The middle of November

Calvin eats apples best if you give him a WHOLE apple as opposed to cutting it first. I think it is so fun to watch him eat his big ol' apple with his big cute mouth. Probably because he is actually eating, which is exciting. I could probably take pictures of him doing most anything and think they were cute. He is so fun to watch. Vexing, but fun. :)

  

Rod had his front 2 teeth hit very hard (I know, my kids and their dang teeth!!!) when he was 3 and they died and turned grey. We got fillings put on the outsides of them to make them look white-ish. He has since hit them a few times pretty hard, but apparently not hard enough to knock them out. Until the other week...He hit his tooth on someones head on the trampoline and it got VERY loose. It was bothering him because it gave him a hard time eating and such. He wanted it out but was nervous about letting me yank it. He was very brave on an off and would let me wiggle it and I would get it a little more loose with my attempts at wiggling--so would he--he tried to get it out himself a bunch. It was so loose. Well, this last week he was wiggling it and wiggling it and I couldn't take it anymore. I could see the dead gross grey root when he wiggled it and I knew that had to come out of his mouth, that night! So after a little drama, he let me wiggle it, and I just kept pushing it into his mouth until the top actually came out of the root socket, (I don't know how it was still hanging on??) but it was jagged and sharp, so you couldn't get it back in, or it would really hurt. So though it didn't hurt for me to push it that far, it was all the sudden in his mouth the wrong way and any kind of pressure just pushed that sharp part into his gums. He started freaking out and I knew I just had to pull it, or it was going to really hurt, not to mention look absolutely ridiculous, (confession, I feel so bad because I was laughing SO hard. The tooth was totally the wrong way in his mouth and it looked SO funny. That offended him. So that was sad.) I was trying to take a picture, but he was so hysterical (so was I...:) so I couldn't. Also, I was nervous it was hurting..so I just yanked it out. And it was a SUPER gross tooth. You can see the filling, the dead root. It's all jagged. Yuck. He was so happy to have it out of his mouth though! Look at that cute, proud, happy face!! Drool and all! :)

This picture is my favorite.

Zach and Clarissa came into town for the weekend and we went with them to the park where the kids played and played. It was so fun!!
 

 Later that night we celebrated Clarissa's Birthday 6 days early. So I made her a double chocolate torte. And we got a picture! Yay! We love, love those Judkins!

 This is so good: Rod is going to do Karate. He has been begging and we finally found a place that isn't over $100 a month for lessons! Yay!! 

And he is SO excited!! You can't tell from his face, but he had just gotten this uniform put on him and the head karate guy had just put on his belt and he was about to go out and join the others. And this is the face he made. haha!! But he was ELATED. Just a little shell shocked I think.  These pictures are too good. My sweet Rod.

 AND then, Justin and I went on our 10 year Anniversary trip! We went to St. George and it was SO GREAT! We had a super nice view from our hotel and were able to just relax and eat food. Which were the 2 goals of the trip. ;)

The biggest let down was this delicious ice cream/icee shop that had closed for the season 4 days prior. We had been dreaming of them for so long (we had had them last we were in St. George) and were so excited to eat them all day, every day. So that was a huge bummer. Other then that we had a lot of fun together and it was just super. We shopped, we ate, we hiked, we hot tubbed, we just hung out. So nice.

The most super is my family and friends that watched our kids so that we could do this. They are just the best. Our kids were so happy, we have such great family.

And here follows the most pictures I will probably ever post of just me and Justin.

 

 You can't really tell but the view from our hotel was awesome. Also, they gave us truffles on our beds, they only had queen rooms left so we got 2 extra truffles... It's the small things... :)

 

At night, we hot tubbed a lot. This was the view. It was super great.

  

And then we hiked around a little bit at this fun park and saw really cool stuff. The landscape down there is crazy cool.

 

 I channeled my inner Chanel for this picture. She would have rocked it. No pun intended...:) The views, again, were pretty awesome. 

 We had a such a great time!

Now it's back to normal everyday. 

I so appreciate everyone who helped with our kids. 

Such fun times.

Last couple weeks!

I love my Cal. 

 

 He is quite the character, he will do the silliest things while we are driving and I'm always so bummed I can't catch it on camera.

 My most favorite thing to listen to while i'm in the car is all my kids singing. They get so into the music and they will just sing like no one is watching-because they think no one is. :) It's my favorite. This does not exclude Cal, he sings with the best of them. It's definitely one of my most favorite things to be a part of, and no one will ever no how cute it is except me...unless you want to take a drive with us.

 Here is a cute throwback picture of when Rod visited Eli a couple weeks ago. CUTE!

 And here is the child that takes up all of my photo space on my camera. Crazy little guy. He say's "CHEESE!" so cute, but rarely does a legit smile at the same time. SO cute, but not exactly the beautiful natural smile i'm going for. I love him.

 

 MY HANDSOM JAX!! When we did family pictures all the kids where all over those trees. In my experience, it seems kids were made to climb trees.

 "Mom take a picture of me by this tree!" Okay cute Rod!!

 

 I painted Rod's face for the ward Halloween party. It made me want to buy real face paint and make it a past-time. He looked (and felt!) pretty cool. I was excited to do it again for Halloween, I knew if I did it again i could make it look even better, but he didn't want it painted again. He didn't like that it smeared in spots after a while. I need to buy the good face paint...anyway, it was fun.

 

 That same day we went to Jakers with Natasha, so much fun! The corn pit put Cal into hysterics.  We tried everything to get him to touch it willingly. It was not happening. Natasha is so good with kids. Crazy Cal. hehe!:)

 All the other kids (in the world) LOVED that pit. I'm pretty sure they played in that exclusively for about an hour. And would have kept playing for who knows how long. Good cheap fun.

 One of the reason's it's so fun to be with the Rogers is that Mai and Hazel are always SO helpful with Calvin. Mai helped Calvin through this little maze and off hay barrels and, stayed right with him. I cant get over her helping him off this one hay barrel--holding his heavy body up high, her face in his tummy--carrying him as far as she can without putting him down. Looking like a swaying tower about to fall. It's SO cute to watch. I love it.

 

 Sweet Isaac had a birthday! We had disco lights, meat (he NEEDS his meat for his GAINS!!), Spike ball, and PIE!! We love this 22 yr old! SO MUCH!!

 

 And these next pictures are some of my favorites!! Just look at all of them and look at my kids faces and see how proud they are. It killed me, its just too cute. I love them so much. These pictures make me so happy. This is the Halloween parade at school.

 

 

 I can't even. Cute! 

 

 

 And then, the actual Trick or Treating Halloween day!!! My cuties!! If you know anything about my kids you know this is one of their favorite days. Jax particularly.   

 

 I'm going to quote my letter to Chanel to describe Halloween evening: Halloween was fun! Mom was amazing and invited us over for dinner last minute. She made those grilled pizza’s with those sliced lemons and mixed greens tossed in that vinaigrette with pesto!! It’s seriously so good.  AND she made this tomato salad with this new cheese Marci turned her onto. You would love it. I cant remember the name but it’s like fresh mozzarella on the outside and then it turns into a softer cheese on the inside. I LOVED it with this salad. Also, mom and I went to trader Joes on Saturday, and she had bought “Balsamic Glaze.” And so you put that on the salad with a bunch of basil. It was SO good. Eating good food has such a nice effect on my mood. It was just a REALLY good dinner. And then mom brought out goods: Her yummy adult chocolate. So since you’ve been away mom has discovered these large square cubes (about 1 ½ inches each side) they are a little wider then they are tall. They are called Salted Carmel Chocolates. Or something like that. They are soft DELICOUS caramel dipped in really nice milk chocolate sprinkled with a small amount of sea salt. The consistency is so amazing. You cut it in half and it cuts easily and perfectly, with clean edges on all sides. Anyway, so she gets those out and she gets out the Kirkland brand mixed nuts and the Kirkland brand cashews. So we cut the chocolate caramels into 4th’s and shove your nut of choice into them, and EAT THEM. Mine was pecan (I thought that was the best pairing). But we did it with cashews and macadamia nuts and almonds too. It was SOOOO great!! And she brought out the trader Joes dark chocolate peanut butter cups! So it was super awesome. As you can imagine, I was in a great mood to go trick or treating. J

            We went almost entirely around our neighborhood. Basically we winded our way from mom’s, to Terry Ventura’s. Jax and Rod were in heaven. Cal was SO cute, he caught on immediately. He would get a candy and say so sweetly, “day-too” (thank you) and then he would eat it directly. We brought the stroller and he would sit and eat his candy while we strolled and then when he was out, he would be on the hunt again for candy. Jax was similar in that he was constantly eating candy whenever he could, but he never stopped to consume, he consumed on the run. Chanel, Jax ate SO MUCH CANDY. It was incredible to watch, and nauseating. So we had to go to Terry’s because she had demanded it, (wink wink) and so she gives the kids candy, (what she gives everyone that comes) AND a large soda (what she gives people in the ward that come) AND for Jaxton, an extra BAG of candy, (because he is a piano student) and then a cookie with chocolate frosting, (I think this was because he was a piano student too…) Anyway. That was a LOT of stuff. My kids were sitting pretty as far as sugar was concerned. (as if they weren’t before!?!)  Yikes.

            By that time we were getting pretty cold and dark, even though it had been a really pleasant evening, so Justin had the van for us and we got in and went to Debbies. It was like 7:30 and we usually do most of our trick or treating at her house so I knew she probably thought we weren’t coming.  I had the kids trick or treat her house and she was really surprised and super happy we showed up. It was really cute. She kept saying, “I told Preston, if that is my grandkids I’m going to freak out! And it was!!” I guess they had like 7 trick or treaters the whole night. So weird. There were tons in our neighborhood! Anway, it was really cute. Calvin wore his costume the WHOLE time-with the mask even!! He felt pretty darn legit. J It was all so cute and fun. But I’m telling you—the amount of sugar Jax consumed…!! Eek!

My letters to Chanel are super articulate...It's literally me rambling for pages...! I miss my sweet Chanel.

 Can I post the most beautiful loafs of bread I ever made?? AND my sweet friend Kari is moving to Alaska, again! And came over to say a last good bye, this is her cute little one with my cute little one. They were actually getting along this time, and now she is leaving. Sad...Hopefully it's a good move.

 

 Lastly, this picture was on the Lakeview School website and I thought it was cute...