First Ever Swan Family Halloween Bash

Our Halloween was a huge success! Aaron's mom (Debbie) and older brother (Ryan), were staying with us for a week because Ryan had shoulder surgery, also, Aaron's younger sister (Sydni) and her husband (Jake) and their little boy (Zac) were staying with us Halloween night and then we were watching Zac for a few days while Syd and Jake went to Vegas...because of all the family in town, Aaron and I decided to throw the First Ever Swan Family Halloween Bash. We also invited Aaron's twin brother (Kelly) and Aaron's two aunts and uncles and Aaron's cousins who live in the Provo area to all come over and hang out. Aaron and I even made individualized hand-made invitations to send out to everyone. (I took a picture but it's on my mom's camera, so as soon as I get that from her I'll post it.)

Before the party started we had the ward Trunk-or-Treat. We got Lincoln and Zac in their costumes--Lincoln was a monkey, and Zac a firefighter--and took them over to do a quick run through of the Trunk-or-Treat. Aaron and I also decided to be festive and dress up (well, mostly I decided and Aaron was a good sport about it) I was a cowboy and Aaron a was an indian. Notice his awesome paper-sack vest. Kelly helped me make it a few nights earlier. Lincoln had a blast trick-or-treating. After a few times of showing him how to do it, he got to the point where he would lift his own bag up as high as he could in the direction of the candy bowl and say, "Uh-uh". It was funny. And everyone said he was such a cute little monkey. He also carried around my pistol from my cowboy outfit the whole time. I'm not sure why he was so attached to it, but he would not let it go. So he was a little monkey carrying a pistol around. Ryan decided that made the costume even more funny. I agree. Debbie stayed home to take care of Ryan and to make the yummy treats for the party.

We had lots of great food. Graveyard Cake, Pumpkin Cookies, homemade root beer, homemade wassail, pumpkin seeds, apples with caramel dip, doughnuts, and pizza from Papa Murphey's. Not to mention candy.

Our decorations were pretty cool too, if I do say so myself. Aaron and I made them for family home evening the Monday before. We had orange and yellow paper chains hanging from the ceiling and little Kleenex ghosts in the doorways and on the windows and a few on the ceiling too. Nothing like decorating on a budget of zero dollars. But I thought it looked fantastic.

After Trunk-or-Treat we put pjs on the little boys and shipped them off to bed. Our guests (the ones that weren't already staying at our house) started showing up around 8:30pm. We had several activities planned. Aaron had built a left-turn-only maze on our living room floor with masking tape. When people came through the door they had to follow the course, only making left hand turns, until the reached the kitchen where the food was. It was pretty fun. Not everyone attempted the maze, but I think everyone who did eventually got to the kitchen. Aaron, Kelly, and Jake participated in a doughnut eating contest. They had to eat doughnuts off of a string and whoever got the whole doughnut chewed up and swallowed first was the winner. I think this contest was the highlight of the evening, everyone was laughing pretty hard all the way through it. Aaron came out the winner! Yay for Aaron! The boys played a few strength games using a wooden dowel. I think Kelly won all of those. They also played around alot with the bow and arrow, tomahawk and spear from Aaron's Halloween costume. Mostly we all just sat around and chatted. While we did that there was a Halloween word search that got passed around. Sydni and I also got to try on our bridesmaids dresses for Whitney's wedding. We decided to be identical twins for Halloween, well, at least for the 10 minutes we had the dresses on. All in all, I think everyone had a good time, even if we did stay up way too late. ;)

Squaw Peak

After church and Lincoln's nap, we decided to take a nice little Sunday drive. We went up Provo canyon and then took the road up to Squaw Peak. It overlooks all of Provo and Orem. It's really beautiful. I've been wanting to go up there for awhile to see all the leaves changing colors. Most of them were already changed, but there were still lots of pretty colors to see, not to mention the incredible view. We got up to the top and parked the car and then decided to hike for a little bit on the trail that lead up the ridge. I haven't been hiking in a long time, and I have to say my poor little pregnant, out-of-shape self didn't make it very far. But we did find a nice flat spot to sit down and look out over the valley. Aaron taught Lincoln how to throw rocks over the edge, which Lincoln (of course) thoroughly enjoyed. Linc also like picking up the rocks, leaves,

sticks, etc. that he found along the trail. When the trail was too steep for Lincoln to walk on, Aaron carried him on his shoulders and handed him various thing (leaves, rocks, etc.) to hold so he wouldn't feel left out. It was a beautiful day and we all really enjoyed our little trip up to the top of Squaw Peak.

Pumpkins

Tonight for date night we carved pumpkins! I just wanted to put them up for all to see in case you don't make it to our house to trick-or-treat this year.
This one is Aaron's. He did his out of his own head, without a pattern. He's so artistic.

The little one with the cute face and three teeth is Lincoln's. He was in bed while we carved so we thought we'd make his likeness on his pumpkin. The monster is mine. I used a pattern, and it still took forever. You can't see my pumpkin because it's dark, but it's fat and looks pregnant.

And this is Shark Bait's pumpkin, what could be more appropriate. We saw a pumpkin like this at Thanksgiving Point and took a picture of it that Aaron used as a pattern so he could carve this. I think he did pretty darn good.

What Does It All Mean?

I'm still trying to figure it out. But, take five minutes of your time, click on this link and see what your thoughts are about our world today. Don't worry it's not anything negative or anything like that, just some interesting facts. Mind boggling.

http://release.theplatform.com/content.select?pid=x7aVOMrlfkkijQwcLllwk6WjB5JE0zrF

Kite 2, Swans ZERO

Late and Out of Order

This post is late and out of order, but I still wanted to get it in. Last Wednesday I went to Hooper to finish my sewing projects. You'll remember from a few posts ago that I mentioned that I am attempting to learn to sew and my first project was to make some burp clothes and a baby quilt for my sister-in-law Stacey's new baby Jeremiah. My mom helped me a lot, and encouraged me a lot. Sewing is hard work, but I'm so happy with the finished products. I mean, they aren't perfect by any stretch, but it's just cool to see something you made when it's all finished. Anyways, the reason this post is late is because after a long day of sewing on Wednesday I still had to sew up the last 6 inches at the bottom of the quilt by hand. (You do the rest with the machine while the quilt is turned inside-out and then you pull it through the last 6 inches and sew the rest up by hand.) I was way too exhausted to finish it that night, and have actually just gotten around to it this morning. Then I packed everything in a box and mailed it to Stacey. Yay! Anyways here are a couple of pics, one of the quilt, and one of the burp clothes.

*Stace, hopefully you get the package before you read my blog, but if not...Surprise!

The Most Boring Doctor's Appointment Ever

Well, today I had my second doctor's visit for Shark Bait. For no reason in particular, I was really hoping the doctor would want to do the ultra-sound today to find out if Shark Bait is a girl or a boy. That was not the case. In fact this was the most boring doctor's appointment ever. (Which, I suppose I should be really glad about because that means everything is going well and that there are no problems. But I think I just really hoped we'd get a little more info than that.) Lincoln and I got there about 5 minutes early and waited in the waiting room for about 20 minutes. Then the nurse called me back, weighted me, took my blood pressure, and asked if I needed to use the bathroom. I thought that was weird because they usually make you pee in a cup every time you go, but today no cup. I was glad about that, I've lost all my aim since I've been out of practice for the last 14 months, but I'm sure I'll reacquire it, since I'll have plenty of chances to practice. :) (Sorry if that was a little more info than some of you wanted to know.) Anyways, then the nurse lead me to the exam room, the doctor came in shortly, asked if I had any questions, listened for the heart beat, and that was that. Come back in three weeks to find out the gender. He did say that if the theory about a baby's heart rate were true, then I would be having a girl. So...with the next three weeks to kill before I can finally find out what we're having, I've made up this little poll so all of you can vote too. Feel free to comment and let me know why you made the choice you did. We'll all know the outcome on November 10th!

Corn Maze Craze

Today was the First Annual Lemmon/Sparks Family Outing to the corn maze at Thanksgiving Point. My mom is not a Halloween person, so it took some talking to convince her to want to come, but between Tanner and I we managed to pull it off. It was our (mine and Aaron's) idea to have this little get together on our end of the valley, since we always have to make the drive up there. So all that were in attendance were Aaron, Lincoln, and I, my mom and Kerry (known by the grandkids as Papa Kerry) and Tanner (my youngest brother), and Emily (my step-brother Bryan's wife) and her little girl Penelope. We wished the rest of the fam could have joined us, but once they see how much fun we had they won't be able to say no next year! :)

Here is everyone but Emily, because she was taking the picture, sitting just outside the entrance with a lovely display of scarecrows.
Once we got inside we realized there was a ton more to do than just the corn maze. They had lots of little events and activities going on. It was very kid friendly, and I think anyone of any age would have a great time there. This is a huge rocking chair. Tanner is holding Penelope and Lincoln.
Penny, Papa Kerry, Aaron, Lincoln, and Tanner
Penny, Emily, Mom, Me, and LincolnThey had these cool go-carts that you peddled yourself. Aaron and Tanner and Kerry had a blast racing each other. Mom, Emily, and I gave it a try too, but decided one go-around was all our little legs could take. It was kind of hard work!
Lincoln and the bags road in a little corn wagon while we watched the pig races and the pumpkin launcher (they loaded pumpkins into a cannon and shot them off at an old rusty truck out in a field, it was pretty cool.), and while Tanner and Aaron shot the corn guns.
They had a wooden train that the little kids were allowed to climb in and play on. Lincoln thought it was great. I think he looks like a vampire in this picture. :)

I had a "Napoleon Dynamite" moment when Mom and Kerry started playing tether ball.

After trying some of the other events we decided to brave the corn maze. Don't worry, it was non-haunted. Here is Kerry, Penny, Mom, Lincoln, and I waiting for those on the tower to decide which way we should go. We got very lost, and very tired inside the corn maze.

Here's Lincoln taking a break. He walked some of the maze and was carried some. He really liked to play with the corn that was all over on the ground. We did finally find our way out (ok we cheated a little) and we were very glad. We walked around the park a little more and then decided to go and have lunch together before everyone had to go.

It was such a fun day! Thanks family for humoring us and coming down to take on the corn maze. We should have these kind of family gatherings more often.

Kiddo-Tag

Lincoln Aaron Swan

14 Months

Lincoln was kiddo-tagged by Dawn, so I get to write five things about this adorable little guy.

1. Lincoln is pretty easy-going. I almost used the word mild, but he's not mild. He is very go-with-the-flow and stubborn-opinionated at the same time. We can take him pretty much anywhere and he'll behave most of the time. He likes to be outside, inside, in public, not in public, he does pretty well in the car, in the stroller, at restaurants, in his high chair, etc. His stubborn streak (gee, I wonder where he gets that from?) comes in to play when he doesn't want to get out of the bathtub even after all the water is drained, or when he will stop at nothing to avoid having his diaper changed, or when he absolutely insists (and yes, a 14 month old can insist) on bringing, not a favorite toy mind you, but my hair pick, or the bathroom mirror squeegee, with us into the grocery store/library/you name it. But I'd have to say as far as temperament goes we got pretty lucky with Lincoln. He is almost always happy as long as he's fed. He doesn't even really get that grouchy when he's tired, more loopy than anything. We can tell when it's bedtime because he starts going all "Three Stooges" on us.

2. Lincoln is just plain goofy. I'm not sure how he managed to get every single nutty, bizarre, strange, and weird gene that both Aaron and I posses, but somehow it happened. I love it, because it makes for a lot of really funny moments, like when Lincoln laughs his head off when Aaron blows his nose. If you make faces at him, he'll try to copy them, and he does a pretty good job of it too. When he wakes up from him nap he's not ready to come out of his crib until he throws his teddy bear over the side. I don't know what that's all about, but if you take him out before the teddy comes out, he's really crabby and whiny, but if the bear is out, then you're good to go. If you are playing with him and you say, "Lincoln, I'm gonna get you!" He runs towards you instead of away from you. He doesn't like the texture of grass. He'd rather crawl on the cement than on the grass, especially if the grass can touch his bare skin. But he has no problem eating grass. He eats dirt. And small rocks. (We do our best to avoid letting that happen, btw.) He'll pick up something small off the carpet and bring it to us, but if we don't take it from him then he'll stick it in his mouth. He likes lemons, pickles asparagus, pepperoni, and other foods that most kids won't even allow on their plates.

3. Lincoln is learning how to talk. It's so fun to hear little words come out of his mouth, it always surprises us when he blurts out a new one. The words he can say right now are: Dada, Mama, duckie, diaper (his favorite), grapes, woof woof, and he can almost say baby. For awhile he could say poop and papa, but I haven't heard either of those for a long time. He also makes a vroom vroom sound for his car, and a horsey noise (but the horsey noise sounds more like a horse dying, it took me a long time to realize that was the noise Lincoln makes for a horse). He also jabbers almost non-stop in baby language all day long.

4. Lincoln isn't a napper. He does take naps, but if they are an hour long I count my blessings. I have friends whose kids will take like a 3 hour afternoon nap and I'm seriously green with envy. I think Lincoln had only take one 3 hour nap in his life and I think it was when he was sick. And I can probably count of one hand the number of times he's taken a 2 hour nap. He does sleep through the night almost always, so I'll be grateful. It just seems like sleep has always been a challenge for us with him. Just when we finally feel like we're getting a routine down of how naps and bedtimes should go, something comes between us and our peace. We are constantly readjusting bedtime, nap time, number of naps, the routine to get him to sleep, whether he wants it dark or needs a nightlight, whether he wants to be sung to or just have his music box play, whether he wants something to drink before hand or not, whether he wants to be rocked lying down or up on our shoulder, and on and on and on. I'm dreading the day he moves to a toddler bed and can escape once I put him down. We're planning on leaving him in his crib until he leaves on his mission. :)

5. Lincoln is a miniature little Aaron. That's one of the reasons I love him so much. As I watch him throughout the day I see so many little Aaronisms about him. Lincoln is curious, he likes to and wants to know how things work, he'd rather play with anything electronic than all the plastic toys in the world, he has Aaron's eyes and a lot of Aaron's mannerisms, he's a smart little bugger, he's affectionate, he loves hugs, he's persistent, he's a bottomless pit when it comes to eating, he's stubborn, and best of all he loves Aaron so much! If Aaron is home, Lincoln will follow him around and try to do what he's doing. When Aaron walks in the door after school/work Lincoln usually drops everything and bee-lines straight to Aaron for a hug. I love to watch my boys play together.

Well, hopefully you got to know Lincoln a little better through this post. Now for the tagging part. I tag:

Benson Dalpias

Zac Yoshioka

Titan Robinson

A-Z Tag

A- Attached or Single: Attached

B- Best Friends: Aaron

C- Cake or Pie: Cake! Most definitely cake.

D- Day of Choice: Saturday or Sunday the days we're most likely to spend together as a little family

E- Essential Item: chocolate, husband, rice bag (at least while I'm preggo), Lincoln's nap time

F- Favorite Color: yellow

G- Greatest Accomplishment: My temple marriage, and being a mom...oh, and yesterday I made the best roast I've ever made, I'd consider that a pretty great accomplishment :)

H- Hometown: Hooper

I- Indulgences: soda, spending nap time on the blog instead of cleaning my house

J- January or July: I like both. January and the excitement of starting a new year with new goals, July because I love being with family on the 4th and having BBQs and watermelon...mmm.

K- Kids: Lincoln 14 months, and Shark Bait 17 weeks in the oven

L- Life is incomplete without: Aaron, Lincoln, our family on both sides, chocolate, ice cream, books.

M- Marriage Date: May 6th 2006

N- Number of Siblings: 7: 3 younger brothers, 1 older step-brother, 2 older step-sisters

O- Orange or Apples: Oranges, especially those chocolate ones you get at Christmas time :)

P- Phobias or Fears: losing all my teeth, bugs

Q- Quotes: "Go big or go home!"

R- Reason to Smile: It's Lincoln's bedtime (after a hard day that IS a reason to smile.)

S-Season: I think I like fall, when it's cool enough outside to wear jeans and a light jacket without being cold, and seeing all the leaves change colors, getting geared up for the holidays.

T-Tag five friends: You're it!

U-Unknown Fact about Me: I have never read Harry Potter, watched Star Wars, or liked mashed potatoes.

V- Very Favorite Store: It's funny how depending on your stage of life you shop at different places. I hardly ever go into a store that isn't a baby store these days. But, I'd have to say my favorite right now is Target.

W- Worst Habit: I exaggerate

X- X-ray or Ultra Sound: Well, the only X-rays I've ever had meant I had broken bones, and the only Ultra Sound I've ever had meant a baby on the way. I'll take the Ultra Sound thank you.

Y- Your Favorite Food: Chocolate

Z- Your Zodiac sign: Pisces

The Real Deal

Sorry this is so long in coming. Lincoln has been officially walking every since Sydni and Zac were here, I just haven't gotten it on video yet. This really isn't the best video either, he kind of looks like a drunken sailor. Usually he's a lot more steady. But here it is...

I Shopt at DI

So on Friday my friend Suzy and I went to DI (for those not in Utah it's a store like Good Will) to look for Halloween costume ideas. While we were there I noticed that they had two cribs in the back, that seemed to be in decent condition. One for $35 and one for $40. I didn't look either over too carefully and just assumed that the $40 one was in better shape. I was excited about my find and couldn't wait to tell Aaron. We've been trying to decide what to have Shark Bait sleep in when he/she gets here because we want to keep Lincoln in his crib as long as we possibly can. I thought this would be perfect! I waited anxiously until Aaron got home from school, and then I dragged (well, he was willing, but in my excitement I felt like I was dragging him) Aaron to DI. Upon his closer inspection, we realized that actually the $35 crib was in better shape, it just didn't look like it because it had spit up crusted all over it. The only problem with it was that the mattress had a big rip in it. The $40 crib had a mattress that was in much nicer shape. We asked one of the workers if it would be possible to switch out the mattress for the one in better condition, and she said that would be fine. So we got our crib! Aaron went back this morning to pick it up. He had to take it apart to get it to fit in the car. Then we spent about two hours this morning cleaning it, and polishing it up with wood polish.
You can see all the little drips of spit up. Some of it we had to scrape off with a butter knife. Ick!
Lincoln wasn't much help, but to distract him we let him play with Aaron's bike pump. He likes to pump the air out into his face. Silly boy.
And here it is, the finished project! It looks so much nicer all cleaned and polished. We think that when the time comes that we only need one crib again, we'll be able to sell this one for $50-60. And for now, Zac will have a bed to sleep in when he comes to stay with us at the end of the month. Hurray for DI!

My Creativity Strikes Again

My mom's friend had some extra grapes which she offered to my mom, who didn't need them but said that I wanted them (which is true). Thanks Jaque! I've been on a learn-how-to-can slash food storage kick lately, so I packed Lincoln up and we drove to Hooper this morning to learn how to make grape juice.

First you have to take all the grapes off the vines. Not too bad, except that Lincoln wanted to "help". He kept putting grapes that were still on the vines in the bucket with the grapes we'd already pulled off the vine, and picking up the de-vined grapes and squishing them in his hands, and picking up vined and de-vined a like and throwing them on the sidewalk. We couldn't distract him to save our lives (or our grapes). You can imagine what his clothes looked like. Finally my mom had the brilliant idea to take the grapes in the house and de-vine them in the kitchen sink. Lincoln is to short to reach the sink. Problem solved.

Then you put all the grapes into a big steamer/juicer and you let the water boil underneath it for two hours, stirring every half hour. After an hour some of the juice is ready and you can pour it into the quart jars. After the juice is in the jar, you stick a lid on it, screw the little metal ring on nice and tight and wait for it to seal. Not too hard, just time consuming. I got 24 quarts of grape juice out of the deal. Not too shabby at all.

During the times we were waiting my mom attempted to show me how to sew. I am attempting to make burp clothes and a quilt for Aaron's sister Stacey's new baby Jeremiah (he was born today!!!). But I have never learned to sew, and so my mom (who doesn't really sew all that much herself) is having a real time trying to teach me. I made the mistake of buying stripey cloth to sew onto the cloth diapers (that's how you make the burp cloths, they are really cute) so you can tell exactly how crooked my sewing is. You can see it in the picture. But I got two other designs that aren't stripey so those will probably look better. We only had time to do the stripey ones today. I never knew sewing would be such stressful, concentrated work. I hope I get better at it though. It felt so fulfilling to be able to look at the burp clothes I completed, even though they weren't sewn perfectly, and think that I made that. I guess there's something to Pres. Uchtdorf's talk at the Relief Society broadcast after all. I still have more burp clothes to do, and we didn't even get started on the quilt, but that will just give me a good excuse to go back up to Hooper and use my mom's sewing machine.

Other good news besides my new nephew Jeremiah, Whitney Taylor (Aaron's cousin and my good friend, who set up Aaron and I) got engaged today!!! Congratulations!

Grandma Comes to Provo! (finally)

This picture of my mom is old, my brother Kyle sent it to me right after I moved to college to make me homesick.

I have been begging my mom to come down and spend a day with Lincoln and I ever since we got back from Texas. It hasn't been entirely my mom's fault that she didn't make it until today, but boy was a glad she came today! It's always fun to spend a day with your mom. I love my mom, she is such an awesome lady. Those of you who know her will agree I'm sure. But I feel like we have so much in common, and we just talk talk talk the whole time we're together and it makes the day go by SO fast.

Well today we had some errands to run. I wanted to use my coupon for a free 8x10 of Lincoln at Kiddie Kandids. We got him all dressed up, went to the mall, only to find out that the coupon had expired a week ago and we couldn't use it. Bummer.

Well, then we headed over to the Missionary Mall. My mom had bought Kyle some shoes there right before he left to Guatemala, and they came with a two year guarantee. They only lasted him about a year though and then they got a big fat hole in them, so we had to take a picture of the holy ones (haha) and show them so they would replace them for free. All went smoothly, except that my mom discovered from the sales guy that there is a Missionary Mall in Layton, so now I have no excuse to get her to come down to Provo.

Then we walked over to Joann's fabric store, and I bought some fabric to make my soon to come new nephew Jeremiah a few burp cloths, and the pieces to sew him a quilt. (I have been having this urge lately to learn how to sew, and I really like the burp clothes made out of cloth diapers, and the quilt pieces I got were all cut out and put in a little bundle with step by step instructions for how to sew it together. I can't fail. At least, I hope I can't.) My mom saw these cute little Halloween stuffed animals (monsters?) and Lincoln fell in love with the ghost. So Grandma bought it for him. He's spoiled. I'm ok with it. :)

After that the pregnant lady (me) was famished so we were headed out to eat. We had to make a detour though because my car tire was flat! Have I ever mentioned how much I "dislike" our car? And it never gives Aaron trouble, only me. Anyways, once that was taken care of, we decided to eat at the Noodle Company. Neither of us had ever been before. I highly recommend it, the food was delicious. Thanks for lunch Mom!

We had a little bit of time left before Mom needed to get going for Hooper, so we decided to go to the Town Center mall where the JC Penney's is and get Lincoln's picture there. I have a membership there so no sitting fee, and sheets are a lot cheaper there than at Kiddie Kandids. Lincoln would hardly hold still for a shot, and the camera lady was really slow, like she expected Lincoln would just sit there and hold still for more than 2 seconds. But we did end up getting a couple cute ones. I was a good girl too, and only bought an 8x10 for me and a 5x7 for each of Lincoln's grandmas. Aaron would be so proud. Well, he'd be proud if I never spent a dime on professional photography, but he should at least be happy I didn't spend a lot. :)