HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

We traveled back home to Utah for Thanksgiving this year and it was so fun! Has it really been only 4 1/2 months since we moved?? It feels like a lot longer...so it was wonderful to see everyone again and to fit back into what used to be our old routine of family get-togethers. It's not routine for me anymore, let me tell you! I have learned to appreciate all the little things so much more. Thanksgiving day was full of Mom's amazing cooking and lots of family time - two of the greatest things in life! :) The rest of the holiday week was packed with fun activities... all of which I will post about later. We arrived home in Seattle late last night, after 13+ hours in the car, so you can imagine the laundry, shopping, and cleaning I have to do today! Ugh. I can't wait to post all the great pictures I took to document all the fun we had with our families in Utah though. Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving too!
Mom placing all the delicious dishes for our Thanksgiving dinner in the oven to keep warm at the end - YUM!Dad performing his manly task of carving the turkey!Here I caught my silly brother Matt in a yawn which he turned into some crazy face for the picture! Eric looks a little crazy himself! Boys will be boys I guess... at any age! :)and the rest of the family (that was there)... I couldn't be more thankful to be blessed with such amazing people in my life! (Erin and Mel... we really missed you guys and your families. I can't wait for the time when we are all together again!)

The big ultrasound...

It's a miracle... we are having a GIRL!!! After 10 boys born in my family (and another on the way!) and only 1 girl, we are getting another girl! I am so excited! I have barely even thought about it being a girl because I knew I would get too excited about the possibility and I really didn't want to be disappointed if it was a boy (does that even make sense?!) Because of course I would have cherished the idea of another little boy in our family. Eric was absolutely certain it was a boy. In fact he never even considered it could be a girl. So you can imagine his shock when we saw for our own eyes that it was a little girl!! It was incredible. The 20 week ultrasound is the most wonderful experience, even if you couldn't see the gender. Just seeing this perfect little baby inside you is such a humbling, spiritual experience. I loved looking at her head and brain, her bones, feet and hands, organs and heart, even her sweet profile... wow. The entire concept of pregnancy and gestation is a miracle and just boggles my brain. I love it!! So anyway, now I get to run with the whole idea of having a girl... pink clothes, ruffles, bows, leggings, new girly bedding, everything! Yahooooo! I'm so excited!! (And by the way, so is Eric! I never made it clear that he is thrilled to have a daughter even if he was speechless with shock initially!)

Here is the proud big brother... the sunshine in my life here in rainy, gray Seattle! What a handsome little goof!

"cookie-treat!"

Gabe's version of "trick-or-treat" seemed to get the same result...candy, candy, candy!! After struggling with the tantrum-inducing temptation to eat each piece as he got it, our little Dragon had a great time. We couldn't let him eat on the go because we were falling behind as it was! Gabe is definitely not the kid that is pushing his way to the front of the pack and grabbing handfuls of candy. Rather he was the one that stood there enthralled with the decorations or costumes at each house, completely oblivious of the bucket of candy! I would have to prod him out of his trance at every door. It was pretty funny! Halloween was so much fun this year with our little man. We started the night off right with a Jack-o-lantern pizza:

Then we hit the road with a whole bunch of other kids and parents to go trick-or-treating. You know, since I dressed up and I'm the one (with Eric) that is eating all the candy, I realized it was like old times! Halloween means treats galore again!! Oh, boy...too bad I don't have the metabolism of an 8 yr old anymore. :) Here are pictures of our adorable, green Dragon:

Dragon and Friends:

Dragon with bestest bud Ethan the Dragon (coincidently):Daddy and Dragon at a really neat haunted house in the neighborhood:

Dragon with Witchy Mommy: (wait that doesn't sound right...)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN everyone!!

jack o lantern carving

We had a fun night carving our pumpkins with our friends Raelynn and Brett and their 2 boys. Gabe wasn't too thrilled about the pumpkin guts. Eric kept trying to get him to dig in and grab out handfuls... well, Gabe would gingerly put his hand in and come out with one pumpkin seed! I guess I didn't need to take off his shirt- there really was no danger of a sticky mess! He was really cute when I was carving the first face though - I told him I was making a scary one and he kept saying: "Oooooooooh, a scary one!" What a cutie pie!

the baby bump

Well, it's more than a bump by now! I have been asked a few times if I'm showing...and since we live so far away now I thought I'd post a picture of my growing tummy. I actually feel much bigger than I look in this picture! I told Eric last night how strange it felt to be pregnant. I know I've done this before but it's just as exciting and new for me as the first time. Every time I feel the baby kick it's thrilling! Eric can actually feel the baby kick too, and has since 16 weeks when I first felt it myself. We must have a very strong fetus in there! I'm 18 weeks (4 months) and finally getting to really enjoy being pregnant. I just hate that first stage of nausea and migraines- ICK. I still get bad headaches every day but they are not nearly as severe. Mom helped me figure out what was triggering/exacerbating the migraines and unfortunately it was peanuts. I love peanut butter everything, dangit! Oh well, it's worth it. So now we are just waiting on pins and needles to find out if we are having a boy or a girl... less than 2 weeks to go until our ultrasound!! Yeah!
(Oh, by the way, there's "Mr. Bones" behind me on the mantle!)

We love the fall!

I've decided that autumn is my favorite season. I used to think Spring...but not anymore. Here is the reason: the gorgeous leaves and the beginning of The Holidays!! It is SO fun anticipating each holiday that is coming up. Halloween is just around the corner and we have had a blast doing all kinds of fun things to get ourselves prepared!

#1. Donning the appropriate jammies. We have a skeleton that sits on the mantle during October that Gabe calls Mr. Bones. At first Gabe did not appreciate him sitting up there... he would inform me often with a concerned look on his face that he was scary! But once we gave him a name and talked about how he is our friend, Gabe cheerfully greets Mr. Bones every morning and says goodnight to him every night! :) Gabe was thrilled with these PJ's because now he is just like Mr. Bones!!

#2. Making pumpkin cookies. Gabe and his little bud Ethan had fun with this activity. You can eat goodies while you're working and after you're done! Those little boys were so cute sampling the frosting, cookies and even the sprinkles during the whole thing!

#3. Opening a Halloween package from Grandma. My mom sent us a box of surprises for Halloween and Gabe was soooo excited to open our "present"! It was complete with spooky rat silhouettes to put around the baseboards, a witch's hat, a book for Gabe, treats of course and even some earrings for me! Thank you Mom!! We loved it!

#4. Visiting the pumpkin patch. We went to the best pumpkin patch when Caitlynn was here visiting this weekend. It had a tractor train ride (I learned quickly that that barrel we are crammed into was clearly not meant for adults...what a long ride that was! Too bad Gabe wouldn't go in without me!), a corn box for the kids to play in (Gabe's fave), farm animals to pet, pumpkins to peruse, all kinds of kid's activities, a corn maze, and a hayride. It was so much fun - definitely a new family tradition! (Uh, Gabe is not a smiler even though he is having a blast. It's takes him a while to take in each new thing and then he lets us know he loves it! Unfortunately, his feelings are rarely shown to the camera though!)

#5. A Halloween recipe night. This one was for the mommies! I hosted a recipe night that was all about the spooky food that we love for Halloween parties. I didn't get any pictures but it was so much fun!!

This week is pumpkin carving and trick or treating! Check back soon because Gabe is going to be one cute, I mean ferocious, dragon for Halloween!!

family pictures

For the first time ever, we got it together enough to have an actual family photo shoot. Our fabulous photographer is none other than my good friend Raelynn. Her and I became friends when we both moved to the area... being fresh-without-family together is a bonding experience! Gabe just loves her little 2 yr old Ethan...he is often the first person he asks about in the morning. They play great together and Raelynn and I play great together! :) So imagine how excited I was when she told me she was interested in photography and wanted to "practice" on us! Yeah!! She discovered the hard way how difficult it is to photograph my boys (yes, Eric too... he has a shorter attention span than even Gabe!) I was so happy that we got these pictures. So here are my favorites.... with more to come in the future!

Salmon Days

There is a festival every October in Issaquah called Salmon Days that celebrates the salmon trek up the rivers and streams to spawn. It is a very fun festival with a great parade and lots of booths and activities. It reminds me of Swiss Days at home (for all you Utahns reading this) except we got to see the actual salmon themselves struggling up a local stream on our walk back to the car! Pretty cool!That is my little man with his Aunt Crystal dangling out over the water trying to touch the salmon! (his favorite thing lately is to say "I touch it!" about pretty much everything... including the unreachable like airplanes, power lines, and salmon swimming far below in a stream!)

I have to say the low point was NO CANDY in the parade - poor Gabe got gypped after I hyped up the whole candy part of the day. Uh oh. However there was a really cool pirate float...complete with swaggering, yelling pirates smoking real cigars and setting off "cannons"! They threw out some pirate treasure and Gabe got a big, fat, silver pirate coin!! That almost made up for the lack of treats. I wish I would have gotten a picture of the pirates- they were great! Later on Ronald McDonald came along... and by Gabe's reaction you would have thought he was the Grim Reaper! He was terrified!! My little guy was shaking with fright, literally crawling up my arms to get away from that horrible clown! It was awful! Long after Ronald had walked on, Gabe kept peering fearfully down the street to make sure he wasn't coming back!! The best part of the weekend was that Eric's mom and sister Crystal came for a visit. It was Crystal's first time to Seattle so we did all the fun things for newbies! Gabe especially enjoyed being lavished with attention the whole weekend!

Oooooh! I really cool carved wooden lobster in a trap. There are a ton of neat fisherman carvings downtown on the waterfront- Gabe loves them!Gabe getting a free ride while clutching his beloved Sea Otter from Grandma!

How do you break the most exciting news there is?!

Well... I heard a picture says a thousand words...

For those of you that don't know what the heck you're supposed to be seeing here, I'll help you out...

We are expecting a baby!!

Gabe is going to be a BIG BROTHER!! Eric and I are thrilled that we are being blessed with another sweet baby. We both love being parents so much and have been waiting for this newest addition for a while now! He/she couldn't be welcomed with more love and excitement! My due date is March 29th and as of today I am 15 weeks. That means I'm more than a third finished with this pregnancy, which is a great thing! That ultrasound picture was taken at 12 weeks. It is a side shot with the head on the left (and a left hand floating into view above the face) and a leg and foot on the far right. You can see the spine along the bottom of the picture (the white line). Everything looks perfect so far. We are SO HAPPY!!

snapshots

These are all snapshots of the time we got to spend with Mindy, Griff, and Jack. We did a lot of low-key things like parks, walks, even hanging out at home...but every minute was wonderful! I had such a great time with my little sis and her cute fam. I can't wait for them to come again!