Ode to the Corolla

So we decided to sell my Corolla.  It was the smart thing to do and what is best for our family, but that still doesn't mean I'm happy about it.  We really want a van, and this was the best and fastest way to do that, but Logan selling it on my birthday didn't exactly make me happy:)

So this is my tribute to the Corolla.  My Saturn never got a tribute, but hey, this car was family.

This car was the nicest thing I've ever owned and I never really felt like I deserved it since the only reason I got it is because I wrecked my car.  This Corolla took us many places, I grew in this car.  We bought it 5 years ago when I was student teaching.  It took me to countless job interviews, disappointing part time jobs, to the hospital in labor (2 times) and it brought both babies home from the hospital.

Good times Corolla!  You will be greatly missed!

The only thing that made this a little bit easier is that we sold it to a family who was buying it for their missionary who is coming home soon.  They said he's going to college and looking for a "family" car to get married and have a family in.  That made me smile.  I hope my Corolla can be the Ford Escape in his life.  Thinking about that makes me smile.

8 months Grandma Photo Shoot

This little one is 8 months old.  I decided to dress her up in all the stuff my Grandma made for her pictures this month.  It makes me happy.  She's even worn the dress to church a couple times.  We always get lots of comments on it, which I'm sure is code for "Why the heck is your daughter wearing an outdated tricot dress?" But I don't care.  The nightgowns will never get used because they are just too thin and slippery.  But they are kind of adorable in a grandma chic kind of way:)

At 8 months Mer is crawling like a little monkey!  She started crawling on Nov. 11 and started pulling herself up on furniture pretty much immediately.  This girl is in a hurry! Still no teeth, so I suppose I can't blame the radical change in sleep habits on teething anymore.  She has been an angel since day one and mostly only woke up once a night, but this last month has been torture where 2 times up is a treat.  Good thing she's so pretty, because this momma is tired! Her current nickname from Chapter is "Fuzzy Guy".

Fall Leaves

The Saturday after Thanksgiving ALL the leaves fell down.  It doesn't make for a very pretty autumn but it makes the leaves nice and soft to jump in, and since they don't crunch you can get a pretty colossal pile.  

I have about a million videos of Chapter jumping in leaves. I picked this one because it's short and would upload quickly:)

Thanksgiving

We had the worst Thanksgiving ever.  Chap threw up on Tuesday.  Thank you Nursery.  Then Logan got sick Thursday morning so the kids and I went to dinner without him where Merit threw up.  Yay.  She was probably the sickest of everyone.  Early Friday morning I got sick.  By Saturday we were all feeling good enough.  So basically I have no pictures of Thanksgiving.  I did, however, fake some pictures of Merit in Chapter's Thanksgiving get up from 2012 this morning.  Haha.

 And just for kicks, here is one of Chap in the same stuff on his first Thanksgiving.

Bathtime

Merit is finally old enough that I trust her sitting up in the bathtub.  One day we were short on time so I threw them in together.  Adorable:)

Valley of Fire Day Trip

A few weeks ago we took off and headed down to the Valley of Fire.  Neither of us had ever been there and I always perceived it as being kind of lame, but all my expectations were completely blown away.  What a fun little place to go and everything we did was very kid friendly. This was only the first stop of our day of fun in Nevada so we didn't stay too long. Next time this will be the only destination.

 Stop 2 was driving down the shore drive of Lake Mead.  This did not meet my expectations.  A perfectly good waste of $10.  On the other hand, the kids slept the whole time and it was almost like being on a date:)

Stop 3 was Hoover Dam.  We hadn't been there since 2009 and had never seen the bridge completed.  We were going to go on a dam tour (like we did last time) but they are expensive and our kids really aren't going to care anyway so we walked out on the bridge.  Free and very very cool.  We will do this again.

Stop 4 was Toys R Us to get a feel for Christmas gift ideas.  Chap was unenthusiastic.  Lame.
The drive home was very eventful.  We had recently potty trained Chapter and we kept having false alarms and flat out refusals to use a gas station bathroom.  Suffice it to say we saw every gas station bathroom between Henderson and Overton where he finally gave in and went potty.  Haha.  Good times:)

Halloween!

Happy Halloween from the Blake Family!

 I think our days of coordinating family costumes are coming to a close.  This year I was dying for Merit to be a mermaid, but Chapter really wanted to be a dinosaur and I couldn't quite give up the matching yet.  Chapter was a dinosaur, Merit was a dinosaur egg (I made it), and Logan and I were characters from Jurassic Park (Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler).  It turned out great. This was the best we could do with the tripod and self timer.  Our little dino looks annoyed and our little egg isn't looking. Haha.

 Chap was really eager to get going and didn't have patience for pictures.  Again, this is the best we could do of them together.

 Just before we went trick or treating he had a change of heart and wanted to pose by his pumpkin.  Turned out pretty well.

And our cute little eggie:) Her costume actually turned out a lot better than I thought it would, haha. Even if everyone thought she was a mushroom.

We didn't trick or treat for long, just up and around Crestview, but Chap filled his "pumpkin basket" about halfway and was happy about it.  I'll never get used to these warm Halloweens in St. George, but it was nice not to bundle the kids up too much.

7 Months

This little girls first year is just flying by!  She is perfect!  She is eating baby food now and really loves carrots.  She still won't take a binky and is still nursing like a champ.  She's getting really close to crawling (which is both terrifying and exciting for me).  She is up on all fours and rocking and sometimes she even planks which is hilarious. No teeth yet, but I bet by next month she'll have one since she's chewing everything like crazy.  Her best friend is definitely her brother.  She's just such a joy and I cannot believe how quickly time goes by.  She makes me proud and breaks my heart every day with all of her growing and learning.  Sweet girlie:)

34th Birthday

For whatever reason, these pictures turned out terrible.  Oh well.

 Daddy got a nerf gun too.  They've had a lot of fun with it their nerf guns.

 Logan wanted an orange cake.  So I made the Pioneer Woman crush cake, but it did not come out of the bundt pan at all.  I don't know why but I think it was the copious amounts of sugar and soda that just made it stick stick stick.  I had to soak and scrub the pan it was so bad.  It still tasted good though:)

That night we left the kids with the Grafs and we got a Rigotti's pizza and went and ate it up the the Red Hills Desert Garden.  It was AWESOME! Perfect weather and perfect company.

Of course I have to include (as I do every year) that I met Logan on his birthday and this year marks 9 years since I first laid eyes on that handsome blue eyed boy:)

3rd Birthday

This year for Chapter's birthday he knew exactly what he wanted and I think it's pretty safe to say we made all of his dreams come true.  Of course, they were pretty small dreams:)

 He wanted a snowman umbrella, a chomping dinosaur, an "orjange" nerf gun, a cake and balloons.  He also wanted to eat a "junior hamburger at daddy's office".  I threw in a dizzle for good measure;)

 He also had a friend party.  We had 3 girls and one boy over to play dinosaur games and have dinosaur dirt cups.

His little friends are so cute and he got some great gifts.  It's so fun that he is FINALLY getting excited about stuff.  I love it.

Swiss Days

 5th annual 3rd ward pancake breakfast at the Blake house.

 The parade wore her out:)

The kids made these cute necklaces at the pioneer games.  He was pretty obsessed for a few days.

We LOVE Swiss days!  It's seriously my favorite because it kicks off the start of the holiday season here at the Blake house.  Then we have Chap's birthday, Logan's Birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, my birthday and Christmas all in rapid succession.  Love it:)

6 Months and 3 Years

These kiddos, I tell ya.  They are just too much fun:)

Merit: She is amazing!  She's so much fun to have in the family.  She is a little spazzy and it scares me a little sometimes to think about her getting mobile in the next few months.  She has just barely started eating a little babyfood and she likes it most of the time.  She likes to blow raspberries, and she thinks her brother is HILARIOUS!  We went to the dr. today and she's almost 16 pounds!  I always dreamed of having a blue-eyed baby but her little brown eyes are just the cutest thing and I love them so much!  I was really worried about having a girl and doing the girly thing, but I love it and I think I'm figuring out this accessory thing.  I have been so blessed to have this little one join our family.

Chapter: He is getting so big and it is killing me.  He is the best brother to Merit.  He loves to hold her and sing to her and hand her toys.  He still isn't really big on listening (haha) but he's getting better all the time.  He's a brave little monkey too.  Today he had to get a shot and he didn't cry one bit.  He also had to have his blood drawn as a follow-up to the needle stick incident he had about a year ago and he didn't cry for that either.  Everyone in the lab was shocked at how good he did and they gave him stickers and suckers and a bouncy ball for being so brave.  He loves to play with his cousins and is completely obsessed with dinosaurs. He's been having nightmares lately, but nothing too hard to deal with I just mostly feel bad.  I don't know how I got such good kids but I'm sure thankful I did.

Breast vs. Bottle

Now that I've made it to the 6 month mark of breastfeeding Merit I feel somewhat qualified to compare the two primary ways of feeding your baby.

Now for a little background on each child. Chapter is the most stubborn child.  He absolutely would not eat in the hospital.  We tried everything.  The lactation consultant tortured us both for hours before finally giving up.  We had nurses literally crying and worrying he was going to have to go to the NICU.  In short, he is a little stinker who only does what he wants to and he was born that way. We finally got him to take a bottle at around 2 1/2 days old.  I was just happy my kid wasn't dead and unhappily pumped for 2 weeks and then happily gave him formula for the next 12 months.  Merit did pretty much the same thing, only we had better nurses and she finally figured out how to nurse at around 1 1/2 days.  We have been happily nursing since (minus the first month, ugh).

Formula Pros:

1. You know exactly how much your baby is eating.
2. Your husband can take a turn in the night.
3. You don't have to stress about leaving him with a babysitter.
4. No pain.

Formula Cons:

1. You have to buy formula.
2. You have to remember to buy formula.
3. You have to have a bottle, water and formula with you at all times.
4. You have to actually get up and make a bottle in the night. 

The Breastfeeding Pros and Cons are basically the opposites, but I'll cover them anyway.  

Breastfeeding Pro:

1. All you need is you. 
2. It's free.
3. In the night you can just grab your baby and feed her without turning on lights and tripping through the kitchen.

Breastfeeding Con:

1. It's a much larger commitment for you. It's all you.  No passing the baby off on someone else.
2. It's not all that fun for the first month or so.
3. It can be very isolating having to hide yourself away at your family's house, at church, in public, etc. 
4. You stress every time you leave your baby.  Also, not being able to leave for longer periods of time, like going to the temple.  That thought just stresses me to no end.  

Additional observations:

•  As far as the weight loss argument goes, I think it depends on you.  I actually have had a much harder time losing weight while breastfeeding, whereas it just happened all by itself and really quickly with Chapter.  
• You get judgy stares no matter how you feed your baby in public, only they are from different people. 
• I get really annoyed when I hear people talk about the "bonding" of breastfeeding. How if they quit they will lose the "bond". Holding, feeding and loving your baby is going to result in a "bond" no matter how they are getting their nutrition.  
• I feel like a lot of "mom shaming" goes on on both sides of this argument, but if I had to be honest I feel like the breast feeders shame the bottle feeders a lot, and I think it's unnecessary.  I don't think it's anyone's business how you feed your baby.  There's this mentality of if you don't breastfeed you don't love your child or care about them.  I've done both (I've done both as far as the pain meds during labor goes as well) and I can tell you that it doesn't impact how much you love your child.  I do not love Merit more because I had a (basically) unmedicated birth and I've breastfed her.  

Anyway, just my experience and something I've been thinking about a lot lately.

Labor Day in "The Swell"

We did a Blake family camp out over Labor Day weekend out near Goblin Valley in the San Rafael Swell.  We left around 3 on Friday and got there around 8 (factoring in Merit feed times).  Ron and Lucas and Shellie had their trailers and Anisa, Ryan, Logan and I were tenting it.  This was Merit's first real camping trip (we did a night in Pine Valley with the ward, but one night doesn't really count).  The first night we were there, Logan and Chapter slept in Lucas and Shellie's trailer and Merit and I slept in the truck.  We didn't want to set up the tent in the dark and we didn't have to.

The next day we got up and hiked Little Wild Horse Canyon.  I had heard about it and how awesome and kid friendly it is.  It's really great because it's a slot canyon with hardly and obstacles and it's dry and easy to get to.  Chapter was in HEAVEN!  He was running through the canyon with the big kids and walked almost the whole way (I'd guesstimate about 3-4 miles total).  We didn't go all the way through because we ran into water and we didn't want to get wet.  Merit did great too, just snoozing in her carrier.

 That afternoon we had a little more adventure than I had bargained for.  We had the trailers parked parallel so we could hang out in the middle, and the wind got kind of bad.  We were all kind of just hanging out between the trailers and trying to stay sheltered.  Lucas' trailer was jacked up really high in the back because he was parked on a hill.  We had chairs lined up all along the sides of the trailers, which was stupid and I'll tell you why in just a minute.  Logan was holding Merit in a chair right behind the door to Lucas' trailer.  Someone was going into the trailer and the wind caught the door and it slammed back smacking Merit in the back of the head and then smacking Logan full on in the face.  I didn't even know that Logan got hit for probably 30 minutes because I lost it.  I was screaming and holding Merit and I swear I have never been that scared in my whole life.  We grabbed Chapter, gave Merit a blessing, and jumped in the truck and headed to Green River. As soon as we got cell service we called 911 and they told us that an ambulance would meet us in Green River.  Longest ride of my life with my poor girl crying and wanting to go to sleep and me trying to comfort her while still keeping her awake. Once we got to Green River we called again to tell them where we were and it still took probably 30 minutes for the ambulance to come.  They checked her out, and said it was just a goose egg.  Seriously, blessings work because it hit Logan after it hit Merit and it still made his nose bleed and hurt his face.  I think sometimes stuff just has to happen to remind you of your faith.  Does that make sense?  Like in the middle of all the chaos when it first happened all I could think about was Logan giving her a blessing, and I swear even with all the screaming and hyperventilating I was doing I was praying the whole time for my baby.  It seems a little mellow dramatic now, since she was thankfully okay, but this was good for me.  It helped me remember how much Heavenly Father loves us and how much hope your faith can give you even when  you are falling apart.  Long story, but they were both fine and her goose egg is already gone.  Babies are resilient!

The next day we went looking for this awesome thing called Wild Horse Window.  It's a big alcove with a hole in the ceiling that you can repel through.  We didn't find it, but we did hike another cool canyon.  The rest of the day was spent playing on "wheelers" as Chap calls them.  My motto for the day was "Don't you dare make fun of my for my kid wearing helmet!" Then we went to Goblin Valley after dinner.  

The whole group

 All the Blake grandkids (minus Tanner) 

 Then the next morning Logan and Anisa went back to find Wild Horse Window.  Anisa went because I wasn't up for anything strenuous with my kids and I was afraid he'd die if he went alone:)  I wasn't there, but it looks amazing!  I guess it really wasn't that strenuous, but I had kind of had it with danger at that point. Haha.  He's a good husband, he took pictures of his rigging so that I could look at it and know he was safe.  He knows me too well, I love him:)

 This was on the way home.  We haven't done anything juvenile for a while so we thought this would be hilarious,  And it is.

Meet Snowball.  She is our truck.  I haven't named a vehicle since high school when I drove the Scarlet Lady, but she needed it.  We bought her in June and we really do love her (I have officially bonded with her by sleeping in her roomy cab).  She has some issues which we are slowly working through.  That's why we named her Snowball, because one problem kind of snowballs into another with this truck, haha.  It's been nice having a truck, although I'll be sad to part with one of our vehicles, probably my Corolla, since that will be the fastest way into a mini van (I am so tired of putting car seats in a Corrolla!).  

Crackin' Sherry

Chapter has been saying this all day today and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what the heck he was saying.  Then at lunch I figured it out.  When Merit is fussy sometimes we say "Meri, Meri, quite contrary, how does your garden grow..."  And that's what he was saying. He said the whole thing at lunch, "Meri, Meri, crackin' sherry..."  I'm still "crackin'" up about it:)