4 Months

AAAHHHH! Trent is 4 months! Where has the time gone? He is growing a changing so much each day. He had his well check last week and everything checked out great. Here are his stats:

Weight: 15lbs 1 oz (54%)

Height: 24.5 inches (33%)

Head: 16.5 inches (40%)

He is a, pretty, ordinary kid on paper (although extraordinary to us ;).) We are blessed to have such a healthy, sweet little boy.

At 4 months he is:

Rolling over

Sleeping up to 8 hours straight at night

cooing and gooing

smiling

laughing

grabbing at toys and putting them in his mouth

eating rice cereal

Yes, he is eating rice cereal--just tried it for the first time and he LOVES it!

We love this baby with all our heart!

It Was My Turn

I have mentioned before that Seth is participating in a "joy school" with 7 other 2 year olds in the ward. Wade did this too when he was 2. We LOVED it then and we LOVE it now. It is wonderful to have this situation for Seth where he can play with friends and listen to another adult for a change while knowing it will be twice a week, every week, for two hours each day. Sounds perfect, right? Well it is perfect--perfect until it is time for ME to take my turn as the TEACHER!

Okay, so I AM being a little dramatic. It, really, isn't that bad when your turn rolls around, but it is a little crazy (how could it not be with eight 2 year olds running around!?)

My teaching subject is animals and, thankfully, that is an extremely easy subject to find lots of material on. We had a great time. The kids were darling and I am happy it will be another 2 months until my turn rolls around again :)!

In this pic, the the kids are hanging the "birdfeeder" we made in our backyard. Nice tree, huh?:
Seth is making "kid sushi" out of rice crispy treats and swedish fish wrapped in fruit roll-up. It is, actually, pretty tasty:
The kids kept running to the window to see if a bird had eaten from the bird feeder yet (I'll give you one guess to figure out if that ever happened :)!):
This is a pic of the rest of the kiddos working on their "kid sushi!":
Between the 2 days we glued cotton balls on a picture of a lamb, feathers on a picture of a bird, ate "animal" food and colored pigs pink and purple. The key was to keep them BUSY!

Adventures with Ampa and Paula

My dad and Paula came to town, last week, so Matt could finish Paula's veneers. They flew in on a Friday night and Matt got to work and finished Paula's teeth early Saturday morning while my dad went to the park and took a walk with the boys to visit the horses and Wade's friend Jackson (who didn't answer the door--thank goodness- because it was before 7am--why are my kids such early birds?)

Paula's teeth look great and it was exciting to have the rest of the weekend to hang out and play with them (no business this time for my dad--woohoo!)

We all went to Wade's soccer game,

followed by "Peter Piper."

Wade also had a speaking part in the primary program on Sunday so it was fun to have them there. The rest of Sunday was spent resting, eating and visiting.

To our delightful surprise, my dad had a business emergency in Tucson a few days later. We got to have him back! I was able to meet him for a quick dinner and he was off to "save the day" in Tucson. Even though he didn't get to my house until 3am, he still jumped right up with the boys at 5:30am to go on a walk. My boys LOVE to go on "adventure walks" with Ampa. They go all over the place causing boy mischief and enjoying each other so much!



It was a quick second trip, but a lot of fun for all!

Walking With Dinosaurs

A lady in my neighborhood found out about a "dinosaur show" coming to the area. To my surprise, it was a HUGE event sponsored by the BBC and took place at the US Airways Center (where the Phoenix Suns play.) Not only did she find out about the show, she got tickets for our neighborhood at a discount price!

Wade missed school (it is so weird that I have to worry about that now :)) and my boys and I went with Jess and Logan. The show was AMAZING! We had awesome seats and watched as a paleontologist took the audience through each dinosaur time period while showing which dinosaurs dominated and lived during those times.

When I say "showing" us the dinosaurs, I mean it! They had these gigantic dinosaurs on the bball court (which was designed to look like whatever era we were in at the time) and they looked SO lifelike (think Jurassic Park the movie.)

In fact, they looked so real that when the first dinosaur came running out (it was a Raptor), it scared/startled Seth so bad that he immediately put his hands over his ears (his coping mechanism) and he said, "Okay, I want to go home now!" The look on his face said a thousand words. It was so funny I couldn't stop laughing (I know, I am a mean mom.) Thankfully he got over his fear pretty quickly and LOVED the entire show.

Wade was also completely captivated. We loved it all, but the best part was...you guessed it, the TYRANNOSAURUS REX! It was HUGE and LOUD! It was protecting its young from another dinosaur by growling and chasing it around--so cool! We had a great time and we are all happy we went.

My Poor Little Trent

I keep saying how much I love and adore Trent and I am not alone--he is loved and adored by many--especially his brothers. I know most of you know what I mean when I say he is "loved" too much by his brothers. Since his brothers are 2 and 4, their way of showing affection is more of a mauling/ attacking form--to mine and Matt's dismay.

This poor baby puts up with so much. His brothers are in his face 24/7 and the funny thing is that, most of the time, he doesn't mind it and, actually, smiles, giggles and coo's at them. I have said many times that Trent is such a sweet baby and he is (thank goodness.) I do, however, look forward to the day when he can stand up for himself a little more and not have to put up with all the "love." In the meantime, I am glad he is okay with it!

Another noteworthy event is that TRENT ROLLED OVER! Because I am an ultra-crazy mom (about avoiding a flat head/ helmet), he spends a lot of his awake time being held or on his belly. Well, the other day, he was on a blanket in the living room and I had his elbows propped under him so he wasn't face planting the carpet and he leaned over and rolled! I was freaking out and cheering so loud!! He was grinning from ear to ear (although I am sure he didn't know what I was so excited about!)

I put him back on his belly, ran to get my camera and he did it again before I could get back to take the pic! So, I rolled him back on his belly, snapped a before pic...and an after pic because he did it a third time!

Today, he even rolled from back to tummy too. I love it and hate it at the same time. It is going by too fast :(. I just love this baby stage so much and he is so much fun, although I am proud of one of his first big accomplishments!

Let the Games Begin!

Wade started his SIXTH season of soccer last week and couldn't be more thrilled about it! Matt and I are excited too! Matt is the Assistant Coach again and is happy to help out Jackson's dad, Nate.

(He insisted on this picture of his "number 5" because he is about to turn 5!)

This season is EXTRA special because they are, now, old enough to play on a larger field and have goalies. It feels like a real game now. Since the field is larger, the ball stays in bounds a lot more so there aren't so many stops in the game. In the past, each time the ball goes out of bounds, we have to stop and let the opposite team throw the ball back in. It seemed like that was all the kids were doing, but not anymore--we are in the big leagues now :)!

Wade had the opportunity to play goalie and enjoyed it although I think he likes to "score the goals" a little better. He is too competitive to stay back and watch the action from the goal, but he told me he liked trying it out and I am sure he will do it again.


Despite the 110 degree weather, the entire team did great. We have some awesome little athletes on our team and it will be a great season (especially when it cools down a bit!)

For the Love of a Croc

Who knew a pair of shoes could bring so much happiness to my little boy? When I think back to when I purchased Seth's Crocs (or more properly referred to as "Crocies" by Seth), I actually considered NOT buying them because they seemed too expensive. In my opinion, $25 bucks is a lot to spend on a pair of shoes for a little boy who is growing like a weed, but I am glad I ended up buying them because they have served us well.

Seth has worn his Crocs, literally, everyday since I bought them. They run in sizes 6/7 or 8/9, etc so he has been able to fit into them for almost a year now--wow! Like I said above, he LOVES his Crocs. Here is a little proof:

The other night I went up to check on him and found him asleep in his bed with his Crocs on. I had left them in his room and I guess he decided to put them on and fall asleep with them.

In addition to that, a couple months ago, to Seth's HORROR, we could not find one of his Croc's. He went the whole day wearing flip flops that I, actually, love, but are too hard for him to hold on his feet. He is used to his Crocs where there is a back strap to help hold them on. Since they were hard to keep on, he would take them off in the car, at the store, at the gym, etc. He also could not put them back on himself, so I spent a large part of the day re-putting his flip flops back on. I was beginning to think I didn't really like those flip flops anymore :).

That night, Matt put Seth to bed and came back downstairs. After Seth had been in his room for a little while he yelled down something behind his closed door and we couldn't really understand what he was saying, but said, "Okay Seth, thank you, go to bed!" He seemed satisfied with that and went to sleep.

Before I went to bed, I checked on him and this is what I saw:

He must have been yelling, "Mommy, I found my Croc!" He also must have been so excited that he slipped it right on his foot even though the other one was downstairs.

Seth LOVES his Crocs! I wonder what will happen when he actually does grow out of them--thank goodness they run in larger sizes!

Labor Day

Matt had Labor day off so we decided to head up to one of our favorite spots--Cedar City!!! Almost every time we leave Cedar, we don't have plans to go back anytime soon, but it becomes too hard to stay away after a couple of months pass and it always seems like we find some reason to head up there! I guess you don't really need an excuse to visit your family :).

We had a great time (as usual!) Here is a rundown of our events:

*10 1/2 hour car trip up (YIKES!) After we had been in the car over four hours and had just passed Payson, I told Matt we should just turn around and go home. Thankfully we didn't, but, obviously, we weren't the only one's leaving town.

*PIZZA FACTORY--TWICE--YUMMMMM!

*Sherry's birthday party/ Labor Day BBQ. It was a treat to spend hours outside in the perfect 80 degree weather.



*Grandpa and Seth went on lots of walks. Sethy adores Grandpa.

*Helping Grandpa pick the peaches (and getting to take some home--yum!)



*Catching up with some of our most favorite people in the world: Joe/Kenzie Burns and Jeremy/Liz /Davie Marshall--it was so great to see you guys!

*Cousin time galore! We are so blessed to have such great cousins to play with.
*Hours and hours of hanging out and visiting with the fam which was so much fun. There is nothing like good quality Roper family fun--we miss you already.


It was a fabulous (but fast) trip. The drive home was a lot better (and faster--8 hours) except for...yep, you guessed it...Wade puked! Why me? We were more then half way home and he decided to chug his root beer and it came back up about as fast as it went down. He felt so bad and we were able to pull over and get him and the car cleaned up with minimal smell/ damage to the car and him (he just had to ride shirtless the rest of the way.) Oh well, a minor price to pay for a great trip.