So, ummm, yeah!

So we originally were going to wait until after Christmas to announce this, wanting to tell Aaron's family then, but last night Aaron said he just wanted to go ahead and announce it now, so I put it up on my Facebook and now I'm putting it here.....

If you haven't already guessed, and many of you already know, we're having another baby! It really is early to tell, I'm not due until AUGUST! But oh well, the only pregnancy I waited to start announcing on was when I was pregnant with Gavin, (because of the miscarriage right before), and I only waited until I was 8 weeks. So yeah, if all goes well I will be very fat and uncomfortable this summer! :D

Catching up - Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was much like every Thanksgiving since we've lived in Colorado. Hung out at the house and then went to Grandma & Grandpa's for some turkey dinner....well, lunner, since we eat at about 2. I left my camera in the car and so I didn't take pictures, but Cindy, my mil did. Suffice it to say that I am not photogenic and should never have pictures taken of me while stuffing my face, but here are a few of everyone else!

Aaron, Elsa and baby Haley!

Stirring it up!

Jane and Haley!

The four oldest grandkids! Next year they'll need a bigger table!

Mags!

Eatting dinner!

Watching The Polar Express in 3-D


Grandpa was just as into as the kids! He's got a thing for trains....

So yeah, it was a good day!

My baby sister!

Okay, so I fully intended to post a little about Thanksgiving, but my little sister, Arlene, (not so little anymore, she is 17!) emailed me some pictures that a lady in her ward took. Isn't she beautiful?













And there are some more but for some reason, I can't load them up! Will try again later!

Okay, it's later, it worked this time!






Now I have 3 sisters, and as you can tell, I'm pigment-ally challenged compared to Arlene - she is my half-sister. My other two sisters are adopted, (and long story short, are actually half-sisters to each other, cousins to Arlene, but were adopted by Arlene's and my dad, and by Arlene's mom and so are my sisters and have been and will be, for forever! All three of them are just my sisters, to me!) My other two sisters have even darker skin than Arlene and since I'm blonde and light skinned/eyed it's obvious that we're not "just" sisters. I'm used to not looking like them. But I have to say, that as Arlene gets older, I think we're starting to look alike. We are both tall, although I think I am still taller than her by a few inches, we have similar builds, apparantly we walk the same, and I think that personality-wise, we have many similarities. And I think even facially we are starting to look somewhat alike. She defnitely got her mom's nose, (and looks a lot like her mom for sure) but I think the shape of our faces and our lips look alike. I dunno, what do you think? We're obviously not dead ringers, but if I had darker skin, hair and eyes, or vice versa, I think people would automatically know we were sisters! Very cool, it's a new thing for me!

Halloween!

Halloween was a lot of fun this year! For once it was low stress and pretty easy! See, I like to make the kid's costumes, not buy them, which means that normally I work on costumes for what seems like the entire month. But this year, I had other stuff going on and so I ended up making Gavin's costume on the 29th and Keaton's on the 30th, just in time for the ward's Trunk or Treat. We already had Raegan's costume so it was really easy.


So over a month ago, everyone picked what they wanted to be. Raegan decided on Violet, from The Incredibles, Keaton wanted to be Super Why (from a PBS kids show he loves!) and Gavin wanted to be Wall-e.

All 3 of our kiddos!

Gavin as Wall-e

Keaton as, Super Why!

Violet, I mean, Raegan!







I'd like to note that black hairspray color is disgustingly messy. It got EVERYWHERE! Aaron claims he saw a black wig we could've bought, but I never saw one that didn't have white or some other color streaks in them. Oh well!


Thursday night, the 30th was the Trunk or Treat. We go every year and pre-load up on candy, which we then give out for Halloween. LOL

Friday the older two wore costumes to school and had parties, but unfortunately, Aaron and I had to meet with the school physchiatrist/psychologist (can't remember which she was!) about Keaton, so we missed the parties! Then we went and had FREE Chik-Fil-A for dinner, because the kids wore costumes to the restraunt. Then home to get ready! We usually all go trick or treating together, but this year, Aaron wanted to stay home and be a party pooper. :D So I took the kids out and it was lots of fun! The boys didn't last very long though, so I took them back home and took Raegan out again. She really wanted to see her friend from school, that lives in our neighborhood, but we never did find her. Oh well!

People knew that Raegan was someone from the Incredibles, had no clue who Keaton was, and Gavin's costume was definitely the favorite of the 3 of them. We had to stop several times so people could check him out. We didn't seee any other Violets, Super Whys or Walle's.

Halloween night in Colorado is always bitterly cold, and more often than not, it SNOWS. This is a difficult thing for this AZ girl to come to terms with. However, I was shocked this year, as it was downright warm this Halloween! Yes, 55-60 degrees on Halloween is warm! I always have to plan costumes for the cold and even then we usually need jackets, gloves and hats. This year we didn't need any of that. Yeah for Global Warming! :D

So yeah, one more down, just a few more to go! Aaron and I went Christmas shopping for the kids on Nov 1st, so onto the next thing already!

Our weekend at the farm!

On Saturday, we went to this really awesome farm, Miller Farms. It cost us $50 bucks to get in, but they have a TON of activities, all inclusive. There's a playground, lots of old cars and planes, and even a fire engine that kids can play in, a jumpy obstacle course thing, a hay pyramid, a dirt sliding hill, bicycle tractors, train rides, etc, etc... And you get to go on a long hayride, where you can pick as many fruits and vegetables as you want! It was a lot of fun, we picked a TON of stuff, including 5 pumpkins, one for each of us! Does anyone need tomatoes? Because I have a ton, seriously. We got corn on the cob, maybe 20ish ears, carrots, onions (huge ones, over 20!), probably 15 pounds of potatoes, about 10 pounds of tomaotes, broccoli, green beans, peppers (chili, red green and yellow), just 1 acorn squash (it started raining at the squash so we couldn't any butternut, since we had 5 pumpkins to carry, and I had a 3 year old to carry as well.). There were cantaloupes and watermelons as well, but we didn't get any, as the pickings were slim and it was...raining!



I should've taken a picture of my kitchen as were were unloading and washing vegetables. What a mess! And when I was washing broccoli, I found something strange, squishy and green in my fingers.....I rolled it, realized what it was, dropped it and SCREAMED! What a girl I am, it was just a little green caterpillar! LOL So after pulling the rest of the caterpillars out of the broccoli, and rescuing one from a near drowning in the sink (this was very dramatic for the kids, "it" was very still for awhile, while we waited to see if it was going to live....it did!), we ended up with 7 cute little green caterpillars. Now, my kids, especially Keaton, have this "obsession" with caterpillars turning into butterflies. So we put them in a jar, with broccoli, to keep and watch.



Sadly, one of the caterpillars has gone missing! Which was upsetting, but since THREE of the caterpillars gave BIRTH yesterday, to lots of itty bitty caterpillars, I think we're okay. In fact, we are so okay, that the caterpillars are going to Raegan's classroom today! LOL It was really funny, I was telling Raegan that maybe it was time to put the caterpillars outside, since we have no intentions of having a caterpillar farm in the house, (and because it's getting stinky, what with rotting broccoli and all) and she said, "but Mom, we can't put them outside, the mommies just had babies!" So I said, "Raegan, do you think caterpillars give birth in a hospital? They're born outside!" LOL It was really funny. So anyway, we've talked to Raegan's teacher, and the caterpillars will be part of her 2nd grade class after today.



And here are some pictures from the farm!

What do you know, it's Mater!

Flo's at the farm, too!

Lightning McQueen?

The Sheriff...

And Doc, of course! Sally wasn't there, I guess a Ferrari is hard for a farm to come by!

The farm...

Squash Love

At least one of them smiled! Sheesh!

The Love Bug, yet another car celebrity made an appearance!

Going for a tractor ride...

Gavin didn't like being in this tire....

but he liked this one!

Raegan and Keaton loved this! Of course, Keaton saw a train ride and took off for that, without permission, and I spent 10 minutes looking for him....so he didn't like it enough to STAY PUT like I thought he would.....

Gavin is our scaredy-cat, he doesn't like jumpy things, he prefered the swings!

Surfing down the dirt!

Wheee!

Keaton's turn!

It was too fun, I had to climb up too!

And take a turn!

Raegan's turn!

Who needs snow? I sure don't! haha

Tractor-cycles?

Whatever they're called, they were fun!

Getting our bags ready to pick veggies!

Forever buddies!

Most of the family....

Proof that Aaron exists!

Hay ride

Why yes, I did dye my own hair, and yes, it is orangeish! What's so wrong about orange roots anyway?

Raegan's funky carrot.

Anyway, that's it! We had a lot of fun, the weather was perfect, cool and cloudy, and we stayed there for about 4-5 hours, I think. Well worth the money. And we got home in time to go out on a date! We went to one of our favorite restaurants, Via Toscana, and then went and saw Eagle Eye at the movie theatre. It was a great day!