Bumbo Chair

Jemma is growing up! She is 3 months old--can you believe it?! She is sure a fun girl! She has such personality already. She had flipped (front to back and back to front) a couple times, and if you lay her on the ground, she pivots in circles around her head. I constantly lament to Scott that we got another hyper one! Oh, and that swing we got? Jemma refuses to sit in it. She arches her back, and she prefers to be held up right, so she can see people at all times.

That's why I decided the Bumbo chair needed to be pulled out! Jemma has some competition for it--big sister and big brother think it's pretty cool too. That's what moms are for though...to make sure the baby actually gets a turn in it! I just can't believe how big Jemma looks in these pictures!

Everyone watches out for Baby Jemma!

And...all good things must come to an end!

Hansen's Pumpkin Patch!

There is a pumpkin patch is Elsinore (about 5 minutes from us)! We were in Vernal last year for UEA break, and we didn't get to go to the pumpkin patch. This year, we knew we wanted to go! There is a tractor/hayride out to the field, and then free rides at the patch. The only thing we paid for were the pumpkins, and we got a steal of a deal!

The man who owns the patch is getting older, and he couldn't weed like he has in the past. A lot of the pumpkins had green on them (the sunlight is what turns them orange) because the weeds were blocking the light. For the entire experience, it was totally okay with me!

We have always called the furrows in our kids' eyebrows "The Lisa Look". For some reason, I always have a concerned or mean look on my face...I not usually concerned or trying to be mean, it just happens! Our kids ALL have the look. Looks like "The Lisa Look" is now rubbing off on Scott! (The sun probably didn't help either... :) )

Our attempt at a family picture:

Jemma has had a rough bout with teething! She screamed the entire way to the patch. She finally collapsed when we got there. I brought the carrier, so I could wear her around the patch. Once she fell asleep, we felt bad moving her, so we brought the car seat. She woke up as soon as the tractor started, and she was awake the rest of the time. I felt bad she had to strapped to a car seat, but she didn't seem to mind! Macey was more than happy to find a pumpkin for Jemma. In fact, she found Jemma's pumpkin before she found her own!

The tractor driver asked if Cooper wanted to sit on the tractor to his picture taken. We thought he would love it. He cried and pointed back at Macey, screaming "Ma-mey! Ma-mey!" the entire time. Eh, not so much. :)

We got back to the main area just in time to take the kids on a train ride. I quickly put Jemma in a sling, and Macey and Cooper rode with Scott. It was so fun to hear the kids giggling and saying "Woah, woah!"

October Random!

I don't have too many random pictures this month, but here is what is leftover! :)

Scott and I went to see "Meet the Mormons"! I always dread paying for babysitters (sometimes, I am too cheap for my own good...) but this was TOTALLY worth it! If you haven't seen it: go! Personally, It strengthened my own faith, and my spiritual resolve to be a little better. Go! You won't regret it!

Cooper loves his sister. He is always two steps behind her, and Jemma always gives him the biggest grins in return! (Please disregard Cooper's pink shoes. Sometimes, it's rough being the only boy!)

Cooper is always ready for a picture! He squints his eyes, tilts back his head and says, "CHEESE!". Cute kid!

SSHS Football!

The kids love football. Everything about it, they love. We have tried to go to as many games as we can this year, and it has been a really good experience for all of us! The first football game we tried to take the kids to, it poured rain. We were soaked, so we watched the game from the van. This was our next football experience!

I finished dinner late, so we watched the first part of the game online. Cooper was sucked in! He LOVES football!

When we got home, the kids went right to sleep, and Scott put Jemma to sleep. I think I will always love these newborn snuggles!

Some Days...

Some days we all just need to cuddle on the couch and watch some PBS shows. One day a couple weeks ago, the camera came out when it happened!

The Swing!

A couple weeks ago, I realized Jemma was becoming disinterested in the bouncer, as all my kids have. I knew that it was time to pull out the swing! I pulled it out of the shed, and we began to put it together...all of us. Because, didn't you know, it takes a village of Bagley's to raise a baby! 

We put the batteries in first. I then spent about 30 frustrated minutes putting the rest of the swing back together. At that point, Scott got home from work. I vented my frustrations to him. He suggested, after all this work, maybe we should turn it on, just to make sure it worked. With brand new batteries...nothing. Awesome. We didn't ever finish putting it back together. I guess our pink clearanced swing lasted through two kids. I count that a success!

We let the kids work on it a little longer!

We went to our Wal-Mart to get a new swing. We had two options--same brand, same design, but one was 70 dollars and one was 100. We really didn't want to spend that much...at all, but we grit our teeth and bought the $70 one. It's actually really nice...a lot nicer than the last one we had, and it folds up. For our small house, we like things that compact! It has worked quite nicely for Jemma, and it holds her and rocks her when I can't. (That breaks my heart to even type...but it's true. During the day, there just aren't enough hands to go around!)

And then...All good things must come to an end, right? :)

New Carpet!

There is so much that can be said in this blog post! There are also many pictures. Let us see if I can condense. :)

My Grandma Allen passed away in the beginning of June. She was actually my last living grandparent to pass away, so it was an emotional experience for me. (Being VERY pregnant and emotional to begin with didn't help. :) ) We knew she would be passing on soon because she had been in pain and had been suffering for so long. She passed away just shy of her 92nd birthday. I am so grateful that we were able to move to Utah when we did, so I could get to know her better before she passed away.

Long story short, I have amazing grandparents and parents, and as such, I was given a part of her inheritance. It was quite a bit of money to us, so we held on to the money for a few months until we decided what we wanted to do. We started off buying a ceiling fan for the kids' room. We used the rest of the money to buy carpet for our home. (Or paying for the majority of it!)

Our carpet wasn't in too bad of shape. It was really bad in the family room area, though, and we live most days in there. (Although, when we pulled up carpet, it looked like there were animal stains all over it. We had no idea what we were walking on!)

The kids' room had laminate flooring. Because their room isn't insulated well (hence a fan for summertime), their floors are freezing in the winter! I really wanted to add carpet to their room.

We ordered it through Home Depot, had a guy come from Salt Lake to measure our home, and a few weeks later, we had carpet installers come.

In the process, we discovered it would cost almost $1,000 more for the carpet layers to pull up our old carpet and laminate flooring and dispose of it. I told Scott we could do that. Ha...I told many people we could do that, and their eyes instantly got big and said something to the effect of how difficult that would be.

I now know why their eyes got big. :)

I still didn't like the idea of paying that much money to have someone do something I could do. I still don't! :)

The week before the big carpet change, I decided to paint one of the kids' rooms. It is halfway filled with wood paneling and was very poorly painted before. I filled hundreds of dings in the walls. Literally, hundreds. My dad loaned me his electric sander, and I sanded the wood paneling until I liked it. It took 5 days to complete--with Scott's help--at night time. The color isn't that different, but it was brighter! I am sure I am the only one who can tell the difference! But trust me, it looks awesome!

And...I didn't take a finished picture. You will have to see them with the new carpet photos!

On Friday, we had this crazy idea that we would drop our kids off and grandparents, run to Costco in Spanish Fork, grab dinner on the way, stop in at the Homecoming game, grab caffeine, and then start ripping carpet up! So that's what we did, and it was crazy!

We only stayed until the 3rd quarter because it got too late. We ran quickly to Andy's for 44 ounce caffeinated drinks and chocolate covered cinnamon bears. We started at 9:00 PM. Here are a bunch of before pictures. (Oh and did I mention we moved all of our furniture to our laundry room, bathroom, pantry and kitchen? Of course, leaving a pathway for the new carpet to be brought in!)
Jemma fell asleep really quickly (thank goodness!) and we got to work:

The kids' room, before:

The other kids room, freshly painted!:

Family Room, Before:

Then we (by we, I mean Scott) ripped up the flooring in the kids' room!

The carpet, oh the carpet! We were ripping up carpet until 5:30 AM!! It was an incredibly long, long night! The worst part wasn't ripping it up or rolling it out of our house. It was pulling up all the staples that were used to hook down the carpet padding. The carpet pading was only about 2.5 feet wide, so each room had about 5 strips of staples, 2 inches apart that had to be pulled up. My hands could barely move the next day!

More Family Room, before:

Master Bedroom, before:

We slept on our mattress on the floor until 9:30 AM. We went and picked up a quick breakfast...because there was no cooking or eating to be found in our home. Want to see where all the furniture went?

Oh, and here is all our old carpet...ready to be hauled to the shed!

We laid on the lawn all day! We watched conference, got food to eat, and slept. I felt miserable...which I attributed to my lack of sleep. I found out the next day that what I was feeling was the beginning of the stomach flu...which totally settled in on Sunday. Yay :)

The carpet guys didn't leave until 6:45 PM. We didn't think it would take that long! We spent until 11:30 PM putting furniture back. We only moved back what was necessary, and we have been slowly unpacking the rest. Notice how I didn't say we have UNPACKED...because we still have boxes. With the stomach flu, and three kids...it just hasn't happened. So...ignore messes you may see in after pictures! One day, my house will be totally cleaned!

Oh, and I told the kids the whole way home that we had a surprise for them at home. I got them super excited. Come to find out, kids don't get that excited over new carpet. Don't be fooled by this picture...they found the toys. Toys are more exciting than carpet.

The kids' new room!

The new Master Bedroom!

The new Family Room!

I absolutely LOVE my new carpet...everything about it! We are retraining all the kids on carpet etiquitte...which is rough at times! It was hard work. Really hard work. Scott and I were truly exhausted after this weekend. I think we are just now beginning to get that energy back!

Here is to moving before we have to replace carpet again! (Or being rich enough to have someone else do it for us...ha!)