Merry Christmas

I have neglected the blog lately. I'll try to do better.

Much overdue pictures of the kids decorating the tree. It was very heavy on the bottom and hasn't looked the same any two days in a row, since they are constantly rearranging the ornaments.

A cheesy pic of G. She's such a ham, all I have of her are cheesy pics.


Bradley stood on a stool to reach higher.

Aunt Ticia is here and she took this pic of us all playing Uno at our house on Tuesday night.

Christmas morning, opening stocking presents.

Opening their only gift from Doug and I. A picture of the swing set we will (hopefully) build for them next weekend.

Bradley's birthday

I stink. Bradley's birthday was the 17th and I'm just now posting about it. I have done so much better with birthdays in the past. :(

The birthday boy, first thing in the morning. Cuddled in mama's chair with big sister watching TV.


Helping mama make the cake. Pouring 'slowly into the middle' of the bowl.


"Helping" beat the cake.


His favorite part... licking the beater!

Since it was his birthday, I let him clean out the bowl too.

He wanted to call and share the news that it was his birthday so he called Grammy first...

and then Grandma.

When Aunt Ticia called and told him "Happy Birthday!" he told her "happy birthday" right back. :)

Apparently birthdays are exhausting because he fell asleep on the couch.

Licking the icing beater after his snooze.

Gracie joined in on the icing action.

Getting ready to blow out the candles!

Yummy cake!

Gracie likes it too.

Opening presents!

The legos were a huge hit. The kids and Doug had to play with them immediately.

We had Bradley's party here on Sunday. Our plans for a party with his friends from school fell through, so it was just a family/family friend party here at our house. He didn't miss his school friends and had a great time.

He opened lots of presents:

He got to blow out another candle on another cake:

And eat another yummy cake. Chocolate this time.

He's officially a big FOUR year old now.

His stats from his 4 year checkup on the 19th are:

43 lbs (90-95%)

42 inches (90%)

Happy Birthday Big Boy!

Cheap labor

A little over a week ago, I tackled priming the room that will be the baby's. The kids wanted to help. They did pretty well actually. For the 20 minutes or so that it was fun and then they bailed on me.

Growing...

This is me today. I'm 23 weeks, 6 days.



I gained 9 pounds in the last 4 weeks. I don't know how that happened, but I'm going to have to do better this next month. (Yeah right, with Thanksgiving in there, who am I kidding?)

Time is flying and I haven't done anything to prepare for this baby's arrival. Time to get motivated to paint the nursery and start sorting through all the baby stuff that is stuffed in the closet.

One decade

This was our family 10 years ago on Nov 6th. Just two 22 year old kids who were in love.



Ten years later, a lot has changed. We are not a family of two anymore, we have added 2 kids with another on the way. We have moved three times, driven 5 different cars and changed jobs more than a dozen times. We have been through losses of loved ones. We have laughed a lot. We have cried a lot (ok, I have cried a lot... I still haven't seen Doug cry after 12 years together). We have tried new things. We have stayed in touch with friends and lost touch with others. Through it all, we have been there for each other.

It doesn't seem possible that it has been 10 years already. I guess time really does fly when you're having fun.


I love this life with this man and these children.
I am the luckiest woman in the world.

* Sorry I don't have a more recent family picture. I probably need to do something about that soon, don't I? ;)

Halloween

The Little Mermaid and the pirate.


The best solo shot of the the pirate.


Little Mermaid, hamming it up.


The best shot of trick-or-treating that Doug got. He and his parents took the kids out while I stayed here with my mom and a friend passing out candy.

The kids with our jack-o-lantern (which was gross and full of mold by the time Halloween got here).

They got a TON of candy. We'll see if it's all gone by Christmas...

Jack-o-Lantern, a first for us

So we suck. We have never carved a pumpkin as a family before. I've often bought pumkins, but we always set them out whole as fall decorations. This year, Gracie asked about 100 times to make a jack-o-lantern, so we did it.

Gracie was very active in the whole process (Bradley, not so much). She spent quite a bit of time digging out the innards.


And she told Doug exactly how she wanted the face to look.


Here is the drawn on face, before carving began.


Bradley watches. That's about all he did.

Gracie cleaning the seeds...

and getting them ready to roast.

Sorry, I didn't take a finished picture. I'll take one on Halloween when it's lit up and post it with costume pics later.

The payoff

The summer heat and humidity nearly killed us all after being away from it for almost two years. The cooler fall temps are the payoff. If we were in Calgary right now, we'd already have had several snowfalls and need winter coats already. Here, we're still in shorts with an occasional jacket needed. We've been taking full advantage of the weather with trips to the park as often as we can go. These pics are from Saturday's park excursion.

Gracie climbing the 'volcano'.


Doug doing the zip line.


Bradley loves to sit up in this thing, but won't climb up or down, so we have to lift him in and out.


Gracie loves it too, and has multiple ways of climbing in.

Driving the fire truck.

Doug loves this jumpy thing.

Gracie going across the monkey bars all by herself!

Sliding down 'the Bradley sized slide'.

Doug and Gracie swinging.