Roll to the Rescue!

When we first asked Eli what he wanted to be for Halloween this year, he quickly declared, "Batman." With a smile I said, "That will be easy enough!" I started to get my costume wheels turning of how the rest of us could dress up to support the leading (bat)man. 

Just before I started going forward with costume prep, I asked Eli one last time to give me a solid answer of what he wanted to be for Halloween. "Batman...actually Bumblebee." was his answer. After one evening of looking up Transformer costumes on Google, Eli was sold on Bumblebee, and there was absolutely no talking him out of it.

For the first time in my life, I almost retreated to the complicity of a Transformer costume and resorted to buying one. But before giving into store-bought temptation, I tried my hand at creating a morphable car costume. 

Bumblebee was coming along quite nicely, so I moved on to making an attempt at Optimus. I wasn't as ambitious with Carson's look. He didn't actually transform because I didn't think Carson would be as patient with all the bulky boxes that would have been required for a morphing ensemble.

These beauties literally took me an entire month to make. And I must admit -- I am proud of the result.  
Carson totally loves his costume (and so do I)! It turned out way cuter than I expected it to.

Don't tell him that his costume doesn't actually transform. He doesn't know the difference.

Also don't tell him I bought his shirt and pants from the girls' section at D.I.

Please note those are working headlights. Bonus safety feature!

When the boys have their costumes on, they go into full character. They don't talk. They only make transforming noises and strictly, robotically call each other Optimus and Bumblebee.

Here's Eli in "vehicle mode."

Mid transform.

Aaaaaaaaand "Bot Mode."

Here's Carson trying with all his might to transform into a semi truck.

 Eli making a transformer face.

Surely all the Rescue Bot fans out there recognize who I am!!

I was Dani and Jeff was Chief Burns. Here's a visual for everyone who doesn't have a 4-year old boy.

If only white mustaches were less than $15 on Amazon, Jeff would have been rocking one.

So I spent hours. Hours. HOURS! Working on Eli's costume. Then I got a letter from his preschool telling me they were having a Halloween party where the kids were supposed to dress up. But "accessories were not allowed." Ummmm....Eli's whole costume is an "accessory."

In a last-minute attempt to give Eli something transformer related to wear to his preschool party, I spray painted a Transformer logo onto his undershirt.

As luck would have it, he loved that shirt more than his costume. In fact, he began rejecting his costume because it covered up the logo on his shirt. Blast.

We were all decked out and ready to go to my Grandma's for her annual Halloween party. Eli loved showing off his costume for all the new on-lookers.

Carson was crying when we first got there. At first I thought it was because he had just woken up from a nap, upon further realization, perhaps he was scared of his grandparents' new look.

 My cute grandparents keep the Halloween spirit alive.

Another family themed costume under our belts! Now to start thinking about what we will be next year with a new Baby Bot in the mix...

Did He Just Say...?

While playing Mario Kart, Eli said, "Mario likes to say, 'Mex-i-co!'"
(Mario actually says "Let's-a-go!")

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Eli's latest favorite saying when he's surprised is, "What the heck in the world?!?"

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When asked what we should name their new baby brother...
Eli, "Mario."
Carson, "Go to Jesus." later revised to "Baby Jesus."

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When sitting down to read scriptures, Carson opened his Book of Mormon and said, "Now behold!"

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We have the boys repeat one scripture after us per chapter we read. While Carson was repeating his verse, Jeff said, "Now it came to pass..."
Carson, "Now it came to...PANCAKE!" Now the boys can't get through a verse without shouting "PANCAKE!"

***

And here we have two misheard song lyrics:

Lyric - How am I gonna be an optimist about this?
Eli, "Why did that song say OPTIMUS?!?" (As in Optimus Prime)

Lyric - I'll be the bright, in black, that's making you run.
Eli, "This is the song that says SPANKIN'!"

Eli, no matter how many times we try to correct him, while singing the ABC's goes, "...XY and Z. Now I know my ABC's, I'll sing with you again!"

UEA Mini Vacay

We couldn't have planned it better. Laura had told us she wanted to go on a little vacation up our way over the UEA break. It worked perfectly because they were able to get into town just in time for our Gender Reveal Party and then stay over through the weekend.

On Saturday, we went up to Logan with them to visit Bryan and Celeste and take a little tour of the city. First stop was the temple.

The belly has officially emerged full force.

The kids couldn't refrain from rolling down the hill on the back of the temple.

Then we went to the Pepperidge Farms factory. Biggest disappointment of my life. All I wanted was a bag of vanilla cupcake goldfish and the only thing left by the time we got there was pizza flavor blasted goldfish. Rumor has it you have to go first thing in the morning if you want any of the good stuff.

The boys (I love that I don't have to change this phrasing when referring to my kids come baby three.) quickly became impatient in the factory, so we made our way outside in a pretty little nook that had a ton of fallen leaves all over the sidewalk.

The boys loved throwing leaves into the air with Kaelynn while we waited.

We figured we should pick up some pumpkins while we were at Utah's agricultural capital.

I loved Laura's rule that the kids could have any pumpkin they could carry.

We love when cousins come to visit!

Gender Reveal Party!

So remember how I'm taking a picture of my belly every week to prove to baby number three that it is loved just as much as the first two? Well I missed a week. Read into that however you want, third child. But take into consideration that I was sick and puking my guts out and it would have been really confusing to see me lose my belly on week 18 and then have it reappear week 19. So I spared the confusion and skipped a week. 

We made it halfway!

The morning I hit 20 weeks, I got this friendly reminder on my phone:

Not that I needed to be reminded of the big news happening this week. I already had a party in the works!

I was doing pretty good about not focusing a lot of my attention on debating whether or not this baby would be a boy or a girl. In fact, I was kind of relishing in not knowing, because it was kind of fun to be able to daydream about the possibility of having a girl without officially knowing it wasn't a girl.

But the week of our ultrasound, I went full crazy. I was completely consumed in thinking about what we would have, and imagining life with either another little boy or a little girl. I was just ready to know and dying to have to spend the week waiting.

I deep cleaned my house. Organized all the toys. Hand scrubbed the floors. Vacuumed the dust off the fans. Cleaned out every closet in the house. Washed our window seat covers. Washed all our curtains. And that was all before 12:00 in the afternoon on my first day of dealing with my overwhelming nervous energy.

The next day I spent the day going way overboard on party planning. I made flags. I made a party logo. I made a backdrop. I made food. I was running around the house with an inextinguishable energy that would only be dissolved once I knew what we were having.

Needless to say, I didn't sleep much the night before our appointment. My sister asked me just before the appointment how I was feeling and my response was, "I fear I've set myself up for a public emotional breakdown."

I was so nervous because I had no idea how I would really feel if it came down to finding out we were having another boy. As I kept spewing texts off to my sister, I also said, "It's mostly just comical now if it's another boy." I tried to keep that mentality going into the appointment.

The baby was healthy and adorable and it was so fun to see little fingers and toes, and we had the information we needed to carry on with the evening's plans!

I made a little photo booth area for people to cast their votes on whether they thought we were having a boy or a girl. Eli and Carson were firm in their guesses. Eli was sure it was a boy and Carson was persistent it was a girl.

My mom voted boy.

My friend Ashlee was rooting for pink.

Bryan was a boy vote, Celeste a pink.

I think Joe and Kenz felt they would be betraying me if they didn't vote girl.

The Golden family was split.

And the Cox family knows just how desperately we need more girl cousins on the Excell side.

Becky took a moment to show off her perfectly colored pink and blue pumpkin dessert.

The Thomas cousins have been quite liberal lately with their impromptu, mostly cooperative group shots.

My dad has been traveling for work and had told me he would barely not be able to make it to the party. Well you can imagine how surprised I was to see him make a grand entrance! It was such a fun, completely unexpected surprise!

When we were nearing time for the reveal, we Facetimed Abe and gave him the opportunity to officially make his prediction.

We also let Jacob be a virtual guest.

With everyone tuned in and anxious to know the fate of our family, we prepared for the reveal.

Excuse my blurry pictures. I still love the excitement you can sense in all these shots despite the poor quality. We revealed by letting everyone pick either a pink or a blue balloon. On the count of three we had everyone try to blow up their balloon...

The wrong color had little holes poked in the balloons, so they didn't stay blown up.

Because not many people chose the blue balloons, everyone looked to my dad to confirm the blue balloons were staying blown up.

It became very clear the pinks were deflating and the blue...was definitely not.

A THIRD BOY! Is anyone surprised? :) You'd think Eli would have been more excited his prediction was right.

We have just started weening him off his naps and this means he has a strict 7:00 bedtime. This was at about 7:20, and Eli was in full meltdown mode. Poor kid was so tired. It had nothing to do with you, little bro!

You want to know the weird thing? I have been completely, totally, 100% fine, happy and excited about another boy. What? This was totally unexpected. When we found out at the doctor that it was a boy, I just laughed and found the whole thing funny. And then as I saw his little heart pumping, and his little legs kicking, I didn't even care whether it was a boy or girl, I just had an overwhelming feeling of gratitude that he was healthy and I already felt so much love for him.

I went on a walk right after we got back from our appointment and I was smiling the entire way. Then as I was getting ready for the party, I was still totally thrilled to be telling everyone we were having another boy. 

I had visions of our three boys being the best of buds and playing sports together and having funny little inside jokes with each other. I imagined them all being into the same things and loving to have other brothers to always do things with. I imagined them in high school, trying to figure out girls with each other. I imagined sending them off on missions. Everything I saw for our future was fun and exciting, and I think our boys are going to be really close and have so much fun together. 

I can honestly say I am not at all disappointed. Which is weird because I was disappointed with Carson, so I thought it would be even worse this time, but I think I've already mourned the potential possibility of never having a girl and I'm just ready to raise my herd of boys now. Bring 'em on!