Happy Halloween!

The girls had a pretty busy Halloween this year! Hannah dressed up as a pumpkin (a costume that was worn by Bethany 2 years ago!), and Bethany dressed up as a puppy. They went to a neighborhood trunk or treat the Saturday before Halloween (which I missed because of work), and then we went trick or treating on Halloween. Bethany loved saying "trick or treat" and having people give her candy. Except that at one point, we saw a very scary monster mask, and she made me carry her a while until we were out of sight of his house! I didn't get any pictures of the actual trick or treating, but I took these afterwards.

Bethany enjoying the spoils. After getting so much candy, she wanted to eat it all day long. She kept trying to get us to give her Halloween candy by going potty ALL THE TIME (just a tiny bit each time) and asking for it as a reward.

Hannah's had enough!

Our Life Now

We love our little family! Here are some adventures in sleeping:




Bethany likes to do tummy time too. She does a really funny impersonation of Hannah, bobbing her head up and down.


Mmmmm... time for some new pajamas?


Bear Park- Bethany LOVES this blue swing.


A hike up Little Cottonwood Canyon to see the pretty fall colors. Bethany's favorite part was a cool squiggly green caterpillar we saw!


And here are some fun ones of Hannah. She's getting so big!

Pharmacy School

Hiram has decided he wants to be a drug dealer:) Here we are at his white coat ceremony for pharmacy school. He's going to Roseman University, formerly the University of Southern Nevada- South Jordan campus. He started at the end of August. It's a good thing we took photos because I sometimes forget what he looks like now- he studies a LOT!

Baby fun

After Hannah was born, Bethany suddenly had all sorts of new toys to play with:

This box was Bethany's hospital bed (the type that moves the head up and down)- she'd obviously spent a bit too much time in hospitals over the summer! Then it converted to her mobile home.

Bethany has named all of her dolls Hannah Lee. And she is such a little mommy! She loves to push them in her little stroller...

And breastfeed them:)

Adjusting

After Hannah was born, Liz's mom came out for a couple of weeks [only partially to see the baby- John was also graduating with his master's, and John, Amy, and Sam were getting ready to leave Utah for their respective grad schools]. Mom was soo helpful. We'd kind of expected the adjustment to two kids to be hard, but it was INSANE! Bethany loved her little baby sister for a while, (until she started saying, "I'm done with my baby sister" and "MY daddy!")but it was hard for her not to have things done on her schedule anymore. And Liz was not a very fun mom for a while- constantly doing baby stuff, unable to bounce on the trampoline or play as much, tending to a screaming baby. Not to mention sleep deprivation... And Mom picked up a lot of that slack. So thanks, Mom!

Bethany suddenly stopped taking naps (or took them after a LOT of screaming), stopped sleeping through the night, and stopped being so well potty trained. One night, Mom actually took Bethany out to sleep in her car around 4 in the morning, after Bethany and Hannah had been waking each other up all night long!

Mom and Hannah

Waffles with Sam, John, and Amy...

and Mom and Hiram...

and a VERY sleepy Bethany

Uncle Sam and Hannah

What a nice big sister!

It's A Girl!

Liz was ready to have a baby, by the time August came. These summer pregnancies get you pretty toasty!

This was Liz at 39 weeks. And a flailing Bethany on the couch.

Sunday, August 7th, Liz started feeling contractions. She really didn't want to spend money on an epidural, so her plan was to wait until absolutely necessary to go to the hospital. She did lots of walking to move labor along. After midnight, with steady contractions, we drove to the hospital. And Liz was dilated to 7 cm! But she stopped progressing and eventually asked for the epidural after all. So much for being cheap:P

Liz would like to personally thank whoever invented epidurals. This one was wonderful! Hiram, with his broken ribs and pelvis, got to stop doing counterpressure to relieve Liz's labor pain. And of course, Liz could sleep while labor just sort of happened.

Our baby came out at 8:12 am the next morning. We (meaning Liz) had decided not to find out our baby's gender. Hiram had peeked at the ultrasound and had been telling Liz that he knew what the baby was (but not telling her WHAT it was). Liz didn't believe he actually knew. But it turns out he did know. It was a girl!!!!!So Hiram can keep a secret after all:) We named her Hannah Lee Thornton. She was a big girl- 8lbs, 5 oz. And she's beautiful!

Hiram commented on how gentle her cry is. It seems that Bethany's banshee scream has desensitized us.

Bethany loved going on walks in the halls with her, pushing the little baby cart thingy.

Here's Hannah all cleaned up, in her candy corn hat

And her proud gandparents


And a happy family picture, minus a pretty gross-looking Liz

Man vs. Wild

On July 27th, Hiram volunteered to go on a wilderness survival trek with some of the young men he's worked with. It was man vs. wild; the plan was for them to basically fend for themselves- no sleeping bags or tents, kill their own food, hike mountains, etc. For four days.

We weren't sure if he should go or not, since Liz was 38 weeks pregnant at the time and could possibly go into labor. But since the trek was close to home (Little Cottonwood Canyon) and there would be some cell phone service, we thought it would be safe. And we were right- Liz thankfully did not go into labor during the trek.

However, Hiram was sleep deprived after working a night shift when they left on their journey. And in a moment of not thinking clearly, he accidentally fell down a snowy mountain, over lots of boulders. He got really banged up, breaking four ribs and his pelvis and damaging his right clavicle. He got picked up by search and rescue, then life flighted to the nearest hospital. He was really lucky not to have been injured a lot worse! He's now pretty much healed, with just a few scars. And now he says he can tell when there's going to be a change in the weather, in his bones.

Someone was actually taping him as he fell (not knowing in the beginning that he would fall so far!) The video, along with an interview of Hiram, made the news and YouTube. And Hiram's now famous. But mostly just really lucky...

Here's a link to his news story: http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=16668613


It's pretty graphic...

Two Years Old!

Bethany turned two on July 22nd! She's certainly not a baby anymore! We really didn't know what to do for her birthday (besides the fact that she'd requested a blueberry cake!) So we set off fireworks at a nearby park,

went to another little boy's birthday party which happened to be very fun (and we kind of told Bethany this party was for her too...),

and then we hung out with the Thornton crew at Aunt Nadine's house for a really yummy dinner. And blueberry cake:)

Camping with John and Amy!

As part of our Summer of Fun, we went camping with John and Amy in Provo Canyon. It was SO FUN! We made tin foil dinners, braved a rain storm, and played.

Bethany shows Amy her monkey pillow/ sleeping bag.

Incidentally, have you ever tried to take a picture of a two-year-old? Here's Bethany in her playpen, which we brought to keep her contained at night. Say cheese, Bethany:

AND she didn't even end up sleeping in it- she slept with Hiram and me on our deflating air mattress! It was a FABULOUS night's sleep:)

Hiram thought we'd better set a snare to catch any intruders. He used a cheese puff as bait.


It seems to have worked; human intruders were obviously intimidated by the maker of this snare. So they left us alone. But ants sure seemed to like it:)

Summer of Fun

With a new baby on the way, Liz felt the need to get everything ready before "it" was born (we didn't know if it would be a boy or a girl). Including getting Bethany completely potty trained:

Notice how her bear also got potty trained.
He was a natural- not one single accident:)

We also had to get Bethany to sleep in her "big girl bed" (a mattress on the floor) to free up the crib. So she wouldn't feel like the new baby had kicked her out of her crib. This turned out to be very tricky, since Bethany WOULD NOT stay in her bed.

Most of all, we wanted to have a very fun summer, since it might be our last chance to hang out together before Hiram started pharmacy school. So we did. Here are some pictures:

We did A LOT of back porch picnics. Bethany loved her Sponge Bob table.

This is after eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Bethany and her big bear (creatively named "Big Bear") became good friends.

There was also some swimming at our community pool


And our own pool on the porch (free admission!)