My little boy is growing up!!

So I was looking at old pictures the other day and could not believe my eyes. I stumbled upon this little picture of Russell. It was taken just over a year ago, when we first moved to here, Fall of '08. Look at his chubby little face!

When we moved here, I definately did not think that Russ was chubby at all, and he wasn't really compared to a lot of other kids his age, but just look at him now!

Doesn't he look like a little boy now instead of an infant? He has thinned out and grown soooo much! And pretty soon he is going to be a big brother. He will be such a good big brother. He follows me around during the day talking to his baby sister and showing her things. He tells her that he is going to help change her diaper and teach her how to do this and that. He also shows her tricks and gets really mad when I don't turn my belly in that direction so that she can "see."

I just love my little boy, and I'm so happy to be giving him a sibling to play with.

And the answer is..........

Bob!!!!















See the resemblence?

At first I thought it was Barbara Bush because the almond ears look a little like earrings to me.

Oh, and Travis wants everyone to know that Russell read his first word today completely unprompted. Apparently he was walking with Russ down the church hallway when suddenly Russ stopped and pointed to a bulletin board and said, "BYU." Travis looked, and Russell was indeed pointing to the word BYU on some paper. I immediately thought that he just recognized the logo, but Travis claims that it was not the regular BYU logo and just the name typed in regular print. Anyway, Travis is obviously soooooo proud and excited that BYU is so ingrained into our child.

Go cougs.

Halloween and Other Fun...

We have been planning this costume for months now!!!

Spooky kid, huh? He wanted to be a ghost. We made this costume out of an old sheet and some cheese cloth.

Our friends at our Halloween party.

Glamour girl shot!! I had so much fun wearing the fake eyelashes!

What a sweetheart. Just can't keep that thumb out of his mouth. Smeared his makeup.

We also had a little preschool Halloween party at my house. My friends and I are doing a joy school together. Sooooo fun. Got to keep my teaching skills up!!!

AND...ON TO THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!

Making gourd people is quickly becoming one of my favorite little family traditions that we do each fall. I was introduced to this by my sister-in-law, and it is so much fun. You should try it!

Gourd people 2009!!! Mine is that feminine little beauty on the left. The middle one is Russy's. He was insistant that his be a guy tackling another guy. (All that football stuff is really sticking in his head.) And Travis's...well, what do you think?

Alright everyone.

Who did Travis try to depict in his adooooorrrrable little gourd person...

A. Barbara Bush

B. Marjorie Pay Hinckley

C. Robert Moulton (his dad)

Leave a guess in the comment section if you want.

Yay for Halloween!!!!!

Those of you who know me really well probably remember that I LOVE Halloween. Travis will even tell you... I checked out a Halloween idea book from the library back in August and have been plotting my Halloween festivities/decorations/food ever since!! (Travis thinks that I'm a little crazy sometimes.) So here are some things that we have been doing...




Of course, no Halloween would be complete without a little bit of pumpkin carving.




These are two of our finished products. We still have one more to do, though. Sorry if you can't see the one on the left very well. It's a skull. That one is Russell's. He picked out the design by himself. The other one is mine. Travis didn't finish his pumpkin because he was helping Russ.





Russell trying on part of my costume. I'll post pics of our costumes probably next week.




So I have been decoration up a storm. I've made a lot of my stuff. I get a lot of my ideas from http://www.familyfun.go.com/. I love that site. Check it out for all sorts of games/craft ideas for your kids. Plus recipes and all sorts of other stuff. This is just a standard old grapvine wreath, spray painted black with some ribbon and spiders attached.




More spiders to scare the trick-or-treaters!!!!




These two guys haunt our yard...




probably because they died and were buried right on the property. Didn't I ever tell you guys about that?

These bats were a great project for Russell and I to do together. As a teacher I am always thinking about what I can do to prep Russell for school, and one thing is to work on his fine-motor skills. You know...cutting, gluing, coloring, writing. These are skills that they really hit hard in preschool and kindergarten. Russell did most of the gluing for these bats.

The fun thing is, they have clothes pins on the back, so you can hang them almost anywhere. I will probably make more next year.

And we made these cute pumpkins out of an egg carton. He did most of the painting and helped me stick the stems through.

I bought this cool cylinder vase at Walmart to fill with all kinds of things as a centerpeice for my table or counter.

Then we added a spray-painted branch to make a tree. Then of course we added all sorts of horrible things to the branches...rats, spiders, skeletons...MUUU HAAA HAAAAA!!!

I made this ghost curtain pull-back out of felt and hot glue.

So sorry for all the pics of my decorating...as you can tell, we had a lot of fun. One of these days when we have our own house, I'm going to be known as the creepy lady down the street whose house is scary to trick-or-treat at. It's a dream of mine...

Russ being silly with his Halloween party stuff. We got to go back to Idaho and have a party with my fam. So much fun!!!!

Halloween sugar cookies!!!

Mmmmmmmm! In addition to these, I try to do a Halloween themed meal once a week. Ya know...monster claws with eyeball salad. Stuff like that.

Now to add to the list of what has been going on...I have been getting progressively fatter. Here I am at 25ish weeks. How am I ever going to make it through Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas without gaining about a million pounds?!!?

Oh, and by the way...we think we know what we are going to name the kid, but I'm not quite ready to tell yet. Maybe next time.

Okay! Okay!! An update!!

We have been having a lot of fun lately. Here are some pics:






Last weekend we went on a hike up Chinook Pass with a beautiful view of Mount Ranier. Glorious, huh?





Me on the hike. 22 weeks, I think. Maybe 23. I forget. But I am sticking my belly out a little extra if you can't tell. Sheesh!! I'm not that big yet. Right? RIGHT?!!!





Travie and Russ. Russell is getting almost too big to carry anymore. Travis was feeling the burn!!





So Russell picked out his clothes and put them on himself this day. It was probably to warm for a sweater, but what the heck. Backwards and he didn't want to fix it.





Not to mention that there is a n 90 percent chance that Russell will put his shoes on the wrong feet. You'd think that it was 50/50 huh? Nope! Not mathematically logical, but true. This smile reminds me so much of Travis.




Oh, this was embarrassing. We went to our friends house for games one night, and Russ had two accidents in his pants. TWO!!! So he had to borrow one of their pink princess pullups. (They only have girls.) The next day he cried when I threw them away because he liked them so much.





This is stud muffin Russ dressed up for his uncle Shane's wedding. He was the ring bearer, and he got to dance with the flower girl. He REALLY liked that and talked about it for a week. He kept saying, "Kayla says I'm a good dancer."




My little man!!





Two of my friends and I have started a little joy school together because we all live so close and our kids are all the same age. We take turns being the teacher. It is so much fun!!! Russ loves it, and it is free!! Plus two of us are licensed teachers anyway. So this is Russell's first day of school.




He loves his new backpack and takes it everywhere!


So as you can see, we are doing well. I will update you again when all of my fabulous Halloween plans are put into place. (I've been planning for Halloween for a month or two now! I just love it!)

AND THE RESULTS ARE IN........

It's a BOY!!! And we are naming it MAXTER PORTWELL!

Scroll down to the next post to see some pictures!!

JUST KIDDING!!!!

It's actually a GIRL, and we don't know what we are going to name her yet. We were just playing a little prank on some people we know. (Hee.Hee. You know who you are!) I would post pictures, but they aren't the best pictures, and it is hard to see. I will post some new pics of my humongo belly very soon though. It's just that I'm canning today. Very busy.