All At Once Part 2- November

 Gideon is growing up so quickly! He wants to be big in the cutest ways. Here he's taken to trying on our shoes. He's also denounced the high chair and is barely content with a booster. He's trying to dress himself as much as possible and help with EVERYTHING. Below he's helping Trevor put together his toddler bed, which he isn't using yet, thank heavens.  We'll leave him in the cage...I mean crib...as long as its still safe.

And here's the wonder of the first snow of the year. We actually got over 6 inches and it stayed over a week!

Gideon LOVES football. BYU football is, of course, preferred, but he won't say no to watching the other teams.

 Dominos with Dad.

 More of Dad's shoes

 The next adventure in our saga is our Thanksgiving vacation down to visit family in Utah. Gideon was captivated by his grandpa's fish tank and loved watching Rachel feed the fish. Here the room is dark because we just got up and the rest the house was asleep, but Gideon was content to just watch the fish.

 Happy Birthday, Trevor!!! Trevor requested 2 cakes for his birthday. To the left you see a pizza cake, which is essentially 4 or 5 pizzas layered on top of each other cooked as a whole. On the right is Salted Carmel Pumpkin Cheesecake. Needless to say, the beginning part of his birthday was spent cooking. Luckily my mom is a great cook and helped me through it!

 My parents/family gave Trevor two games for his birthday, Jenga and 5 seconds. We played a round or two of Jenga, then commenced playing blocks.

 He's cool and he knows it. Or at least he knows sunglasses are cool.

 The day before Thanksgiving, the Hogle Zoo in SLC, UT had a free day. Wahoo!

Ah, the King of the beasts. Gideon pulls a cheesy smile when he thinks the camera is on him, so I posted both pictures. I love that kid.

Elephants!  This is actually the oldest elephant in the US or something like that.

 Another favorite...the rhino!  I was surprised how close we could get to it.

 Sitting in the eagle's nest together. Can you guess which one is the real eagle? Eagle Scout at least. ;)

Uncle Brian helping him through the tunnel without getting in the puddle.

 Sea lions and seals with Uncle Brian.

 Another favorite...the tiger. He could have played with these all day if another family hadn't come wanting to take pictures. Aunt Rachel is behind him making sure he doesn't get eaten. lol.

 The rest of these pictures are up at my Grandma Edlund's (Gideon's great-grandma) house in Mendon, UT. It's so nice to spend time with family, especially Grandma and Grandpa Edlund.

 Ahh, feels great to get that all out of my system. And my missionary sister will have pictures to look at when she comes home Thursday and her only nephew is 6 hours away. More importantly, it's nice to share the things I'm grateful for and I feel like the more I reflect the more gratitude I feel. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

All At Once Part 1...October

Have you ever noticed life seems to be trodding along at its own speed and there's just nothing to really write about and then suddenly it smacks you right in the face and suddenly you're intimidated by the mere thought of trying to jot even part of it down? No?  Just me? And then you go to put in a pic and you notice that life was happening before and you should probably at least mention it?

Well, here's my attempt to capture the moments that make life magical.

These first pics are of our first trip to Zoo Boise, and Gideon's first trip to a zoo. He LOVED it! There's an ocelot in the lower right hand corner. :)

 This is one of Gideon's favorite animals...the lion. He loves to roar like a lion and it was hard to get him to turn around long enough to take the pic.

 Another favorite, the zebra, came right on over to say hi.

If you ever wanted to slide down a giraffe's neck, here's the way to do so.

My what big ears you have, my little fox.

Gideon loves playing games. This is a tic tac toe board that we got for Christmas years ago and and he loves playing with it, dominoes, memory cards, etc.

Gideon has a great love for reading. Here's a nice picture of him reading with Trevor.

Ok, so those are my pictures for October...on to November!

Garbage Day II

I'm pretty sure we have the coolest public workers here in Meridian, ID.  So today is once again trash day. But its not just any trash day...its trash AND recycle day. That means that we have trucks in our community 4 times!  (each truck comes through twice to be able to get both sides of the road).  Well, as usual, Gideon and I head out to watch/follow the trucks. This round the drivers made it an extra special tour for Gideon. The first act of coolness was the recycle truck guy using the arm of his truck (usually used to pick up the trash bins and dump them in the truck) to wave to Gideon. Down the road, he lifted up the back of the truck dump-truck style (I assume this is to move everything to the back of the truck to make more room at the front but I've never seen it done. I'm not sure therefore if he did this because he needed to or to be cool. Yes, I'm a toddler mom who is starting to call garbage trucks cool.) Later, the trash truck guy stopped and asked Gideon's name. He then introduced himself as Bart and told Gideon that "I love picking up your trash". Like we were making his day or something. When the recycle guy came back to finish his route he lifted the whole truck again. Anyway, they wave, they honk, they make his day.

Garbage Day

One of Gideon's favorite days of the week is Thursday because he loves Garbage Day. We live in a cute little housing community where the garbage truck has to wind through this maze to get to everybody. Every Thursday morning around 9:30-10am, Gideon perks right up as the unmistakable sound of the truck reaches his ears. We then drop everything, get on shoes and socks (and now a jacket) and fly out the door to follow the truck. Luckily, it is in the nature of the garbage truck to move slowly, stopping frequently, and following a predictable route. Gideon's little toddler legs pump as fast as they can go keeping up with him, but its fun to have something to do together that makes him so happy and is so easy to make happen. And it gets a smile from the garbage man too.

Pictures

He loves soft things and my sister Rachel has a giant caterpillar which was no exception.

To the side he made his bed all by himself and was all ready for me when I came to get him up!

 First dentist visit and he's rocking the dentist's glasses.

Watermelon? Yes, please!!! Condie Campout, Diamond Fork Canyon, UT. Daniel Edlund in background.

Frigid water cannot quench his desire to splash. Condie Campout with Rachel Edlund.

 Conquering butterflies at mall play area

 Wait...who is this? 

Kingsley Park swings

 Happiness is quality time with Dad, and a balloon to go with it!

Picking "flowers" for Mommy.

Helping out around the house. Sweeping is Gideon's favorite!