Shantel's November Post

A few shapshots of some things happening behind the scenes here at the Peaden home this November. 

I decided to try my hand at Monthly Meal Planning. I usually plan 10 days out (we call it the 10 day forecast). But my planner (quick note: I designed this planner for Lioness at the Door and it's really cool to be using a planner I designed myself), has a monthly meal planning page and I am surprised at how much I liked it. I think it's a little tricky, because if you miss a day when you're planning 10 days, you just plug that meal in as your first meal of the next plan - but when you miss a day on this meal plan you have to move a different meal in order to use the ingredients you have before they go bad. It requires more shuffling. But it is nice to be planned so far out. And with the Walmart Grocery pickup, it's nice to be able to shop for almost all the things for the whole month at one time because they bring it right out to your car and you don't have to wander around the store - and then you just have to come back to pick up the milk/produce for the second half of the month. So positives and negatives. It will be really interesting to see if I keep up the monthly meal planning - but it's stretching my meal planning muscles and that's a good thing. I've been in a bit of a slump lately and I need a push to be more on top of things. vvv

^^^ Having Lydia gone to school in the mornings while Caleb takes his nap means that Austin and I get some quality time. I usually have a giant list of things to do, but I try to make sure that I give him some time just for him to do puzzles or read books. The rest of the time he helps me with the dishes or the laundry or plays with his toys while I try to get things done. 

When I picked up Lydia and Austin from Jenna's house after she volunteered last minute to watch them so I could go to Park City with David, I volunteered to taken Camille and Jason home with me so Jenna and Kevin could have a little break. Miraculously I was able to fit all five carseats into my van (I've been griping about the fact that you can't fit five carseats in our van basically since we bought it, but I was proven wrong. It was tight, and the only way is to have the baby in the very back seat - but it was possible. So I stand humbled and grateful that I could fit all five kids with me to come home). We had a great weekend and I looooooove having Jenna close enough to be able to swap weekends like this with.    vvv

^^^ We've started to play a lot of games together. It's a good age right now! Candy land is the favorite. My mom brought it with her when she came to visit a few weeks ago and we've been playing it ever since. 

Lydia and her writing skills. 1) Practicing writing words/spelling on the bathroom mirror. It's more fun than paper, and hopefully will help her learn.  And 2) She's started making these cards for anyone and everyone. It's amazing to see her writing skills skyrocketing. 

Austin and the things he loves: Power tools, specifically his power drill. And street sweepers. 

Austin helped me hang this shelf that my dad built me in Caleb's bedroom. It's been sitting in the closet since we hung the larger shelves in Lydia and Austin's bedroom several years ago because it didn't fit in the space I originally intended it to go in. But it's perfect for storing the baby books in Caleb's room. I just want to hang a little sign above it and then I'll post a picture of it. vvv

^^^ As far as Austin's love for street sweepers goes. He randomly pulled a non-fiction book about street sweepers off the shelf at the library and fell in love with it. We read it over and over again and renewed it until we couldn't renew it any more - then returned it and immediately checked it out again because he was wandering the shelves looking for his "street sweeper book". Then one day when we were at the park, all the sudden I see Austin and Lydia yelling with excitement and running toward the road because they saw a street sweeper coming down the street. I jumped up and joined them and we watched in wonder as it passed us by. It was so much fun to see how excited they were, especially Austin. Then one day there was a street sweeper going up and down Lehi Main street, so I pulled off to the side of the road and unbuckled everyone so we could watch it. It's such a cute thing for him to like so much. (He doesn't know it yet, but he's getting a toy street sweeper for Christmas!!!)

Grandparents are the best. We went to the Peaden Home to do some Thanksgiving baking. (Rolls and such). Almost as soon as we started, Lydia started telling us that she wanted to make a Turkey out of roll dough. We were going to give her a small amount of dough to do what she wanted, but then we realized we forgot the sugar in the Richersweet dough. It would have been fine, but definitely not as good as it should have been. So we decided to start over, which meant that Lydia got almost a whole batch of dough for her turkey. Sue took the time to help her create her very own roll turkey and Lydia was thrilled. I was just filled with gratitude for such good grandparents. vvv

 ^^^ Lydia loved it so much that when we were talking about desserts to bring for Thanksgiving, she asked if we could make another Turkey and put cinnamon and sugar on it, so I made some pie crust and we made another one. 

This David-Dad is just the best. I know I say this all the time. But it just needs to be documented. He works hard all day, then comes home and gives all his love and attention to us at home. The kids adore him. I snapped this picture one morning when Austin woke up really early and David pulled him into bed with him, calmed him down, and they both fell asleep. 

^^^ It seems like it never fails that when the fire alarm batteries die, it's during the middle of the night. Never does it go off in the day, always at midnight. David is always the hero who saves the day and replaces the battery before it wakes up any of our sleeping children. Our fire alarms are starting to die, not just the batteries, but the actual alarms. It's so hard to know whether we should get all new expensive fire alarms or whether just regular fire alarms. I have been having nightmares about our house starting on fire during the night and it's terrifying to me. I just want to keep our children safe. We are hoping to make a decision soon, before more alarms start to die. But there's not much solid information out there about what is actually the best alarm. It's frustrating. (That was a random side-note, but it's something I've been thinking a lot about lately.) 

Insta-October & November

So... I haven't been done a whole lot of instagramming lately. I'm not sure why. But the few posts that we have are good ones.

{10.1.17}

insta-david

Happy Conference morning! #ldsconf

{10.9.17}

The purple muumuu made it's second appearance at Kindergarten today. Because when Lydia heard that it was school picture day, she begged and begged for me to let her wear it. Ha! David's face was full of "serves you right". I don't know why I was so surprised. So, the story of the purple muumuu carries on.

{10.10.17}

Forgive my @redladderdesignpost here. But I just finished a logo design for my friend @cassdelahunty . She makes these darling sock monkeys and she's new to Instagram! If you wouldn't mind taking a minute to check her out and follow her page @bananatique it would sure mean a lot! 

{10.31.17}

Halloween. 🎃 Our crew consisted of a Unicorn, a firefighter, and a dalmatian. (And a really sweet firetruck.) Feeling blessed to live in a place with literally hundreds of children happily running from house to house knowing they are safe and feeling only the excitement of the prospect of overflowing candy buckets.

{11.4.17}

insta-david

Had such a fun time at the jazz game tonight! My work was offered a free suite, so we were able to go with a bunch of my coworkers which was really fun. The kids loved it. They loved cheering for the jazz. Lydia was watching the scoreboard closely to see if the jazz had more points. Austin loved holding his own ticket Oh and they loved the food.

{11.13.17}

insta-david

Lydia was in charge of our family home evening lesson tonight and did a great job. She taught about gratitude and asked us what we are grateful for. She also showed us how to draw a turkey for our activity. She spent 20 minutes before dinner gathering all of the supplies and things she would need for the lesson and I'm so proud of her. I know that gratitude helps us be more like our Savior and helps us focus on serving others like He did.

{11.23.17}

I've been thinking this week about how blessed my little family is. So glad to have this holiday full of gratitude and taking time to recognize the good in our life. Lydia has especially taken to the little thankful tree we set up in the Family Home Evening room (that's legit what we call our living room in this house). She's been diligent about writing down what she's grateful for each day, basically unprompted and on her own. The other day I went in and saw a little leaf, "Grateful for: MOM By: Lydia.) I'm grateful for these kids who teach me so much about true gratitude, forgiveness, and love. Grateful for a husband who is currently playing chase with the kids downstairs so I can shower and get ready by myself after a semi-rough night with the kids. Grateful for wonderful extended family who have been such an influence for good and whom we get to celebrate with this week. Grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ and for his never-failing atonement. (Also grateful for store-bought pies because the last 8 Thanksgivings worth of me making homemade pies have convinced me that pie is not my forte.) Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. #thankful

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is such a wonderful excuse to spend time with out families and eat delicious food and we are so lucky that we get to spend so much time with both families. This year our Thanksgivings were pretty low-key, and we took very few pictures. But it was full of gratitude and family and yummy yummy food. 

We spent Thanksgiving morning at home watching the Macey's Day Parade. We have a few children's books about the parade and Lydia was so excited to watch it. Then we spent the rest of the day at the Peaden home and it was great (remember: food + family!). Except that Shantel started not feeling very well during dinner and ended up sleeping for the rest of the night. The next day and did some Black Friday shopping, which is always fun - although we missed the Renchers this year. After a night at home, we went to Morgan on Saturday afternoon and spent Saturday and Sunday there for Walker Thanksgiving. Here are some more highlights: 

Playing Mario Brothers on nintendo wii. 

(Austin didn't actually play - but he liked pretending)

Lydia talked and talked about trying all of the pies. So she got to try everything and loved it. 

Thanksgiving at the Walker house. The "kid table".

We played Whatzit late into the night and it was awesome. We love playing games with these guys. 

Happy Thanksgiving! 

My Sister Wendy

My sister Wendy is amazing. She is 10 years older than me. When she went to college I was just 8 years old. I actually don't have a lot of childhood memories, but two of my favorites are of Wendy. I remember going with my parents one day when we were moving some of her things down to Provo. I thought she was so cool. One day I got a letter in the mail from here and it had some coins taped to it. I don't remember what the letter said, but I do remember that it made me feel so special.

I have always looked up to her. When we would play games late at night she would bring so much laughter and happiness. I feel like she fills an entire home with happiness and peace. She is creative and kind. In all honesty, the reason that Shantel and I like black Friday shopping is just an excuse to hang out with Wendy and Sam. It would be impossible to overstate the positive influence that she has had on my life.

Two years ago she started having dizzy spells and nausea (and probably some other things I can't remember right now). After a long process, they discovered a growth in her skull. They decided to go in through her nose to remove as much of the growth as they could. It was a difficult time for her and after a long process, the surgery helped and she recovered.

About three weeks ago we found out that she had a new growth that had come in and needed to be removed right away. She was feeling fine and had just gone in for her normal check in when they were hit with the news. This time the doctor told her that they would need to do a temporal craniotomy. It is obviously a very scary thing when they talk about cutting into your skull and have to try and remove a growth and hope that they can get it all without complications and that she can recover well.

Sometimes when we blog we make sure we include the pictures from Halloween and days at the park, but it is much harder to talk about the hard things in life. If there is anyone who is able to handle the challenges of life, it is Wendy, but it does not mean it is not scary.

Our Heavenly Father loves us and I know that hear hears our prayers. And yet, life by design is full of trials. We don't get to choose our trials, we only choose what we do with them.  But life is not easy. Sometimes that does not make sense. Why doesn't Heavenly Father answer every prayer to fix every thing in the moment that we want it to go away. Because he loves us, and he wants us to be like him and to do that this life is full of trials. It is filled with things that make our hearts so heavy. And yet, because of Jesus Christ we can rise above the trials. He is our Savior, not just from sin, but from the pains and trials of this life.

In Mosiah Chapter 24 it talks about Alma and his people. They faced severe persecution. In fact, so great were their afflictions that they began to cry mightily unto God. I can't believe this was the first time they were praying for help in their affliction, but perhaps they began to reach a new level of spiritual yearning where it was a cry, more than just a prayer. It says they did pour their hearts out unto God. The Lord promised to ease their burdens, so that they could stand as a witness of God. When the Lord helps us in trials, we must share how the Lord helped us to help others build faith. I also know that the Lord expects us to be like him, which means we must strengthen others in their burdens. Lastly, they did submit cheerfully and patiently to all the will of the Lord. The burden was not removed, but they had peace in the burden.

So while my sister who I love and her family suffer through their burden, I will do my best to ease their burden and strengthen them. I hope that my prayers will deepen in sincerity, humility and that I can pray like the people of Alma in their afflictions.

I want my children to know that I know that Jesus Christ lives and is our Savior, regardless of what happens. Despite what trials may come, Heavenly Father is there and loves you. And yet, the burden may not be gone, but if we have Faith, we can have peace in knowing it is our Savior's plan and He will not leave us. I love our Savior and know He atoned for our sins and suffered our pains so He can succor us in our trials. Do not abandon Heavenly Father in your trials, for He will never abandon you.

My sister is having surgery on Tuesday. I love her and am grateful for her and will be praying for her.

Park City - Last Minute Getaway.

I (David) am in charge of organizing the UACPA Leadership Academy which is leadership training for newer CPA's (3-10 years). It is a great event and I love organizing it. This year when I got to my hotel in park city, it was incredible. (Sorry very few pictures). In fact, as soon as I got in I got on Marco Polo to send Shantel a video message so she could see it. Shantel had been deciding whether to come up and spend a night in park city or not. She had been leaning to no, just because of the work of bringing the kids and because I don't really have much free time because there are activities I am in charge of at night as well. Then I sent her the video of the room and she had to come. It had a big kitchen and family room/dining room area, a master bedroom with a giant master bathroom and a separate bathroom...and...a hot tub for the room on the patio.

Jenna ended up offering to take Lydia and Austin for a night and Shantel came up for one night. She went to the dinner with our group at a nice restaurant. Then she put Caleb to bed and we were able to go out and relax in the hot tub. It was so incredible, it was cold outside which made it nice to sit in the warm hot tub. Honestly, it was such a relaxing night, I'm not sure how we stay in a room without a hot tub now. We were able to just talk and rest. The next morning I had to leave pretty early, but Shantel took advantage of Caleb sleeping to sneak out to read her book in the hot tub. I'm grateful we had the chance to relax together.

(Shantel's note: This was the most relaxing weekend! It was a little lame that David had to work - but I brought a book and it was just perfect. A fancy dinner with David and his group (which we just brought Caleb with us, and he was perfect as always), hot tub in the crisp Park City air, then hot tub and book reading in the morning. Everything was just perfect. A HUUUGE shoutout to Jenna who volunteered to take the older kids.)

Caleb 7-8 Months

Eight Months Old. Eight months!  

Eight months is the best. He's sitting up, he's happy almost all the time, he's not mobile. Seriously the best.

Stats: No teeth, almost no hair, SO heavy. Size 3 diapers. Solidly size 12 clothes. 

Other things to remember: 

-Starting to feel chubby. Maybe it's a mental thing because he's SO heavy - but I feel like his cheeks are full and his whole body is just filled out. 

-His mama loves him. Just really really loves him.
         
-Fall shenanigans. Pumpkin patches, pumpkin carving, Gardner Village. I've said it a hundred times before and I'll say is a thousand more - having a spring baby was SO good for me. And I love that this age is so good for some of our favorite traditions!

--I had to laugh when I was going through pictures of this month because the vast majority of them were of him sitting in his high chair, eating. (Or sitting somewhere else, eating.) He loves to eat, and I can sit him in the high chair and he's content to just sit and feed himself for a loooong time. He's eating SO much food. Basically everything. I'm amazed at how good he is at eating food. Even big things. Like the other day, I gave him a pretty big, pretty tough, pizza crust that I was trying to buy myself some time and was hoping he would suck on and gum it a bit. Only a few short minutes later, it was gone. I thought for sure he must have dropped it because it has been such a short amount of time - but he just sucked on it and gummed it (no teeth) until he'd eaten it all.

He loves mashed potatoes, refried beans, black beans, and annnny kind of bread or cracker. He eats so much that I have a hard time keeping up, but some of my other favorites to give him are frozen mixed veggies, or sliced apples. It's amazing to me how much food he can eat with absolutely no teeth. Like, real food like peas or crackers or diced chicken! He manages it spectacularly. 

He hasn't had any further stomach problems, but I'm still trying to focus on fruits and vegetables - even though breads are just SO easy to give. Just this last week we gave him his first pureed squeezer and with a little help he devoured it. He's not quite able to do it by himself - but he sure likes to try. 

-He's not crawling yet, but he sits like a champ and is pretty content to just stay where he is. I love that I can just set him on the counter while I'm making dinner and he doesn't try to go anywhere, he's just happy to be up close to me. This is a little golden window, because he's steady enough to sit for long periods of time - but he's also content to stay and doesn't try to lean or tip over. 

-Some funny little things: He has really long toes. When he sits, he bends his legs so the soles of his feet touch together - he doesn't stick them out straight. When he's laying down, he curls his legs up then flops them down. But when I'm trying to change his diaper or change his clothes or even just sitting by him, he absolutely won't bend his legs. He keeps them out straight and locks his knees. It makes me laugh, but is also makes it significantly harder to do anything.

The picture with the chair above is when I took him to Lydia's Halloween party at school and just set him on the ground next to the table that I was doing a small group with. He was happy to just sit and play with the playdoh, but then I looked over and he had managed to scoot himself over to a nearby chair that he thought was quite tasty. *sigh* Germs build immune systems, right? Ha.

-Like I said, he's not even thinking about crawling. Not really. David said that the other night he went from sitting and kind of army crawled until he was on his tummy. But mostly he's content to just sit there and reach for things. He's even stopped rolling over most of the time. However, sometimes he rolls over and kind of pivots around on his tummy. So he moves a tiny bit but not crawling, at all.

-His dad makes him SO so happy. Caleb gives the best little smiles for him. I love these two, together. 

-He's such a good baby. I mean all babies are good babies. And it's not like you love them less if they are more needy. But this little guy is just so good at being good. We joke sometimes about how he's especially good if you really need him to be good, like he knows that it would just be SO helpful if he could sit on the floor and chill. But times when you aren't needing to do something, he might need more attention. We also joke about how he's super chill, but he has one rule "put me in my bed at my bedtime". Which is true. The other night we went to a fun escape-room-game-night with some friends. We set Caleb under the table in the room while the six of us bustled around trying to figure out clues and such. He barely made a peep. Occasionally David or I would duck down and pour out some baby puffs onto his blanket - or scoot his toy a little closer. He didn't cry a single time. It was wonderful, and our friends couldn't get over how good he was the entire time. We couldn't get over it, either.

-He's sleeping better than he was, but still waking up about twice a night. Someday I'll work on sleep training him, but until then, I'll just hope that he magically learns to sleep all the way though the night on his own. We bought a new Zipadee-Zip in size medium for him because the small was too, small - but I just love how comfy-cozy these little sleepers are. I don't know that it makes him sleep perfectly, but it does help signal sleep and help him sleep better. And he's just so snuggly in it. (Thank you ZippideeZip.) He naps about twice a day. I nurse him to sleep both times, and I know that I shouldn't, but I just enjoy snuggling his little body close to me and letting him fall asleep. 

-Halloween was so fun. Caleb was our little Dalmatian riding around in Austin's fire truck. (I wore a head-set and a badge saying "Emergency Dispatch Operator.")- Although I didn't get a whole lot of pictures of just him - we were so glad to have our firehouse Dalmatian with our firetruck crew.

-It was fun to have Caleb and Austin match their Halloween costumes, because Austin's favorite thing right now is to match each other. They have matching jammies and Austin loves wearing them on the same night as much as I love dressing them in them on the same night. Boys are just as cute to match as girls are. I love them. 

-This dad, he's the best. We're trying to figure out the falling asleep thing, and just as often as David ends up rocking him and being the one to get him all the way asleep for the night.

-Bath time is the best with this age. Caleb is sitting up and he loves touching and splashing in the water. Also his bath schedule is WAY more frequent now that I can bath him in the kitchen sink! But he loves the big bath, and the kids love love love having him in there with them. (Also, a note- in the first picture you can see the red splotch on his chest. I don't know what's going on, but he gets these red splotches all over his body, but they aren't real rashy and they go away pretty fast - but he almost always has one. I don't know what's causing them.) 

-Austin likes laying in Caleb's lap. And putting his fingers in his mouth.

 -He likes to touch your face, put his fingers in your mouth, grab your nose/eyes.

 -He's such a good shopping buddy. He's always been good, but sitting up in the top part of the cart makes him even happier. I couldn't resist snapping this picture of a recent bulk-shopping trip. People were staring at me as we were rolling around, but come on. We eat a lot of pasta... and my baby really likes baby food (and I really like inexpensive baby food).

-He is smiling more and more. Basically any person can get him to smile, but his laughs are still pretty rare. Not that he never laughs, because he definitely does. He just has to be in the right mood and you have to work for it. (And he very rarely laughs for me. Lydia is the best bet, maybe David.) 

(That gummy smile! My heart.) 

-He is kind of tickelish. But doesn't giggle. If you tickle him, he holds his breath then lets out a gasp when you're done. It makes me laugh.

Happy eight months sweet baby.