Happy Birthday to...

I am all caught up, and just in time!  I wrote the last two posts while sitting here in the hospital waiting for the pitocin to kick in.  We will be welcoming our new baby to this world sometime in the next few hours!

Good thing I took this belly shot at 38 1/2 weeks...because I forgot to take one today!  Happy Birthday, baby Hawkes #3!  We can't wait to meet you and find out your gender!

Halloween!

I'll be honest.  Halloween is usually not my favorite holiday.  I do not enjoy being scared, and I'm definitely not into anything gory or creepy.  However, with the baby due 5 days after Halloween this year, I was really excited to see pumpkins and bats and witches showing up on my neighbor's porches early in October.  It made me feel like my due date was approaching faster!  My mental due date was "after Halloween."  And if you asked the kids when the baby was coming, they both knew to answer "after Halloween."  So I was really looking forward to the holiday because I was really looking forward to having a baby!

The kids and I went shopping for their costumes mid-October, and of course they had to try them on immediately when we got home!

Cassie wanted to be something "scary" this year, and she chose a black cat.  Benson is pretty passionate about trains right now, so he chose Thomas the train.

 Naturally, they had to try on each other's costumes as well!

I did a Halloween recital with my students this year, which was a lot of fun!  Some of their songs were "scary" sounding, but for the most part it was just a fun recital where they got to wear their costumes and have treats afterwards.  It was perfect timing with the baby coming- I am done teaching until January!

The cute two-year-old in the front is not one of my students, but her older sister had to leave early, so I guess she is standing in for her. :) Cassie IS one of my students, though!  I started teaching her at the beginning of September, and she played "Old MacDonald had a Farm."  She loves playing piano and is really catching on to everything quickly!  I will probably keep teaching her a little during the next few months.

We squeezed in some pumpkin carving the afternoon before Halloween.  The kids both chose to carve their pumpkins to match their costumes.  So...Benson's pumpkin is a train.  Don't mock my carving skills.

The cat looks pretty good though, right?

Cassie is taking dance from one of my friends in our neighborhood, and parents were invited to come watch class the day before Halloween.  I loved seeing Tanya teach (She is awesome.  I really can't say enough good things about her teaching!) and seeing what Cassie is learning.  Cassie is the skinny black cat in the pictures. :)

Benson and I went to the Kindergarten Halloween parade at Cassie's school, and Benson dressed up in his costume as well.  Here he is waiting for the parade to start (I really can't get enough of his "cheese" face.  Isn't he cute?)

A fuzzy picture of my favorite black cat in the parade:

Grandma and Grandpa K came trick-or-treating with the kids on Halloween night.  It was the perfect evening!  I made soup, so we all ate a little to warm up before and after trick-or-treating.  I let my parents and Trevor walk the kids around the neighborhood while I sat on the porch with a bowl of candy and just had fun talking to all the neighbors and seeing all the cute kids in their costumes.

I caught a blurry nighttime shot of the kids holding hands on their way down the street:

Here they are, post trick-or-treating and pre candy-binge.  (Just kidding- they only got three pieces that night, and they get one or two each day from here on out.  That candy should last them at least through Thanksgiving.)

Reading bedtime stories with Grandma and Grandpa:

I am glad to say that I really enjoyed Halloween this year!  I think having kids will make me like this holiday more!

Going "to the mountains!"

One thing about living in a brand new subdivision is that there aren't any mature trees, so sometimes I feel like we're missing out on the beautiful fall leaves.  I bought the makings for s'mores at the beginning of September, hoping that we would find an evening to go up a local canyon and enjoy the leaves.  We finally headed up "to the mountains" (as Benson puts it) after General Conference on the first Sunday in October.  We found a perfect little picnic area and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows.  The kids loved it!

The old smoke-in-the-eyes trick...we couldn't get a good picture of Benson here...

After our little picnic, we drove farther into the canyon to get a good view of the fall colors.  The sun was setting, but it was still beautiful!

Happy Fall!

Nesting

I got a nice burst of energy at the beginning of my third trimester...and the nesting began!  It's funny how motivating pregnancy can be.  I got some things done that I've been putting off for over a year!

First, I decorated the half bath on the main floor.  All ideas were stolen from Pinterest. :) Also, all the picture frames were free- I got them from neighbors who were getting rid of their old picture frames, then painted them to match the color scheme I wanted.  The black and white pattern in the white frame is fabric (left over from making pillow covers) stretched over the glass.  I already had the black-framed mirrors (Target), and I bought the "wash" sign at Hobby Lobby.

I have been wanting to tell our family "story" in pictures going up our staircase, so I bought a few more picture frames, painted the used frames, printed a bunch of photos, and enlisted Trevor's help to hang everything.

In the process:

The final product: (notice a cute little someone reading on the stairs?)

I also finally took a bag of clothes to DI (thrift store), cleaned the oven, and did lots of basic cleaning.  Trevor has also been hard at work on the basement, finishing a storage room and making a little play house under the stairs for the kids.  We just need to clean everything up, then we'll move our futon and all the kids toys to the basement (the basement is still mostly unfinished, but we're going to lay down some carpet and make it work as a playroom).  When baby #3 is ready to move out of the bassinet in our bedroom, we're hoping to have the playroom moved to the basement so all three kids have their own bedroom upstairs.

First Day of School!

I was nervous about Cassie starting Kindergarten for a long time!  Really, every time I thought about it a year ago, my eyes started to water.  There's just something overwhelming about your baby starting school.  It felt like the beginning of the end to me.  Luckily, I felt like I had a lot of time to mentally prepare, so I didn't shed a tear on her first day!  I did fall apart a little during her assessment when she first met her teacher, but it was nice to get it over with then.  And once I had met her teacher, seen her classroom, and seen how excited Cassie was to begin, it made it a lot easier to send her off.

The obligatory "first day of school" pictures:

Saying goodbye to my baby at the school:

Stepping off the bus after a successful first day!

She was so tired after her first day!  I took a little video of her after we walked home:

The first week was an adjustment for all of us!  Cassie was tired and hungry after school the first few days.  Benson cried every time Cassie left, and I had to get creative to keep him happy and occupied.  We are all adjusted to the routine now, and Benson is getting better at self-entertaining.  

August: the last hurrah

With Cassie starting kindergarten at the end of August, I was more conscious about soaking up our last precious days of summer.  I wasn't awesome about taking pictures, but I was totally satisfied that we had enjoyed a full, fun summer by the time she started school.

The dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point had a new exhibit called "Tinkering" that was so much fun, we didn't even make it to the dinosaurs when we visited a few times in August.  The kids loved these giant tubes with fans blowing up from the bottom.  They put little lightweight cups, coffee filters, etc. in the tube and watched them float up and out of the tube.

Cassie is the excited blur in this picture:

 Cassie made me this adorable vase with flowers, and we kept it on our bathroom counter for several weeks.  I just had to get a picture of it to remember how sweet she is.

Daddy and Benson found a snail!

We love our neighbors across the street!  Here are Cassie and Benson walking home from church and holding hands with Jaden and Avery.

This is currently my phone wallpaper. I am so, so glad they get along and love playing together. Lucky me. :)

I tried to capture a classic summer moment in our neighborhood.  This was the last day before Cassie started school.  I love our neighborhood!

Some of the neighbor girls playing with ponies- the perfect way to end the summer!

More July Fun

Our summer fun wasn't over after Powell! 

My brother played the lead in a local production of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  He was awesome!  His wife Renae came to support him at his audition, and they talked her into auditioning too!  The world of musical theater is pretty foreign to her but she rocked as the mom of the gum-chewer (Violet Beauregard, I think?)  We took the kids with us and besides one loud outburst from Benson, they were great audience members.  Cassie loved it!  My cousin was there with a date too, so we all got a picture together.

Cassie and her friend Ashlyn at the ward barbeque with their matching face paints:

One of our neighbors organized an awesome neighborhood 24th of July party, complete with face painting (or hand painting, if you're Benson), bike decorating and parade, shaved ice, cotton candy, bounce house, food, music, and fireworks.  So much fun!

Cassie came with me to a bridal shower for two of my cousins, and another cousin brought her baby twin girls to the shower.  Cassie was absolutely enamored with them.  It was so sweet!  I have a feeling she will adore her new baby brother or sister!  

When Grandma and Grandpa H came for a visit, Grandma planned a treasure hunt for Cassie.  Grandpa helped Cassie read the clues, which she found around the house.

 Finding a clue in the tomato plant

The treasure at the end was raspberries from Grandma's garden, a little drawing pad, some balloons, and Benson's precious Thomas the train hat, which he had left at Grandma's.  Benson woke up from his nap just in time to help Cassie find the treasure under her bed.

And, some pictures of what we did almost every day during the summer: riding bikes/cars/tricycles