Kevy and His Little Buddy

Contrary to what a lot of people might think, we are excited to be having another little girl.  She is the child that was sent to our family so of course we want and love her!  But with that said, how grateful I am that we had our little man!  I am so glad that Kevy will get to have a boy to do all the things that you really can't do with girls, like go to Priesthood session together and Father's and Sons and all that kind of stuff that girls can't do. 

 I love this picture of my two handsome men!

Kevy had to fix the sink one day and Russ was so interested in what he was doing.  I love it!  I hope that they can always share things together and do things together!  They sure do love each other now.  Russ loves when Daddy gets home and he loves to be with him whenever he is doing stuff.

Lizzy's Baptism Day

What a special day it was to celebrate Lizzy's baptism!  She was so very excited to get baptized!  It was a neat experience for Kevin to get to baptize his little girl too! We are so very proud that Lizzy wanted to take the next step and make that commitment.  She has been wanting it for a really long time, anytime any of her friends or cousins would get baptized she would get sad because she wanted to too.  

 Lizzy got scriptures for us for her baptism and she loved them so much.   She picked blue like her Daddy's scriptures.  It was cute because after she got them she spent a whole bunch of time just reading them.  She also asked us if we could start reading regular scriptures now rather than the scripture stories that we had been reading together as a family.  It is fun to have her and Nellie be able to participate in the reading.  Janie does too, she repeats it.

  She really did love them a lot.  In fact the other day she asked if she could take them to school and share them when she was the star student and they have to share something that is very special to them.  It makes me so happy that her scriptures are so special to her!

  I forgot to get a picture at the church, big surprise, so I made the girls stay in their dresses until Russ woke up from his nap to get a picture together.

We were glad that we could have some family come,  Grandma and Grandpa and Great Grandma Smith and Aunt Judy came to celebrate with us, along with some friends from our old ward. We had a nice meal afterwards, I made Lasagna because that is what Lizzy asked for.  It was a very special day!

Halloween

Halloween was fun this year.  Fun but busy.  I am glad I didn't think about making costumes this year.  Too much work! The Saturday before our ward was having their trunk or treat.  We took the kids even though our old ward was having it the same night and it was tempting to go over there, but we know that we need to get to know the people in our new ward.  It was fine but still hard because we don't know too many people still.  

 This was really the only good picture of Russell in his costume that I got.  We borrowed a golfer costume from my brother, and he looked so dang cute in it.  He didn't want to keep the hat on though.  I need to get him used to wearing hats.

 Russy the golfer, Lizzy as Hermoine, per her new obsession,  Janie was Rapunzel per her obsession and Nellie was a cowgirl.

 The night of Halloween I realized that we hadn't carved pumpkins, again!  What is my deal? This is at least the second year in a row that I have done this.  So we went to the grocery store and picked a few up, but the carving tools were lost in the move and so we had to do it with knives, which I do not recommend.  It is so much harder!  Janie had fun getting the guts out and  drawing on the outside.  Then I carved it for her.

 Nellie did the same, although she did a little bit of the carving  and she drew the pattern on the outside for me to do.

Lizzy was awesome and carved the whole thing herself.  It was nice because carving four pumpkins, making dinner and getting everyone ready to trick or treat was a lot of work!  

I was pretty exhausted that night. Luckily Kevy decided to stay home and clean up the mess I left, (What a great guy! ) while I took the kids out. We went with Lizzy's little friend from school and her mom, but they invited other people too and Lizzy felt left out.  Not to mention they were running from house to house and Janie was having a hard time keeping up with the big girls.  Next time maybe we will go by ourselves.

 Janie's wig was a disaster by the end of the night, but she looked really cute in it.  I tired really hard to get Janie to be Little Bo Peep because I have the cutest costume I made that both the other girls wore, but it was not what she wanted.  And I ultimately decided to let her have what she wanted,  I didn't want to force anything on her.  She really loved being Rapunzel.

 Nellie looks like she is in pain here.  She isnt though, just doing her silly smile.

Lizzy kept changing poses as I would take the pictures  But I only posted this one.  We did her hair in a bunch of little braids the night before so it would be kookily like Hermoine's is, and it looked so cute for school, but by nighttime it just looked sad.  We had a fun Halloween and look forward to next year.  Maybe I can get Jane to wear the Little Bo Peep and Anne can be the little sheep.  That would be cute!

Two Birthday Cakes

With two October birthdays, October is a such a busy time, with Halloween thrown in there too, it just seems like everything is crazy.  Plus this year we left just a few days after Russ' birthday to go to Utah for Kevin's Grandmas funeral, and were gone for about 5 days.  Also this year Lizzy's baptism was just a few days after Halloween so I have been feeling really stressed.  I was also feeling really guilty because I hadn't made Russ' first birthday cake for him, and Lizzy's birthday had passed and she needed a cake too, and Halloween was a couple days away, so I needed to get two birthday cakes made. I decided to just make them both and they could celebrate together. 

 Russ has been so into cars lately and I found this pretty easy to make car cake.  It's not that pretty, but when he saw it he could tell it was a car and he got really excited, so that's all that matters.

 Luckily this year Lizzy wanted a grown up cake instead of a shaped cake.  She asked for this chocolate Mousse Cake and it was so yummy!

 One of my favorite things is watching a baby eat their first birthday cake. And Russ did not disappoint.  I have had ones that ate just a little, or Nellie really went to town but Russy's had to be the best.  I put the piece down on the tray and he picked up the entire thing and tried to stick it all in his mouth at once.  We all got a kick out of that one.

Lizzy was really excited about her birthday this year, obviously  because it is such a special one.  She was really happy with her cake. Holy Cow Lizzy is eight! Crazy!  I love my two October babies!!

Cousin Time!

It was a lot of fun for the kids to get to see their cousins while we were out in Utah for the funeral.  Especially because we may not be seeing them again for a really long time. The kids always have fun when they get together with them. 

Here are all of the Richey grand kids at the funeral.  Cute cute kids.

The next day we went with the Richey side and went to Hogle Zoo.  The kids had a lot of fun.

I don't think I have a picture with Russ for quite a while. So even though I really don't like this picture of me I wanted to make sure I have pictures with my kids. Besides you just want to look at the cute baby boy anyway.

Russ thinks he is such a big shot.  This boy is so much fun!!!

I love these people with me!  

A picture of the cute girlies!  I can't believe we are going to be adding another little girlie to the group.  What can I say.  We keep both sides stocked with granddaughters.

Lizzy the poser.  She saw the camera and had to give me her pose.

Nellie on her jaguar.  Big surprise.

I couldn't get one of Janie on the carousel but I got this cute one of her getting off.  I love that smile.

Friday night the girls were so excited to watch the last Harry Potter and had saved it so they could watch it with their cousins.So Chanelle and I decided to do a movie night and we gave them pretend money and they purchased their ticket and we made treats  and drinks for them to purchase too.  They of course thought it was the coolest thing.  I love that about kids, such simple pleasures.
The next day Kevin went golfing so we needed to find an activity to do with the kids so we took them to Kangaroo Zoo.  They were thrilled but I was not so thrilled about the price.  It was stinking expensive!  I don't know how a place in Utah can charge that kind of money.  Crazy!  They wanted me to pay $5 for Russell and the girls were $9 each!  I payed fort he girls but there was no way I was going to pay for Russell.  Maybe that was bad, but I figured they got almost 30 dollars from me, Russ could play too!

Russ thought it was the coolest thing ever!  He especially loved when I took him down the giant slide.  He would just squeal and laugh.

Janie giving me her little pose, she is taking after her big sis

Nellie doing her usual awkward smile.

I guess it ended up being sort of worth the money because the kids had so so much fun! They were running around like maniacs laughing and playing.  It really was fun.

Grandma Ro Ro

We got a call the day after Russell's birthday that Kevin's grandma Richey wasn't doing well and was probably going to pass away.  It was really sudden, she had always seemed like she was going to be one of his grandparents that would be around for a while.  She had gotten sick and was in the hospital and she passed away that night.  We were all so sad.  We loved Ro Ro so much!  She was so funny and always was joking around with everyone.  She loved all the little kids so much and always loved to hold the babies.  We are really going to miss her so much.  But we are glad to know that just like all of our other loved ones who have passed on, we will get to see her again.  We know that she is up there watching over us. 

We were so glad that Kevin's work allowed him to have three Bereavement days so that we could take off and go to Utah to make it for her funereal.  We were very grateful that we could be there for that, and Kevy gave the sweetest grave dedication.  We are so glad that we didn't miss it.

Here is a picture I found of Kevy's Grandma.  She is holding Nellie at her baby blessing.  What a sweet picture.