Baby Laughter, Farms, and Giant Pumpkin Races Are the Best Things

Rawley is the most adorable little gentleman - he wore this to his first stake conference.

As some of you are aware, around Rawley's 6 week old mark he began smiling and laughing for the first time. Let me tell you - there's nothing quite so validating as a baby smile and laugh from your own child. Like, up until this point, we kind of just had to assume he was happy or at least okay when he wasn't crying because he didn't show any other emotion besides crying. Now, however, we get to enjoy his funny little gasping laughs and open-mouthed smiles (it's too precious, he doesn't seem to know how to smile without his mouth being open yet.) Just today in church Rawley was laughing at Paul during sacrament meeting for about 10 minutes, and for what reason we can't tell, but I think Rawley smiles a lot around me but seems to laugh at Paul more often (even though Paul doesn't do anything in particular to warrant that response.) Here's a very cute video Paul took of Rawley laughing a few weeks ago (you'll hear his gasping laugh in the first few seconds:)

I was singing the song "No" by Meghan Trainor to him and he thought it was the best.

Here's a super precious video of Rawley gaspy-laughing at Paul.

This is the perfect face for a baby meme.

He's just so disgruntled sometimes :)

Rawley watched his first LDS General Conference! Well, "watched" is a relative term. He slept through large portions of it, but he did seem to like the music pretty well. To keep ourselves awake, I made small figurines out of clay (I'm reopening my hand-painted figurine business soon, more on that later) and Paul decided to knit Rawley a hat.

The cute hat Paul knit for Rawley, although it's a little less practical than fashionable :)

During conference, Rawley liked sitting in Paul's lap and looking back at him, perhaps just to make sure he was really there. He'd smile and laugh when he saw Paul and it was completely adorable.

]

He's so snuggly and happy in the mornings when he wakes up. These days he almost always has about 20 minutes of happiness where he's smiling and laughing after he eats each time, and then he lasts for about an hour and a half before he gets tired and we put him down to sleep for about a half hour to an hour. Then he wakes up again and we repeat the process. During the night, however, he's now only waking up once or maybe twice during the night and has slept 7 hours straight a couple of times this past week, so we're very pleased with that development!

Boodle Fight 2016

Preparing the feast.

So since it's getting close to 2 years since I've been back from my church mission to the Philippines, I decided to throw a little party with some of our friends (although mostly family, honestly) to celebrate. In the Philippines, they have a traditional military style form of eating called "boodle fights" which was the way their warriors and armies would eat before battle. They'd lay out banana leaves in long rows and then place rice, noodles, fruit, meat, and other delicacies out in large piles. They'd then eat with their hands (before the Spaniards conquered the Philippines for 300 some years, they didn't use utensils.) It's partially called "boodle fights" because they'd have to fight over the food by grabbing a pile of it and dragging it over to themselves, and also because they were preparing for battle and this was the simplest way to feed a large number of people.

Papaya, which I don't actually like, but it's common in the Philippines and made our little display pretty.

Our boodle fight. Deb was the only one there who wasn't sort of related to us, the rest are all sort of related to Paul in one way or another :)

Plus Paul :)

Eating with our hands, which is way more fun. We didn't have banana leaves so we used a tarp.

The spoils of war!

We had enough fun with this little get together that I think we're going to make it an annual tradition in our family - a time when we get to have a little bit of cultural fun and also talk about our missions and Paul and I can share mission stories and experiences with our kids. For now, though, we'll do it to have fun with our friends and extended family!

Here, Rawley is completely entranced by his mobile. Before this he had already been staring at it for a good amount of time, which is why he stops at the end. It's been so nice to just turn the mobile on for a while sometimes and he just keeps calm and stares at it intently.

He looks like a little blooming flower or something.

Rawley is so cute, and just so chubby.

In this picture, he particularly looks like Paul's brother William as a baby.

I love when he sleeps and his lips get all crooked.

Rawley found the perfect little nook for himself.

Although his expression doesn't say so, he actually loves being in his carrier and will cry sometimes when we take him out of it. It's fun for us cuz he's all snuggled up and warm against us.

He should probably win several cutest baby awards.

Rawley's Aunt Becca helps him stay upright sometimes.

Here's a video of Rawley getting tickled by Paul. It's so sweet that Rawley often will smile really big at whoever wakes him up first in the morning if he doesn't wake up on his own.

Hee Haw Farms

Just a little pumpkin head.

This weekend we went to Hee Haw Farms, a local farm that puts on a little fall festival with a corn maze and other fun activities. Although Rawley is still young he certainly seemed to enjoy being in a new place and outside at night, and we had a blast with Becca.

The fam.

Rawley did have a great time, although in true baby form he wasn't exactly smiling and laughing the whole time but didn't cry once and was just very interested and looking around at everything, trying to take it all in.

Becca and I were very pleased that they had a bunch of goats there in an open petting zoo area. They had little tiny goats that were very friendly and cute, and a rooster with a giant fro of feathers that tried to attack us.

Goats are pretty cute.

They also had some fat bunnies there in a petting area. They weren't as friendly as the goats but were very cute and soft nonetheless.

Rawley's really good at making that face. This was one of the giant pumpkins that can be around 900 pounds or so, and we weren't sure if this one was used in the pumpkin regatta (more about that later) or not.

Rawley was very intently looking around at everything.

We made it through the corn maze! It took us just long enough to be fun, but not so long that it got tedious. Rawley slept through a good portion of it, probably because the whole thing was dark. Let me tell you, when they set the alien thriller movie Signs in corn fields, it was extremely apt. Every little rustle and movement is clearly heard in the corn, and you absolutely can't see what anything is, making it creepy even though this one wasn't a haunted maze.

We even got to take home free pumpkins from the farm afterwards.

The Pumpkin Regatta

We ended up going to a really interesting race called a "pumpkin regatta." They hollowed out giant pumpkins and used them as boats on a lake in the Daybreak housing development. They then raced in them using kayak paddles. These pumpkins were HUGE. It was cute because the different captains of the pumpkin boats dressed up and named their pumpkins as well.

So Paul and I didn't plan very well, and we forgot to bring sunscreen for Rawley and it was actually a very sunny day. So we kept him covered up the whole time, which made him look like some sort of Arabian prince or something.

Becca was kind enough to loan her hat to Rawley to protect him from the sun, and it actually just made him look like a tiny gangster.

Just one of the many cute expressions of our baby.

In the end someone dressed up in a Hillary Clinton mask with a pumpkin named "the S.S. Pantsuit" won the individual race, and a luchador and his partner won the relay. It was funny because someone else had dressed as Trump in a mask and the commentator said the Trump competitor "probably wasn't going to accept the race results" referring to something Trump said about not accepting election results in a recent debate.

The crowds on the shore of the lake. There were a ton of people there!

Rawley's such a little gangster.

A fun activity and certainly a unique one.

Possibly a yawn?

Here's a good glimpse of the size of one of the pumpkins and how it's all hollowed out.

Just hangin' out with his aunt.

In other news, Rawley's been making a lot of developmental progress beyond just laughing and smiling (which is still probably our favorite development.) He's started to be fascinated by things like his crib mobile and this playmat which my brother and sister-in-law were kind enough to give to us as well as some other toys. He likes looking at stuff and will grasp toys if it's placed in his hand as well, although he doesn't really play with them yet.

Rawley's also started sucking on his hand (not a finger or anything, his whole hand) which is great because he can sort of self-comfort a bit better now. It also means he has somewhat better control of his arms and hands now instead of just flailing them around wildly.

And now on to some more personal news. I've been developing a few hobbies since Rawley was born, which is bound to happen when one takes a semester off school. I've always really liked plants and gardens, and it was starting to make me pretty sad that we're not allowed to have gardens out here since we have no lawns. So, houseplants it is. I have these succulents now which are very fun and a neat looking decoration inside. I originally had a miniature-rose bush in this pot, but moved it up to a bigger pot which it needed and put the succulents in here. The rosebush now has four blooms on it, which are the first blooms it has had since I got it for free from a friend back in February.

Initially in the larger pot the rosebush is now in I had these three mums planted. These were $1 mums from Wal-Mart, and they died like 3 weeks after I got them although I thought I took good care of them. They were pretty for longer than cut flowers would have been, for way cheaper though - which is why I always have told Paul that I think cut flowers are a waste of money but potted plants are awesome.

The same mums.

The rosebush - you can sort of see the bloom in the corner. It has three more buds, and I'm pretty pleased about that - so far my sort of green thumb has helped it flourish.

This was a basil plant with some different mums. The basil plant we originally got at our family reunion over the summer, and it survived until now, but with all the times we stole its leaves for recipes it more or less finally gave up the ghost. The mums also kicked the dust at about the same time the other ones did, but were certainly pretty for a while. Also, Paul and I have taken to drinking a lot of herbal tea lately - mostly because we've both had colds or sore throats off and on and probably because drinking herbal tea makes us feel fancy or something.

And then here's the three leafy and grassy plants that took over where the mums and basil used to be. Also, i painted that pumpkin at a relief society activity, which was pretty fun. I tried to make it look lacy but it really looks more like a henna tattoo.

And in other news, I'm preparing to re-open my hand-painted, hand-molded figurine business online. Right now I'm working on just making enough figurines to make a good presentation in the shop, but my goal is that by the first week of November (and hopefully before then) the website is up and selling stuff. These make really cute Christmas presents, especially because I can make custom ones of pets, people, favorite animals, ornaments, etc. The unfinished ones in this picture will be part of a nativity scene which I hope turns out very well! I hope by the next time I make a blog post the store is open and I'll include a link to it on here. Because I've been spending time making these I've had less time to devote to the blog, but I'll make sure not to neglect it either :)

And finally, here's a really adorable little gent in red overalls.