a visit from my parents.

my parents stopped in calgary for 10 days on their way from their mission, in Hope, BC, to their home in Gilbert, AZ.

chet and holden were in heaven. and it was tad's first time meeting my dad! 

it was really nice to spend time with them. 

so nice, in fact, that i am now visiting them at their house! 

chet, holden, tad, and i flew down to arizona for a 2 week visit while matt is busy studying for, and attending, a course at the university of calgary for a couple weekends. 

i sure miss him, but it makes sense for needy ol' me to get out of his hair so he can really focus. 

once again, the boys are in heaven being around grandma and grandpa shaughnessy. and i am really appreciating the company and help too. aaaand the warm weather. duh.

prince's island park in november.

the other weekend, we headed downtown to prince's island park (not to be confused with princess island park - the made-up name i have been calling the park my entire life. dang it.)

i really like that park.

i have fond memories of spending time there with my grandma lock.

we should totally go there more often.

this particular visit, we ate a picnic lunch, played on the playground, explored by the river, and just.. wandered.

(pretending to be the beavers that ate that tree.)

soon enough!

chet and holden honestly do everything together so, when chet is at school, holden definitely misses him.

the other day, holden asked if tad could play cars with him. 

so i put tad on the rug, where holden was playing, and watched as he tried his best to include his floppy little brother in his games.

it made me pretty happy! 

tad isn't a whole ton of fun for chet and holden yet.. but that doesn't mean they don't absolutely adore him, and eagerly await the time when he will be the life of the party.

i can hardly wait for tad to start smiling and laughing at his big brothers. they are going to love it!

laying with tad.

tad's first day home:

2 months (minus 5 days) later:

i catch chet and holden laying like this with tad every single day.

they think tad is the cutest.

and i think they are the sweetest.

how depressing!

there was this one day where i spent (what felt like) 8 years getting our boys ready to go run some errands... and then our car wouldn't start.

ugh.

after having a pity party in the car, we went back inside, took a picture of how cute they all looked bundled up, and proceeded to have an unproductive day.

since then, our battery has been replaced, in hopes of preventing another such mishap! 

tad's blessing.

tad was blessed on sunday.
we have been lucky enough to bless all of our boys at home, and i really love the simpleness of that.
this time, it was just our family, my parents, and matt's parents. (plus, a bishopric member.)
there was definitely a special feeling in the room during that blessing.
tad slept through the whole thing.. unlike holden, who screamed through all of his!
it was nice to actually hear the words being spoken :)

after the blessing, we had a tasty meal and we visited.
it was a good night.
we have such great parents.

for the record, tad is now 11 weeks.

7 lbs 11 oz.
he is just about ready to move out of newborn diapers and clothes (which makes me wonder if the average brand new baby - who is the size tad is now - ever even needs newborn sized stuff?!)
he has a couple times a day where he is awake just kinda hangs out.
he really just fusses when he is hungry or gassy.
and, i have to admit, i love his scrunched up crying face. haha his lips just go so pouty, and he acts as if the fact that he has been hungry for all of 27 seconds is, quite literally, the worst thing currently occurring on earth.
he likes his vibrating chair.
his neck is getting stronger, but he still only holds it up for a few seconds at a time before it flops over.
he got his passport picture taken last week (that process was hilarious! my mom was there to help and we were both laughing pretty hard!).
tad will be the proud owner of a passport next friday.. just in time for his first flight to arizona on the 19th.
his brothers looove him.
he hates baths.

he still hasn't smiled on purpose yet - i am really looking forward to that!
he is basically perfection.

here are some cute tad faces.

2 seconds later --->

and some of the bigger boys too.

holden accidentally drew on his nose the other day..

 so, naturally, chet has to do the same thing.

matt and i agree that, every day chet goes to school, he comes home a little bit goofier!
where does he learn some of this stuff?!

halloween 2015.

i have a confession:

our family did not carve a pumpkin this year.

chet had so many halloween events, in the week leading up to halloween, where he accumulated 3 different pumpkins (2 painted, 1 carved), and we had 6 pumpkins from our garden scattered about our house, and matt carved pumpkins with the YM... that it almost seemed ridiculous to purchase another pumpkin to carve!

and, since holden and tad did not seem to care either way, i decided to forego the messy tradition until next year.

we did other fun things to celebrate the ridiculous holiday, though. don't worry.

last year, i spent a ton of time, and effort, making (what i thought were) the cutest batman and robin costumes for the boys.

i had so much fun putting them together and watching the boys in them.

i was really looking forward to a similar experience this year.

unfortunately, chet asked if it would be alright if i did not make his costume this year - he really wanted a store-bought one.

laaame.

i was kinda bummed at first (mostly because i think the majority of store-bought costumes are super tacky) but, since halloween is all about THEM, not ME, i agreed to not make their costumes this year.

and, in the end, it was a pretty good idea.

we actually borrowed costumes from cousins (that were once bought from a store) and the big boys dressed up as firefighters.

they loved it. aaand they looked super cute.

tad wore a skeleton sleeper that his aunt melissa gave him (and that he peed on just minutes before i planned to take a picture).
he made for a cute skeleton.

it was easy. and free!

for trick or treating, we stuck around our neighborhood, and went out just with our little family.

i was worried it might be kinda boring for the boys (compared to the previous year spent with lots of cousins) but it actually turned out to be a the perfect set up for our family this year.

and, for calgary, it was a perfect halloween night - no snow, no wind, not too cold.

i thoroughly enjoyed walking around that night with our boys. they were so happy!

holden actually grasped the concept this year and, being a total candy freak, thought the night was quite magical!

i got to go to chet's school for a halloween celebration on the 28th.

it was fun to finally see him in his classroom setting with his new friends.

my goodness, he has grown into a full-fledged kindergartner!

his class:

side note: i could never be a kindergarten teacher because i couldn't handle the clutter!

just looking at this picture gives me stress :/

chili champions.

matt and i won our ward chili cookoff, a couple weeks ago.

(most likely because matt told all his young men to vote for us!)

we now have an obnoxious trophy to display in our home until next year!