Wednesday, October 10, 2012

A bit of catch up. . .

It has been quite a while since my last update and we've been busy!  I've attached a slide show of pictures but to summarize, here's what we've been up to. . .

In August we headed up the canyons to camp as a family.  We have not camped since Addy was 13 months old so we were a little unsure of how it would all go.  We had grand plans of practicing sleeping in the tent in the back yard and, well, we didn't get that far.  We had a great time hiking in the mountains together and having a picnic dinner followed by a walk around the campground and s'mores after dinner.  Everything came flying apart sometime around 8pm when we decided to put the girls to bed.  Talk about disaster. . . about 10pm we gave up and decided to pack everything up and head home (only 20 minutes away!).  The girls were crying, screaming and just plain falling apart.  We buckled them in the car and tossed everything in the back only to discover that they were both asleep before we pulled out of the campsite.  Grrr!  Oh well. 

I do have a picture included in the slideshow of some produce from our garden.  Let's just say we lost interest in the garden somewhere around mid-August.  The tomatoes stopped producing well and I couldn't stomach eating veggies so we gave nearly everything away.  We did enjoy some tomatillo enchiladas last week and a couple of winter squash (and I'm excited about our 4 pumpkins still on the vine) but beyond that. . . we've decided gardening isn't our thing.  At least not while we have littles and I'm pregnant.

We were able to spend a week in Gunnison in early September and we really enjoyed the fall weather, being outside and getting to do some small adventures.  We had Addy's birthday celebration (she was sick for it though) and the girls traveled really well.  I think we made it home in record time.

We did celebrate Addy's birthday again on her actual birthday with breakfast for dinner and lots of cupcake treats throughout the day along with meeting friends at the aquarium on her special day.  The birthday theme was ballerinas and tutus (a lot of the gifts followed that theme, I didn't plan it!) and so ever since we've been in constant dress-up mode. 

We just had Brad's mom, Lynn, at our house for a week long visit and we stayed very busy exploring many things in the Salt Lake area we haven't seen before.  We took a train ride through the Provo Canyon, had high tea at the Grand America hotel, had lots of great conversation and played outside quite a bit.  As a family we also went to Oktoberfest at Snowbird and ate crazy food and dance to wild polka music.  What a great visit.

As far as family news. . . I'm 20 weeks pregnant and although we have our big ultrasound next Tuesday, we're still not sure if we're going to find out the gender of the baby yet. . . we'll let you know.  I look mighty pregnant and I'm trying to prepare for this baby by getting a little exercise, re-reading some helpful books and resting.  We're also looking to remodel our house to add another bedroom and so we've been doing a lot of prep work for that.  I've been serving on leadership for MOPS at our old church and attending a women's Bible study at our new church so that we have some interaction with live outside our home.  :)

Elsie is 17 1/2 months now and is busy, busy, busy.  She's changing so fast.  She loves to dance, pet dogs and cats, and go for walks.  She's quite expressive and emotional (both high and low) and is really opinionated.  She is SO different than Addy was at this age!  She also just got over her first ear infection of the season so we're waiting for the bomb to drop because if she gets one more we're likely moving toward tubes for her ears. 

Addy has stepped into age 3 with lots of flare.  :)  She's in the 'I want to do it' phase and we're really working on different strategies to help her reign in her 3-ness.  Addy loves to make up songs and sings constantly and she also loves to live in the land of make-believe.  We're doing home school stuff with her and while she's loving it, it's quite a challenge to do it with Elsie on the loose.  Elsie wants to do everything Addy's doing but ends up eating whatever we're doing.  This too shall pass.  :)

Brad has been busy with work and has gotten some good opportunities to learn more about different parts of Farmers.  He continues to host visitors from out of state to highlight the work the auto department has done here.  He's doing a great job!  Brad has also been able to get together with some of the pastors from our new church to get to know them better.  We are all really enjoying the sound Biblical teaching at our new church and it's been fun to get to know the families in the church.

So, no promises on when the next blog post will come. . . hopefully sooner than later but life seems to get away from me!  Enjoy what's left of fall!  God Bless!