Fun in the Snow

Josh and Sydney have been having a good time in the snow! Josh asks me all day every day if he can go outside and play.

They really are like brother and sister. Sydney follows Josh around the yard, and he gets annoyed. He does stuff to harass her too. Mowing the lawn with the two of them around is always a challenge to me because I always have to stop multiple times to get after Sydney for pestering Josh and Josh for pestering Sydney. They are entertaining to watch.

Sydney and Josh had a great wrestling match in the snow. Sydney had Josh pinned and then she kept licking his face.

Then Josh pinned Sydney. As many times as Josh has wrestled her to the ground she has never once even growled at him. She's very good natured to put up with him.

This is a good shot of how deep the snow was after last week's storm. The faucet for the irrigation water was almost buried.

The snow was so deep that Josh kept falling down when he tried to walk in it. Sydney kept bumping into him as she followed him around and kept knocking him down. While I was shoveling the sidewalks, Josh came walking up to me saying, "Mommy, I lost my boot!" With as much snow as we had in the yard I started to panic, thinking I'd never find it until the snow melted but thankfully he remembered where he was when it came off.

Who needs a hill to tube down when you can do it in the front yard!

While we're outside playing in the snow, Connor stays nice and warm bundled up snoozing in his swing with his hair sticking straight up. I keep the baby monitor in my coat pocket so I can hear him when he wakes up and it sure is handy.

Happy warm baby!

He loves munching on his fingers. Every now and then he sticks them in his mouth too far and gags himself.

Sleeping on Daddy's lap.

Traffic in Payson

This is what you call a traffic jam in Payson!

We got hit pretty hard with snow with Monday's storm. It snowed all day. Tuesday morning, not realizing just how much snow was on the ground, I was going to take Josh to his cousin's house. I went outside and turned on the van to warm it up, went back inside and started getting Connor strapped in his car seat when I looked out the window and this is what I saw. A van was stuck right in the middle of the road. There was another van behind it that tried to go around the van that was stuck until it started getting stuck and ended up having to drive down the street in reverse and find another route to take. After the van had been stuck for a while, her husband showed up to help, but by then other cars were getting stuck. After seeing the van stuck in the middle of the road I decided it was highly unlikely that I'd even make it out of my driveway and even if I did I probably wouldn't get very far! The cars that were stuck were blocking me in my driveway anyway. I didn't think this guy would even be able to open his car door. I sat in my window for probably an hour watching various cars get stuck right outside my house. It was rather entertaining. I felt bad I couldn't do much to help, and instead I sat in my nice warm house and took pictures of the various vehicles that kept getting stuck. Josh and I went outside and had a good time playing in the snow. I'll have to post those pictures later!

Halloween/Blessing

We had a busy weekend with Halloween and Connor's baby blessing. It was a lot of fun.

Josh had a good time trick or treating with his cousins. My knight in shining armor. It was kind of funny that his good buddy, cousin Jordan happened to be a dragon!

Our cute little Mickey Mouse. Josh picked out his costume.

Pictures after Connor's blessing.

Connor with his grandpa Glen and great grandpa Wood. These are the grandpa's he gets his middle name from.

Pumpkin Patch

We took Josh to the pumpkin patch in Santaquin and he loved it. He was so excited to go get more pumpkins and had a lot of fun picking them out. The hay ride to the patch

The pumpkins he picked.

Ever since carving pumpkins with Aunt Kimi Josh has been asking almost every day to carve pumpkins. Since he doesn't like getting his hands dirty, I end up doing all the work but this time I actually got him to stick his hand in and do a little. The finished product

Josh likes having his picture taken with his brother.

Most newborns don't stretch their legs out like this. Connor is quite comfortable stretching out like this to nap, probably because this is what he did while he was inside of me. He's still in trouble for the beating my ribs took before he was born!

I still can't believe how much hair he has. It gets a little out of control if we don't put something in it to calm it down!

Visitors

Grammy Debbie, Grampy Mark, and Aunt Kimi flew in last weekend. It was a lot of fun having them come visit. Josh keeps asking when they are coming back. Josh loves reading stories!

We got to celebrate Kim's birthday while she was here. Thanks for letting us share your birthday with you. We hope you had fun!

Josh got to decorate a pumpkin with Grammy.

Here is the finished product that is sitting on our porch! He also got to help carve a pumpkin.

I'm sure Kim couldn't have finished without his help!

He had so much fun carving pumpkins he keeps asking to do more.

Grampy brought Josh his own power tools. Between that and the duck game Kim brought he's been busy all week. Grampy helped Gary install a ceiling fan in our living room. It looks great and I am so excited to have light in that room again! Thank you, thank you, thank you Mark!!!

Josh and His New Brother

It's quite the adjustment having a newborn around, and we are enjoying it!

Josh is such a cute big brother. He really likes to help me. So far we've only had to have one discussion about not picking up the baby without help. He was just trying to put Connor in his swing. I was changing a diaper and Josh grabbed a wipe and jumped right in and started helping me wipe him down. He holds a toy that plays music up so Connor can see and starts singing the ABC's (though the toy plays different music). It's cute to watch Josh with the baby and so far Josh has really liked having him around.

The other day as the baby was sleeping in his swing, Josh said, "Mommy, is it ok if Connor snuggles with my Tigger?" I thought that was nice he wanted to share so I said it was ok and the next thing I knew Josh had thrown in the Scooby Doo and his skunk as well. I frequently find the baby sleeping next to stuffed animals.

So far, Connor has not cried very much at all. He's been such a mellow baby, but when he does cry, this is how Josh copes with it. Josh also does this during church when a baby cries.

Daddy with new baby.

Me and my boys (minus the biggest one)!

Connor Ferrin Stevens

Connor Ferrin Stevens arrived Thursday (the 17th) at 7:47 p.m. He weighed in at 8 pounds 4 ounces and 21 1/2 inches long. I was scheduled to be induced at 7 a.m. but got a call from the hospital just before we walked out the door saying that they didn't have room for me and would call when they were ready for me. It wasn't until 2:30 that afternoon that they called and said they were ready and the waiting was pure torture. By the time I got admitted and they started the PIT it was 3:30 and I figured we probably would be in for a long night since I was in labor with Josh for 14 1/2 hours. I was absolutely shocked that Connor arrived a little over four hours after they started me on the drip. I was very pleased with my anesthesiologist. He did a great job on the epidural. My delivery nurse happens to live right around the corner from me and is really good friends with my aunts Sharlene and Marlene. She took really good care of me. Everything went really smoothly. So far Josh likes having Connor around and is a very cute big brother.

The final belly shot I promised, taken the day Connor arrived!

Random Stuff

There was a lot of zucchini and cucumbers that were way overgrown and going to waste in Grandpa Wood's garden, so someone had the great idea of letting the kids carve boats out of them. After all that carving the boats needed to be floated somewhere, but there wasn't time to go to a pond or a stream. Grandma Karen decided to fill up the tub to float them in. I'm still not sure how Josh managed to remove all his clothing and jump into the tub without getting caught by any of the adults, but we all laughed so hard I was in tears. It didn't matter that the water was cold, he could have stayed in the tub all day with those boats and I'm sure it did great things for his skin. So if you're wondering what to do with excess produce from your garden there you go.

Josh and Grandpa Wood sitting outside. Sometimes Grandpa will take Josh on a little spin on his walker and Josh thinks it is great to play on. Grandpa turned 93 last week!

I wonder how many Marines would like to see Sergeant Stevens napping in a Cars bed snuggling with Snoopy!

Josh & Daddy playing basketball. In case you've noticed, any of the pictures Gary's been in for the past month he grew a beard. I can't say I was very fond of it, so this weekend I'd finally had enough and made him shave it off. I've missed seeing a clean shaved face!

It was $2 Tuesday at Thanksgiving Point so Gary and I took Josh to the Dinosaur Museum. Josh loves to read stories, and there have been a few about dinosaurs so Josh was excited about it. He had a good time at the museum.

Here's a belly shot for everyone that has been requesting it. Gary thinks the belly is cute (though I don't agree), and I tell him in order for me to repeat this process again I have to forget how huge I get and how uncomfortable it is. So I keep pictures to a minimum! This was taken a couple weeks ago and I'll take a final belly shot to post just before I deliver.