Blessing pictures, Halloween, and some kind of update

So I have been visiting my blog almost daily since the last entry, and thinking to myself, "I really need to post something today" and then my attention would get called away elsewhere and it wouldn't happen. I would feel more and more guilty every time I logged onto the blog. But having three kids is.... time consuming. I wouldn't say it's necessarily hard (at least not every day), but I am very blessed to have a wonderful husband who rushes home from work to help me, an amazing support system of sisters in the ward who offer all the time to spell me by taking one or two of my kids, and I also have a pretty easy baby boy who is treated so kindly by his sisters who live for nothing else but to help him or help me help him. But having three is very time consuming. Lots of things I used to do on a regular basis are slipping away. We still go out every day to do something fun, and I still find the time to exercise every day (even if it adds to my sleep deprivation) and I still get dinners made, the kitchen clean and my bed made. But some of the things that have slipped have caught me by surprise. I went to find some jewelry on Sunday on top of the book shelf and was surprised to find everything coated in half and inch of dust. The clothes are put away, but in mad disarray in the closets and drawers. The kitchen floor needs mopping, badly, and the bathroom needs to be tackled yesterday. I have forgotten how far back our leftovers date from, but I really cringe at the thought of cleaning out the fridge to find out. I just prefer to put fresh food in the front and shove the older stuff to the back. Anyway, you get the idea. Things have just been busy busy busy, and last weekend was the busiest yet, but it was also amazing.

This past Saturday we blessed Michael. It was really nice because we got a lot of family together for the occasion. My mom got to fly out for the long weekend and to visit Michael for the first time. Doug's parents also got to come down, and so Papa got a chance to meet his grandson. The only grandparent to not have met him is my dad, but Christmas is in 6 weeks and he'll have two whole weeks with him then. Doug and I have almost all our extended family living in Utah, so having a baby blessing is kind of a big deal. We had almost 50 people come over to Grandma Jacobson's club house in Lehi for the blessing and lunch afterward. We attempted to hold the blessing get together with Eloise in our house, and we were literally cheek to cheek, so we opted for a bigger location this time, and it was much nicer. We also had the blessing on Saturday firstly to accommodate my mom's long weekend and early flight out on Sunday, and my ward was having the Primary program that Sunday. (Side note on that, Evelynn bore her testimony for it and did awesome, and I'm the chorister and couldn't have been happier with how the kids performed. They knew all the words and sang loudly and were so well behaved. Way to go guys!) For the lunch after the blessing Doug smoked 17 lbs of pork shoulder and made pulled pork for everyone, which was fantastic! He learned from a guy in our ward who is a champion barbequer, but for his first time flying solo, Doug did a stellar job. He had to stay up late into the night to get it prepped and cooking so it would be ready in time, but it was so worth it. I want to do it again soon! Here's a few pictures for your viewing enjoyment.

Post blessing picture. Michael is in the Jacobson blessing blanket that Doug was blessed in, but we got him his own outfit. You'd be shocked at how hard it is to find a 0-3 month baby church outfit! We went to 4 stores and finally found ONE in the last store, and it was the only one there!

Family picture with no one looking except Eloise, and Michael is crying. Classic. :) Pictured here is my mom Colleen, Doug, Eloise, me, Michael, my younger sister Lori, Evelynn, and my older brother Jesse.

The family line through the females. This is my grandma Showalter (my mom's mom).

Four generations of the Jacobson boys. Keith Earl Jacobson, David William Jacobson, Douglas Keith Jacobson, and Michael David Jacobson. The son takes on the grandpa's name as their middle name.

We also celebrated Halloween amidst all this hullabaloo. These pictures were from a party at BYU on Thursday, kind of like a kick off for the weekend and a chance to try on their costumes which they were dying to wear since we bought them last week.

Evelynn was a Spider witch, but she did not want a spider on her face, so she got a bat instead.

Eloise was a fairy.

We carved pumpkins for FHE. This year we got smart and limited the girls to choosing faces for us to carve in their pumpkins and then only bought one for Doug and I to share. It made the whole process much simpler and faster. Eloise just wanted to stir her "pumpkin cake" (aka the seeds and guts) but was very proud of her tiny pumpkin she picked out.

Evelynn scooped out most of the guts herself.

After the blessing, Grandma Jacobson hosted a Halloween get together with the people in her neighborhood, and she had some of her daughters and granddaughters dress up as witches to deliver invitations. Grandma's costume was pretty amazing.

Here's the crew. They danced from door to door for almost and hour delivering invitations.

And my girls in their costumed glory.

Here they are getting in some pre-trick-or-treating practice in before the real thing. Unfortunately it rained, hard, during the time the girls were out and they got soaked and came in early. I was not taking them out (he he he, thank goodness for grandmas!) but they came home with quite enough candy as it was. They had more fun handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters who came to the door anyway.

The rest of the pictures are just things we've been up to lately. Michael's getting bigger, a little at a time. It was amazing to see him with Doug's dad, because he could be a Dave Jacobson doppelganger, if you could have one of those as a baby. You can definitely see the Jacobson strain coming through with him.

The weather has been really nice (minus Halloween when it rained so much) so we have spent a lot of time outside. It's been so nice, and I do not looked forward to winter but I guess we'll manage.

This video is a few weeks old, but it shows how dang cute my son is. I can't get the giggles out of him like his dad can.