ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

We





Did





It





AGAIN!!!





Surprise!!





I’m





Pregnant!















NOT





I was trying to clean. Ryan thought this was hilarious and had to take a picture. So to be clear, I'm not pregnant. It was just fun to get you!

Halloween!

Happy Halloween! It feels like that was just yesterday, but it's already the middle of November! This time of year always flys by like crazy. We had a great Halloween. In the morning I thought I'd practice with them so they knew what was going to happen. It was hilarious! I went in my room and shut the door and Kaitlyn would say "trick or treat!" to which I would reply, you have to knock first! Then she'd knock and I'd open the door and she'd just stare at me. "your supposed to say trick or treat!" Blank stare. So I'd give them each a piece of candy and say lets try again. Same thing every time! Emily just cried the whole time! She couldn't figure out why mom would give her a piece of candy and then shut the door in her face! It was funny. After about 3 tries I gave up. I figured they'd figure it out soon enough that evening.
Ryan came home early from work (YAY!!) and helped me get the kids ready. We were ready to go right at 4:30, which is when trick or treating starts here. We trick or treated for about an hour. The girls were adorable, and really enjoyed it. It took a few houses for them to get it but once they did they LOVED it!

Our Lion, Logan! -He looked SOOOO cute!


Our butterfly Emily! Again, so cute! (I got her costume for $2 at goodwill!)



Kaitlyn was a bride, but because there's a picture of Cinderella on the dress everyone thought she was a princess. I tried to do a bridal up do on her hair, but she wouldn't corporate and messed it up. AND she REFUSED to wear my veil. Oh well! She also wouldn't pose by herself so here's both the girls. (she's not stubborn at all!)


I went as Queen Mom. I wore pink because all the girls were going to be dressed in Pink, but Kaitlyn switched costumes last min. That was fine with me though. I was just glad she dressed up. There was a little bit there where I thought she was going to refuse a costume! Here's me.



After Trick or treating we went up to Platteville. There's a church up there that I go to MOPS meetings at (think enrichment during the day) that was having an activity. The girls had a great time. There were games, food, and even a bounce house. We only got to stay for just over an hour, but it was a lot of fun! Here's the bounce house the girls LOVED! You can see the pink and white inside, that's the girls. They had a blast!



After that we went to Ryan's bosses Halloween party. It was really fun. They had a ton of food and decorations. The kids had fun running around and especially playing in the backyard. We didn't get to stay long though, the kids were EXHAUSTED by then! All in all it was a great holiday! Hope yours was great too!

Procrastinating

So aparently I'm in the mood for tags lately. My cousin did this and I thought it was cute.

"On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me..."

1 embarrassing moment: Oh SO many to choose from! Once in 9th or 10th grade I leaned back in my English class (1/2 way through the day) and my back hit the back of the chair. I thought, hum that felt weird. And then I realized I had TWO bra's on! lol. That morning I had been trying to decide which looked better (I had really little "booms" at the time) while I waited for my ride. So instead of just ignoring it (like anyone else would have noticed) I made a big deal about it and changed durring lunch, but I couldn't go to my locker for some reason so I had to take my extra bra with me to lunch hidden in my sweater. Which of coarse my friends tried to make me drop it and make it that much more embarassing!


2 best friends: Ryan and my mom

3 things you buy regularly: diapers, cereal, and bread.

4 places you want to go (and might actually REALLY go): Portugal (when the kids are grown up), Texas (anytime/all the time), Utah, somewhere with great beaches

5 goals for the upcoming year (that you might actually do): NOT to get pregnant again ;), have more patience with the kids, be a better friend, buy a house (PLEASE!), keep my house cleaner.

6 things most people don't know about you: I'm 24, I still want 6 kids, My booty was once a team mascott (unbeknownst to me), I LOVE to swing dance and miss it teribly!, I love to sing just not by myself, I enjoy doing the girl hair- even when they are crying (I know I'm mean).


7 things you would never say (that's right get it out of your system now):
"Let's rob a bank"
"Ohh, I want fish for dinner!"
"I'll kill the spider/bug/mouse."
"I hate you"
"I'm done having kids"
"I don't need any more friends"
"We should buy this even if we can't afford it"

8 things you love about the Christmas season: family time!, the songs, an excuse to walk around singing songs, the general excitment, lots of activities going on, the grandparents spoiling all the grandkids, parties, LOTS of good food,

9 things you say to your kids:
"I love you"
"Stay out of the fridge"
"Are you my baby?" (Em likes to be the baby)
"Lets go!"
"Say please"
"Thank you"
"I have a special surprise for you"
"Whatchya doin'?"
"We don't hit!"

10 things you do a lot: read blogs, procrastinate chores (some of us never grow up), feed the kids, run to piggly wiggly, call my mom, call Ryan, watch tv when the kids go to bed, play with the kids, go on walks (less now that it's cold), take a nap durring nap time when I SHOULD clean!


11 things you would rather not live without: the gospel, family, health, the health of my children, Ryan (who has promised he can't die until AFTER me!), books, food, a safe place to call home, a way to stay warm in the winter (thank you heaters!), clothes, phone

12 people to tag: This is the hard part! Mindy, Katrina, Kayla, Angela, Kara, Julia, Jenny, Courtnet, Lisa, Debbi, Jenna, Shanna

Pumpkins

Kaitlyn has been obsessed with pumpkins since we made Jack-o-lanturn! We had a great time. The girls were NOT impressed with the mess of cleaning it out though! Em would take her spoon and take the seeds I had just taken out of the pumpkin and put in a bowl, and either put them back in the pumpkin or on the table. lol, oh well. I did most of the cleaning out and Ryan did the carving, the girls made a mess and had fun and Logan slept. All in all it was a great family activity.
Here's us and our pumpkin:



Then we put it on our porch with the painted pumpkins. A few days later (like MAYBE 2-3) the eye and nose were conected! An animal had started eating our pumpkin! And there were a few nibles out of the baby pumpkins too! I couldn't believe it. That's never happened before. I'm going to assume it was the squirels that live in the trees in our yard, I don't even want to think of what else it could have been! Again, luckily the girls were unaware of the difference! So they weren't upset about it.

Kaitlyn likes to dress herself

Kaitlyn point your booty at me I want to take a picture:



Me laughing the whole time by the way!
The booty shot:



Kaitlyn, is that uncomfortable? Would you like some help?:



Her response, yeah. With a cute little sad face.
Sometimes it just doesn't work the way we plan. Poor girl. But I really got a kick out of this.

*For those of you with out little girls, her panties are on sideways and inside out. Meaning her body is in a leg whole. Too funny.

RULES
1) Post rules on your blog
2) Answer the six "8" items
3) Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving them a comment

8 Favorite TV Shows
1. The Office
2. Chuck
3. The Biggest Loser (I love Allie!(last years winner))
4. Pushing Daisies
5. Those are my favoirtes but I LIKE to watch a lot more!
6. So missing watching So You Think You Can Dance cause we don't get that channel :(
7.
8.

8 Things I did Yesterday
1. went to playgroup
2. met a new mom at siad playgroup
3. relized I'm no longer a newbie (YAY)
4. fed the kids (feels like thats all I do some days!)
5. watched a movie with Ryan!
6. stayed up WAY to late to watch the movie
7. read Twilight (I love that book, and this was my gajilointh time to read it :))
8. went with the fam to Menards to look for table legs

8 Things I look forward to
1. Kaitlyn's "pink birthday" she's turning 3, but if you ask her she's 4 ;)
2. THANKSGIVING- in TEXAS
3. Going to Texas and seeing FAMILY!!!
4. Christmas (actually getting to be in Texas for more than a few days!)
5. Ryan getting to spend the evening at home (tonight is Seminary and YM and tomorrow is a sem meeting in Madison :(
6. Going on an ACTUALL date with Ryan, sans kids. Even Logan.
7. Logan meeting his Grandpas and Aunts, Uncles, and cousins for the first time.
8. Did I mention going to Texas?

8 Favorite Restaurants
1. This new (to our family) mexican restuarnt in Plateville -REALLY good Mexican in Wisconsin, who knew!
2. Culvers (SOOO lovin the Pumpkin shakes right now!!!)
3. that's about it right now! -not many places to eat out near here, so they get old fast!
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

8 Things on my wish list
1. To own a house
2. Warm weather ALL year long
3. NO snow
4. Summer
5. Texas
6. To live near family
7. The girls to NOT fight
8. Logan to want to eat only when it's convinient, lol yeah right!

8 People to tag
1. Lisa, but I think you may have done this one? you may have tagged me for it too. not sure.
2. Julia (PS I want a new Cooper pic too!)
3. Jenny
4. Aria
5. Suzanne
6. and anyone who wants to
7.
8.If I put your name down and you don't want to, don't! I forget to do it myself most of the time.

Good luck!

Booms!

I love kids. They make life fun. This morning Kaitlyn was watching me get dressed (because being a mom means you have an audience for EVERYTHING) and while I was putting my bra on she says "that's for your booms, mom" I just laughed and said yes it is. So I tell Ryan about it and she says "mom has big booms. I have little booms. Emmy too." We had a fun little talk about booms today. Seriously I was laughing the whole time. So funny. I think she's pretty excited that she will get big booms when she's older too. lol. And a bra. On Monday we were at Walmart shopping and she tried to get me to buy her one. Too funny.

Oh I was going to post about the trip on Monday. So we live across the street from a Piggly Wiggle (I still just love that name, it makes me want to giggle). I think that is the only way we've been able to eat since Logan was born! I run to the store with all 3 kids packed into the "limo" double stroller and I have about 30 mins from entering to exiting before the kids go crazy. Because of this I haven't braved a trip to Plateville to go shopping. On Monday I decided it was time to give it a try. We drove up there and before we got out had a talk about the rules in the store. Well they were GREAT!!! I was so happy and excited. Probably helped that because I hadn't been shopping in FOREVER I was buying a lot of stuff for them. lol. Kaitlyn only had one fit and in comparission was very minor and Em and Logan were great. So when we got in the car I decided to reward them by going out to lunch. So we get to Culvers and Logan is a little fussy. I figure, he's been in his carseat for the drive up to Platteville and the entire time we shopped, poor boy. So I got him out and carried him in. We get inside and all of a sudden I realise what I just did. I took all 3 into a resturant to eat BY MYSELF and Logan is going to have to be held the ENTIRE time! What was I thinking? Well the kiddos suprised me AGAIN and were picture perfect. It was wonderful. Kaitlyn even went to the bathroom all by her self! I was very nervous about this. I have a fear of some crazy man hiding in the bathroom and hurting my baby. So I went in and made sure no one else was in there and then watched the door. I was just about to go check on her when she came out on her own. What a big girl! I was so proud of my baby! So now I have high hopes. That's good becuse we can't spend the ENTIRE winter in our house. We would all go CRAZY!!

Painting Pumpkins

At the beginning of October we painted pumpkins! We did this last year and Kaitlyn really enjoyed it. (Em was still a baby-crazy!) Here's the crew paintin



Logan


Emily


Kaitlyn


There were 3 little pumpkins one for each of my little pumpkins! Kaitlyn got to pick them out and she had so much fun doing it. There is a cute little store that just moved in across the street. They remodeled a house it looks so cute! I was kinda bumed, I was hoping for neighbors, but that's ok. The owner is really nice and we enjoyed meeting her when we went there.

Logan and Dad watching the fun.


Some of the art work:
Kaitlyn's


Em's


Afterwards they put them on the pourch. A few days later it rained and my washible paint washed right off those pumpkins! I didn't think about that. Oh well at least the girls didn't notice.

Vesperman Farms

We went to Vesperman Farms last year and really enjoyed it, so I was looking forward to it this year. We had a great time this time too. The only sad thing is the pumpkins didn't grow because of all the flooding. They did still do the hay ride though, but it was sad to see the field with no pumpkins! I hope they grow next year.

This year we went with our friends the Midtovens. It was so much fun to have them there. Kaitlyn and Mya are great friends and Jake and Em love eachother, it's so cute. This summer Kaitlyn had a little thing for Jayden. Lol. I think she's over it now though.

When you first walk in there's this really cool corn shuker (sp?) I don't even know if that's what it's really called, but the kids had fun turnin the wheel and seeing the corn come out!




The kids playing in the corn. I think Jakie and Em could of stayed here the whole time! They loved it.


My two handsome men.


They had this brick maze that the kids enjoyed running on. Jayden totally got it (he's a little older) while the girls just ran around holding hands. So cute. I love that they are friends!



The animals. The kids also really enjoyed this. They just love animals.



Ryan feeding the animals. The kids always get a kick out of that.


Midtoven's


Dalton's. I put both up so you can appreciate how good the good one is, even though it's not that great! It's so hard to get a good picture of everyone, while everyone is siting! (Also I made the girls wear the same outfits as last year. I was going to do a this year/last year shot, but it just didn't turn out. My hopes were much higher than reality. oh well)


So we lost the files with last years Vesperman's trip but click here to see the difference of just ONE year, it's crazy!

Logan. You get both cause I couldn't decide which was cuter.



This rope maze was a lot of fun. The Vespermans had a lot of fun things for the kids to do. I think they played here for at least a half hour. We contemplated making one, just cause you can tie your kids to it and it's a game. Genious!





We also roasted hot dogs and ate a bunch of food. Then we raced home and got ready for the parade. Scroll down to see that adventure.

Pumpkin Dinner

So we had some friends over for dinner tonight. Last year for the first time I heard about pumpkin dinners. You cook dinner in a pumpkin. How cool. So ever since then I have wanted to try it. And just a few days ago my friend Karen posted her recipie! Yay. So we tried it tonight. It was VERY yummy! Here's the recipie stright from her recipie blog:

Pumpkin Dinner
1 medium-sized pumpkin, able to fit into oven with rack in lowest position
2 lbs ground beef or turkey (I used TURKEY)
1 chopped onion
4 T soy sauce (I used 6 T)
1 T brown sugar (I used 2 T)
2 cans sliced water chestnuts, drained (I forgot to buy these this time. I usually only do 1 can. They’re really yummy!)
2 cans green beans, drained
1 ½ C cooked brown rice

Hollow the inside of a pumpkin (keep the stem to seal for cooking). For Halloween, draw a fun jack-o-lantern face on pumpkin with magic marker! Set aside. In a large frying pan, brown beef/turkey and onion. Drain. Return to pan. Add soy sauce, brown sugar, water chestnuts, green beans, and cooked brown rice. Simmer for a few minutes. Put mixture into hollowed-out pumpkin. Place stem on top to seal pumpkin. Place pumpkin on large cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for about 1 ½ hours (or until pumpkin is softened).

*This recipe makes a ton! I half it for me and Dave, and we still have leftovers. This dinner is almost like a cousin to shepherds pie, minus mashed potatoes. Growing up, my mom always had this dinner ready for us when we got back from trick-or-treating. We loved it! The mixture inside the pumpkin is so yummy! And, for those of you who like squash, scrape pumpkin off the sides to eat with the dinner. Yum!



She has a picture on her blog of a dinner in a pumpkin if you want to see the general idea. It was way yummy and we have even have leftovers after inviting a family over!

Harvest Day Parade

So the first Saturday in October was a PACKED day for our family. At 10-noon was the Versperman Farms activity. A family community group I'm involved in puts it on every year. I will post about that in another post. After that was the Lancaster Harvest Day Parade followed by a tour at the fire department with all the fire trucks. Also that day was General Conference! It was a crazy busy, very fun day.

Watching the Parade:



For such a small town, I was very impressed with how many entries there were. It was more than an hour long. The girls had a blast and for the next week or so Kaitlyn kept asking to go to the "parade day" again. Too cute.
Here's Em LOVING the parade and the PINK flags (big hit with my girls!)




Here's the Lancaster Marching Band. Very cool! They start marching in parades in Middle School here, I think that's really cool.



I have NEVER seen this before, and there were LOTS in this parade.



Yellow fire truck? I love it!

The Elementary school had a float and here are some of our friends walking with them! I tried to get a close up of some of the kids we know on the float, but I wasn't fast enough!




We were at the end of the parade so when people in it finished they would come and join us. It was really fun and by the end we had tons of friends surrounding us! Yay for friends. (That may sound lame/weird, but it has taken quite a while to get settled in here and have friends)


Logan enjoying the parade.



These are our friends that were walking with the Catholic school. Yes we're friends, we forgive them for being Catholic and they forgive us for being Mormons. lol. Actually we really have a LOT in common. They are a great family.



Horses. Em LOVES animals. She even got up for this one!




Afterwards we went to the fire station. It was fun to look at all the different engines up close. Then we went inside and sat down to eat some cookies and juice (cause we needed more sugar after the parade!). I notice Em is stinky. Mental note -next time DON'T forget the diaper bag and change Em as soon as we get home! All of a sudden I see something fall to the floor next to Em. Yep poop. She DUG IT OUT OF HER DIAPER and threw it on the ground! Eww, Eww, Eww! Crap (literally) I don't even have my diaper bag with me! If I had, I would have changed her and I would have had WIPES!! Luckily there was a sink there. I discreetly informed Ryan of our "situation" and ran Em to the sink to wash her hands. We had WALKED to the fire station. Crap! Luckily we live near by so I picked Em up- in a very unusual hold (I probably looked crazy) and ran her home! I don't think Ryan has ever been more happy to hear, I've got Em you get the other two ok?! Oh and I did clean up the floor at the fire station, don't worry! Of all the times to be unprepared! This was the first and last (since then) time she has ever done that. I hope I never see it again!
I seriously think I'm going to be known as that lady (as in OHH THAT Lady, yeah I heard about HER!) in this town! It's a very small town and gossip runs wild here! I thought I was out of the woods when I graduated High School, but that was NOTHING compared to living in a small town! So here's to hopein' no one noticed our "situation"!
After that we got to calm down and enjoy a nice conference session. Pics and details of the Vesperman Farms will be coming soon!