Trick or Treat town

Just wanted to share some pictures of the boys at Trick or Treat town this year. Both boys were dressed as dinosaurs, well, dragons, but Xavier insisted they were dinosaur costumes. We also let Xavier decide what we would be for Halloween, which was interesting. We were willing to be dinosaurs too, but he wanted Scott to be a pig and me to be a butterfly. I have no idea where he gets these ideas, but at least he didn't want Scott to be the butterfly, right?


Xavier had a lot of fun there and of course, Toby slept the whole time. And every day since then, Xavier has been asking to go trick or treating again. Oh, and trying to get to his pumpkin on the counter. It's amazing the things he will say or do to get to the candy. The other day I caught him on his stool next to the counter, and when I walked into the kitchen, he pretended he was trying to "fix" the dishwasher. Ridiculous I tell you. That and persistent.

Tomorrow we plan to go to "Howl-o-ween" where dogs are dressed up in costume. It's free and we think Xavier will get a kick out of all the dogs in costume. I picked up a little shark costume from Target for Atillah. I'm sure it's not his favorite thing in the world, but he doesn't seem to mind too much. He'll probably only be wearing it for pictures and then we'll take it off. I wish I could have found a dinosaur one, but I didn't want to spend more than a couple bucks on a dog costume. Tomorrow night, we just plan to go trick or treating to a couple houses here in our cul-de-sac and then stay in to hand out candy to the neighbor kids.


Hope everyone has a Happy Halloween and posts lots of pics of their little cuties in costumes!

Xavier cleaning out his pumpkin before Scott carved it.
Our little pumpkin Toby

Following up on some of the comments left from Yvonne's post,...Even though my husband thinks so, I wasn't trying to be mean,...just realistic. Only trying to say to enjoy two and don't stress, cuase it only gets trickier with more--regardless of how independent they are. :)I guess that's just one of the many joys of being a parent, especially a mom!

But I want you to all know that Nathan is an awesome Mr. Mom! I had several people compliment on how well the kids were dressed and how cute the girl's hair was,...with braids even! I wish he would have taken a picutre. That's twice now in the past couple months that I have "abandoned" my family. The first time was to visit my grandma (dad's mom) in Panama at the end of September. And then just last week I flew to Hawaii to attend one of my other grandma's (mom's mom) funeral.
Although I know how amazing he is,..I too was impressed to come home to the front porch lined with 4 beautiful pumpkins they carved for FHE.

Boks, books, books

I forgot to ask. When I was in Utah it was easy to identify books that were clean and not to explicit because they were marked as LDS and christian books. Now I am having a harder time finding things to read. Any author or book suggestions would be greatly welcomed.
Thanks!!!

OK, so I amfinally getting with it and getting going on here. Sorry I am a big slacker. Honestly, there does not seem to be much to report though. Here is the rundown of our family.
Ryan is busy as can be with work and school. He gets pretty tired doing fulltime work and school but he is managing pretty well as far as we can tell. One of his teachers recently reported to his mother (yes, to his mother, they are neighbors) that he is an excellent writer and is doing well in her class. So, besides having to tolerate doing projects with crazy old women, he is doing well.
Jonathan is ever reporting on his friends from school. He likes to complain when his friends don't do their homework and have to miss recess. Then he gets frustrated when I make him do his homework. Someday the connection will click, right?!?!?! His claim to fame for the past month was losing his first tooth. The silly thing was just hanging there so I pulled it out. Robert promptly decided he did not want to lose a tooth until the next morning when he learned about the tooth fairy. Since then, he frequently tells me that he wants to lose a tooth. Jonathan, like Shannon's kids, has a Teacher conference this week so that should be interesting. His real teacher has only been there for the last month and I still don't feel like she is 100% there but such is the way sometimes.
Robert is generally spending his time missing his brother but is starting to enjoy getting to go to storytime and do projects and stuff by himself. He tends to be shy and quiet (as you all know from the reunion) but he is warming up to being involved. His newest interest is counting everything and he wants to start writing his name. We have to take him to the eye doctor probably next week or the week after so we will see what adventures that will bring.
Katelyn finally got into the doctor for her 12 month check up (2 months late). She is doing great and in the 90th percentile for her height and 75th percentile for her weight. She didn't even cry when she got her two shots, not a single sound. It was crazy but nice. Our new doctor is a bit of a loon but tolerable because he seems to know his stuff. Katelyn's new favorite activities are making her brothers scream, climbing on everything and jumping (kid jumping where they don't actually leave the ground). Since the doctor's she developed a cold so we are not sleeping much but life will go on.
Me, I am mom. I think that about sums it up. I just try to keep up with all that needs to get done and keep the house livable. Tomorrow is pumpkin carving day for us so I will update next week for halloween.
Love you guys.
Megan

Hi to All - I have been thoroughly enjoying all your pictures and posts. It is so great to hear what is happening in each of your lives. I am looking forward to seeing the pictures that get put on the snapfish site that Amber has set up for reunion pictures. Dad has been assigned the job of adding what we have so hopefully that will happen soon. I am taking most of next week off work ( have to work Friday) and my plan is to get a bunch of projects done in the garage. If you have any absolutely must have scrollsaw type item ideas now is the time to tell me. I plan to complete bunches of things in those 4 days. Maybe a quarter of it will actually get done.
The weather here is still pretty nice. We haven't seen a sign of snow down here yet and even the snow in the mountains has melted quite a bit - at least on Lazy. Uncle Chick went back to Mayo and got a pretty clean bill of health. The cancer isn't gone but is in remission so he doesn't need any further treatments for now. He goes back in June. I can't imagine him with no hair except for eyebrows. I imagine it is growing back now.
Grandma sounds like she is doing pretty well. She has been up for some walks down the halls lately ( with one of the aides) so she is happy about that. They hadn't had her up much since she fell. Thanks again for sharing your family news.
Love You All!
Mom

Our new addition

This week we got a new addition to our home...

Meet Betsy. HE (yes he) is Elijah's new fish. We were studying letter F for preschool this week

and I decided it would be fun to get a fish.

I pushed for Betas over goldfish, but the boys were determined that they were getting goldfish. The boys each chose a gold fish and off we went. Christian named his fish Goldy, then changed it to goldilocks. Each night, I tell the kids a Goldilocks and Betsy story at bedtime, so that is how Elijah decided his fish should be Betsy. On our way home, we decided to stop by Mark's school during lunch to show him our fish. When we pulled up the bag to show him, Goldilocks was already belly up! Christian assured us that as soon as we fed him, he would be fine, but by the time we got home, there were still no signs of life and Christian was asleep so Elijah and I set up Betsy's new home and flushed Goldilocks. The boys were suprisingly not upset about the whole thing. Elijah told me that it was okay, because, as his babysitter Camilla told him, the toilet water comes up through the sprinklers, so Goldilocks would squirt out in the yard one day. I assured him that will not happen! The good thing about Goldilocks short life span is that now each time Elijah checks on Betsy, he tells us how amazing it is that he is still alive and that Betsy is a survivor fish!

In other news, Caleb had his two month check up this week and weighed in at 8 lbs 7 oz. He is gaining an average of an oz a day, which the doctor is very happy with. He is smiling now, but only at me and when no one else is around, so Mark is not convin

ced. He'll flash one at daddy soon and melt his heart, just like he does mine each time he does it. You can almost see his smile in this picture, but he was just finishing smiling at me.

Mark and Elijah flew up to Utah this weekend for the BYU game for Mark's birthday present. They went to ESPN college game day and we worked hard to spot them on TV and thought we caught a glimpse of a red headed boy, then Mark told me that Elijah was wearing a hat, so I guess we didn't see him after all! They had fun in spite of the game not going so well. Several of Mark's siblings and his mom met them there. I told him that meant for my birthday in April, I get to go somewhere with my sisters and mom, so where should it be?!

Aubrey is standing next to me, correcting my spelling and grammar. She says her news is that she is going to Isaac's party this week. She is doing great in school and gets all A's in conduct. Report cards come out this week and we have parent teacher conferences. So, stay tuned for news on that...

Courtney has been busy, busy, busy. With going to GATE one day a week, she has to get all her regular class work done and her GATE work. She has a field trip down to the ocean this week for GATE and is very excited for that. She is hoping for straight A's on her report card, but nervous about her math grade.

straw maze

Our local grocery store set up a little straw maze in the edge of their parking lot, so last night we went over there to take some fall pics of the kids. Turns out Ayana is kind of a wimp and is scared of almost all the halloween decorations, but that is okay. She seemed to think it was pretty cool anyway and it was a fun little activity. We also got some family pictures taken yesterday, but both kids were pretty fussy, so we will see if they turn out. Luckily we found a photographer who charges only $5 so even if they don't turn out we won't be out much. I should have them back in about a week and will post any good pics when I get them. I also got a new haircut this week, I like it, but think that in a month or two I will go back and get it shorter. It was kind of an ordeal, first I went to the beauty school and hated the haircut they gave me, so after 2 days of trying to convince myself that it was alright I finally gave up and went to a different salon. She didn't really cut it how I wanted either, but it is much, much better and she gave me some nice highlights. I am sure when I get the family pics back you will be able to see the cut better. Here are some pics of our straw maze adventure!

Better late than never!

The Anchorage LaVoies are finally logged in and ready to blog!

We've been pretty busy, and well, mostly tired the last month. We welcomed Tobias Christopher LaVoie (Toby) to the family on September 8 and have been adjusting to life with a new one just fine. Xavier loves his little brother, but occasionally lets us know he should remain our top priority. Scott had the first two weeks of Toby's life off from work, which was great. He helped out a lot and was able to take Xavier to his usual toddler activities. Scott headed back to work the 3rd week and then out of state to Houston for a week. I was really worried about how hard it was going to be with both boys all by myself, but it wasn't as challenging as I thought. The most challenging thing so far, which I am sure you all understand, is getting a baby and a toddler ready, out the door and in the car when it's time to leave the house. Wow. I am sure it will get easier, but right now I feel like it takes us an hour just to get clean clothes on everyone, gather up all the gear we will need while we are out, and make sure all that gets in the car before someone spits up, or needs to potty, or does something to make us start the process over. I really do love it though. So much maybe I will convince Scott to do it by himself a day next weekend.... hmmm. Stay tuned.

Toby seems to adjusting to the outside world just fine too. He is already a bigger eater than Xavier and loves his naptimes in the baby swing. We bought the swing for Xavier, but he hated it and we used it maybe a handful of times with him. I felt like it was such a waste of money! That's why I am so so happy Toby likes it. In fact, the first couple of nights, it was the only thing we could get him to sleep in. Now he's in his bassinet and we are starting to figure out some sort of schedule. At least we hope!

Xavier for the most part ignores Toby unless his playmates are over. Then he gets possessive and says, "that's MY baby brother." Xavier also likes it when Toby matches him. They have matching dinosaur jammies and dinosaur Halloween costumes Xavier insists they wear at all times. Of course, that's not going to happen, so I've resorted to hiding them when they are not clean. I feel so sneaky sometimes. I am spelling things out so he doesn't understand, tricking him (OK, lying to him) so he eats something nutritious, and using the art of distraction to keep him from doing things he shouldn't. Sometimes being a parent means being deceptive I guess. When he learns to spell, I will just have to resort to the old, "because I said so" parenting technique.

We've enjoyed reading up on what everyone else is up to! Thank you to Amber and Trevor for getting this set up for us. It will be a great way to keep in touch. And we've enjoyed what we've read so far!

Ayana the photographer

This is Ayana's latest thing, she loves to take pictures, so whenever you get the camera out all she does is point to her eyes. Sometimes the picture is cute anyway, but sometimes she decides to pull her bottom eyelids down-not so cute. We found an old point and shoot in our move that we gave to her and she goes all over the house with it saying "cheese" It's pretty darn cute!We had a visit from Trever's grandparents this week, it was rather sudden, we got an email on Monday saying we're leaving tomorrow and then a call on Thursday saying "we'll be there in 45 minutes!" It was fun to see them though, we were busy and not able to spend as much time with them as we would have liked, but the kids loved playing with Grandma and Grandpa!

Caleb's blessing day

We had a great day today with Caleb being blessed and spending the afternoon with dad and Meg and Ryan as well as 2 of Mark's brothers and their families. We are enjoying beautiful weather this week in the 70s so it was a perfect day for the 15 kids to run outside. Here are the LaVoie cousins that were here and then then whole group.

Caleb

Always something

It seems like there's always something going on around here....one of our latest, is that the plumbing in the house was backed up. Good thing we have such an awesome dad/husband/handyman/plumber! Willing to do the jobs that no one else wants to...he really is the BEST! I hope he knows how much we appreciate him. Good thing he had such an awesome dad for an example!




Keilee girl was feeling photogenic and asked for her picture to be taken before heading out the door to preschool.





Where oh where is Makeila??? Apparently she got hold of the camera and went to town taking almost a dozen pictures; most of herself!

I know, I know.....

I know. I know, I am absolutely horrible about keeping people updated on our lives. Things are going alright here....On the positive side I got a promotion at work and am now a site director at one of the local elementary schools. Kyrie is in preschool this year and is just loving every second (Arianna isn't such a fan though, she cried every time we dropped Kyrie off for the first 2 weeks!). Arianna is doing good, running around being her crazy little self! Nathan still hasn't found work yet, but we are keeping our fingers crossed and he does have another interview coming up next week. We have all met relatives we have barely even heard of this past week because all of Nathans dads family is here and it has been crazy. Its been fun to meet them, but they are all here because Nathans Grandpa is dying, so that has been interesting to deal with around here. The worst part is that Nathans parents are the only members in that family, so they are all completely convinced that this is the end. Maybe this will finally open their eyes to the truth. I am glad to hear that everyone is doing well, and thanks amber for setting this up. I will be sure to post some pictures of the girls soon, especially at halloween.
P.S. Amber....what does your family want for christmas?
P.P.S. Shannon, if those clothes are still available at all, we can take them off your hands! Arianna is going into 3Ts right now!

Happy Birthday Christian

Can you believe this little guy is three today? We can't! He is such a fun and cute boy and as Courtney describes him, he has a BIG personality and uses it all the time! He woke up to a light saber ( not sure that was a good idea :)) and balloon from the birthday fairy and chose to have donuts for breakfast. Now we are off to a field trip to a farm and then Grandpa gets here this afternoon and we'll have a family party tonight.

Welcome to the South

I know we have been here for 5 years now, but I am still not used to the southern accent. Andrew came home with a 97% on his latest 9-week English test. Since it is rare for him to not get 100%, I asked him what happened. He told me that Mrs. Meek didn't tell them there were two correct answers on one of the questions. I checked his test and you won't believe what I found. The question was "Which of the following words are homophones?" 1. see/sea 2. go/stay
3. fail/fell 4.my/mine. I know it's been a long time since we were all in school, but this should be a pretty easy one. But, apparently not in the South. Andrew circled number 1 and the teacher circled number 3. Take a minute and say it with your best Southern accent. Don't be embarassed. Yup, in Southern, both words are pronounced fail. Welcome to life in the South!!

H-A-double L-O-W-double E-N spells Halloween

So, halloween is coming up, and I think it gives us all a perfect opportunity to put some pics of our cute kiddos on here. I know you will all be taking pictures of them anyway, so get it in your head now that when you do you will post them here for us all to see. By the way, anyone have any good ideas for Trever and I or Ayana. We have a dragon type costume that Trever's mom sent us a while back that Asher will wear, but not sure on the rest of us!

Apparently I don't know what I am doing as I faithfully wrote something on Sunday and I don't think it ever posted. The gist of it was that I was hoping to see more updates from those of you who haven't written anything yet. I will keep hoping. Things here are the same as usual - works crazy and home is great! Dad is anxiously waiting to head for California and get a break from putting up with me. Hope all is well with all of you. I love you!

Just thinking tonight, as I am trying to put together costumes, that I have a lot of old girl ones that I would be happy to send to anyone if you want. I have a care bear, princess dora, and a few others. Let me know if anyone is interested and I will send you a picture. I also have a lot of 3T/4T clothes for girls that I am taking to good will unless someone wants them. Amber, if you are interested, Mark is going to meet Maria and his mom among others at the BYU game in a couple weeks and I am sure he could get them brought to Rexburg. Let me know otherwise they are headed off to Good will.

I have been thrilled to hear what's going on with Amber and Shannon and am hoping the rest of you will get on board soon. Sharolyn did let us know she exists but it would be nice to know some details.

We enjoyed a nice quiet weekend. It is so nice to sit back and watch conference at home and Dad doesn't have any meetings to go to. We spent a few hours in the garage working on a few projects in between sessions of conference. It was chilly enough that Dad even started a fire down there. Of course then I think it got up to about 90. We have actually had a pretty nice fall with quite a lot of color and some beautiful blue sky days but the temperatures in the morning are down in the 20s. I have gotten everything out of the garden so I guess it can snow soon.

Lazy mountain has quite a lot of snow so I am sure it will get here soon.

Dad leaves on Friday morning to fly to Fresno and then head to Bakersfield for Caleb's blessing.

Since I was down there last month I won't be going this time. I wish you could all live close together so we could see everyone more often.

I love you all and look forward to reading your posts this coming week.

Way to go Idaho!

Hey Mom, I think this bib is a little big!

So, I think that Sharolyn has the right rotation for Christmas, so I think we will follow that one.

All is well here, glad it is the weekend and I can get sleep and spend some time with my husband again. This week was spud harvest, which means they give all the kids a break from school so they can help harvest potatoes. Obviously it doesn't affect me much, but it makes me chuckle every time I think about it. Idaho, and particularly Rexburg, is such a farm town. I remember in the fourth of July parade there was choreographed Tractor and lawn mower driving. Sure is an interesting place. But I actually really like it here, it is a very family oriented place where they always welcome kids and have lots of fun places and activities for them. Ayana is finally starting to put words together. We still don't understand 85% of what comes out of her mouth, but she's getting there. She is such a sweet girl, the other day I swallowed wrong and started coughing, and she kept saying "you okay?" over and over while looking at me with those big eyes of hers. Also for the first time a few weeks ago, she said "I love you too" I am sure that you guys probably remember when that happened with your kids, it definitely melts your heart. Asher is getting happier every day. He loves to smile and laugh. He especially loves when Trever sings to him. We recently got the jumperoo out of storage and he seems to really enjoy that, as long as we stay close and help him jump in it. I sure am a lucky person, I have a great family and life. I look forward to the day when I average more than 3 hours of sleep a day, but other than that, my life couldn't be much better!

Christmas Rotation

This looks to be correct...everyone gives the sibling right above them in age... (except Scott wraps around)
Scott gives to Cassie
Shannon to Scott
Nathan to Shannon
Megan to Nathan
Amber to Megan
Cassie to Amber