First Snowfall

We were all really excited when we got our first snowfall in November. It was hardly a drizzle, but it was enough to put snowsuits, hats, and gloves on. Naturally. 

There's something about that first snowfall that is so magical. It's as if you can suddenly smell Christmas. And I love Christmas. 

I bundled Annabelle up and sent her outside. She caught some snow on her tongue and threw a couple snowballs. She spent most of her time out there making Henry laugh at the window though. It was really adorable. I love watching them make each other belly laugh. 

After a while his laughs turned into cries though, so I bundled him up and sent him out there with her. He took an intense interest in the leaves and dirt and not so much in the snow. 

It actually got too cold for all of us pretty quickly, so we hurried inside and warmed up with hot cocoa.

Halloween 2013

Halloween is starting to become more fun for me now that I can do themed costumes. Annabelle's had an obsession with Tinkerbell for the past couple months, so it made perfect sense to have Henry be Peter Pan. I bought a piece of felt and somehow made his top and we borrowed his hat from a neighbor. And Annabelle's shoes were just a bunch of glitter and glue with a big giant cotton ball. So easy! :)

Jake was in Japan over Halloween so I took the kids trick-or-treating with our next-door neighbor. Annabelle took quite a bit of coaxing to get her to walk up to doors, let alone knock on them. Once she finally got into a good rhythm and started to get a little braver, a man with a scary mask started running towards a group of teenagers that happened to be behind her. So she thought he was running at her. And all my hardwork and coaxing flew out the window and we were done trick-or-treating. (We got a good 20 minutes in.)

I carried my shaking, terrified girl back to the car, and the whole way home she kept crying for the scary man to go away. She was convinced he was following us back to the house. 

(Why do we even celebrate a scary holiday? Can't it just be cute little Tinerbells and Peter Pans forever?)

I explained to her over and over again that it was just a mask and he was trying to be funny. But we both agreed it wasn't very funny and that we should eat away all our troubles with candy. So we did just that :) (I guess the whole candy part of halloween isn't so bad.)

Halloween Cousin Party

About a week before Halloween the Ashley's and I decided to throw the little cousins a Halloween party. We also invited some of the Hermann's cousins, because we love them too. 

We found lots of cute ideas for the snacks like witch's broomsticks and banana ghosts. Ashley Thay made yummy pumpkin rice crispies and I brought the monster mouth peanut butter apples. And to drink we had mummified juice boxes. It was pretty cute :) We also let the kiddies decorate sugar cookies at the end, which basically turned into a sprinkle fest. (I don't have pictures, but just imagine Ashley's house being destroyed by sugar! Sorry, Ash!!)

The kids ran around like crazies for a good two hours and snacked on way too much sugar. We didn't play any organized games, which is probably a good thing. They were entertained enough just wearing costumes. We had Tinkerbell and Peter Pan, an Iron Man and Zebra, Dorothy and Glinda, and Jake and the Neverland Pirates. Everyone looked adorable. While the kids played, the moms chowed down on some guac and chips. Ashley Kay also brought an amazing tea drink call "Wassail" -- it was a m a z i n g! Reminded me of Germany's Kinder Gluehwein.

Before we headed home I snapped a couple pictures of Tinkerbell and Dorothy. They were definitely hyped on sugar and I'm so happy I caught their crazy two year selves on camera. I love how crazy those two can be together.

^^^Probably my all-time favorite picture of them. They are seriously so crazy together!!

It's a BOY!

I've always loved a cute gender reveal. I initially wanted a cute photoshoot with blue cotton candy on a stick. Adorable, right? Well do you know where to buy blue cotton candy on a stick, besides at the fair? Yeah, me neither. So that didn't happen. Then I saw this cute bubblegum idea and was sold. 
Fun & easy: check! 
Jake found the blue bubblegum balls and we took these right before a datenight. We had about 15 minutes of good light left, and it was gonna be sooo easy. Race against light/time photoshoots always are. //NOT.//
Bubblegum balls are SO hard to chew. And I couldn't get a decent bubble, actually I couldn't get a bubble at all.
So you wanna know what really went down? Jake had to chew that gum for me. And he had to blow that bubble too. Haha. True love.
It's all staged. 90% of these pictures are of me scowling at him while telling him my jaw isn't strong enough to chew that gum. The other 8% are of me wanting to give up (I am such a baby!!) and then there's these two. Pretend you don't know that that gum was impossible, and it's so cute. Right?
So, it's a BOY! He was so fun see at 20 weeks. During our first ultrasound around 3 weeks the tech couldn't even find him, and by our second one (11 weeks) he'd grown cute little gummy arms and legs. But the 20 week one was definitely the most fun. He had his hands up by his face and his little profile reminded us so much of Henry's. I keep imagining him looking like Henry's little twin //Just five more weeks and we'll know!! Yay!!//
I can't believe it's happening so soon and I am so excited to cuddle my sweet baby Sawyer.

Cornbelly's

Thanksgiving Point has a really cute Halloween/Fall display in October. There are hayrides, cornmazes, jumping houses, duck racing, rock climbing, ... basically everything. And of course lots of yummy food. We took the kids there for an evening last October and they loved it. Once the sun went down it got chilly pretty fast, but they both didn't seem to mind. The place was packed and full of loud music and people. Kind of like a carnival really. Annabelle tried just about every activity and Henry so wished he could have joined her. He had to stay in my arms or the stroller for most of it since he was only about 10 months old, but he sure thought he was big enough to be doing everything she was doing. 
Once we'd had enough of the cold we headed to a cafe to grab some hot chocolate. Annabelle instead chose an ice cream cone. Of course. :) 
It was a really fun family outting and I'm excited for this year when Henry can join in on the fun.

Gardner Village

Back in September we spent an FHE at Gardner Village with the Quinn's. It had a fun display of witches and the little village itself was really cute. I only had about 30 minutes of light and all of it was spent taking pictures of Annabelle. So, sadly I have no real pictures of the village itself. Or the cute candy shop we went into with the kids. But trust me, it's worth visiting and we'll definitely go back.

On the way there the little miss had an accident and I had no spare clothes or panties for her. Luckily the place is like a mini shopping village too, so we were able to find that cute dress she's wearing and Henry was sweet enough to lend her a diaper. She looked so darling in that dress and really loved twirling it. //May have sent the wrong message about having accidents!!// 

Over the summer she wore that baseball cap that Jake got her everywhere. And I really love it on her! I have no idea what the "B" stands for, but it sure is cute on her.

And her and Gus are pretty cute together too. 

We ended the night having dinner and being, by far, the loudest guests in the restaurant. Whoops. :)

Four Year Anniversary -- The Sleepy Edition

Jake came home early to take me on a nice anniversary date, and when he got there I was in bed sobbing. Haha. Are you loving all my emotional days that are getting documented? I was just really really tired and couldn't function. I remember telling him I felt like I couldn't do anything: take care of the kids, make dinner, sit up. I was about 12 weeks pregnant and nursing Henry, which I later learned will suck every bit of life out of you. //That first trimester was a little miserable.//

Anyways, he sweetly suggested we just stay home and have a date-night in, but that just made me feel even more dysfunctional. So I pulled it together (aren't I so tough!!) and got ready. I'm telling you all this because I look so exhausted in these photos. Haha! I get sleepy just looking at them, and really -- I had to make Lissie take about 100 in an effort to make my eyes look more open. It didn't work, but that's ok. This baby #3 is worth being/looking tired. All the time. (Haha!)

So Lissie stayed home with our babies while we went out. (Thank you!) Jake let me choose Olive Garden for dinner (he hates Olive Garden), so that was extra sweet of him. He also got our waitress to give us a free dessert. Yum. I think we went to a movie after that and I probably fell asleep. I really have no idea what we did after dinner, so that most likely means I was sleeping. (Poor guy!)

Happy 4 years, Jake -- you truly are my everything!

Here's to a million more anniversaries together -- sleepy or not! I love you...