October Family Pictures

My cousin Christie took our family pictures while we were in Utah in October. We got some really great shots. Alex cooperated really well for the first couple of pictures. After that, I think he was pretty bored. Brenton on the other hand, did amazingly well. He was wonderful all the way until the end.

Misc. Fun

Crystal's daughter, Stacey, made these hats. Super cute! Now I just need a business card for Stacie. The boys wear them everywhere, and EVERYONE wants to know where they can buy them.

Don't ask. I'm pretty sure it's Spaghetti O's.

I went to CDA one Saturday morning, and this is what I returned to around 1:00 PM. Alex NEVER falls asleep on me. I was amazed. I love my boys!

Halloween

Yup...Halloween. I'm still working on getting caught up on the blog.

We met the Stewarts at the Sevy's house...and went trick-or-treating around there. There was a gorgeous full moon above us, and kids in cute costumes. How could it go wrong? The kids really got into it. We only went to about a dozen homes, but it was enough and the kids enjoyed it.

Notice the reflective thing in the street, that's Brenton's knight costume. :)

After trick-or-treating, we went over to Pinehurst Elementary for a carnival. It was awesome. Every year it's lots of fun, and we weren't disappointed this year.

Alex digging for treasure

Brenton playing pin-the-face on the pumpkin

Alex at the fish pond (one of his favorites)

Alex's other favorite (squirt out the candle in the jack-o-lantern)

Brenton fishing

Alex loved his prizes!

At the end of the carnival, we were able to get a picture of the kids: Alex, Andrew, Molly, and Brenton.

The LOAD

The next day, they wanted to wear each other's costumes. I got a few great laughs.

The Sevy and the Stewart families did get some sort of NASTY bug that day/evening, but luckily, it passed us over. Surprisingly, we didn't even have to fight Alex to get him in his costume. I declare it a success.

Christmas Cards

I am sending out Christmas cards this next week. If you're not sure I have your address or not, please email it to me! Thanks!

email: stephanieswainston@hotmail.com

Grandma Haslem

My Grandma Haslem died a few days ago. We will miss her, but are so grateful that she is finally back with her husband. Grandpa has been gone for a few years now, and besides missing him terribly, she has had horrible health problems. This really is a blessing, even though we'll miss her.

The funeral is Thursday. I am flying in tomorrow (Wednesday AM) and then back home Friday AM. The fun part is, all my immediate family will be there. My parents (of course), both brothers and my sister. So much fun. Too bad it's will be for such a short amount of time.

We love you Grandma. Tell Grandpa hi for us!

Thanksgiving

I know I still have a lot to post regarding updates. I will eventually get to it.

This morning I woke up at 3:00 AM. Not because I'm going black-Friday shopping, but just because I woke up. This weekend is a hard weekend for me. It will be five years since our accident. You would think by now the nightmare of it all would be gone. To be honest, I don't really ponder on it, or re-live it during the year (very much) until this weekend. Something about the anniversary of it brings it to the front of my mind.

My new goal is to change the way I think about this weekend. Instead of it being the anniversary of our horrifying car accident, it will be the anniversary of us surviving an accident, and growing stronger because of it.

Even though in my dreams I can still see all the bad VERY clearly, I'm going to try to only focus on the good. I'm hoping that doing that will bring the stuff to the front of my mind that I want to remember, and all the bad scary stuff will get buried. It's such a miracle that we all survived. Sometimes I tend to focus on the recurring suffering due to the accident, and forget about the miracles surrounding us.

Happy Thanksgiving all. Remember that God gave us everything that we have, and we are being thankful for that!

Brenton's School Halloween Party

Brenton's school had a Halloween party. Alex and I went there to enjoy the festivities. It was so fun to see the kids all dressed up. Brenton loved telling everyone about his knight costume, and surprisingly, was only slightly bummed that he couldn't take his sword to school with him.

I didn't know knights did their own grocery shopping.

Utah

The beginning of October we drove down to Utah for a visit. I was able to go with my mom down to Bountiful and spend some time with my grandma Haslem. I haven't seen her for a while. It was great to talk to her.

After I made it back up to Logan, we had family pictures taken. This is what the boys looked like after the pictures.

Notice, Alex still has the flowers he picked in his hands.

We took the boys to Newton's town park. They loved it. Alex especially loved playing baseball with Grandma. He actually got pretty good at hitting the ball with the bat.

My monkey boy!

We made a trip to the America West Heritage Center. It was the first time I'd been there. It was lots of fun.

The short train ride. We were able to go around a few times.

Alex wasn't too fond of the animals just walking around. It was kind of funny.

We were able to watch a cow be milked. The kids could have done it themselves if they wanted to, but Brenton was too nervous. He did enjoy watching, though. Alex wanted nothing to do with it. He actually wouldn't even stay in the barn to watch.

We walked by this duck, and she immediately huddled up her babies to protect them. Pretty cool seeing how natural it is to watch out for your kids.

They had a cool hay pirate ship. By the time we were there, there wasn't much left of the ship design, but there was still a pretty cool tunnel that the boys enjoyed walking through.

Probably the favorite part for the boys were the puppies. Not even part of the real "attractions" but they loved playing with them through the kennel.

They LOVED the horses! Alex even calmed down enough to help feed them.

The giant sling-shot was a huge hit. We were able to launch gourds off a small mountain into the meadow below. Somehow Brenton sustained some sort of an injury. All we could get out of him was, "I didn't let go and I went bong, bong, bong, bong! It really hurts!" Nothing was broken, and he recovered within a few minutes, so I guess it actually wasn't so bad.

Super Fun Happy Slide! The boys loved this slide. I was certainly more nervous than they were. I was quite happy just taking the pictures.

This is something Grandma found on the path inside the farm. I certainly wasn't interested in picking it up, but Grandma wanted to show it to them. Good thing brave Grandma was there. She definitely made it more fun for the boys.

Isn't Cache Valley beautiful?! This was taken at the farm.
I was able to go and visit my friend Kami. I hadn't seen her for such a long time. She'd never met Alex, and I'd never met her newest baby girl. Such a cute family. The picture below is of my two boys with her three boys. They played so well together!