The Secrets of a Mischievious Munchkin

Step One: Wearing a proper disguise. The best disguises must hide one's face.

Step Two: Some mischief may require ingenuity. For example, one may need to drag a flour bin across the kitchen and climb on in order to achieve success.

Step Three: If caught in the act, look innocent (and being cute can help)

Step Four: When questioned feign innocence (This is Zeke's new way of saying "I don't know.")

Step Five: All mischief makers need a hideout.

Finally: Snuggles are a sure way to soften the hearts of any mischief catchers.

The Grand Tour

Well I'm sure you've all been awaiting a tour, so here it is, our home sweet home!



Well, half of our hedges are dead...but we have three rose bushes and a gardenia, so I think those make up for the dead stuff. I wish I'd gotten a picture one week earlier; the roses were incredible!

Here is our lovely kitchen with our ghetto fridge and to the right a pantry that is bigger than any we've ever had but still can't contain our mass quantities of cereal.

Here is looking at our "breakfast nook" with the patio door and our dining room to the left.

Dining room.

View #1 of our living room and the front door. We can't decide what to do with our coffee table. Sometimes it is really nice to have a table in there, but it is pretty crammed with it in there full time. So for the moment we hide it in the corner.

Another view.

Our "office." It's a disaster...obviously. Also, my friend told me the other day that with such tall ceilings we'll need at least an 8 or 9 foot Christmas tree...she's probably right...for the moment we're settling for a 3 footer on a 6 foot trunk, we're fancy like that!

looking upstairs

Master bedroom (I made the bed after I took the picture...strange order to do things)

Our game/linen closet

looking down the hall towards the three smaller bedrooms

Zeke's room. I didn't take pictures of the other two rooms because they are basically the same as this minus the cute bed and the cuter resident.

Our tree. This is after Trustin did quite a bit of pruning. It originally looked like a giant ugly bush. We plan to prune it some more and eventually hang a swing off the branch that crosses down low. Also, you can see a bit of where we are planting grass. The green is actually only the fertilizer/mulch, but hopefully soon it will be sprouting grass too. We only planted about half of what we hope to have back there eventually.

Viewing the yard from the "patio" (which is currently dirt but with dreams of becoming paved...perhaps by March...it's a big patio)

The yard from another angle. Also, I forgot to take before pictures, but you can see some of the leftover weeds that Zeke and I spent days and days pulling. Zeke was an awesome helper!

Fish and Lions

When Gramma and Paca came down to visit for the weekend we decided to head out to Lake Mead and feed the fish and ducks. There is a ridiculous amount of smelly ugly wide mouthed carp down and the marina and when you start throwing in food they swarm so thick that I think you could plausibly walk across them. Zeke of course loved them, but I think Paca may have had the most fun.

Zeke kept trying to run and "jump" to Gramma. He jumps a bit like his Grandma Brockbank! In this video you can see his jumps when he sort of stomps/squats and stands up straight.

Our next important event was Halloween. Here in Vegas they still celebrate on Sunday, so we didn't actually take Zeke trick-or-treating. Instead we dressed him up and walked around the dollar store until it was time for dinner and then ate pizza buffet. We almost didn't dress Zeke up since there was no "real" reason too, but we were so glad we did because he makes one very adorable lion. We decided to make him a lion because he loves to roar, but in the last little while he's stopped roaring as much, although we did get a few good roars while in his costume.

Check out his cute puffy bum!

I just can't get enough of that face!

ROAR!

Utah

We took a lot of pictures on our trip to Utah. I was so grateful to be around so many wonderful and playful kids to bring all of us a bit more happiness. I just wanted to hold all of them so close, and especially my Zeke. Together we all had a lot of fun and I took about a million pictures...so this post is primary just pictures with not much to say other than I LOVE MY FAMILY!

Syri made Trustin take about 20 pictures of her posing on this chair; she is such a little ham! (while Zeke obliviously ate his breadstick)

Baseball!

She broke the ball---whoa!

Fun is exhausting.

(notice that two of these kiddos seem to be about 40% off the couch!)

Grape catching contest

Woot woot

Zeke discovered that he loved crawling behind the couch, running around the front and then doing it again.

He also loved playing in Grandma's bathroom cupboard.

Picaboo!

Carving pumpkins (and me demonstrating the proper way to balance a baby while carving).

Zeke loves his Grandpa

I love my Zekie

Whew, that was a lot of pictures!

Running around with Jesus

Little Stori, today I am missing you so much. My heart feels broken because I miss you and my heart is broken for your mommy and daddy and sister who love and miss you so much. I'm so grateful I got to know you and love you. The last time I held you I begged you to watch over your little family. So as sad as I am, I can't help feeling that I know you are watching over them.

I am grateful for what I know and for what the gospel has given us. I know that you are happy and I know that your family will all be together again. I keep replaying in my mind what your big sister Syri said: "Stori's running around with Jesus." That is a beautiful thought, and even more beautiful because I know that it is true.

A scripture that has touched me this week is John 11:35 after the death of Lazarus "Jesus wept." Of all men, Christ knew the eternal nature of the spirit, yet He knows the pain of our losses so fully, and He feels that pain. And so He wept. It testifies to me that He loves us and that He is indeed going to strengthen us and watch over you, sweet little Stori.

Thank you again for the joy that you bring, little angel.

I love you.