Fantastic Family Festivities

Rawley was very proud of his plastic medal he got at his tumbling tots class!

We've had some fun stuff happening this fall in between one of Paul's busiest/hardest semesters, so here's a quick glance at what we've had going on.

(Once again, the videos won't embed in the blog, so you'll just have to watch them here: 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/dgio9K2se2Dvhjmy9)

One big thing Rawley has enjoyed was a "tumbling tots" class at the local rec center. I was pretty impressed with it, because for only $35, we got about 8 classes where instructors helped Rawley learn to sumersalt, balance, flip, play simplified versions of various sports like tee ball, basketball, whiffle ball, etc. Rawley particularly liked it because of all the kids there; he really loves being social with other children. I liked it because it helped get some of his energy out with only some energy required from me; however we probably won't do it again until next semester when Paul can take him because I'm reaching the point where very much bending and stretching required by the class or wrangling Rawley to the right activity station is rather taxing. "Welcome to the third trimester!" my pregnancy tracker app said, but I have to admit I'm not feeling super welcomed, haha.

He eventually learned the importance of tucking in his head in when doing sumersaults and flips.

At the end of every class they'd play with a parachute, which was definitely one of Rawley's favorite parts.

The balls were also generally one of his favorites.

Rawley really liked getting his little reward medallion on the last day of class. Definitely a participation award, haha.

Good times were had this Halloween. I actually really like Halloween, it's definitely one of my favorite holidays. I ended up lining up a lot of different activities for us to go to, which overall we all enjoyed and Rawley really had fun at. He was a cute little Hercules with the Nemean Lion (he slays it as one of his feats and wears the skin), and Paul and I were Zeus and Hera respectively (going with the Disney version of the story since traditionally Hercules actually wasn't Hera's son.) Predictably, Rawley was most psyched about the sword with his costume and still plays with it all the time.

This was a Halloween event at the BYU Bean museum (not a museum of beans, but of taxidermied animals.) It was way too crowded for the most part, which is kind of the case for most free family events in Utah that we've encountered.

Rawley likes all the animals in there, but he does particularly like big cats like lions and tigers.

He was a little afraid of this miniature giant squid, haha

I super liked this Palawan peacock pheasant, which apparently lives mostly on the island where my first mission area was. I don't recall ever seeing one of these outside the zoo while I was there, though.

ZEEEEUUUUUUUUUUSSSSSSSS!!!!!!

He made out pretty well candy-wise at Paul's work at BYU IT, everyone was really nice to him although most of them thought he was just a lion probably because he wasn't carrying his sword most of the time.

Right after we trick or treated at Paul's work, we went to a really fun event for kids put on by BYU's student association. They had face painting, free pizza and food, a cake walk and other fun games and booths, and Rawley's favorite part - giant inflatables.

He was a big fan of Nerds candy in particular.

He LOVED the inflatables. He was probably the youngest kid going on this slide, but he was a huge fan. Just like his dad, who also loves inflatable obstacle courses and the like :)

Happy Halloween family! Paul was very sporting to go along with dressing up with us and he generally likes it when I drag him out to do fun things like this ;)

Cute lil guy on campus with the fall leaves.

We also had a lot of fun at a little pumpkin patch festival area about 15 minutes away from BYU. Rawley was a big fan of the corn pit and slides there, and it was in fact very festive with a tractor ride, animals, hay bales to crawl on, pumpkins, etc.

He liked running wildly around the child sized hay bale maze. It was actually quite sunny and hot that day, which was kind of nice.

Aunt Brooke came with us, which was super fun - Rawley always likes hanging out with her.

Climbing to the top of their pumpkin silo with Brooke.

These were some geese they had there, not sure if their feathers were supposed to look like that.

He enjoyed the corn cobs and gourds littered everywhere too.

 There's a bit of a story behind Paul being in the corn pit. I didn't realize this, but Paul has been keeping his house key on a little consecrated oil vial with nothing else attached to it for a while, meaning that the two of them were very small together. As we were leaving the pumpkin patch, Paul realized his house key wasn't in his pocket. We hoped it had just dropped in the car, and eventually because Rawley was really tired after all the fun at the patch, we just drove home even though he hadn't found his key yet. Once home, we reached the very sad conclusion that Paul had probably lost his keys when they dropped out of his pocket in the corn pit. We called about it and no one had found it, so we went back a week later with small buckets in hand ready to shovel through all the corn in the area we'd been in so we could find his keys (it would be several hundred dollars to get the apartment re-keyed as required by our apartment complex.) 

We decided before we started digging to check the lost and found first, and thankfully and miraculously, we eventually found Paul's keys at the very bottom of the lost and found. Many prayers were answered that day,and we're very grateful to whatever intrepid corn diggers found his keys in the corn pit for us and turned it in!

As usual, Rawley was very excited to play with all the kids there (he's extremely social!)

This little donkey was super nice and seemed to really enjoy getting pet by everyone. I think donkeys are adorable, and if I was ever going to have a grazing type animal it would definitely be a donkey.

We like going to the indoor play area BYU has installed in the library. Before they put this in last year, there wasn't really anywhere on campus specifically for students with families to go and study or play. It's definitely nice when it's too cold outside to play at the regular parks, and Rawley always asks if there will be kids at whatever park we're going to because he loves playing with them (particularly kids who are the same age or a couple years older than him.)

Hiding in a tree with a leaf outside. Rawley LOVES being outside, a bit less now because it's so cold, but generally his main lament for the day that he complains about is if he didn't get to go outside during the day. If he hits his head or gets injured, he often yells, "I can't go on a walk!!" very angrily, because I guess that's what he loves best is walking and he's more sad when he's indoors and gets injured than when he's outside.

I've been having a lot of fun with my clay business; things have been going well particularly with the upswing into Christmas. This is a year's worth of paint that I peeled out of my makeshift artists palette. It was surprisingly thick but bendy.

A red panda figurine I made.

This is one of the nativities I made to sell; I've ended up selling four nativities with this design and another one modeled similarly to this one but featuring Mary and Joseph walking to Bethlehem (with her pregnant) and then also with them leaving to go the Egypt with her carrying a slightly older baby Jesus. It's been fun to make these and think about the real story of the nativity and how Mary and Joseph likely felt about being entrusted to raise the Son of God.

This was some extra credit that Paul didn't know the answer to on a test - it asks a quote from Hamlet that Paul didn't know, "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow..." so Paul wrote, "If today is Friday, then tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow... is Monday." His TA's gave him "one point for cleverness." I laughed pretty hard when he showed me!

Rawley is generally a happy little guy. We like hanging out with him and he's becoming better company as time goes on, which is nice for me because I feel a lot less lonely since he says a lot of what's on his mind now. Here's some of his favorites:

1. Foods: Chicken nuggets (and chicken generally), bananas, broccoli, chocolate, herbal tea (he sees me drinking it and always insists I give him some, and often drinks half my cup!), cookies

2. Toys: His sword from his Halloween costume, his toy firetruck Brad and Debbie gave him last year, and his toy broom.

3. Things to do:  Play at parks, play with kids, wrestle with Daddy, and dancing. He's also been doing well at being our "little helper" and he really likes cleaning up now when we encourage him to do so as well. That's certainly been nice and helpful to keep everything clean, especially since I can't bend over very well anymore!

4. Movies: Probably Moana (he loves Maui and wants a hook just like his for Christmas - he's probably getting one from us, shhh), Totoro, and Ponyo.

Rawley's first time eating cookie dough was a great experience, Paul tells me. 

We went to a Christmas celebration at a local outdoor mall we've gone to for the past couple years; Rawley was pretty excited that Santa was there riding around on a tractor pulled sleigh.

It's becoming increasingly hard to get non-blurry pictures of him.

GOTTA GET AWAAAY!!!

We were at the BYU bookstore and Rawley decided to pick out these chocolate toffees. We were waiting in line for a while, so he went over and sat on the stairs holding the bag. It was funny because he kind of looked like some guy waiting at the airport or train station with chocolates for his girlfriend, but also kind of concerned he was getting stood up, hahah.

We had Thanksgiving at my Grandma Larsen's house! We took Brooke up with us and it was fun, although Rawley wasn't used to someone sitting in the back with him and kept telling her "go away!" on the ride, up, he definitely liked having her there. We were very grateful for her hosting us and for my Aunt and Uncle cooking the delicious Thanksgiving meal - we were a little sad because my cousin had strep throat so we weren't able to see all of them or go over to their house on Thanksgiving day, but it was still a very festive and fun time with family.

I promise Grandma did not spank Rawley despite the appearance of this picture, haha. Initially Rawley was a little afraid of Grandma, probably because he only mostly sees people below the age of 35 in BYU's student family housing, but he eventually warmed up to her a lot and really liked playing with her.

Rawley liked playing the piano with Grandma too. I think he might be a little confused about how he has so many grandparents and how they're all related to him, but he accepts and loves them all anyway :)

He was quite interested in all of Grandma's fridge magnets.

Bedtime book reading with great Grandma <3

Walking to campus with Paul, whenever we have the chance to, is always fun for Rawley and me. Not only is nice to get extra time with Paul, but Rawley likes all the interesting discoveries to be made on campus. In this case, we passed by a utility/work truck where they were installing a Verizon micro cell tower (they've put a number of them around campus recently.) We passed by initially, then looked back and saw that Rawley had parked himself sitting behind the light pole to watch them from afar working. This kid is very interested in tools, how things work, and technology (wonder where he gets that from? ;)  )

This kid also LOVES flags. These little construction flags were extremely fascinating to him.

Helping Daddy change out the car air filters - Rawley loves "helping" Daddy, especially if it involves tools.

Enjoying some daily outside play time.

We went to the Thanksgiving Point Natural History Museum with Brooke, and Rawley really liked the dinosaurs and other interesting things to look at there. 

His favorite part was all the sand pits and places to excavate fake fossils and play with dinosaurs.

This is the "big ole shark that's gonna hurt me!"

A baby dinosaur and a baby homo sapien.

Playing a little dinosaur computer game they had set up there.

This water/sand dinosaur pit was pretty cool, and it was hard to drag Rawley away from it because he predictably loved it so much.

Super psyched to play with the other kids, too.

Rawley loves imagining things, whether he's pretending to be the captain of a cardboard boat and avoiding a storm (his favorite right now to pretend) or battling dinosaurs with his sword.

He liked this screen that showed pictures kids had drawn/colored of dinosaurs.

This fossilized fish was super creepy.

We all liked this live iguana.

This was an earthquake simulator that tested tiny rebar structures.

Sometimes he likes to watch T.V. like a beached whale. On another note, over Thanksgiving Rawley crawled out of his pack n' play portable crib, which means he's not allowed to sleep in there anymore. So we got him a little portable mattress now, and we put the toddler rail on his crib so he can get out whenever he wants. The first night he was kind of scared to not be contained it seemed like, since he kept talking about being "afraid of the dinosaurs" in his room. 

Milk mustache!

It's fun to go to the duck pond sometimes; Rawley is a big fan of ducks but is also pretty good at not intentionally scaring them or scattering them. They're super friendly (for food, which we didn't have any) and came up very close to us which Rawley liked but was also kind of scared of them being so close.

A few days after Halloween, instead of carving pumpkins, we put Rawley in the bath with some paints and let him go to town on them. I think overall this was probably more fun for him than carving anyway :)

Rawley liked bringing me his massive collection of acorns while we were hanging out outside one day.

Saw this cute pumpkin, probably someone's pregnancy announcement.

Rawley is looking forward to his baby brother coming, as much as he understands it. He was saying babies should ride in this stroller, and I told him when his baby brother is born he'd ride in a stroller. Rawley then was asking me with this sincere little face, "Baby brother ride in stroller? Baby brother ride in this stroller and I push him?"

On Black Friday we picked up some much needed shoes for me and Paul, and they had this HUGE Christmas tree there which is apparently the biggest fresh cut Christmas tree in Utah (I believe it, it was huge.)

Finally, Rawley helping Daddy with his church calling by conducting the choir. It's super cute to see him taking after Paul in so many positive ways. We really love this little kid and we're looking forward to another addition to our family in just a couple months!

With Christmas coming up, for those of you who made it to the end of the blog, for anyone who might want to get us Christmas presents, we each have some Amazon wishlists in case you wanted ideas. I've also got a baby registry started for the next baby (I know it's a couple months in advance, but I don't know when exactly I'll do the next blog post, so here you go.)

Rawley: http://a.co/iLjWl2s

Paul: http://a.co/7LPghZe

Marinda: http://a.co/5VvKxN5

Baby registry: https://www.amazon.com/baby-reg/marinda-risk-february-2019-provo/395LUZQ6AOJ21

We're still chugging along to the end of this semester in just a couple weeks. Paul is understandably stressed with his rather heavy/hard course load, but we're gonna make it. Rawley misses seeing Daddy and now will sometimes sit in the corner and pretend to be typing on something or writing and say that he's "doing homework" or that he's "gonna go to campus to go to school now." Sometimes he'll even say "let's get in the car and go pick up Daddy." We definitely miss him but thankfully things should calm down for him school-wise next semester since he'll be taking more general education classes and have much fewer classes. We're also excited that we've accepted a job in Virginia and we'll be moving back there after Paul graduates in April! It will be wonderful to be closer to family and friends again (not to mention all the beautiful trees and wildlife there.) Here's to wishing all of you a merry Christmas, we love and appreciate you all!