to three.  I've read books and numerous articles about getting kids to sleep through the night.  We've pretty much tried everything.  We've seen stages of improvement and felt like things were working and also digressions that have been horrible.  Now that we have Emmett I've come to the conclusion that some kids are just good sleepers and some are not.  Sure, there are things that you can do to improve your chances of good sleeping, but sometimes you can only do so much because that child may just take three years to figure out that night means sleep. I know that there is a good chance that Emmett may have rough nights in the future, but for now I am really enjoying and grateful for this sleep that I never experienced with my other boys.  I put Emmett to bed between 7-7:30 each night and he sleeps until 2-3am, and then goes back to sleep for another 4ish hours!  He's AMAZING!!!

He's so cute too.  The boys are still in love with him.  He is smothered in kisses everyday by Owen and Noah and Hyrum love holding him.  His umbilical cord hung on for quite a while, but it's off now and he has such a cute little belly button:)

He has super long fingers! 

Where did Emmett go?  He's camouflaged!  Noah changed his shirt when he saw what Emmett was wearing so that they could match.

 

RUSHTON REUNION 2013

This was the big summer of the Rushton Reunion.  It's always fun catching up with cousins and family that we only see every two years.  I wish we could be closer to spend more time with everyone.  This year my parents found an amazing huge cabin just next to Monticello, Utah.  There were also a few smaller cabins close by that we rented out for the families with screaming babies up at night (that included us).  There were no big things to do each day or plans other then meals and night time devotionals, yet each day was filled with laughter and running around.  There were lots of crafts and things for the kids to do if they wanted, or they could just run around and play with cousins.  We were never bored.  It was relaxing and fun.  Following are some pictures of the talent show on the second night. There were performances of the violin, bagpipes, and the recorder out of Ethan's nose (yep that was a big hit)

We took some family pictures while we were there.  There are more and better ones that I will post later.

The big kitchen table usually had some kind of craft the kids could come and work on whenever they wanted.  My boys LOVED the beads and made all kinds of things.  Hyrum spent hours here. 

 The kids also liked that there were a lot of creepy stuffed animals all over the walls. :)

Another big hit activity was the water balloon sling shot that Uncle Jeff brought.  One of the afternoons they had all the dads and Grandpa out as targets.  The men got wet, but paid the kids back when they swapped places and all the dads got to shoot the slingshot at all the kids.  

Here's a shot of Grandma and Grandpa holding the two newest grand-babies. (that's number 25 and 26!)

Emmett is Adorable x 2

I couldn't resist another post.  There are just too many great pictures not to love them all.