Snow Day!

We did have a little dusting of snow a couple of weeks ago, but this was the first REAL snow for our little Hawaiian and Texan children who have never really seen snow. It snowed all night Friday and we woke up to a winter wonderland Saturday. The boys were very excited to see everything all white.

I finally convinced them that they needed to wear their big puffy coats if they wanted to play in the snow, and we made it outside.

Tolan is just venturing outside the garage and Logan is already digging in!

Justin got to do one of the jobs that I definitely don't mind pregnancy exempting me from. Shoveling snow!

Logan jumping into the snow

Learning to make snowballs

Tolan is having fun too, although he did not like any snowballs tossed at him.

We got them a sled for Christmas, but pulled it out early since we had a lot of snow and Justin was home to help them with it.

Tolan didn't like snowballs, but he liked the sled!

We really stayed out for a long time. I was surprised that they weren't cold and asking to come in! Justin and I were the ones that were cold and said it was time to go in for some lunch. They hate wearing big puffy coats, but they really liked playing in the snow.

Family Pictures

This was a first for us. We had never actually planned, scheduled, arranged to have an official family picture taken before. We decided it was time this year and had Justin's Aunt Lorie take them for us. We took tons, but of course only got a few good ones - it's really hard to get the boys to look at the camera. Here are a few of the good ones:

Gingerbread Cupcakes

Tonight for FHE treat we made gingerbread cupcakes. I saw the recipe in a magazine and the boys, strangely enough, have really been liking gingerbread this year so we gave it a try. I let the boys help me and it wasn't too much of a disaster, so I took some pictures.

my little helpers

licking the bowl and spatulas clean

enjoying their hard work. This is the part that was the disaster! They made such a mess eating them! But they were good....

and gingerbread makes your house smell sooooo good!

Silly Logan

Apparently Logan is a light sleeper. He and Tolan share a room that is on one of the corners of the house. If it is windy or raining outside Logan always complains that "it's too noisy!" And being on the corner of the house, sometimes it is kind of noisy. So one night I offered a solution:

A sweatband over his ears! It worked great. The last few nights it has been very windy and he keeps coming in our room saying he can't sleep in the middle of the night. So I got out the sweatband again, and he didn't come into our room last night! There he is sound asleep!

I also can't figure out what to do with his hair. It seems like no matter what, it just sticks up. So I thought I would let it grow out a little in hopes that it would lay better if it were longer. Nope. Still sticks up.

I couldn't take it any longer and it was time for a haircut. I guess we'll just have to keep cutting it short.

It looks much better! Tolan got a little trim too, just around the ears and at his neck. Tolan has two, opposing cowlicks in the back, so hopefully as he grows out of his fine baby hair, he won't have the same sticking up problem....but he probably will.

Justin's Birthday

We had some friends in Austin who had a family tradition of doing a pie night the week before Thanksgiving so you can eat and enjoy your pie without being stuffed full of turkey and everything else. We thought it was a great idea and continued it this year along with Justin's birthday celebration this weekend. We had all of his family over for a housewarming/birthday party/pie night.

We stuck Justin's 29 candles in a cheesecake and sang Happy Birthday

Tolan brought the stool out of the bathroom so he could reach to help Daddy blow out the candles. He had been bringing me the candles out of the cupboard all week and practicing up on his singing - he was very excited about Daddy's birthday.

Yay! Happy Birthday Justin! We love you!

As for the pie spread, here is the "before"

and "after"

It doesn't look like we ate that much - there is a lot of pie left, but we were all stuffed. It was a great way to kick off Thanksgiving week and Justin's 29th year! And we are grateful to be able to spend it with family close-by this year too.

It's A Girl!

I had my 18-20 week ultrasound on Friday (the 13th) and it looks like we are having a girl!

Every new baby changes the dynamic of your family, but I think adding a girl to a family of boys will be an even bigger change! We are excited though and I am excited to finally be able to buy cute girly stuff and not have to always be mad about the extremely unproportionate amount of options in the little girl section compared to the little boy section at the store. Now I can take advantage of it, although I've resisted and haven't bought a single girly item yet.

Anyway, while I'm posting about the baby, I thought I would post a belly picture too. My friend Erin never misses a photo-op, so this picture is from her. (Thanks E!)

I think I'm finally past the "is she pregnant or just fat?" stage and I'm looking pregnant, but not huge.

Now we have to start thinking about names. We are so bad at this. We don't have a single idea yet. So wish us luck, and we probably won't decide until they bring in the birth certificate!

Peasant's Feast

Luckily for us and the rest of Erin's friends, Erin is a great friend. She is one of those people who really makes an effort to maintain friendships, and that is why she has so many friends! She is always organizing events and get-togethers and now that we live back in the area, we get to participate in some of those events.

This week we got to attend her annual Peasant's Feast - Thanksgiving dinner with friends. This year, Rosalie's parents were kind enough to allow us to invade their home for the afternoon and I think everyone had a good time and left with a very full stomach. Here are a few pics that Erin took and I stole off her Facebook page:

Looks like we are about the only ones not wearing any Steelers paraphernalia.

Half time meant meal time! Everyone contributed lots of good food

Tolan in the mix

Logan, Tolan and Imogen kept themselves occupied the whole afternoon.

We sang Happy Birthday to Anna, and the boys wanted to blow out candles too, so we did it all over again for them.

The whole group

Thank you to Erin and our hosts, the Mercurios!

Halloween

Way overdue on the Halloween post, but here it is. I kept it simple this year and recycled some very old Halloween costumes - costumes that we wore when we were kids. I wanted some pictures of me and my brother wearing them, but my parents are undergoing a bit of a renovation in their house and the pictures are all packed away for the time being. But here are my boys as a bat (Tolan) and a dragon (Logan).

They don't care that their costumes are over 20 years old - they just can't wait for the CANDY!

This was at the ward Trunk-or-Treat. We also went regular trick-or-treating in our neighborhood on Halloween, but I didn't take any pictures that day.

And here is Justin pretending to eat the candy.

Even though the costumes were really old, the boys liked them and I even had a few people comment that they used to have some costumes just like them! They must have been popular back in the day.

Pumpkin Patch

You can't have fall without a pumpkin patch! So we went to Trax Farms last weekend with Justin's parents. I think it was a success and we'll have to go back next year! Here are some pictures.

The boys both loved their pony rides

Tolan had a little help from Grandpap on the trike track

Logan only needed a little help on the turns

They had several huge piles of pumpkins. Great photo-op right? Not with our kids. Climbing on pumpkins was not on their agenda that day. This is about all we got.

Climbing on tractors however, no problem!

This one makes me laugh


On our 3rd hayride of the last couple months - at least this one was not in the rain!

They played on a pirate ship

and went for a train ride - Logan of course, is in the orange barrel! He loves orange.

waiting in line for the train ride. I think the train was their favorite of the day.

These are the pumpkins we did earlier in the week for this year.

I told Logan to draw on some paper what he wanted his pumpkin to look like and I would put it on the pumpkin. He did a great job! It's kind of hard to see, but here's his drawing: