Tuesday, November 15, 2011

A few random tidbits...

Is is just me or can anyone else believe November is already HALF OVER! I feel like Halloween was just a few days ago. Thanksgiving is next week!  I can't believe it. I guess November has flown by since I have been busy getting stuff ready for Christmas so that December doesn't fly by quite so quickly.

Here are a few random bits of what we've been up to...

Lauryn says a few new words each week.  Her favorites are: Mama, Daddy, Shhhh, boots, no no no, Sasha, and thank you.  She does A LOT of pointing and grunting at what she wants.  She says a lot of animal sounds like: cow, monkey, elephant, puppy, kitty, and snake.  She'll point to her eyes, nose, mouth, hair, tummy, feet, and hands. It's fun to "communicate" with her now.

Lauryn is obsessed with being a "BIG" kid and doing everything her brothers do (which is fun to watch, but I wish she wanted to just stay little:). She brushes her teeth several times a day because she can't get enough of standing on the stool with her toothbrush and spitting into the sink like her brothers. When the boys sit down to read, she immediately finds a book and sits down and points to the words like the boys and starts talking gibberish. She won't even sit in her high chair anymore because she wants to sit at the table like the big kids (this is a huge issue). 

So guess what Lauryn does while her brothers do homework?...
She plops herself down and gets a bit of work done herself!
She is so funny.  Notice she's writing with her right hand??  I hope this sticks because she will be my first right handed descendant.  (I have been training her to favor her right hand. I can't teach her how to paint her nails or put makeup on if she's left handed:)
I have to include a picture of our first snow man of the season. The boys built this all by themselves. No help needed from Mom with the snowman building anymore:(.
And on the 9th, Nate and I celebrated our 10th Anniversary!  We are planning a trip in the Spring to celebrate.  Too much going on right now and Lauryn is too little for me to leave for that long.  So Nate's parents watched the kids while Nate and I went to dinner at Flemmings. I had to take a picture of our dessert since it was so pretty.  Fresh berries to dip in fresh cream. Mmmm... 
After dinner we played around and did some Christmas shopping.  It was a really fun night.
  
Sadly, 10 years of marriage is quite and accomplishment these days.  And although that is a long time, neither one of us can believe we have only been married for that long.  It seems like we have been together always.  You know how after you have kids, you can't remember what it was like before you had kids?  I honestly can't remember life before Nate.  It seems like we've always been together.  So I think we've got several more years left in us:).

And this last weekend, my friends and I had a girls weekend.  We stayed in Salt Lake and did a lot of eating and shopping!  That's what we do best;).  We hit H&M on opening day and got some great deals. We had a great time and sadly enough, we did not take one picture!

So that pretty much covers that last couple of weeks.  Spencer was SO sick with the stomach flu yesterday but he made a speedy recovery and is back at school today.  Let's hope he kept his germs to himself:).

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Halloween

On Saturday we had our annual pumpkin carving party at Uncle Doug's house. We had homemade root beer and donuts, sausage dip, and chili.  And we roasted hot dogs over the fire. Then we got to carving!





Aunt Brenda and her family

Uncle Mike and his family

Papa Martin and Paisley

Uncle Doug and his family

The final results after A LOT of carving!

Spencer, Lauryn, and Preston's jack-o-lanterns

On Halloween the kids posed for the traditional front porch picture before a night of trick-or-treating

Spencer the cobra

Spider Man Preston

Lauryn the Angel
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But no trick-or-treating without a full tummy:). Our "dinner in a pumpkin".
My Mom used to make this for us when I was little. It's a casserole made with rice and ground beef that you cook inside a pumpkin. Yum!
We had a great Halloween but I am ready to move onto November!  We ended up with a total of:

2 family parties 
1 work party
2 friend parties 
2 school classroom parties
and way TOO much candy!

The boys seem to have more and more fun with Halloween every year which makes it even more fun for me.  And as long as Lauryn is doing whatever her big brothers are doing, she's thrilled.