Ritchie Ralph

This sweet beefcake of a boy is a lot of fun and keeps us on our toes!  That nearly black eye was from a fight with the couch.  From there, he broke a mug. Then, a plate. While walking through Dillards that same day he quickly swiped  all the shoes off the display table he could get to before he was stopped. We also went to the library that day, where he threw books, toys, and pushed the computer keys while I was putting books on hold.  All in a days work for this stud! 

He's stopped taking naps, which is a shame.  Although I can get him to sleep in the car for several hours if I take him for a mid-day ride.  He has a speech therapist, Keri, who comes to play once a week.  He loves her and is showing more effort in forming sounds and using more words.  Love this kid!

Halloween

Look how cute these guys are: Mario, Dinosaur (or Yoshi), Princess Peach, Minecraft Creeper, and  Li'l Copy Cat.  I was shocked when Avery saw me making my Copy Cat costume and she suggested she wanted to do the same.  She always wears that grey hat with cat ears, so it was easy to iron on the letters to complete the costume.  Too bad the cat ears don't show up in this picture.  This was at the ward trunk-or-treat.  I wore my copy cat costume on actual Halloween and she wore a stitch costume that night.  I don't think I got a picture.  Halloween this year was COLD.  Our friends were so kind to host a Halloween soup dinner and trick-or-treating in their neighborhood.  There were tons of kids and it was fun. 

Henry's Cute

We went to Barnes and Noble last week for Avery to spend her money on LOL dolls.  Henry was in the car with us and asked if we could go to Barnes first.  There's an H&R Block near our home that we pass all the time.  On the way home from our Barnes and Noble outing, Henry asked if we can go to H&R one of these days.  Maybe it looks like a toy store to him from the exterior?  Maybe we need to get out more.  Anyway, that Henry is a sweet first grader that I kind of wish would stop growing up.  Side note, he loves to snuggle Ralphie.

A Day in the Life of Ralphie

Let's talk about Ralphie.  He is a busy boy constantly on the look out for trouble.  At least, that's what it seems to me!  We were all kneeling and leaning on the couch during family prayer when I hear Eric laughing.  I looked over and see that Ralphie had completely pantsed him!  Ralphie knew exactly what he was doing and was laughing!

Another time, Ralphie got into the fridge and dumped all the eggs out onto the kitchen floor.  When Jack, his little neighbor buddy, was over, Ralphie dumped an entire family size box of Honey Nut Cheerios onto the floor and proceeded to stomp them all into pieces.

Later I found him in the bathroom brushing his teeth with both his brothers' toothbrushes in the toilet bowl.

Not long after Finley had her top teeth removed, Ralphie was playing in the tub and fell onto the side and chipped his front tooth.  I'm really hoping that it doesn't get infected now or later like Finley's. 

Here's a picture of the markers Ralphie shoved into the steam mop recently.  I wonder if they weren't color wonder if they would have emited colorful steam onto my kitchen floor.

Anyway, the boy is fun and adorable and we love him to pieces, but man!  He is a handful!

Summer Visit

 On one of grandma and grandpa's visits, they came to Henry's favorite: the Home Depot Build!  It ended up being Henry and Finley eating all the treats while grandma and grandpa built their vehicles.

 Grandma took some cute family photos up the Rattlesnake trail. 

This is for me to remember all these months that our benches (and usually chairs, too) reside on top of the table to prevent Ralphie from pushing them around the kitchen to climb into things he shouldn't be getting into.  And the flowers were a pretty birthday gesture from Eric. 

Before and After

Fin chipped a tooth when she fell off mom's kitchen stool a couple years ago.  There was much blood and nobody saw it happen, but here we are years after with 4 teeth removed because of an infection that occurred as the teeth healed.  She's was a champ and the dentist and his team did good.  She was a little loopy on the ride home and sang "This is the best day ever!" over and over.  The week since the extraction has been rough with her being so emotional, but that's behind us now.  I think she's pretty cute!

Celebrity in our Midst!

One Friday this July I received an email from the composer of much of our primary music, Shawna Edwards.  The current Primary Songbook doesn't have any of her songs, so I bought them on-line when Rachael lived here and was the primary chorister because we all love her music.  So, I get this email and am surprised to hear that she's stopping in Missoula on a trip to bike in Glacier with her husband and when she saw that I was on her email list from purchasing music, she asked to stop by and visit our primary.  She wanted a low key visit where she could sit in the back, but we love her so much that this was going to be much more exciting than that!

 I had already asked Ruby and Max, 13 year olds in the ward, to sing one of her songs in sacrament meeting the following month, so I contacted them and asked if they could sing in 2 days instead when Shawn was here.  They were good sports and agreed even though they had a temple trip the next day, which is a 3 hour drive each way (to Spokane) so they only had one evening to practice.  Max showed up Sunday even though he was sick.  They sounded so great and they even matched- Ruby in a violet dress and Max with a violet tie the same shade!  Matching wasn't on purpose and made me so happy because I'm crazy about matching.  Anyway, it turned out that there was a marathon in Missoula that Sunday morning so there weren't any available hotels for the Edwards.  They stayed several hours away and missed the sacrament meeting performance, unfortunately.  But, they showed up for Primary and we sang all her songs we know for them and she graciously shared her inspirations for each song afterwards. 

Avery brought Hope to church that day and they had their picture taken with her.  It was such a spiritual meeting and so much fun to meet the famed Shawna Edwards!  We really missed Rachael, who moved away last year.  We told her all about it.  It was also fun to talk to Shawna about Aunt Diane and Uncle Ben, who she knows in Utah.  The whole thing was just a really fun surprise!