Troy's New Winter Coat

In this video Troy is trying to see the back of the camera while I'm trying to keep him in the front of it. At the end he sits on my lap because he wants to watch the video of himself. And we did about 10 times before he was ready to move on :)

My Boy Troy

Troy is more energetic than ever. My Grandpa says, "If you don't keep him busy, he will keep you busy." That is the absolute truth. Except, Troy makes up his own games sometimes, like the picture above. I think it's most similar to Lacrosse. He still loves using kitchen utensils as extensions of his arms. He plays with balls all day long. Anything involving a ball is interesting to Troy. Tonight after dinner Ben was checking on the Jazz game and Troy went and sat on the couch by himself and watched it for like 10 minutes. That's amazing for Troy. Ben was so proud.

One quirk about Troy is that he won't eat any snacks that are broken. For example, he will only eat whole goldfish or whole chex. If they are deformed or broken then he smashes them or just doesn't eat them. I have to filter his crackers before giving them to him.

Some new improvements are his communication skills. Thank goodness. I found this extremely valuable website Teachmetotalk.com. It's run by a speech pathologist and there are articles and videos of helpful ways to teach your child to talk. It helped me wake up to the fact that I need to be fun if I want Troy to pay attention to me. I also learned that Troy was not understanding that he needed to communicate. Signing was the first step and he blossomed from there. He has learned so many words during our "play time." His favorite word is still "go" because it means we throw the ball and he goes and gets it. He thinks it can work for other things too when he doesn't know the word :) He still won't say the word ball. Whenever I try repeatedly to get him to say it he gives me this look as if to say, "Yeah mom, I know, it's a ball, why do you keep saying it?" Ha. I think it's because he associates the ball with the word go. Troy plays with balls so much that he has gotten pretty coordinated with throwing and kicking. Ben is also proud of this.

Troy folds his arms during prayers. If it's a long prayer he will fold his arms, take a bite, then fold his arms again. It makes me laugh every time. Troy is beginning to go down the stairs like adults instead of going backwards. This has resulted in a couple of short falls. He loves his independence and giving him choices is something I am working on. Troy has become a little less clingy to Ben and more clingy to me. Sometimes it's hard because I'm pregnant and I don't want to pick him up but he has finally started to cuddle with us! He hasn't done that since he was strong enough to push us away. I feel like crying when he cuddles because it is such a sweet feeling. He will always give hugs and kisses on demand. He is getting so much better with other adults and family. He loves nursery but hates being away from mom and dad. So, Ben and I have been spending some time in the nursery as of late.

Troy has started to hit a little when he is mad but when I tell him,"No, be soft," he stops and pats me. One blessing is that Troy is pretty obedient. He might be mad, but he will still do what you ask, usually. He has a sweet temperament. I can tell he is going to be a lot like Ben.

I love my boy so much. I am grateful that I get to spend so much time with him. He is guaranteed happiness every day.

Halloween Party at Our House

Scarecrow, lion, and tinman... oh wait, Steve Young?

This Halloween party turned out to be so much fun and so yummy! Liss and I didn't really know how it would turn out, but it was a blast for me at least. My lips hurt from smiling and laughing so much at the end of the night. *Thanks Liss for taking the pictures!*

After eating three delicious soups in bread bowls, two salads, and homemade rootbeer, we were ready for some games. The one above is a candy jar guessing game. Ben is laughing because he guessed about twice as many as everyone else. (His company does these candy jars for Christmas and we tend to under bid :)

Below is the candle blowing game. You have to see how far away you can be from the candle and still blow it out. I think Ben may have tried too many times, I was worried he was about to pass out. I was laughing so hard when I saw this picture. It got pretty intense :)

The homemade rootbeer turned out so good, and I am a big judge of rootbeer. And dry ice is just cool. What we didn't realize was that the dry ice would melt through one of our bowls, ha.

My favorite game was the donut eating contest.

The ladies kept bumping into each other..

This collage that Liss made is amazing.

We also decorated cupcakes. The little boys (Cohen, Noah, and Troy) were the most excited about it.

This little pea pod (Brightyn) was an angel all evening. Smiling even.

The boys discovered our deck and just ran from one wall to the other for several minutes while we ate. They were such cute little friends!

Here are all the families that came:

Brock, Liss, and Cohen Kitchen : Rodeo Clown, Rodeo Queen, Cowboy

Rich, Noah, and Rachel Poulsen : the ABC's

(Noah performed the ABC's for us!)

Braden, Mandy, and Brightyn Boyer : The Hillbillies and Pea Pod

Steven, Emily, and Steven Covey : Timpview Football Fans ;)

This party made this Halloween pretty memorable!

Trick -or- Treat & Neighborhood Halloween Party

Troy was a lion. My favorite is the back. His tail would sway as he walked. Trick or treating was actually really fun with Troy. I was so excited to go trick-or-treating again! We only went to about 10 houses, but Troy loved getting candy. We went to Grandma Allsop's first so that he would get family answering the door on the first try. We quickly discovered that he would not put the candy in the bag once he picked it up. So we had to swipe away the candy right before the next house so that he would have a free hand. His left hand permanently held a sucker. Troy was not very excited about chocolate (mommy was..) and so he would hover his hand over the bowl until he could find a sucker or at least candy he recognized. If there was only chocolate to choose from he would stare at them until I picked one up for him. He would wave bye bye and hold onto his candy tightly until he knew there was another bowl of candy to pick from. It was hard at first but he got into a rhythm. I could have done this for probably an hour before wanting to go home, but it was pretty cold. It was a perfect first trick-or-treat for Troy!

I lost my camera for a time and so I'm just getting these one here, but Troy attended a neighborhood halloween party a couple weeks ago.

He walked in a "parade of costumes" as they danced to halloween music. Troy didn't walk much but he loved the ghostly suckers. The first thing we did was listen to a halloween story by my neighbor Jessica, followed by putting your hand in boxes of gross mixtures (olives and sphagetti for eyes and brains.) Then some songs, suckers, and the parade. The final activity was to decorate pumpkins with candy and a glue gun.

Troy tried to eat all the candy before I put it on the pumpkin.

I am converted to the glue gun for projects. Pumpkins and ginger bread houses will forever now be done with glue guns.

The food they had at this party was amazing. Caramel popcorn, homemade white chocolate pretzels, ice cream cones that had cookies frosted onto them, and fruit mixes. The ladies who did this must have spent some time, I wish I would have taken a picture of the ice cream cones. It was an awesome 1st neighborhood halloween party!

October Vegas Trip

Fall break was a good time to head down to Vegas and visit Ben's Dad. Brayden, and his friend Brayden (yes they have the same name), Brittany and her boyfriend Aaron came with us. We had so much fun with this group. Dad's beautiful home is always fun to visit and they spoil us with food and fun company. We arrived Friday around dinner time (Ben's favorite.) Troy immediately took to their two dogs. Troy kind of scared them with his constant following, laughing, and occasional scream of excitement. We loved it, he was entertained forever.

The weekend involved a lot of eating, swimming, shopping, late-night movie watching, and ball playing. Ryan (Beverly's son) who is in 4th grade is quite the little athlete. The boys, including Troy, played ball whenever there was a spare moment. Here are some pictures of our trip.

This is Troy on the way to Vegas. He has a chicken nugget in his mouth that he couldn't decide if he wanted, so he just left it like this for a little bit.

Ben and I enjoying their pool.

Brayden, Aaron, and Ben playing some kind of game. They are pros at making up games.

Ben and the Braydens.

Brittany and Dad enjoying the sun in their shades.

I am a slacker and didn't get pictures of Beverly and Ryan. I tend to only bring the camera out once during a trip because I forget about it. Next time though.