12 weeks left!

Time is flying. I can't believe I have just 12 weeks left. With all the holidays coming, it makes things go just that much faster.

We still haven't decided on a name. Here are my top favorites as of this week in no particular order.

Chase, Trevor, Dalin, Travis, Gunner, and Dillin. I really like Remington, but we just bought a beta fish today and decided to call him Remington so now that's taken. :)

Last try at some halloween pics

As one last halloween hooraw, we all dressed up and went downtown trick or treating. This time we wore warmer costumes. Me, Glen and Gretchen were clowns and Ginger was Elmo and Jack but jack was the same. Here is my last attempt at getting a good shot of gretchen in her costume. This time I waited till we got back home, but it was still hard because then she was ready to get all her layers off. (don't her feet look so small in the above picture! so cute)

We got home right when it was getting too chilly to be outside. We threw in a pizza and watched some halloween shows from netflix and enjoyed the evening.

Chester and the rat

We were having fun with the dog tonight. We let him in the house and realized he wouldn't leave the kitchen because he was afraid of the rat (our halloween decoration). Glen thought it would be fun to tease chester with the rat.

first chester is scared and worried

Here's what happens when the rat gets too close for comfort. hahahahhah silly dog!

halloween festivites

Halloween is a big holiday for us. We love it! It's been a busy day for us. I started the morning with a fun little food craft for the kids to do. They made spider cookies. I was actually very surprised that they didn't just start gobbling up the treats. Maybe it helped that I introduced it as body parts of the spider instead of calling it by it's real name. I called the frosting "glue" to glue the eyes (m&ms) on etc.

After the food craft, we had our halloween lunch and then went to a primary halloween party. Jack is a tiny ninja, Ginger is a angel and Gretchen is a little garden gnome. I could not get a good picture of Gretchen for the life of me. I think she was so excited once I put her costume on she was just on the go!

After the primary party we went to the pumpkin patch to run through the hay maze and go for a hay ride. After that we went home for some dinner and then back out to the trunk or treat at the church. whewf! I feel like I packed a weeks worth of activities into one day! Tomorrow we'll make finger puppets and caramel apples and then monday we'll go downtown for trick or treating.

Halloween meal

I've been inspired by the SisterCafe Recipe Blog. I want to put more effort into the bigger holidays by making holiday themed meals. I got all my ideas for this meal from the sisters cafe blog.

We put dry ice in the rootbeer and the kids loved it! It's makes it so much more fun.

I made bones and blood, spider eggs and bat wings. I also made an apple cake that turned out pretty good. Ginger was having a hard time trying to understand why I was calling everything such "ewey" names. The kids were getting confused and didn't know if it really was bones and blood or bat wings. They are probably a little young for this type of thing, but they'll catch on if I make a tradition of it. :)

We love the fall

Here is what we've been busy with. The kids painted pumpkins

Now that all three are older and a little more independant, I've been making an extra effort to get them out alot more. We've been trying to use up the last bit of nice weather before it gets too cold outside. I've been taking them to the park just about everyday after nap times until dinner time. I've really enjoyed it. It gives me a chance to just play with the kids and not be distracted by "house duties". I also like to just sit back and watch them play. They are so cute with the little games they come up with. I just love it and know that I'll miss the days when they are "too cool" or "too old" to go play at the park.

One sunday before church, we got out and went up the river. It was such a beautiful day!! I thought Wendy would especially enjoy the pics above of the river since that's where we went to walk the day before she had to go home.

We went to bird track trails. I'm glad we went then and not any later. I feel like we almost missed the fall in the mountains.

Here are just some fun pictures.

This is what we call "easy lemon meringue pie". all you do is take a lemon bar mix and put it in pie dish and then add some meringue to the top and voila, lemon meringue pie! it's so good!

My little Gretchen Cakes

I got Gretchen this little tiny kitten. She just loved it. I think it's so cute how such small things bring so much joy to little kids. I love seeing them get so excited.

Funny how you don't notice things until you see it in a picture...like gretchens sticky little fingers. hahahhaah

spank that bottom! She was just standing up and almost lost her balance. hahahah so cute!

Gretchen loves to wear these little fairy wings. Gretchen is talking alot. Today she said her first sentence! She said " I wanna play outside" what it really sounded like was " uh wan play ut-site". so cute! She even tells me when she's gone pooey in her diaper. Not all the time, but more often than not. I don't think Ginger was even aware of going pooey at that age. I'm starting to think it's true that the more kids you have the sooner they grow up.

6 years ago . . .

I can't believe it's already been six years. We celebrated our anniversary a couple weeks ago. I love looking back at our wedding pictures. Such good memories! It's fun to look back and see how far we've come in such little time.
My first thoughts about since we've been married are:
- sold our house
-lived in parents basement
-moved to a different state
-lived in RV with a 2 month old
-moved to apartment
-moved in with brother-in-law
-had another baby
-moved into our own house
-had another baby
-and now expecting baby number four.

We've had alot of big changes and big challenges but we feel like the worst of it is over and things are just getting better from here on out. ..well, actually eversince we were able to move back into our own place. but anyway, I'm just grateful we made it through the tough times and have pulled through and become closer because of it all. And now we have three almost four little p iggies that I love to take care of and be with. I'm so grateful that we have the gospel in our lives. It is the glue that keeps our family together during the tough times.

So for our anniversary, we went to the seafood buffet and boy did we get our money's worth! ...like 20 crab legs worth and a taste of all the desserts. That was just me! I don't know how many Glen ate...probably somewhere close to that. hahahahha It's great being pregnant at a buffet. you don't have to worry about trying to hold your tummy in when you ate too much and people don't judge you as harshly because you have yourself and the baby to feed...right?! hahahahahahhhahahahah (at least that's what I kept telling myself when I was making the 9th and 10th trip up to the buffet stand)