The leaves are falling like crazy now. Dallin looks so sweet in this picture. He is so cute. Saturday was a good day. I enjoyed a great temple session. I was feeling a little homesick for it since having Tanner it has been tricky to get there. Then I also got to go to the adult session of Stake Conference (Peter stayed home to babysit). Peter of course had a pool party with his cousin Troy. He invites people over for pool everytime I go anywhere. I am glad he has something he enjoys so much. Sunday was interesting. We went to stake conference. i went early to try to get a bench in the chapel... apparently not early enough. So in the overflow our family only lasted about 15 minutes. We are usually the first ones in the stake to start a "cry room". In the past we discovered that the primary room has speakers from the chapel so we just go in there and turn them on. After a while we are joined by some other parents and children. One hour is torture for us on regular sundays, this is just no fun. I don't think we really got much out of it. We all went home and took naps. Dallin was actually the last one to fall asleep. When I fell asleep he was in bed with Peter and I. When I woke up I couldn't find him for like 15 minutes. I finally found him asleep in Tanner's bassinet with only a diaper on. I covered him up and he continued to sleep there for 3 more hours. Crazy kid. Then after peaceful afternoon of stake conference recovery we had the missionaries and Greg and Heidi over. It was very fun. The missionaries arrived an hour early because they forgot about daylight savings and so Peter was obliged to play pool with them for a while.

Dallin and Eden play so nicely together when I am not in the room. I catch them following and copying eachother and even sharing. They would never do this with me around. I had to be sneaky to catch this picture. Lately Eden's favorite movie is Shrek. When I offer to play a movie she says " I want Fwak". Also anything she sees that she likes is "soooo pretty". She is such a fun girl.
Here is Dallin's Sunday nap.

Fall is here

We have been having such a wonderful fall season as far as weather goes. The leaves are beautiful and the temperatures have been refreshing. We are plugging along as usual. This last weekend we had some family and friends over for dinner and I felt like being a chef so I made chicken cordon bleu. It was a good time, but a lot of work to make about 20 pieces of chicken. On Saturday we had our Super Saturday for Relief Society. It was so fun to have a nice long break to visit with friends and do some awesome crafts. There was even a wonderful pot luck of soups for dinner. I think it is so funny that most of the time conversations with other women always turn to childbirth. I guess it is just a big part of our lives. Then we came home and watched a movie with the Nielsons. I am getting exited to start working on some more home improvement projects in the next few weeks. Our next project will be new doors and trim. I am so exited because it may actually make the house look sort of finished. I have accepted the snails pace for our house since our lives are always going to be busy. I am just happy to see improvement over time. I have been trying to talk Peter into getting cable lately mostly so that I could get BYUTV. Then we discovered that you can watch it on the internet and pause and rewind just like a DVR. We have some wireless speakers that I can move around the house so my newest trick lately is to listen to BYUTV while I do house work. I can usually find a good education week talk or something. I also listen to conference talks or scriptures from the church site. This is great for a multitask person such as myself. I guess we don't need cable after all. Now if I could just do this enough to have a clean house all the time... Peter took Dallin and Eden to a Blazer game last night. Peter said they had a great time. That is until the 4 quarter, so they just walked around at the end.

I love talking to Eden lately. It is great to ask a question and get a response. She seems to understand everything I say. I can't get over her big blue eyes and long lashes. Her little high pitched voice is sweeter than sugar too. I am not really sure what to do about tantrums though. If she doesn't get something she wants she takes it very personally. I guess I better review some parenting books. She loves to hug Tanner lately. She is definatly a little mother.

Dallin has been quite an explorer lately. I cleaned out my spice cuboard the other day. After combining several jars and getting rid of spiced that I have never used and probably never will I filled up the sink with water and let him play with several empty little plastic bottles. He had such a good time. My floor was pretty wet but it was a good sensory project. He also decided that he wanted to put a box over his head and walk around. I helped him out but cutting a hole in it which he informed me was a "square". That was awesome. I am going to a class tonight for his early intervention called "How to deal with difficult behavior". Although speech is going well I am still at a loss about getting dressed, holding my hand when we walk, diaper changes, going to bed, not beating up his sister, behaving in public and so on. I really hope to get some pointers. On the other hand when we took Tanner to the doctor today for shots Dallin was a good brother. Tanner was still crying from the pain and his binky fell out. Before I could get to him, Dallin grabbed it and put it back in. This is amazing because he usually steals it and likes to suck on it himself. I guess he felt some compasion because he watched the whole time.

Tanner is smiley and giggly all the time. He doesn't even really cry unless he is hungry or scared. The giggles just crack me up. He will giggle at anyone who will talk to him. also when he looks at other babies like Joshy Squashy. He has moved up in life to using the exersaucer. I have to use strict supervision around the other kids and stuff a blanket down inside so he can sit up right but he likes it. I think he likes being able to look around. His stats from the doctor looked pretty good and normal for our family. 25% for head (same as the others), 45% for height and 60% for weight (15 lbs 12 oz.). I feel like Tanner will be the peacemaker in our family. I guess we will see.

weights

This week has been eventful but not really too exiting. Peter finally bought a weight set (after talking about it for 5 years). Not that we can afford it although he did get a great deal off of craigs list. We have been on a spending fast as we call it for a few months, but this month we have really broken the bank a few times. Anyway, Peter is exited to start being a buffed out manly man. I guess I won't complain. Dallin was very interested in this new contraption of course. I took Dallin to have a hearing test this week. He had one in May in which they decided he could probably hear fine but could not communicate well enough to document it. So 4 months later I brought him in. His ears are fine but the part that I liked was that the experience was like night and day for him. He allowed the tester guys to put ear pieces in his ears and looked at pictures that they showed him, said what they were and pointed! This may not seem like a big deal but he couldn't do any of that in May. He is making great progress. Then Thursday night I got sick. Some kind of stomach bug I guess. So Friday I asked Peter to stay home and take care of kids. He let me stay in bed all day and sleep. I was miserable. The kids had a blast with Daddy though. He ran some errands with them and let each of them pick out a candy bar. They were so exited and wired when thy got home. Then Friday night Peter left for a scout campout. Good thing I was finally feeling better. We rented some movies and Dallin and I stayed up late and had "special time" hanging out.

Grandpa Boat!

Well, he did it again. This time it was my lipstick. This stayed on for a couple of days because it was the long lasting lipstick. Peter finally scrubbed at it really hard so that he could look decent for church. Dallin has become quite a singer. He must get songs stuck in his head because I frequently hear him randomly start singing. His favorites are I am a child of God, ABC's, I know Heavenly Father Loves Me, and of course Happy Birthday(including blowing out the candles at the end and clapping.) Dallin and Eden both had their fingers poked to get their iron checked. I found the different reactions pretty humorous. Dallin was exited to sit on my lap and watch what the lady was doing to him. He had his finger wiped with alcohol and then the little poke. He kind of flinched but then he thought the blood and the bandaid were "awesome". Eden's turn was a little more reserved. She wasn't too sure what to think of what was happening to her and then she cried and didn't want the lady to squeeze her finger at all. But when the lady told her that her band-aid was pretty she was okay. Dallin was ready for another turn after that. Today we went to Lindsey Anne Dickinson's baby blessing. She is a very sweet little baby.
Cami's baby Clare seems to be catching up to Tanner in size. They are 4 weeks apart.
We went waterskiing again with Grandpa D yesterday. It has cooled down a lot since the last time. Dallin decided not to waterski so we didn't make him. I think he was already cold from the wind. The water was beautifully clear and the air had that fall crisp feel to it. I think we all really enjoyed it. The is Peter's brother Mark who has been working on the slolam skiing this summer. Dallin would copy anything anyone yelled like "hit it!" or "he's down" or whatever seemed like significant boat talk. We have realized that he isn't really thanking Heavenly Father for Grandpa's boat in all of his prayers, he is asking to go on Grandpa's boat. It is still the most important part of his prayers.
Eden loves grandpa's boat too. There must be something magical for the kids about being out on the water.

We are either getting used to a busy schedule or we have not been as busy this week. I think we are simply adjusting. Dallin still loves riding the bus and brings home fun art from school twice a week. Speech therapy is going really well. This week we have been working on expanding his language. For example, if he says "Juice?" , we say something like, "want more juice". Hopefully if he repeats this enough, he will start expanding into regular sentances. It seems like common sense but it really helps me be more aware of all of the teaching opportunities that we can use with Dallin. I am enjoying working at Butterfly Life. I wish it was once a week instead of two, but it gives me a chance to work out which I love. I have really been pushing myself on the circuit training and I really like feeling myself get stronger. It makes a difference. This week I will start dropping my hours a little bit. I will still work twice but only for 3 hours at a time. This will help so that we dont have to shuffle the kids to a babysitter. Peter will meet me at the club at 5 o'clock and take the kids home. Yay, we really want one of us to be with them most of the time. Peter has started his electrical class one night a week again. I really enjoyed his summer break. With his scouts on Wednesdays, that makes 4 nights a week that one or the other has something going on. We have realized that waiting for life to calm down is not going to come any time soon so we are just trying to become more efficient with life. Dallin found my new cream based blush this week. It looked like a really bad sunburn and of course I couldn't get it all off for a couple of days.

Dallin likes to hang out in his diaper a lot lately. I have gotten pretty lax about making him put his clothes back on right away. You can probably tell since half of our pictures lately feature a partially nude 3 year old. Daddy got him some awesome snake boots at a garage sale this week too. He was totally exited to wear those. Tanner has started giggling more and loves to smile. His personality reminds me a lot of Eden when she was his age. He loves eye contact. If anyone looks at him and smiles or talkes he will give a big grin. I just love to grab his big cheeks!
Eden has finally accepted that mommy needs to comb her hair and put "pretties" in it. She doesn't fight me nearly as much and afterward she walks around all proud of how pretty she looks. What a girl. When the kids were taking a bath this morning she washed her hair without any prompting from me and then she tried to wash Dallin's. Dallin wouldn't touch shampoo with a ten foot pole if he could help it. I am trying to decide if I will just let her hair grow long or cut the bottom length while the top catches up. I got her some new shoes last week that she loves. She has quite a shoe fettish. She won't even let me take them off of her for her nap time.