goodbye halloween...ninja style

This was for sure the best Halloween yet. Each boy was so excited for every little thing that had to do with Halloween. Especially carving pumpkins.

are you loving the upside down pumpkin?

 Our traditional eyeball soup. Kind of disgusting. 

 Halloween is a blast with kids. Especially when they come in the form of little ninjagos. 

 And what does every ninja need? A tiny, adorable, little Chinese trainer. Sensei Wu of course.

hey, I did not sign up for this.

This little Sensei Wu has recently just discovered that he has hands attached to that cute little body.

 So another Halloween has come and gone. But these ninjas are probably here to stay for a while....

NINJA-GOOOOO

 for those of you who are not overly familiar with Lego's ninjago series....um, count your blessings.

Halloween fun comes to an end

Our month of Halloween Fun has been, for the most part, successful. Once again I did not take nearly enough pictures. 

The favorites were the rock spiders, candy corn sugar cookies, Halloween bingo, Don't eat Frank, witches stew,  toilet paper Halloween guys, owl smores, the hay maze, making Halloween bags, Halloween jokes (perfect humor for young boys), carving pumpkins, and of course cuddling up and watching the movies (charlie brown may have been the favorite)

I was not always good a letting it happen every night. Sometimes by the end of the day I was done and wanted them to just go to bed. There was a night or two when the boys reminded me that we did not do the activity. I told them we would do two the next night...just go to bed!

We did not do the fall roast, make haunted houses, make skeleton gingerbread men, or make the spiderweb cheesecake. But I don't think they missed out. I've learned that the most simplest things make their day. 

I hope they are always grateful for the simple things in life.

name and blessing

I remember over 4 years ago when I was pregnancy with Levi, Justin came to me with a name that he just read and loved.  He wanted a really masculine name for our child.  I laughed out loud and said no way. Then a few months later we were blessed with a baby boy. For one day we named him Devin...it didn't seem right. Justin, again, was reading and found one of the names that had been on our list. Levi. We finished the birth certificate papers and we never looked back. 

3 1/2 years later we had another decision to make. The name for our fourth boy. I knew I wanted the middle name to be Justin. But we couldn't come up or agree on anything for the first name until the name from over 4 years ago came up again and for some reason, this time it just felt right. 

And so our boy was born.

We welcomed Rudger Justin into our family. 

Rudger was named after an Apostle from our church. Rudger Clawson. The more we learned about him, the more we were grateful for his name. He was brave. He was a faithful leader. He did hard things. These are a few attributes we hope our Rudger will develop.  

Then a few weeks after Rudger was born, we went to my hometown's Temple Dedication. There we learned for the first time that Rudger Clawson had a big connection with Brigham City.  We were even happier with our decision. 

Justin officially gave him his name and blessing. It was a beautiful day.

 

Justin did a wonderful job.

 Thanks to all of our family that came. We had a great time visiting. 

(I only wish I took more pictures of everyone)

 

 

 Rudger was pretty tired by the end of the day.

getting back to halloween

We really should be celebrating Halloween right now...

  But instead we are acting like it's Christmas around here with all this snow.

 Building snowmen

 drinking hot chocolate. and maybe even enjoying some Christmas music...

But we'll get right back to Halloween now.

(because I have some costumes to sew)

Rudger's first week

I sometimes miss those first few days of having a newborn. He is so pure and so perfect, fresh from heaven. 

I love his quiet, soft cry. I love the way his legs curl right up to his body. I love the look in his eyes. I love the cute little lips. I love the little baby pimples around his nose and mouth. I love the soft hair all over his body. I love how he looks all swaddled up in his blanket.  And the smell, oh the smell.

We tried to take full advantage of this first week with him.

Day 1

 Day 2

 Day 3

 Day 4

 Day 5

 Day 6

 Day 7

 But now, I have to admit, I love that he has figured out when nighttime is and only wakes up twice to eat (two days ago he only woke up once!). But I especially love that when he looks at me, I think he knows that I am his mommy, and then he gives me a smile.

I like that a lot.