Happy Birthday Baby!

Today was the day. Landon turned one! We didn't do much today--I've been sick with a stomach bug, Ryan's back in Oklahoma while we're here in Utah, and Grandma and Grandpa were taking Uncle Tom, Aunt Sissi and baby Sam to the airport, but we were able to squeeze in getting some yummy cupcakes at a little place here in town. Luckily we were able to celebrate with Ryan before leaving for our Utah trip and we opened presents, ate cake, and did the whole chi-bang. Not that Landon really cared. :)
I just love my little Landon. He sure is a busy little thing. He is getting into everything, especially here at my parents' house, where they aren't so baby proof! He's always opening the cupboards and pulling everything out that he can, trying to get into the bathroom, pulling toys out of their places...basically trying to get into whatever he thinks he shouldn't. He'll be about to do something he thinks is naughty, look back and wait for my reaction, and then go ahead and do it. He is super tough. He loves to wrestle and fight dirty, such as going for the hair or skin. He has such a great laugh. He's gotten this belly laugh that he'll use when I'm teasing him; I love to hear it. He loves to dance and he loves music. He also loves to be read to and will cry every time I close a book or any time he thinks we're done. I love him. Happy birthday my baby!

Happy

Family Pictures

Ryan's mom was here for Thanksgiving time, and we absolutely loved having her with us! The time passed way too quickly, but we were able to squeeze in family pictures. And I say squeeze because the one and only day that worked (before Linda left) to take them was on Thanksgiving. We were able to get a few good ones I think!

I love these last two pictures so much!

Quick update

Here is little Landon in his bumble bee costume. I think this is the only time he smiled for the rest of the night. :)

Here we are at the Simmon's house ready to go out trick or treating. Ashton was a firefighter who didn't want to wear a hat, and little Capri was a cupcake. Oh, and my boys were duct tape knights.

The other night I had the boys spit out their gum before dinner. Josh gave me his teeny piece, Cooper (our next door neighbor friend) had his medium sized piece on his plate, and then Carter pulled out this huge honkin' piece of gum out of his mouth. It just kept coming and coming. It was about the size of his tongue. Hah. I told him that he had a pretty big piece of gum in his mouth and his reply was, "I have big teeth." We got a good laugh outta that one.

I don't know if I should have intervened, but Josh tying himself up in his kite kept him entertained for a nice amount of time...

Who doesn't love seeing their kid's face squished up against the window? I know I do!

Angels. Little sneaky angels.

Halloween

More pictures to come...

We had a lot of fun for Halloween. In preparation, I asked the boys what they wanted to be. Josh said he wanted to be a ghost. (This would be the third year in a row...) Carter said he wanted to be a witch. Hah. Ryan said there would be no witches allowed for his boys, so Carter, Josh, and I looked online for costumes under the name of "boy witch". Carter didn't want to be a wizard, and he only wanted to be a warlock for about 5 minutes, until he decided it was too scary. So that idea went out the window....luckily, we saw some knight costumes online and viola! Both boys wanted to be knights. I typed "how to make knight costumes" into youtube -isn't the internet a crazy thing?- and knew that all this cardboard breastplate creating stuff should be handed over to Ryan. What we ended up with was a helmet, a breastplate, swords (from Ryan's previous creative moments) and boot covers all made out of card board and duct tape. They were so cute! I wanted Landon to be a dragon, but the boys wanted him to wear the bumblebee costume we have. They seem to think that it's some right of passage for each Allen baby to wear the bumblebee for their first, and maybe second, Halloween. Since I had yet to attempt making a dragon costume, it didn't take me long to agree.

The beloved bumble bee costume.

Josh and Carter with their buddy Ashton.

We first went to our ward "Fall Harvest" party, which was a chili cook off. Umm, I tried to make some chili for this thing. First bad idea was substituting ingredients for the ones I didn't have. Second bad idea was trying to fix the resulting chili by using my new "figure-out-what-flavors-are-missing-and-add-them-in" policy I got from watching the Food Network show Chopped. (I usually can't figure out what is missing, and then make very interesting flavor combos...) Anyway, after a lot of sweat and near misses, I finish the chili and ask Ryan if it's edible or too embarrassing to take to the ward cook off. He tastes it, thinks about it for a minute, and says, "Well, it's nothing to write home about, but it's okay for chili. Just don't get it judged." Awesome. Well, I end up getting it judged, and guess what? It won for "best traditional" chili. I might add that most of the chilis won for something...but at least I didn't win the "tootie frootie" or "best smelling" certificate!

On the actual day of Halloween, we went over to our friends Tiffany and Aaron's house for dinner and then went trick-or-treating with them. They live in a nice neighborhood...and man it was busy! Here in Lawton you can trick-or-treat from 6-8pm. Once 6pm hit, Aaron was at the front door giving away candy. They had a huge line from their house bending back down the street, three to four people thick! Ryan stayed with Aaron while Tiffany and I headed out with the kids. Her son Ashton is three and was a fireman. Her little baby Kapri was a cupcake. We had fun, but didn't get a ton. Landon had had a enough pretty soon into the whole process and was screaming and fussy and trying to get out of the stroller. Carter kept tripping and having a hard time getting up because his breastplate doesn't bend. So I had a screaming baby in the front of the stroller, by the handles sat a squishy-face-uncomfortable-in-his-unbending armor-Carter, and Josh, walking along, barking, very loudly, like a dog because he figured it would calm Landon down. And I was in some sort of la-la land I guess, because I was walking around like we weren't crazy. It was a lot of fun, actually. Fun memories.

Talking about memories....I have one Halloween memory that stands out. When I was little, I was into anything princess and anything that made me gorgeous. So naturally I was anything beautiful and girly for Halloween. One year, I must have been around seven or eight, I was a ballerina. (I just typed ballet dancer, hah.) I had the pink leotard, the tights, some shoes, and the perfect tutu. I was so excited to go and look pretty for everyone to see. Sadly for me, though, Halloween ended up being on a freezing cold day, with plenty of snow. And now we come to the point in the story where I disagree with my dad's view of it. He says that I refused to wear a coat because "ballerinas don't wear coats". I think I probably just suggested that I go with out one and see how I felt. Whatever the case, my dad came up with this horrific (but genius, I concede) plan to make me a fat ballerina. He had me first put on snow pants and a sweat shirt. Yes, you read that right. Snow pants. Then he put my tights and leotard on top of those snow pants and then bulked up my middle by adding some stuffing. I looked hilarious, but I was so mad! As we went trick or treating, people got a kick out of my "costume". I was walking down the street and someone yelled out, "Hey look! A fat ballerina!!" I was not happy. To have such high hopes of being so so cute literally blown up in front of my very eyes was truly tragic....Luckily for my vanity, my dad let me be a normal ballerina at the school fair which was more important to look good at anyway. It almost made up for the trick or treating part.

Is it just me or does everyone else look a little underdressed?

Pictures galore

I found this "amazing deal" at Wal Mart...beach balls for two bucks. Little did I know how big they were! I blew one up and let the other one hang out in the garage. I think the first one sprang a little leak, though, since it was half-way deflated by lunch time. The boys had fun with it though, rolling over it and smashing their faces in the grass/dirt.

Carter's face post smash. I love this picture of him. It sums him up completely.

Josh has really started to enjoy drawing. He's become very meticulous with his pictures. I mean, look at those fingers! Look at those earrings! It looks just like me!

We decorated a "Halloween House" during General Conference weekend. (For those of you who might not know, that's when the leaders of the LDS church speak to all the members of the church. It's broadcast on radio and television).

Landon loved Josh's jawbreaker sucker that dad the dentist gave to him....

Some of the boys' new friends, Ethan, Mason, Ashton, and Sloan. Josh calls the Gailey boys (the three blondes) his cousins. Little Ashton and Carter are little buddies, especially when it comes to chasing after the neighbor's cat.

Landon also appreciates Carter sharing his juice box....

Ryan's superior officer gave him tickets to an Oklahoma Sooners football game, so he and Josh had a daddy date. Or a dad-son-hang out-cool time.

It wasn't until later that I realized Josh was making goofy faces. I still can't look at this picture with out busting a gut. Next time I'll take the gum out first....maybe.

Cute Missionary

My baby brother Jeff, I mean, Elder Farnsworth is on his mission in the Philippines until January. He asked me to start a blog for him so that friends from America and the Philippines can read it if they'd like. So, here it is, for anyone interested!

By the way, this guy, this Elder, is hilarious. Ryan teaching him to how drive a stick shift is one of my favorite memories ever. :) He's also one of the nicest guys I know. (Even though he probably wouldn't want me to say that). I'm proud to be his big sister.

Pre-mission photo.

One size fits all

I've had many many people tell me my babies look alike. Of course I agree. The fun part is to hear who looks like who to other people. These pictures are all taken when the boys are around 8-9 months of age....and I have to admit, they look more alike than I realized! (The first two are Landon, second set of two are Carter, and the last two are Josh).

Luckily we think they are cute. :)

Late Welcome for Baby!

On August 27th, little Sam Allan Farnsworth was born in Germany. In Germany, far away from his auntie Katie who really wanted to snuggle up to his newborn self. He belongs to my younger brother Tom and his wife Sissi. I'm not going to lie, it's always been a little hard being away from family, (especially since the last time I've been with all of my immediate family at one time was back before Josh was born) but I've really been missing everyone lately. Maybe it's because I'm still coming down from the high of seeing both Ryan's and my family for so long, maybe it's because we're all missing cousins and friends from New York and Utah, or maybe it's because we wish we could share in all the big moments of our families' and friends' lives. Whatever the case, we are missing loved ones! In spite of all that, how lucky are we to have so many good friends and family to miss?

Okay, I've digressed from my original point--We love Sam! We love Sissi! And we hope to meet both of you soon! If any of you are in Germany, please stop by to give sweet Sam some hugs and kisses from his aunt...

See past what it seems...

I was blog surfing, and found a link to this article. It really touched me, so I thought I'd share it with you. If you take some time to read it, I'm pretty sure you'll be glad you did.

Oh, and here are a few cute pictures because I just can't resist...

Carnival, Joy School, and My Joys

I love the look Landon is giving to Josh, kind of a suspicious, what are you doing here kind of look. The carnival man in charge of this ride told us we could put Landon on the ride...I didn't really want to, but I've got no back bone, so we put him on and told Josh to hold him nice and tight. He survived, and after the ride the old carnival man rushed to pick him up and hold him for a minute (with me next to him). I wasn't too excited, but sometimes it just feels good to hold a baby, and I figured this guy must need a baby fix.

Landon's just happy to be watching his big brothers have all the fun.

What a lucky girl I am to have four handsome, happy men in my life!

Our joy school group. Poor little Maggie has to put up with these ruffians! I am absolutely loving joy school. The kids are loving it, and it feels good to have some organized, fun, teaching time with the kids.

Carter is absolutely hilarious. He has started this new little giggle that melts my heart. He is also completely accident prone. Luckily he looks prepared.

Josh is a great kid. He lets Carter tackle him and picks up Landon under the arms now. :) He's gotten into the young kid, not toddler, speech, and he reasons everything.

Little angel. Especially now that he can crawl to whatever entertains him. Heaven.

Okies

We are getting settled here in Oklahoma. The weather has been fantastic, over 100 degrees for the past 3-4 months. You walk outside and feel the hot wind on your face--nothing better. Because of the weather, we've been doing a lot of staying inside and taking small trips to Walmart. Say what you want about the place--it has nearly everything you need in one place at not too bad a price. I grumble as I feel guilty about not shopping at the little guys' stores, but I can't help shopping there all the same.
Ryan's getting settled into work at Fort Sill. Not that he's actually worked on any patients, he'll be doing that next week, but he's going to classes and doing "stuff", leaving a little before 7am and getting back a little after 5pm. The other night we went out to Meers restaurant with all the dental residents and had a good time. The food there is pretty awesome. They have amazing burgers and delicious peach cobbler with home made ice cream. It looks like a dump, but turns out to be a champ. Hah.
The boys are doing well, but really really missing their New York friends. Today Josh wrote a letter to his friend Hannah that said, "Dear Hannah, I love you a lot so I'm going to marry you. I like you a lot so we should get married some day. I'm going to come visit you so please don't leave until we get there. Love, Joshua Ryan Allen." It melted my heart. The only issue is that he wrote it during sacrament meeting...:)
Carter is getting potty trained. With Josh we struggled so much (from pushing it on him too early) that I was really not looking forward to potty training Carter. Well, I had nothing to worry about, because he has done great. We've even gone to the store and he told me to stop for the bathroom, day two of potty training. I know. Awesome.
Landon is crawling around and teething up a storm. We'll say it's due to the teething, but he sure has found his screaming voice. He loves to kick both together legs super fast and he's the quickest smiler around. He's a doll and he loves his brothers. His brothers love him too. That makes me very happy.
So all in all, life is good. I love living in a house, I love my family, and I love the gospel. We're so lucky that wherever we go, we have new friends awaiting. We never forget our old friends though. We love you guys and miss you. Any one wanting to visit, we know of a really good place to stay!

The boys "riding" a car at the mall. The mall has a little play area for the kids that we took advantage of one day.

Ry and the boys making Texas sheet cake. Ryan is funny and will perfect certain dishes that really appeal to him. This is one of those. Too bad he placed it in the oven to get it out of the way, and I happened to forget and burnt it a teeny bit...

A few good ones

The boys definitely missed the rough play they get with their dad!

Carter loves to hold Landon. And Josh likes to be big and pick him up while walking around. You how kids hold cats awkwardly? That's what it looks like with Josh before I am able to snatch Landon away...

Ooh I just want to kiss that dirty little pirate's cheeks!

Dad and the boys reunited at last! Josh was a bit hyper from all the excitement...:)

Ryan with his buddy Matt from officer training camp.