Halloween Celebration

Since Halloween was on Sunday, we went Trick-or-Treating Saturday night with Jack around our neighborhood. Eden was a tiger and Jack a pirate! It was cold and rainy so we didn't stay out long, but they got a good loot for being so little.

Pre-Trick-or-Treating

The first door

A HUGE dog came to the door and scared Jack. He didn't even bark, thank goodness!

Eden enjoyed the idea much more when I let her walk.

What a cute pirate!

By the end the kids had a routine down. Jack would walk up to the door and say "knock" as he knocked. Then immediately he would say "trick or treat" before anyone came to the door. After he got his candy he would say "thank you, bye!" And....Eden figured out she could kneel at the step of each door and make people come down to her. Silly girl. She also figured out she could choose her own piece of candy from the bowl.

Eden was amazed by her loot and spread it all over the floor.

Sunday after church we let Eden where her Tinkerbell costume from Aunt Cooper and Aunt Cymbre. It is super cute, but it was WAY too cold to where it trick-or-treating. However, we had to get it in.

Even Tinkerbell needs a break!

Eden Turns One!

We celebrated Eden's first birthday with a small party the weekend before and then presents from Mommy and Daddy on her actual birthday. She was quite overwhelmed by the party, but really got into opening presents when it was just the three of us. I agonized for a good month or two before about the theme of the party, but finally found a cute jungle themed kit online to have a lion party. And....I think it was a success.

I spent the day before the party making two lion cakes. One for the guests and a small one for Eden.

The guest cake.

Eden's Cake

Uncle Caleb, Aunt Holly, Jack, Aunt Rachel, Uncle Kenneth, and my friend Keera and her boys were in attendance at the party. Eden was a bit overwhelmed...maybe it was all those boys!



After the presents we ate some cake. And after a moment of hesitation.....


Eden figured out just what she should do:



And so she went straight to the bath after her fun:


And after a good scrub she was exhausted and took like a three hour nap!


A few days later we opened presents from Mommy and Daddy and she was overwhelmed in a different way....she didn't know what new toy to play with!

Playing with her new purse. She eventually let Daddy get it out of the box.

A couple new stories to read!

She was awesome at opening the presents once we showed her a place to pull.

She LOVED her new teapot from Aunt Sissy....and I love it's English accent!

And finally, what could be better than a dinosaur with balls to play? Especially for $8 off of KSL!

Grandpa's Genes?

Lately it has been VERY obvious that Eden is the related to Grandpa Flanagan. Here are two pieces of evidence.

When Eden plays with her computer, she lays on her tummy to do it....the position Grandpa Flanagan is ALWAYS in on the family room floor of his house.

And....Eden LOVES magnets. She will just crawl in the kitchen and play with them for an hour! Must come from a Grandpa who is in charge of Gravity and Magnetics.

11 Months

11 months already? Wow. And...I'm late with the post again, Eden will be 1 next week! It amazes me how much she has grown up in the last couple of months. At 11 months Eden has gotten very brave, and stands alone without holding on but isn't quite brave enough to take a step. You can tell she is thinking about it though. She loves to read her story books and will sit for half an hour and just look at them. She learned how to roar and thinks that ALL animals roar, not just dinosaurs and lions. Her new word is "go" and she would like to be "going" all the time. She still only has her two bottom teeth, but the top ones appear to be coming soon.

And...as always a few more shots from the photo shoot.

I wanted her to sit on the bench, but she promptly stood up and turned around, so I went behind the bench to take pictures.

"This is how you do it mommy."

Loving the swing.

"Mom, why are we taking pictures? There's kids playing over there!"

At the end of the shoot I played around with manual mode and the things I learned at the workshop I went to. This one is way overexposed, but I love her eyes in it!

Today

Today, Oct 22, one year ago was Eden's due date. But....no Eden. I remember walking up and down the stairs in California from the front door all the way to the loft for almost an hour while waiting for Russell to come home from work. Still no baby. Oh well....we love her anyway, even if she did take an extra few days to get here.

And...one month from today our new little sister is supposed to make her appearance. Maybe she will be more prompt than Eden? We can all hope. I am so DONE being pregnant. I'm definitely ready for her to be here instead of kicking me from the inside. I'm not sure I'm ready for how chaotic things will be with a one year old and a newborn, but I KNOW I'm ready to be rid of all these pregnancy symptoms!

Splash Pad

After we played at the regular park for a while we went over to the splash pad, a lot of fountains of water that the kids can play in. They come on and off and go higher or lower. Jack and Eden loved it. They would have stayed there all day!

I had to help Eden walk around, and amazingly I didn't even get very wet. Caleb followed Jack around and was just as lucky.

Jack went right in to the middle.

Eden thought sitting down by the ones that were not going would be fun....

And then it got her in the face, which luckily she thought was funny and not scary. I picked her up but she went right back to sit by that one until it came up again.

Jack was having a great time to say the least.


And so was Eden.


Caleb taught Jack to step on the fountain....

And sometimes he timed it so it didn't spray him...

But other times he wasn't so lucky!

Eden's favorite park was drinking from all the fountains!

She sat down for a minute, but then decided she MUST GET MORE WATER.

And she got some! And Daddy got a GREAT picture! See that water inside her mouth? Good shutter speed Daddy!

More stomping by Jack.


Overall....I think the splash pad was a winner! In fact, we went again the very next Saturday. And....the water was supposed to go off September 30th, but since it's still warm it's still on so we might have to squeeze in one or two more adventures before it gets cold.

New Park Adventure

Spanish Fork had the grand opening of a new and awesome park right across from our church building a couple months ago, and we had been waiting a bit for things to calm down before we went. Caleb, Holly, and Jack came down a few Saturday's ago and we all went to the park together.

Eden LOVED the swings this time:


Unlike last time I tried to get her to swing a few months ago:

Jack liked swinging too!

Eden tried out a couple slides, with a little help from Daddy still.

And Jack loved climbing up the bug wall.

Here's a video of the kids swinging.

The park is super cool....I should have taken pictures of all the equipment. A lot of it is a little big for Eden and Jack, but it's neat stuff. The best part of the park according to the kids is the splash pad, which is featured in the next post.