Jacks Blessing

Last weekend we blessed our new baby Jack in church. This is the same outfit that my Father and I were blessed in, the booties were crocheted by Mother and that blanket was made by Larianns Grandmother.

It was about 4 and half years ago that I blessed Lucy in church. At the time Lariann had finished her radiation therapy and had begun chemotherapy for her brain tumor. I remember thinking at the time that I didn’t think that day would come; with Larianns cancer we just weren’t sure if Lucy or Lariann would be there. Fortunately we were blessed to have Lariann be healthy enough to give birth to a healthy little girl.
Last Sunday while blessing Jack I was thinking the same thing that I didn’t think this day would ever come. With Larianns cancer I was sure we wouldn’t have any more kids, it would just be to risky to ever try, and after she passed away the idea of having another child seemed impossible. Once again though I have been blessed with something that I wasn’t sure was possible.

While Ariane was pregnant I would be asked, “Do you want a boy or a girl?” My response was usually something along the lines of, “I don’t really care what it is. For the longest time I never thought I would have another child so I am just grateful to be having another baby”.
I am so grateful to have this little baby boy in my life. Two and half years ago when Lariann passed away I was as more depressed then I had ever been in my entire life and now I am so much happier then I ever could have imagined being at that time.

Caption

We recently had some family photos taken (I’ll most more of those later) and we had this great shot of Lucy pointing out that the vacuum we had brought in to help quiet Jack down was sucking up a burp cloth. We thought it looked pretty funny and wanted to have a caption contest, so insert what you think would be funny for Lucy to be saying.

Halloween

It was a great Halloween for us this year; we’ve sure had a lot of fun this October.

It started out with our annual trip to Firghtmares at Lagoon with our friends Tiffany and Brandon Hopkins and their kids and also Marc & Hali Lunt and their two kids.

Marc’s mom Lori was nice enough to come along and watch kids so we could ride some adult rides. Since Ariane was pregnant all summer this was the first time all year she was able to ride some rides.

Lucy wanted to go as Tinkerbell this year, and with her blonde hair I’d say she makes a pretty good one.

Ariane worked really hard trying to get Lucy’s hair into a perfect bun.

We went to Lucy’s pre-school for their Halloween program which included a costume parade and some songs.

My favorites were the Storm trooper and the kid dressed as a roll of toilet paper but I was also told he may be a marshmallow instead.

We also took the time to carve a few pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns.

Nothing fancy but I think they turned out pretty good.


Jack went as a jack-in-the-box. It was fairly easy to do we just took a box, made it look fancy and placed him in it. The perfect costume for the boy that doesn’t care if he’s wearing and isn’t even aware that he’s in a costume.

We also thought it would be fun to put him in one of the jack-o-lanterns and take some pictures of him.

We went to my sister in law Rachel’s church for trunk-or-treat with Rachel and her kids.

After which we hit our neighbor hood and really raked in the candy. I’ve already helped my self to some of Lucy’s candy, I feel like I earned it since I took her trick-or-treating.

Lets not forget that the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series this October as well, making this one of the best Octobers ever.

The World Series

Another World Series is in the books and this time my favorite team the St. Louis Cardinals won making it 11 championships for the Cards. This one feels extra special though since the Cards made huge comebacks and overcame a lot to get there and win it all. In August they were 10 and a half games out of the playoffs and managed, thanks to the Atlanta Braves collapse, sneak in. They beat the Philadelphia Phillies, the best team in baseball during the regular season, in the divisional series, the Milwaukee Brewers, champions of the National Leagues Central Division, in the National League Championship Series and then finally the Texas Rangers in the World Series. It’s been one crazy ride.

We made sure to have Jack already for his first World Series in his new Cardinals outfit.

We had a lot of family over to watch the games including my parents, the Evans’s and Arianes parents.

Some of my favorite moments from the series were when Albert Pujols hit three home runs in game three.

He’s only the third player in baseball history to do that in a World Series, Reggie Jackson and Babe Ruth are the others.

Chris Carpenter diving to first base to get the out in game one.

When Allen Craig robbed the rangers of a home run.

The best moments though came from game 6, if you missed watching it then you missed one of the greatest baseball games ever. The Cards won in 11 innnings thanks to a triple in the 9th inning by David Freese and his walk off homer in the 11th.

After which his teammates mobbed him and tore his jersey off his back.

All leading to the win in game seven.

After winning it all the Cardinals like to pile on each other and spray champagne on each other. I prefer to run around outside waving my Cardinals flag and cheering loudly.

What a season and it was the best World Series I have ever seen.

Television With Lucy

As a parent I have discovered that I end up watching a lot of what my child watches. Some of the shows are more entertaining than others. I feel that it is my duty as a parent to let other parents know about kids shows that are not annoying.

One of the shows that Lucy loves that Ariane and I also find entertaining is “Phineas and Ferb”. The show is made by Disney and involves two step brothers Phineas and Ferb who are able to build just about anything and then along with their friends go on crazy adventures, while all the while their older sister Candice tries to expose what they are doing to their mother, busting them, but before their Mom sees whatever it is they have made somehow manages to be gone before she can see it.

Perry is the boys pet platypus who unbeknownst to them is also a secret agent, agent P, who has regular battles with the evil but incompetent Dr. Doofenshmirtz. He’s also Lucy’s favorite character on the show. Check it out.



Arianes favorite part of the show is the music. In the tradition of classic Disney cartoons and movies every episode has a different musical number. The tunes are very catchy
Lucy’s favorite is the “Gitchee Gitchee Goo” from the episode Phineas and the Ferb-Tones, where the boys create their own one hit wonder.

Arianes favorite song is “Hey Ferb” from the episode “Musical Roller Coaster”. She prides herself in being able to identify every musical they parody in the song.

My favorite song is the “Perry the Platypus” theme song.

The show has gotten very popular and now has segments on Disney Channel and on line called “Take Two With Phineas and Ferb” where the boys interview various celebrities like Regis Philbin, Andy Samberg, Tony Hawk and Taylor Sift, just to name a few.

We find the show witty and funny, if you are a parent looking for a show for the kids to watch that won't annoy you or if your just a bored adult with nothing better to do, “Phineas and Ferb” may be just what you are looking for.

Holy War 2011

Last weekend we got together at the Evans house to watch the annual “Holy War”, everyone had on their best Ute gear.

Here’s Lucy and her cousin Kira enjoying the big game. Kira still struggles with posing for pictures but Lucy really gets into posing now.

And here we have myself and my sister in law Rachel holding Jack and Cooper with Liz sitting next to us. The latter three all have about the same interest in the game.

I think Liz and I could have a future doing the play by play and color commentary for football games.

I really appreciate Jake Heaps and the other cougars doing their best to help the Utes win the game.

Thanks for the SEVEN turn overs guys, you really made my weekend.

Preschool

Lucy had her first day of preschool last week. She is going to my Aunt Jennifer’s preschool Little Feet. Lucy was really excited, when we got there she asked, “Can I go to school every year?” I told her, “You will be going to school for many years to come.” That made her pretty excited; we’ll see if she’s still excited about that in five or six years.

I think it’s really cute that she has to bring a back pack to school with her every day in though she never puts anything in it. Every paper and drawing she brings home can’t go in the bag because she wants to show them to us and hold it in the car.

Our little girl is getting so big.

Here's Jack

Jack was born yesterday at 9:38 pm. He is 8lbs 13ozs and 21inches long.
Here’s Ariane before she began the process.

She was in pretty good spirits.

After 12 hours of labor though she was pretty tired.

But we had this cute little guy so it was worth it. Here he is about a minute after being born.

Ariane felt much better the next day.

My parents are really happy to have another grandson and so are the other two sets of grandparents, I just failed to get pictures of the Stevens and Evans when they came up to visit us.

Arianes sister Chelsea has also been up several times to see her and Jack.

Lucy’s really excited to be a big sister and to see her Mom again.

We’re way excited to have this little guy as part of our family now.