Hannah is 9 Months Already?

Wow-I know I say this everytime I post about Hannah, but I really can't believe how fast the time is going by. Hannah turned 9 months old on the 6th. I took her in for her well-check last week and she weighs 20 lbs. and was 28 in. She is in the 80th percentile for height and weight. She growing fast and learning so much! She is still a very happy baby and I always get asked if she is always so happy and yes, she really is. She has become really head-strong though, when she sees something she wants, she puts her mind to it and gets it one way or another. She has also become very busy-I thought girls were suppose to be sweet, clam and mild, Hannah is really sweet, but I'm not sure about the calm and mild part-she is always right there trying to keep up with her brothers! Here are a few pictures of some of the things she has accomplished in the past month:
She has learned to wave bye-bye. It is so cute! Now she can really say bye to her Daddy when he leaves for work and loves to wave at the cars driving by when we are hanging out in our front yard!...
She has learned to clap. She claps when we say yeah or if she hears clapping on the t.v., she will stop and clap with the t.v.!...
She has also begun the beginning stages of walking-yikes! We bought her this little stroller about a month ago and as I was putting it together I thought maybe I was jumping the gun a bit, but she took right off like she had been walking with assistance for months! Ever since then she is getting faster and faster. She has also learned to balance herself to stand alone, without hanging on to something and will stand in the middle of the room for a good few minutes before falling down. I am afraid her walking is not too far in the future-I think she is just anxious to be able to run around with her brothers!

Her favorite hangout these days is unfortunately the bathroom. I swear she is obessed with the toilet and garbage can-yuck! I try to keep the door shut, but with 2 boys going in and out all day, sometimes it gets left open and she bee-lines it everytime she gets the chance. Last week I found one of her binkies in floating in the toilet-yum!

She also LOVES to be outside and lucky for me, the weather has been so beautiful that we have been spending many-a-day outdoors lately. She loves watching the kids in our neighborhood, going for walks in the stroller and her favorite-eating rocks! I have decided that for now she is far from being a girly-girl, she seems to be attracted to everything gross and dirty! I guess that's what happens when she has 2 older brother to look up to and copycat!

Happy Halloween!

We had such a fun Halloween/Nevada Day this year! This is not one of my most favorite "holidays", but I try to make it fun for my kids. I think we had so much fun this year because Wade was actually home with us for the first time since he started working for Metro 4 1/2 years ago!

The festivities began with the ward Trunk-or-Treat on Wednesday evening. (Wade did not get to attend this with us and I was ready to go back home before I even left the house-the kids were being kind of rotten) and I didn't really want to put up with all of them by myself. But I gave it a shot and it turned out to be a fun night. The kids were pretty excited to get candy and I had fun visiting with friends and seeing all of the cute costumes go by. When we got in the car to go home Jakob got a piece of candy out of his bag and began to open it when I hear Mason yell at him to stop eating his candy because Mommy hasn't checked to make sure it's safe to eat. (He had been learning about Halloween Safety in preschool and he was obviously listening to every word they told him!)

Then on Thursday Mason had a Halloween party at preschool and was excited to see all his friends in their costumes. Jakob didn't have a "party", but they did do a costume parade, which we were able to go watch and I made some sugar cookies to take to his class during lunch. As Jakob and I were handing out the cookies one of the little girls in his class raised her hand and said, "Are you his mom?" I said, "Yes I am!" She then said (so sweetly and innocently), "You are soooo pretty!" My heart just melted! Aren't little girls so sweet?

On Friday (Halloween/Nevada Day) the boys began the day with a playdate and then Mason got to go to a Star Wars birthday party! He was extremely excited. Wade and I were able to go and vote and then we came home to carve pumpkins. Wade was so sweet to gut out all 5 pumpkins by himself while I hurried to shower and get ready for the day. Then he and I carved them (the boys really could have cared less, we were outside and so were their friends-what's more fun?). After pumpkin-carving, I made some chili and cornbread and then we took the kids around the neighborhood. We made it to the top of our street when the complaining began, "My legs are tired, my bag is heavy. Can we go home now?" We told them we are just going to walk around the block and head home. When we got home they could not wait for trick-or-treaters to come to our house so they could hand out candy. Mason was out in our front yard yelling at people to come to his house to get some candy! He also felt it necessary to tell some of the kids (and even a mom) that you should say thank you when someone gives you candy! He is such a hilarious kid and has no problem correcting you when he thinks your wrong! Wade let Hannah have her first succor and boy did she love it-she was sticky from head to toe! (It was quite a fight trying to take it away from her.) We had a fun time being together as a family this weekend and look forward to all the upcoming holidays to create more fun memories and traditions!