Happy Thanksgiving

Okay, really quick, BEFORE Thanksgiving, we got to kick off our Christmas season with the Jubilee of Trees. It is always the weekend before Thanksgiving and we love it. In fact, this year we decided to just go into full swing Christmas mode and decorated our house when we got back. Dad even hung the lights on the house! And Christmas movies abounded. It was awesome.

We also did our obligatory Pizza Factory birthday visit!

Now on to Thanksgiving. We were actually kind of a small crew this year for what the Larsens have turned into. Uncle Marty and his family were in California and Aunt Angie only had Allie with her so we got the kid table to ourselves!

Iva even got a high chair to herself. She actually didn't stay in the high chair and ate the meal on Dad's lap. Grandma made a delicious turkey breast that tested like roast.

Mom got silly with her sisters and turned it into Planskgiving!

The day was just like you would want. Mom and Dad got in a premeal workout. Mom made fresh rolls and pie and then we played! Mom even took a great nap with Iva while we helped Angie put up Christmas lights. We spent the evening playing games including Heads Up! which is our personal favorite. Thanksgiving is great even if I don't like most of the extra food!

Celebrations and big kids

We do have other people living in this house. Cara has recently started to ride her two wheeler! She's getting pretty good at it and loves to practice when we have enough time and daylight!

I spent another couple of days sick. High fever and weepy. That's my "m.o" is what my mom says.

Oh and we have to include the cute pictures from Iva's birthday celebrations.

She actually hated her pizza because mom accidentally smacked her in the head with the hot pan trying to get the pictures. Whoops!

Her favorite present was this Pinkie Pie jacket which was a surprise. You'll notice her awesome forced smile that she does whenever the camera comes out.

Iva has also started to cause massive amounts of trouble while Mom is breastfeeding.

Cara and I finished up our soccer season. We had fun!

Beautiful fall weather has been upon us and we have been taking advantage of it. Iva is even figuring out how to use a big girl swing!

Mom realized sometime last week that she didn't have a good photo, or even a photo at all, of just her four kids. Here is her attempt to fix that! Ha!

Dad, of course, had a birthday too!

Grandma and Grandpa Quaife came to visit and we got a picture of all the great grandkids in our matching jammies. So much fun.

Here is another attempt at a sibling photo.

And this awesome photo is form Dudes and Donuts at the school. Cara's first!

A few hundred photos....

Mom really had about a hundred photos of this little man on her phone. She seems to be looking for the perfect photo. And he has so many cute outfits! You have to document them all! Actually speaking of outfits, Mom has been so lucky to have great friends who immediately starting bring baby boy clothes over to her and even threw her a baby shower to help! We are spilling out with cute clothes for him. It's hard not to be jealous! ;)

This was actually on Iva's birthday, she had taken her nap, woke up and saw Sam sleeping near her, crawled over and put her head next to him and promptly fell back asleep. Best friends already.

The bruises are starting to clear! He always looks so worried when he has his eyes open. It's getting better, but for awhile there it looked like he was really concerned that he had made a massive mistake being born already.

Mom is already back at the gym and teaching. Three weeks postpartum and she taught her first Power class. She loves it and feels so good. I'm sure she will post on that later.

Sam seems to enjoy a bottle okay. We don't do it often though.

He really has "woken up" this week and started looking at us with more purpose.

He's our little elf. Mom kisses him constantly.

The Snow Canyon Half Marathon

At the beginning of November, Dad's best friend from growing up came out to St. George from a far away land called Missouri. I asked if they spoke English there and mom assured me that they do. Josh signed up to do his first half marathon so he and Dad ran it together. The weather was beautiful. 

They finished in just under two hours which was Josh's goal!

Sam got in on the Superman actioned and matched the men of the hour! (Cara calls him SuperSam!)

Grandma even bought him a binkie to help him look more like Daddy!

It was fun to have Josh visit for a couple days!

Coming home and the first bath!

We have a backlog in our photos of Sam. We have hardly posted any on the blog! Even our social media sites don't have tons. Life is just BUSY in the greatest way!

So to backtrack just a little, Mom had Sam on Sunday and she and the babe were able to come home in less than 24 hours. (She had originally hoped to leave four hours after having him, but his early arrival made that impossible. When you are before 37 weeks, they have to do glucose checks on the baby and a 90 minute car seat test AND the lactation consultant has to watch the baby eat!) Mom made the most of her stay and ordered a lot of food and watched junk TV.

This is Sam waiting to get clearance to leave!

Discharge happened at about 1 pm. Aunt Becca and Cara were at the house waiting and decorated the driveway for them!

Safe and sound in the house!

Just a quick little side note about the day Sam came home, I myself was sick only nobody really realized it until I came home from school SOBBING. My mom's friend helped me get home because she was worried I was crying too hard to ride my scooter. I was so worried about my mom! Days later my mom would have other moms comment about how they saw me crying and thought it was so sweet. I had a fever and after some medicine and a good cuddle session I was back to myself.

Here is a picture of Sam on that first night cuddled up with Mom in bed.

And then the mass cuddling started! Iva likes to be near Sam always. She even climbed into the crib by herself. Mom was slightly horrified.

Unfortunately because of Sam's quick delivery, he had bruising under his eyes for over two weeks! It also caused his bilirubin levels to by high so he had to have his poor heels pricked three times. We were troopers and helped Mom. Mostly the younger two. I always had school!

Sam was a pretty great sleeper those first few weeks. He slept a lot actually!

Mom happened to catch a smile on camera completely by happenstance!

It took us awhile to actually give him a bath. He was just never very dirty! His umbilical stump fell off at about day 9 or 10 so we took the time!

So fresh and clean being mauled by his sister!