Play Place Progressive Lunch

Instead of an adult progressive dinner where you go to different houses for different courses, we did a play place progressive lunch for the kids!

We had our main course at BK before the lunch rush and had the play place to ourselves! Daddy is helping Nicole "get comfortable" with going around the tunnels :-)

Michael just loved running around and only went inside the tunnels a little bit. (bruise update: his eyebrow is now the color of the jacket he's wearing...green)

Happy to be alive and in eager anticipation of more fun to come!We finished off at what Nicole calls "Chick a flay" with a good ol' 97 cent ice cream cone. I have no idea why she ate it with a spoon. We had a great time letting the kids run around indoors for a few hours on this fun holiday weekend!

Thanksgiving Day

T-day was lots of fun! Nicole loved seeing the parades in the morning and we relaxed while watching some football afterwards. We had Thanksgiving Dinner with Robin & Mike (and Weston & Dallin), Christine & Landing, and Ryan and Karen (and their one week old baby!). I'd say the only disaster was when Nicole got into Robin's makeup and floss in her bathroom... Nicole and Weston playing with baby Dallin's toy. My favorite part was when Nicole started tickling Weston and he couldn't escape her :-)

Michael is fully in the era of climbing and spent a lot of time on the table playing with toys.

He fell while holding a big truck earlier and got a big purple bruise above his eye.

This is his second outfit of the night- he had more than five plates full of T-day food before we decided he should probably be done! I love how his hairy chest is exposed :-)

Pie heaven (in clockwise rotation): choclate pecan, apple crumbly, pumpkin, chocolate, lemon meringue, & peanut butter pies!

Nicole and I enjoying a little bit of everything! We agreed this picture should be called "5 1/2 months pregnant and lovin it!!"

Thanksgiving Song

A look at the year along to the song "Everything is Fine"

The not fun kind of vacation

We've been lucky to have daddy home from work and all sorts of at-home time...but only because of sickness. Jim lost his voice completely last week and I told him he was my frog prince (but not getting a kiss :-) Nicole got Fifth's disease, a virus that causes a wierd rash on the face and then a weblike rash on the body-see the picture below. Michael and Nicole both took turns coughing at night, but luckily water in a sippy cup fixed that each night since it wasn't congestion. And me...well, I've been fine, just 5 and a half months pregnant and more than happy when everyone in the family was asleep by 8:30 each night :-)

I plan on lots of pics from Thanksgiving Day, but I wanted to share a few updates and cute stories.

We've been to the doctor a lot lately for my baby appointments to Michael's 15-month appointment to Nicole's sick visit. At Nicole's visit, she answered the nurse's questions as if the nurse were asking her what her symptoms were and even explained how her excema is itchy and needs cream and "I itch it like this." She shared that she was "only three and not five and can't get baptized yet because I'm not eight."

At Michael's visit, the doctor got to deal with my little wiggle worm to try and check him out. After Michael had stolen his cell phone and pen, the doctor emptied his shirt pocket on the table. Michael refused to lay still and at the end of his exam and various comments about Michael's determination to move the doctor gave me a big lecture on saftey since Michael is apparently such a hazard waiting to happen. 4 shots later for Michael and 1 shot later for Nicole (we're all H1N1 and flu vaccinnated now, wohoo!) we got Michael's stats:

Weight: 21lbs5oz (10%, eats like a pig, has Jim's genes to still be this skinny)

Length: 32.5in (>80%)

Head: 18in (when the nurse put the measuring tape around Michael's head, Nicole said "he's a prince!")

Michael still has slight bowleggedness so the doctor was a little concerned about that-apparently doctors are being told to be more on the alert for rickets due to the increasing use of sunscreen and lack of Vitamin D. So our swaggering pirate will hopefully just grow out of this soon so Jim doesn't have to make some AFOs for him.

Meanwhile, preschool is going great and Nicole loves singing time. Here are some of her songs:

Baby is going to be a....

Here's looking at you kid- literally. These are from October 19th and I've finally remembered to post them and our big news! (Each time I go in for the first ultrasounds I'm tempted to tell Jim we're having twins and get someone to record the reaction :-) But no twins here, just a cute happy baby with the womb to himself!
Baby #3 is a boy! The doctor guessed it weeks before we found out (he is good!) but we now know officially! We are all very excited and have picked out a name...we think. This time has been harder to pick one (I guess that happens with the more kids you have) so we'll keep it a surprise for when he comes in case we change our minds.

Top left: looking at crossed feet (apparently he's living the high life)
Top right: hand resting on head (I prefer to think he's scratching his head deep in thought)

Bottom left: Facial profile and little foot!

Bottom right: Facial profile and arm (blowing me a kiss for all that yummy candy corn we've enjoyed)

Video from Halloween Day!

Here's some video of our fun family day!

The Best Day Ever: Halloween

We started off our day 5 minutes up the road at Phillips Corn Maze with tons of farm fun!

They had a corn box instead of a sand box!

Michael is KING OF THE HILL!

Making it through the hay maze for kids!

The Hillbilly Lem-O-Zine with good hillbilly music for your enjoyment!

We took the high adventure cow ride! Fortunately, the driver went slower for us and all the kids, otherwise we would have been COVERED in mud like all of the teenagers that went before us! What a fun ride!

The place wasn't crowded early in the morning, so we could go as many times as we wanted. Once was enough for me and Michael though :-)

Off we go!

Going up the hill before the fast, bumpy ride down!

Wohoo!!

This is one of the parts where the mud could fling up if the driver went fast. Thank goodness he didn't! Nicole thought he was Santa for some reason...

We made it!

Michael really liked this huge tractor!

Off we go to the corn maze! The stalk with an orange handkerchief is if you get lost and need help. Nicole held it up most of the time so I was glad she was too short for anyone to see it anyways. She thought she was more of a standard bearer or something.

Michael led the way and found a shortcut to checkpoint three. Everyone else, however, was determined to take the long way-they thought we'd found the bigger maze-so we had to go follow them. The owners give out a direction hint page with trivia that has different directions to go depending on your answer.

Weston and Nicole made it out! With some extra corn too...

Michael taking a turn at the wheel.

Off on our hayride! We went with Weston and his family and had so much fun with them!

Nicole preparing to throw some hay.

We went to a Halloween party that one of Jim's co-workers was throwing. They just finished a beautiful home and Jim has put in some great muscle-building hours helping with the lawn :-) It was fun to finally see the home and have a great time with everyone! Michael wasn't tall enough to try to only get the doughnut with his mouth, but he couldn't resist grabbing one for himself!

Nicole loved being around all of the other girls, most of whom were a little older and really nice to her.

Nicole was a cowgirl for Halloween but her horse was too hard to wear while playing. We put her in some little shorts so she wouldn't get too hot in her costume and her t-shirt was big for her because it was the only size I could find for a cowgirl shirt. Hence the enormous shirt that looks like it's all she's wearing.

Josh, Sophie, and Ryan's playroom was heaven for Michael- lots of different toys that were all new to him!

Ryan and Michael took turns pushing each other on the favorite toy of the afternoon!

The girls found a ton of ladybugs all over the front porch and caught a ton of them! Nicole loved taking care of her bugs!

Everyone showing their catches!

That night we went over to Weston's house and helped him cut a pumpkin (the stores were sold out of pumpkins so we shared the slime opportunity of degutting the pumpkin!

Michael in his pumpkin costume! This is actually my youngest brother's old costume!

Ready to kiss the pumpkin!

Deciding that eating the pumpkin would be funner!

Here's our cowgirl with her horsie! She loved looking at herself in the mirror and moving her freckles around.

After a house or two, Nicole figured it out and then would take of sprinting to the next house. I ran with her for a bit, then just followed her around. I was amazed how fast she would go and it was pretty funny watching those horse hooves gallop off!

All done! Nicole was pretty adorable with her braids and freckles and excited, sweet "trick or treat" at each house. I was proud of her for being so excited about the candy! Especially since she got two lollipops last night and the rest is for mommy!!!! (okay I did share a few pieces with her today...)

I'll load a fun video of some more fun later! What a day!!!!

Side note that Marian assures me will be funny someday: The next day was daylight savings and we turned our clocks the WRONG way and showed up to church 2 hours early and very tired. This is what we get for growing up in Arizona!