KF

We headed to Klamath a few weeks back to visit family. My SIL and her kids were going to be there and we could use the get-away. I didn't get a shot of the kids in their matching Halloween shirts that my parents got them, but you can see them here where my mom is reading them stories.
We celebrated my dad's birthday while we were there. The kids were super "helpful" when it came time to open presents.
The kids also picked out Grandpa's cake. Chocolate with orange frosting and candy corns all over.
Taytum's piece of cake started off looking like this....
Then this...
And finally...
We did some fun Halloween festivities while we were there. Frosting sugar cookies is a must.
I love the look Cal is giving Andi in this one.
Then we let the kids color their pumpkins that they picked out. Carving seemed a little intense for them. We wrangled Tay by putting her in my parents convertible with the top down. It was perfect!
The kids used permanent markers... hence the no clothes look.
The bonus room has been ignored in my parents house until this trip. The kids spent the majority of their time up in this room. They colored up there, played cowboys up there, wrestled Grandpa up there...
And Carter started a little barber shop up there too!
Yup... he cut not only Andi's hair, but also Calvin's and his own. Andi came to the top of the loft looking down into the kitchen while us lady folks were down there finishing up dinner, and said that Carter had cut her hair. Her hair was in a messy bun, so I couldn't see if he really had or not. I high tailed it up there and started looking frantically for the evidence. I didn't see anything so thought for a split second that maybe we had dodged a bullet. Then Carter said he had cut it in the chair. I went and looked in the chair and there were just a few strands of cut hair. Then I looked at Andi's bun and saw a bundle of hairs sticking straight out as if they had been cut. It appeared that perhaps Carter had cut off all of Andi's hair and that once I let it down all of her hair would just fall out. Fortunately upon closer inspection it was only that one small strand. It definitely could have been a lot worse and I think he learned his lesson. Carter still looks like he has polka dots on his head, but with his hair done you can't really notice. Sorry about Cal's hair Sharon!! :)After the weekend the Stewart family headed home and my mom and I just played with the kids some more. We chanced upon a random little pumpkin patch/petting zoo thing. We had been trying to find one all weekend for all the kids to go to, but couldn't find one. Then we saw a little 8.5x11 piece of paper with the info on it in a store window and decided to go.
It was super small, but nobody was there so we got the royal treatment. They let us into all of the animal pens and let my kids feed all the animals: goat, sheep, calf, pig, bunnies, chickens...
Taytum was in heaven the entire time. She LOVES animals and will do this hilarious laugh, excited noise and shake whenever she sees any animal.
The kids each got to pick out a pumpkin.
And play in the hay bales.
On our final night there Grandpa popped up some popcorn in their industrial sized theater popcorn popper for the kids and we put on a movie.
It was a such a fun, relaxing, much needed break, as usual. We can't wait to go back to Gramzee's and Grandpa Paul's for Christmas! Let the countdown begin!

Baby girl

Here she is! Isn't she adorable?! :) I don't know if all baby's profiles look the same in utero, but all of my kids' have.We grabbed a gender shot right off the bat just in case we didn't get a good look, we'd have the whole ultrasound to take a peek. Well, she gave us a nice shot right away.
This little girl was such a stinker throughout the whole ultrasound. A nice indicator of things to come, I'm sure. I was rolling this way and that, the ultrasound tech was pushing on my stomach pretty hard and kept trying to get baby to switch positions. She insisted on being curled up in a little ball with her feet directly over her head, knees to forehead. This made it difficult to get a good shot of her heart and spine. We spent 45 minutes looking around and the tech said she would give it five more minutes and if she didn't get a good shot we would have to reschedule to get the shots she needed. Well, she managed to finally get a look at everything she needed just a minute later. Everything looks perfect and she is measuring directly on track. Not a day bigger or smaller than my due date: March 12.
The ultrasound tech said she gets a good hand shot about once a month is all, where you can see all five fingers. Our girl had to show off...
And my girls seems to like to show a little leg. If it's half as fleshy as Taytum's is it is bound to be delicious to nibble on.
I am 20 weeks today and Jefferson felt baby girl move for the first time last Saturday. I felt her really start kicking consistently on the 5th and have felt her every day since, or rather night since. She's a kicker once I'm in bed at night. Love those little kicks!Both Jefferson and I were kind of feeling girl, though we were both second guessing that right before the ultrasound. I even bought baby a baby girl outfit when we first found out we were pregnant. We are so excited to be blessed with another girl. These three in a row are bound to be close.... at least one day, right? Now on to the name game... I have about three or four I like, but we are open to any and all suggestions. Please share!

Domestic Bliss

Today was seriously a day of domestic bliss in our home. I do not say this to brag, because we needed it after a rough day yesterday. We've all been sick the last week... puking, snoting, tired, crabby household. So after a week of laying low, not cleaning, and cooking sub par meals, I was determined to get our home back in order today.
I warned the kids that this was going to be a stay at home day, and that seemed to do the trick. I did not break up one fight today as I cleaned the house from top to bottom. We're talking bathrooms, floors, kitchen, bedrooms, dusting, I cleaned the laundry room, vacuuming out the lint trap even, reattached the towel bar in one of our bathrooms, sorted mail, emptied all the garbages, cleaned all the rugs and hand towels in the house, and not only completed all of our loads of laundry, but folded AND put away. This in and of itself is usually a week long process, I kid you not. Laundry is my nemesis. I baked homemade bread. Managed to help my kids with a few Halloween preschool pages. Made a caterpillar habitat for the caterpillar the kids found in the backyard. All while only having cartoons on for about an hour of that. My kids played together all day, happy as clams. I was amazed! I do not say this to brag, because you should have heard the on going post that was running through my head yesterday. It was telling a different tale.
We did make it out of the house once for about 20 minutes when I had to run down the street to Albertson's to pick up some fresh herbs for our roast chicken (find the most delicious roast chicken recipe here Ree Drummond, aka Pioneer Woman, is amazing. I don't know whether to lover her, hate her, or offer to hire her) to go along with our homemade bread, au gratin potatoes, and roasted carrots. Andi wanted to wear her red cowboy boots and when she put them on she ran in the room and said, "I look like a cowboy girl!"
Yes, domestic bliss was ours today. And while it was here I must relish and share.Thanks for the red purse Gramzee.... it goes everywhere with us.
And though we did not make it out bike riding today, we have been out riding our bikes every other day this week. The weather has been absolutely perfect fall weather. We bought Andi a bike about 6 weeks ago without her even being able to peddle the tricycle. It looked really awkward so we thought we would give a "big" bike a whirl. She picked up on it so quick and now Carter and Andi just love chasing each other up and down the block, or on our walks.

Does this look familiar?

Here we go again!

Wow.

This is what Taytum looks like after just about ever meal. She insists on running her hands through her long locks on top and ends up being a huge grease ball by the end. The words "fat and happy" come to mind. :)

MK Nature Center

About a week and a half ago we headed to the MK Nature center in downtown with our friends the Apples. Well, the moms and kids did anyways. We had a great time and enjoyed great weather. If you haven't checked it out, it's super fun. They have fish viewing windows in the river, a center with different crafts and activities, bird feeders throughout so you can see all the birds, flower gardens, etc. We had a picnic lunch in the park right next to it. It was a great way to spend the morning/afternoon.

Happy 1 year anniversary!

We have now been in Idaho for one year exactly. I am glad that year is behind us. I am not kidding when I say that I cried to my mom the first day we were here thinking we had just made the biggest mistake of our lives. That was not the last time I thought that. It was one of the worst, hardest, most trying years of my life. Yet, it has allowed us to grow in hopefully all the right directions. We have learned a lot about ourselves and our relationships and have become stronger because of it. We have grown closer as a couple, closer as a family, and closer to the Savior. There have been a lot of joyful moments. Some great accomplishments. And many new and wonderful friends made. We love it here. We are supposed to be here. We cannot wait to see what this next year brings.

Last Saturday our primary had a talent show. They sent around sign up sheets to each of the classes so the kids had total control of what they signed up to do. Carter signed up to do a somersault. Come show time he was slightly nervous, but Andi volunteered to go up with him and they both hopped on stage and did their somersaults. It was so adorable and I loved that they picked what they were going to do and followed through on their own. Andi of course couldn't get enough of it. She wanted to keep getting up there the rest of the talent show. "I want to dance." "I want to sing." "I want to play the piano." I think a star was born.
We did a "B" day last week and so we did bubble painting. We just added food coloring to bubbles, made sure to blow bubbles up past the edge of the container and then placed our paper on it. We tried just blowing the bubbles onto our paper too. Both ways worked, but if you try this, use a TON of food coloring. The kids thought it was amazing.

And this is just too cute. Our little rockstar.

Corn.

Our friends had access to a corn field down in Melba so we went and picked corn one Saturday and spent the whole afternoon shucking, boiling, cutting, and bagging. There were three families and we all just hung out at our place, let the kids run amuck, and ate pizza for dinner. It was a long afternoon, but fun with good company, and we'll be thanking ourselves for the delicious fresh corn in the dead of winter.
Don't judge me... this was after a night of work, about four hours of sleep and no shower. I know, disgusting. :)
It didn't look like much at first and after we left we were worried we didn't pick enough.
Luke and Jill manning the shucking station.
Michelle & Garren, originators of the day of corn.
Master of knives. (note his appropriate choice of shirts)
Bagging....
It was a long day and this was in the last hour or so.
The fruits....errr vegetables of our labor.
We each walked away with almost 60 bags of corn per family and even gave about 15 bags to a neighbor friend of ours. Highly satisfying.