babies in halloween costumes

...are ridiculously cute. duh!

we went to a party on saturday evening at our friends place. there were four baby boys and we had lots of fun!

"can you believe our parents put us in these stupid costumes?"

kayty & clayton & baby caleb were definitely the best dressed family. such an awesome idea!

then today i had lunch with the ladies from my doctors office group and all their babies. we were missing half of the babies today! so sad. but here's a picture of the other five in their halloween costumes.

then we had a quick costume change so we could snap some pictures of the entire cast of the paper bag princess. please note: ollies jeans that actually belong to milo (who is a good five pounds heavier), milos awesome face and miriams perfectly crafted paper bag dress.

my little lion. i love him!

wait, wait

brian came home from school yesterday and decided that one of the pictures in the post below needed to be turned into a meme (you know...those funny pictures with the silly captions.) he did a pretty good and every time we look at it we laugh. love that little grin!

and while i'm at it, i might as well show off the first meme ollie was featured in, at just 20 weeks gestation!

relativity

a new baby cousin was born into our family last week and we are so excited he's here! he had an exciting arrival last friday morning; his labour was fast and he was caught by his grandma! so awesome.  i went over and took some pictures of the sweet boy yesterday, but since his mama hasn't even seen them yet, i will refrain from posting them. here's a couple of ollie before we started his cousins photo shoot. (it's strange how much bigger & older ollie seems now that there's a little guy around again.)

 

apple juicing 101

step one. drive to b.c. stop in sparwood and take a picture with the world's biggest truck, obviously. (this is a must. you cannot drive through sparwood and not stop to see the titan.)

step two. sleep in a trailer that is a little bit cold, calling for the opportunity to cuddle your baby all night. nice, but it resulted in not too much sleep for this mama. oh well. take some cute pictures of baby in the morning.

step three. acquire an obscene amount of apples. these ones were bought from an orchard not too far away from my grandpa's property. they were too small, too big, too wonky or otherwise hail damaged, and therefore, not fit to sell in a store. my uncle bruce bought them for cheap. they're all the same when it comes to juicing!

step four. the kids climb into the apple crates and toss them out into a large mesh crate where they get sprayed off and then fed into the apple smasher, as i like to call it. its a little contraption my grandpa built that beats the apples up into little chunks and spits 'em out. operating this piece of equipment meant that you would be absolutely covered in apple juice & bits by the end of your shift.

brians apple face. he's cute.

step five. put five large buckets full of the smashed up apples into ye old wine press. no, seriously. my family uses a super old wine press to make the apple juice. it was one of the coolest things i've ever seen. once the wine press is ready, someone puts the handle in and walks around & around & around (and gets really dizzy) while all the juice comes pouring out. make sure you get a grab a cup full while it is streaming out of the press...you will never taste anything better. ever.

 

step six. take a bunch of pictures of your baby. think to yourself that he is probably the cutest little guy you have ever seen in your whole entire life. try not to gush too much.

  

done with the photoshoot.

step seven. strain the juice through thin cotton or cheesecloth (remember that the entire apple went through the smasher; core, skin, stem & all) and then pour into old juice or milk cartons. i didn't get pictures of this step...probably because i was too busy taking the photos of ollie in the apple crate. ha ha. 

step eight. remove the casings of the wine press and get rid of what is left of the apples. someone drives them up the mountain in a trailer on the back of a quad. there's a big pile at the end of the day and my dad said it attracts a lot of bears and other wildlife.  

 after apple juicing was over we went to a quad ride up the mountain. i put ollie in the carrier and he fell asleep! whatta kid.

the "honeymoon cabin" my grandpa built further up the mountain. 

love the pictures of ollie & my uncle bruce. i have so many fond memories of uncle bruce when i was little. though ollie looks a little unsure, i know he loves him.

the house my grandpa built in the '70's. he turned 95 in july and he is still living here, riding his side-by-side all over the mountain and just being awesome.

the chimney in grandpa's house is made from stone from the same quarry as the cardston temple.

four generations.

me & grandpa henrie.

the incredible drive home...

and ollie, always checking to make sure we were still in the front seats.

what an amazing thanksgiving weekend! we were so grateful we got to go. brian was able to meet my grandparents and lots of my family that he had never met before. ollie was a little trooper and did so good as he was passed around to tons of different people. thanks for the awesome weekend!

seven months

my little one is seven months old already and i keep trying to wrap my head around it. despite the fact that these past seven months has gone by faster than any other time in my life, it's also hard to recall what my life was like before my ollie came along. more showers & late night movies but less baby giggles & walks with my boys, and i'll take a laughing baby over a shower most days.

at seven months, ollie is changing quickly. though he isn't quite crawling yet, he does a really good job of rolling with purpose and spinning in circles while on his tummy. with the amount of bum lifting and knee bending he's been doing i suspect he will be on the move in no time. he enjoys playing on his tummy. he pounds out songs on his tiny piano, looks at books and chews on anything he can manage to get into his mouth. when he is playing on the living room floor and i walk into the room, he looks up at me and GRINS. it's my favourite thing.

 

oliver is very much into food. he gets really excited whenever we sit him in his high chair and bounces so much it is hard to get the food into his mouth. his newest love is corn. we just give him a full cob of corn to eat. he clutches it tightly and bites & sucks all the juice out.

"please don't take my corn."

this tiny guy seems to be growing longer & longer, but never much chubbier. he is in the 80th percentile for height but the 10th for weight. however small he may be, ollie is chock full of personality. he & his daddy sit together and just laugh. at what, i have no idea, but its adorable. he flirts with every single girl he sees and lately he's been scrunching up his nose and snorting while smiling. i don't know where he learned it but he knows i think it's cute so he keeps doing it. ollie is a delight to have in our home, and through good days & bad we are so thankful he's ours.

roots

we went on a whirlwind of a road trip this weekend (17-ish hours on the road in a matter of three days!!) and it was delightful. we headed out to yahk, bc to visit my grandma & grandpa henrie and to participate in the annual henrie family apple juicing. it was my first time ever and it was so much fun. i will be posting more (the apple juicing process was so neat!), but these two photos are my very favourite out of the many i took this weekend.

ollie & his great grandpa henrie. i love these two so much!

as the youngest member of the apple juicing crew, it was ollies job to inspect the apples. he took his job very seriously. 

we had such a great weekend. i am so thankful for my family (for both those that we were with this weekend and those that we were apart from.) we love you all and are so grateful to have you in our lives. ollie has strong roots and we hope he will always remember how much his family loves him.