Cousin Birthdays...

My mom and my brother's family both came in to town the weekend before Thanksgiving to start off the Holiday's and to celebrate the November birthday's of the cousins. There are three that were birthed in November; my Tucker, and my nieces Cassidy & Aubrie, Allen's daughters.

We had grand plans to celebrate their birthday's right, and that we did!

First up on the docket was build-a-bear. But grandma couldn't take the birthdayers there without taking the rest of the children. So, all got to go and be recipients of the generous birthday extravaganza. 

(Lucky Taylor, Kenzie & Keyton!)

Needless to say the kids loved it and had a great time choosing their animal and stuffing it, and dressing it.

Here they are prepping their animal's hearts to go inside:

Tucker chose a dog:

Taylor, making one last check to make sure everything looked good on her kitty-cat:

It is like serious business at the build-a-bear, something I didn't realize before going there! :)

Taylor was a bit afraid of the cleaning station:

Then the real fun began:

Cassidy, of course made her kitty a princess, and below is Keyton with his batman dog.

My children chose to forgoe the clothes, and got instead, a set of roller skates for their animals.

Look at that face, the little stinker. She's spoiled and she knows it! (Especially when Grandma is in town!)

Next up was dinner at Chuck E Cheese. Is any birthday complete without a visit to Chuck E Cheese? :) Grandma and the girls playing:

And here is Ben trying to help relieve some of my dad's stress. Looks like he's really enjoying it! :)

Next up was cake and presents at our house. Complete with three different cakes and candy to boot for all the kids. Because it's not like they had already been spoiled enough that day!

Tucker, Cassidy & Aubrie all got to open their presents, and I think it's safe to say they all got some great gifts and all left pretty happy!

I was particularly glad that Aubrie's favorite gift was the elephant shooter that her Aunt Taraka got her. I don't mean to brag or anything, but I am pretty good at picking out presents for kids! :)

And these three girly's were so cute together all night, BFF's in the making! I love having close cousins, I hope that it stays this way for them! (That is if Kenzie ever gets to live anywhere near us!) :)

Thanks grandma for making this special birthday party so much fun for the kids!

BOTH of their grandparents are wonderful, as my dad also is also very generous with his time, gift giving & love!

They don't know how lucky they are!

Baby makes 3...

Well, if we aren't friends on facebook, you might not know this, but we are expecting Baby #3 in June! June 10th to be exact. We hadn't 'officially' announced it, but all of our family and friends here in Spokane whom we see everyday knew. I didn't mean to keep everyone in the dark, and then by the time I started showing and looking pregnant, we were almost to the point of finding out the sex anyway, so I thought I'd wait.

We found out in October, I took a test without telling Ben, although I think we both knew. I took it the morning of October 6th. I hadn't had a period in September, and wanted to wait so as not to get my hopes up. Sure enough it was positive! :) I went and got a whole bunch (30-which seemed like a lot more at the time, here in the pictures, it doesn't look like that many) :) of balloons, and I had them filled with helium and put them in our dungeon, I mean basement room. I tied the pregnancy test to one of them. I was so proud of myself for keeping quiet all day about it. That night he went to bed, and I was upstairs chatting with my mom, who happened to be visiting at that time. And, of course, he came right up and was so excited!

**With Tucker I was in such shock, that I called him right away ( I was at work, and only took a pregnancy test to support a friend who had been trying and we took one together--and was SHOCKED when it was positive) and I always wished that I had done something more creative. With Taylor we had been trying for a while, so I was taking a lot of pregnancy tests, so he knew exactly when it was positive. Anyhoo...it was a fun way to tell him, and then the next day we told the kids and of course, after that they spilled the beans to whomever would listen to them! :) We are 99% sure that this is our last, so I wanted to make it fun.

Fast Forward a few months, and I started showing at the beginning of December, at about 14 weeks:

My goal was to take a picture every week of my belly, here is 15 weeks:

But, surprise surprise, those were the only two shots I got! :) So that lasted a total of 2 weeks. :) 

Until the day we found out what HE is:

And here I am that same day, at 20 weeks:

It was so much fun to all be in the ultrasound room together, just the 4 of us. When she said it was a boy (and it was CLEARLY a boy, he was not hiding at all!) I was in shock! I guess because I have been in girl mode for the past few years with Taylor, I thought for sure it was a girl for some reason. I am SUPER excited about it being a boy though and can't wait to bust into all of Tucker's old baby things and clothes. Tucker was such an easy and fun chubby little baby and I keep on picturing him as a baby in my head, and if that is at all what this little man will be like, I will be the luckiest mother alive! And if you know me at all, you know I LOVE boy toys! They are so much more fun! I think I get more excited about getting Tucker toys than he is and with Taylor I'm always at a loss. The kids were so excited, and I got excited about the idea of having my one little Taylor girl as my little friend for the rest of my life. And Heaven knows Tucker needs a roommate, he hates to do anything by himself, and hopefully this little one will be a good friend for him in a few years. But now I will never get my little Bailey Glo (that was my girl name) and am at a total loss for boy names. The kids in primary today suggested: Tony, Tommy, Toby, Jabba the Hut, Spiderman. Tucker likes Cooper and that is pretty much all we have right now. Ben is adamant about it NOT being a T name, as that was never our plan. I don't care, part of me thinks that at this point, maybe we should continue it, but it doesn't matter to me either way. There isn't a T name I am in love with.

I am feeling good, just tired a lot! But that is to be expected with two other ones running around! I can't complain though, because I have fairly easy pregnancies. I have noticed with this one, because of my miscarriage last year (which I thought I was totally over) I get anxiety before every doctor appointment until I hear that little healthy heartbeat, and then I sigh a huge sigh of relief. The Ultrasound on Friday when we found out he was a boy, was great, she said everything looked perfect, so I have a lot of peace of mind right now about that. I am sure everything will be fine, but sure can't wait to be holding this little one in my arms--if you know what I mean! :)

And that about sums things up right now for us! It has been so much fun, a bit of an emotional roller coaster mixed in with some anxiety, but mostly pure excitement and joy thinking about adding a third little one to our family! I am completely content right now and couldn't ask for more.

The beginnings of November...

November came and started out so beautifully!

Unfortunately, the night that I took the above picture, Tucker & I noticed on our way to put him to bed that it had started snowing. 

The first snowfall of the season.

Of course, Tucker was thrilled about this and just stood there looking out our front door excitedly.

And by the next morning, it looked like this. I always think that the first snow fall of the season is beautiful. I love it on that first day. It is so beautiful and serene. It seems to just get nasty and dirty the day after that, so my excitement for it wares off really fast!

And even though it wasn't a lot, they had to go play in it!

For me, the first snow fall meant turning on the heat. Unfortunately, by doing so I almost burned down our house! I am not used to base board heating, and that is what this house has. Shortly after turning up the thermostat I started to smell a burn. I thought at first it was just, ya know, old dust burning off from not being used for so long. After 20-30 minutes or so, I started to get worried, and started checking around and sure enough, found that the back of our couch had been burned to a crisp! Oops! We got lucky on that one!

The first few weeks of November for me were filled with wedding planning. Which I loved! I am in trouble when one of my own children, or actual family members gets married. One of my best friends' daughters got married. I helped her with the planning of the wedding and threw her a bridal shower (along with 2 of our other friends)

Here is what took over my house for a few weeks:

I seriously gathered and created stuff every night! It was fun, but exhausting!

I did all the decor for the shower, along with the thank you gifts.

The cute 'Mr. & Mrs.' sign I made:

 

I think it turned out pretty cute! Her wedding decor was shabby chic & romantic.

Cute Madison:

I also took her wedding & bridal photos this month, but more to come on those!
We also got this little man's school picture back, which turned out awful, so we had to do re-takes.

Such a sweet boy!

Taylor also got to go to her first friend birthday party. Her little friend, Abbey. We do a play group with all of these girls and rotate houses, and it is so nice for Taylor to have cute little friends. I was so much better about getting Tucker into play groups and co-ops. Poor Taylor's only friends have been Tuckers friends up to this point in her life. I'm glad she has some cute little friends. :)

It was a princess party and they were supposed to wear princess dresses, and it made me realize that we have none! Taylor isn't really into the girly girl thing, so she just wore a pretty church dress. :) Close enough, right  Plus, I knew that Abbey had more than her share of princess attire, and she would be fine if she really wanted to wear a princess dress.

Savanah, Abbey, Taylor & Zoe.

{Taylor's best friend from the play group is actually, Drew, the only boy (go figure) but he didn't come to the princess party!} :)

I love this time of year when the weather starts getting chill and there are more reasons to hunker down inside together as family and friends. And we've had plenty of reasons to celebrate so far this season. Stay tuned for even more celebrations to come! :)

Grandma's visit at Halloween...

My mom came at the end of October to visit. She had a few things going on. First, we were watching my niece for the weekend while my sister went to a quilting retreat (Jason was in Texas for the month) and she was going with all of the women in his family, so we got to watch the Kenzie girl! :) And second, for a Dr. appointment for my grandma. She came down the Wed. before and stayed for a whole week. And man, did we cram a lot into that week! It was so much fun, but it was such a whirl-wind trip, looking back, I don't know how we survived.

The very first night she was here, we headed to Tuckers school Fall Carnival. It was so much fun, and they asked me to take pictures for the yearbook (surprise, surprise!) :) So I was busy running around doing that, Tucker was running around with his buddies, and my mom was on Kenzie & Taylor duty! :)

Here is Tucker with his friend, Brooklyn decorating sugar cookies:

Grandma helped Kenzie & Taylor decorate cookies:

Ireland, Brooklyn & Tucker:

The gym was full of different types of games, and it was so much fun to watch Kenzie go from game to game, like she owned the place! :) Grandma really had to reign her in!

She did NOT want grandma to help her, she wanted to do it all by herself!

And doing things her own way, she wanted to put the velcro balls on the target herself!

Coloring cousins...

Then they got their faces painted,and it was so much fun to watch them. They were SO serious about the whole thing! :) Kenzie got a heart:

Tucker got fangs:

And we have yet to figure out what Taylor was:

Whatever it was, she was happy! :)

The next day we stopped at some peoples house so I could pick something up for a friend, and their dog attacked me! It was the scariest thing! I immediately started crying on the front door step! :) But my pants didn't have a hole in them so I just thought it wasn't as bad as I was making it out to be. I got in the car, pulled down my pants, and it was bleeding and already bruising. So I went to the Urgent care. It was a bit crazy! My poor mom stayed in the car for three hours with the three kids while I was in the clinic! I don't know how she didn't go crazy! Two Urgent care trips and a Tetanus shot later, I was all good! I didn't like dogs before, but now I literally get anxiety when a big one gets near me!

Tucker got to test run his Halloween costume at a friends birthday party. He wanted to be a boxer so he just wore athletic shorts, his robe and he had boxing gloves. We also painted one of his eyes black to look like a black eye. But without the gloves, it was hard to tell what he was. When we walked into the party, he didn't have them on and the boy's dad thought he was a Shepard with a black eye! :)

My mom got a hotel room for a few nights that my grandma was with her. So we did some hanging out there, and swimming. Kenzie just doing a little business:

And then Taylor got to:

Our Shepard boy and Kenzie playing:

We had a few movie & picnic dinner nights:

Grandma got to go to Tuckers last soccer game of the season. It was so much fun! I loved going to Tuckers soccer games. His last game he got to play against his best friend, Garret's team.

And he even scored a few goals! (I think grandma was really proud!) :)

Tucker & Garret after the game:

Emily giving Tucker a High-five:

And of course, grandma treated Tucker to Krispy Kreme after his game:

On Sunday afternoon, it looks like me and my grandma had the same idea. We were all just lounging around chatting and my mom said that before she knew it, we were both out! :)

Grandma got Taylor a new Dora doll sometime during the week, which got taken with us EVERYWHERE! Dora became part of our family. She had to have a kiss goodnight and a blanket at bed time, and as you can see here, a bowl and spoon for cereal for breakfast! :)

On Halloween day we went to U-High to go trick or treating in the morning, with our friends, the Mortensens:

Taylor wasn't so sure about the whole idea:

Look at that glare:

{The funniest thing happened right after this picture, there was a coffin on the ground, with what looked like a fake mummy in it, and as my mom walked by the mummy grabbed my mom's ankle and scared her half to death! I have never seen her jump like that! :)}

Until she saw John, then she was a happy girl! :) --these two, I tell ya!!!--

Kenzie May showed up and was the cutest little owl!

After a morning of swimming with grandma at her hotel, I got to go with Tucker to school to help out with his school party. They had a costume parade:

I was in charge of a game, it was get the candy corn using chopsticks, but since we didn't have any chopsticks, they used pencils! :)

After school, Tucker started to complain about a stomach ache (surprise, surprise!), so we went home and he threw up! Not a great way to end Halloween day, but he seemed to feel fine after getting it out of his system, so him and I stayed home and passed out candy while Taylor and Ben went to a nearby neighborhood for some trick or treating. We were going to all get together in the evening for trick or treating, but just ended up all doing our own things. But I have to say, I didn't mind staying in and passing out candy with Tucker, we had a great time together, him and I. We watched Home Alone (his choice) and I think he actually enjoyed it just as much! Ben walked through the door about an hour later with Taylor asleep on his shoulder, so apparently my kids had had enough of Halloween! :) And honestly so had I! :)

Grandma left early the next morning after we all had candy for breakfast. :) We took down the Halloween decorations, and it was in the books! :) We sure had fun while she was here, though, it seemed like we crammed in enough stuff to last a month, it was hard for me to believe it had only been a week!