Miriam's November update

Miriam has been really busy and is constantly on the go. She enjoys nursery and playing with kids when her nose isn't running (we have had a lot of colds this season). She loves her brother and always perks up when she hears him or sees him first thing in the morning. She decided she wanted to be the mommy with Aaron laying across her lap (like me when I nurse him) and read to him. I'm sure she will continue to share her books with him and read to him.

Though sometimes I'm not sure how healthy for Aaron Miriam's love is. Most of the time he doesn't seem to mind though.

Miriam still really loves her dollies and taking care of them. She will either bring all the diaper changing stuff out of her room or empty the diaper bag setting everything up just so to change her dollies diapers. Lotioning them up or putting medicine on the dolly.She still loves talking on the phone. She will continually pick up the phone when I'm talking or any time and jabber away. The best phone she used is a piece of play lettuce. Also in these pictures are the other favorite past time of taking the cushions off the couch and jumping then dumping out her play food all over the couch. We unfortunately can't keep her out of any rooms. One day I went to find her and finally found her in my bathroom with the contents of my cosmetic bag scattered around her. She was in the process of applying lotion to her face, for some reason she thinks that is where you apply everything. I have discovered taking pictures in the act helps not to blow my top.
Miriam learned to jump. I love when kids first learn to jump as they don't hardly leave the ground. Along with stationary jumping she is jumping off things into our arms and there have been a few close calls when we ether didn't know she was jumping or went before we were quite ready.

Afton Legacy

On November 9th we had a family baby shower for my cousin Stephanie's little Kodiak Lee. Most of the time on my mom's side of the family we pass down our middle name, for example Stephanie's middle name is Lee. Also we honor our grandparents the family have a lot of Jess and Aftons. Including myself I got named after both! All five of the girls in my mom's family with the exception of my Aunt Jessi (who obviously went the way of Grandpa) named one of the daughters middle name Afton. I wish my Grandma was still alive because we could have 4 generations of Aftons. My moms middle name is Afton (only one in that generation) then mine is as is Miriam's, which I think is pretty neat. In Aunt Hazel's family there is her daughter Shelace and her daughter Autumn carrying on the tradition. Then Aunt Christine just named her 2nd daughter Afton (they weren't there). Last, but not least is Aunt Gloria's 2nd daughter Danielle. That's a lot of Aftons!

Miriam and the first Snowfall

When my parents came down for the Ice show we got our first big snow storm. Dad was excited to show Miriam the snow and see what she thought of it. So we hunted up her snowsuit (it was mine and I actually put it on her last year for walks- it fits much better now!) so she could go out. It was quite the process taking all of us to get her fully suited and then she didn't like the hood tied around her so I got her another hat too.

They tried to make a snowman or even snowball, but the snow was too dry and didn't really stick together well. Miriam wasn't exactly sure what she thought of it. They ended up walking around a bit then coming in after only 10-15 min because she was getting cold.

Aaron's Four Month Checkup

For as long as Aaron has been congested I was getting worried that it might be something worse but his Dr said he looked great with just a cold. He has been growing and growing lately. Since he's 2 month checkup he has grown 2 1/2 in and gained almost 3 lbs! He now is 26 in long which puts him in the 84% up from the 72nd% last time. Aaron's head circumference is 17 in up from 15.5 before putting him in the 73%. He weighs 16 lbs 2 oz putting him in the 72% which is actually down from 84% last time. He has pretty much grown out of the 0-3 clothes, shirts it seems like he needs really big otherwise is 3-6. Now he is wearing a size 3 diaper, which is astonishing to me as Miriam is only a size 4 but then she only weighs 24.5 lbs a mere 8 lbs heavier or so. Aaron is bigger than Miriam was at the same age. He is also starting the teething process- gnawing on our fingers and being extra drooly. Aaron loves being with family and will reward attention given with great big smiles. He doesn't even mind Miriam's abundant and enthusiastic attention.

Disney on Ice

On Halloween I entered a drawing for 2 tickets to Disney On Ice and won! It turns out that is the way for this Fire Protection company advertises, so we got to listen to his spiel. He has a different take on smoke detectors that made sense so now we own another smoke detector. As time came closer to go I couldn't figure out how we were going Eric and I. We learned kids under 2 didn't need a ticket so we all could go but I didn't want Aaron to go through the long cold night and be around all those germs, I mean people. Then Eric needed to go to Delta and wasn't very interested in going. Finally, I talked my dad into coming down and watching the kids letting me and mom (who really wanted to go) to come with me. We debated a long time whether to take Miriam or not. I wasn't sure she would be interested enough because it was only a little before that she started to be semi interested in movies. At the last minute we took her . Our seats were on the far side close to the top by a door which was good for Miriam. Miriam watched it pretty good. They had about 8 stories and some were the mini version like Snow White on to mid-range like Little Mermaid to pretty much the full story of Cinderella after intermission. I think Ariel was Miriam's favorite as she was dancing to it. We only had to go out once toward the end. At another point she just sat on the steps holding her doggy watching it. All in all it was way fun! Thanks Mom and Dad!

We figured our "souvenirs" were pictures. We hurried out after it was finished and put her in pj so hopefully after the long ride home we could just put her in bed. We took several pictures at the venues. It was interesting to see the costumes others were wearing.

November update on Aaron

So many things are happening for Aaron. The middle of Oct he moved to size 2 diapers and by the end of Nov those were getting snug, but it feels weird to think size 3 since Miriam's a 4. Also he doesn't fit the cloth diapers so well. I think he has a longer torso than Miriam had; as he grows out of shirts very quickly, but is ok on pants. He is steadily moving out of 0-3 clothes especially shirts and one pieces.
He is very strong as he went from using a prop:

Which somehow he always squirmed over or back off. Now he doesn't need a prop anymore as this is what he is doing:

We introduced him to the lights and sound bar of his bouncy seat toward the first of the month. I like to wait awhile till their sight is developed so as not to overwhelm them. He absolutely loved it! I think he liked it better and could handle it better than Miriam did the first time. He watched it avidly like he was watching a movie for 30-40 min straight!

He still loves it and plays more than Miriam did with the hanging bird and monkey. In fact I think Miriam likes it way better now than she did at his size. She get really upset if I take the bar off and is constantly turning it on.He is also trying really hard to sit up. Plus he is really stiff. It is really hard to bend him to the sitting position and it's getting worse. He can bear his weight and is standing flat footed. I don't think he'll be slow to sit up and stand alone either. He can sit really good propped in the corner of a chair and we introduced him to his bumbo seat when we were in ID for Thanksgiving. He did really well with it though he gets tired after a little while.

Of course Miriam has to imitate and do everything he's doing too. She also loves Aaron's things for her dolls. She is always putting them in the car seat, swing, bouncer, and bumbo seat. Not to mention trying to put his diapers on them, too bad I didn't save any newborn ones for her to use. Aaron loves to be held all the time, he's a little spoiled that way so he participates in all sorts of activities, such as helping Daddy on the computer.

Happy Halloween

As usual we didn't do anything really special for Halloween besides decorate and dress up. We actually managed to carve pumpkins for the first time in our married lives. Miriam didn't care to have anything to do with it. I tried to get her to feel the pumpkin guts and she didn't like that and then tried to put the seeds back in the pumpkin. We did go with all the Jones cousins on a hay ride and pick a pumpkin, but I forgot my camera and haven't gotten a picture of that yet. Then the Jones family had a Halloween party Fri night. The pic of Eric with 3 kids are ours and Max- a regular pumpkin patch! On the actual day when didn't do much other than learn that isn't a particular good time to start an outdoor project because hardly anyone is selling garden stuff anymore. We had been debating what to do with our forest of roses so we could start a garden next year and came up with the idea to put them in front of our fence so we started that project. Then ordered pizza for dinner, yum!

Happy Halloween!!

Decorating Cookies

We've been having a play date with our great neighbors 4 houses down. Dianna has been a lifesaver and we have a good time with Seth who is 3 and Noah who is 2 months older than Miriam. When they came to our house we made Halloween cookies, Miriam' first experience making sugar cookies. We took some of them to the Hee Haws work party. The kids like to eat the dough, frosting and cookies but didn't quite know how to cut them out and frost them. We're planning on doing it again for Christmas to take around the neighborhood. I enlisted her help knowing I wouldn't ever do it on my own.

Trip to Rigby

I had thought that Eric was going to take his gun training course in October, but then he put it off after I got my parents excited to have a visit from us. So when one of mom's cousins died and had her funeral in Brigham City we cooked up a plan to meet there. After the funeral I left my car at another cousins and rode home with my mom. So we left Oct 19 and came back Fri the 23rd.

We didn't do anything special per se, but hang out and enjoy every one's company. Miriam has always enjoyed playing and exploring with Dad. She is always excited when he comes home from work and immediately goes to take his hand to drag him off somewhere.

The biggest project we worked on was canning peach jam all week somehow everything always takes longer than we think it will. Mom loved connecting more with Aaron because mostly before she was too busy taking care of everything else. He wore his pooh bear outfit that mom got him a lot because it was nice and warm.

On Friday we made our regular visit to my Grandma & Grandpa Briscoe to introduce them to their newest great-grandchild. This was the first time they had met Aaron who is #20 for them. They've been having major roadwork in front of their house for awhile. Miriam enjoyed watching the heavy equipment doing their thing. I thought it was cute to see Miriam and Grandma watching out their window at everything going on.

Trouble...starts with M

I had suspicions for awhile that Miriam could open the front door but Mon proved she could when I was cleaning in the kitchen and didn't hear her and couldn't find her till I looked outside and there she was. Perhaps I will have to lock the door more regularly. I thought we were still good on the rest of the rooms. I mean she has been able to open the latch type doors since at least Aaron was born because once she discovered that at the hospital that's all she wanted to do. Yesterday I was trying to pump milk and she was trying to "help" so I went into her room and shut the door. The next thing I know she had opened the door and was coming to see me. Nothing is safe anymore!

Hee Haw Farms

Eric's work, AquaVeo has a couple of parties a year and this fall they arranged for us to have lunch at Hee Haw Farms in Pleasant Grove. Hee Haw Farms had a courtyard activities, animals, pumpkin patch and big corn maze. It was a gorgeous day, in fact we even got a little sunburned all of us.

Miriam was a pro in the corn maze- we would come to an intersection and ask which way then she would point. Needless to say we spent a lot of time in the front part of the maze till everyone was tired. We carried Aaron in and that got heavy fast. In fact we were there so long they both fell asleep and totally missed the pumpkin patch where we picked one pumpkin. Being a farm they had some animals for petting and feeding. Miriam liked seeing all the different animals. Unfortunately the pony ride line was long and we didn't feel like waiting in it so she missed that. But we did go on a trick-or-treat hay wagon ride. They had people dressed up that threw candy at the wagon as it went by. Then Eric and Miriam rode the barrel ride. They also had a big dirt hill with a couple of slides that Miriam enjoyed. It was a really fun party!

Jones Pumpkin Patch!