November Catch-Up

Alright, got October up, so now let's see what we were up to back in November.
B had a conference in Atlanta in November, so I decided to take a road trip with the boys to visit our friends who recently moved to Vegas.  It's a 6 hour drive, but went really fast and the kids were fantastic on the drive.  It was my first trip to Vegas and I can't wait to get back!

Andrew made a furnace room with the etch-a-sketch

Got synced naps on the drive down. Yes!

Near St. George, 4 hrs into our drive. Love that there's palm trees!

Andrew and his buddy, Jonah, being goofy at the Mandalay Aquarium

The boys in a casino. :)

Synced naps on the way home too!  Andrew had a little bit of a stomach bug on the drive home, so we had a bit more adventure than wanted/expected.

I spent lots of hours in November scrambling to get Andrew's Christmas stocking finished (he's 4--I'm so behind) and enjoying our fireplace.

 On a mild day, we went for a walk in the neighborhood while B did a summit hike to that peak in the picture (Grandeur Peak).  He was up there when I took this picture.

We did a big combo trip to see family for Thanksgiving at the end of the month--flew into Pittsburgh for 6 days and then flew to Illinois for 3 days.  It was great to see both sides of the family in 1 trip!

Matthew's reached the age of easy travel! Yes!!  

Got together with James, his best buddy from Pittsburgh 

Learning about magnets with Grandma

Train-obsessed Matthew got some new tracks and switcher from his Grandpa--he was in heaven!

Bowling with some help from Uncle Mick

Christmas Juice (egg nog) on Thanksgiving morning tradition!

Um, Matthew chugged about 3 cups worth.  This boy LOVED his Christmas Juice!

Now in Illinois for Tortellini Making Day (M.I.T) with 2nd cousin, Molly

My cousin Paul letting us know he was proposing to his girlfriend the next day--she said YES!!

Lots of hard work making the dough!

This year's M.I.T. group.  Matthew was at Nana & Papa's house napping with Papa

The rest of October

Dang--major blog fail.  I haven't updated since Andrew's birthday FOUR months ago?  Yikes!  I blame holidays, visitors, traveling, and pregnancy.  All valid reasons to take a break from blogging, right?  I think so.

Anyway--I'm 6 days from the due date of baby #3, so let me try to catch up on the last few months as a distraction during these BRUTAL last few days of pregnancy.  The end of pregnancy is definitely a lesson on patience and I'm afraid I'm failing miserably.  We just want to meet this little guy or gal NOW!

October:
I had a great weekend in Seattle visiting my friend, Laura, from Miami U and Chicago.  We were both pregnant for the trip, so it was a very mellow visit with naps scheduled into every day, but it was great to get a weekend away and hang out with a good friend.  We had some amazing food--Seattle's restaurant scene is really impressive. Mmmm.  I'm still dreaming about the plantain chips we had out one night.  Yum!

Beautiful Skyline

Water and boats all around!

Really impressive fall foliage colors!

The awesome hosts--Mike and Laura

Laura and I--both pregnant with due dates 1 month apart!

We also had a great visit from our good friends Chantal and Phil and their son, Declan, at the end of October.  We had a great time hosting the Thornberry family and the boys loved having baby Declan around.  Phil had a conference down in Provo and Chantal tagged along for the trip.  We carved pumpkins, laughed like we did back in the day in Chicago, and ditched the kids a few times to head out and explore SLC.

Picking out some pumpkins before their arrival

Andrew's school parade--He was anti-dressing up and declared that he HATES TOOL BELTS before school.

Carving pumpkins

Lil' Declan Thornberry's first Halloween!

Monkey and Handy Manny

Boo!

Trip up Big Cottonwood for lunch

Chantal in the mountains!

Chantal's gifted at encouraging a love of literature. :)

Isn't it just the best to hang out with friends who have known you since before you were married or had kids?  It's such a rare thing for us since we have moved so much post-marriage and kids, but man, it's really nice spending time with people who knew you when you could stay out late and have uninterrupted conversations.  It was great to see them and hopefully we'll get a chance to get together with these wonderful friends again soon!

Andrew is 4!

Well, it's happened again.  Our house got hit with a wave of sickness and I've fallen behind on the blog.  During my absence, we got to celebrate Andrew's 4th Birthday!  No party this year, but we had a great day and Andrew was very blessed by presents that arrived from across the country for him!


Andrew at less than 1 day old:

We started the morning by opening a few presents:

Spinning Disk Gun from Matthew:

Tool Book from Us:

The super exciting circular saw!

 We saved the rest of the gifts for later in the day and headed to Andrew's 4 year old doc appointment, where we were told he was doing great.  He's still small for his age, but is following a great growth curve, so no worries there!   After his doc appointment, we all headed to a bounce house place, which is like a dream come true for kids.  Excuse the blurriness of the pictures, but these kids did stand still for one second while there!

Seriously--dreamy, right?

After nap, Andrew got to see his cool tool cupcakes (and do his tucked upper lip fake smile):

And, enjoyed some boxed mac-n-cheese and hotdogs.  Much to my dismay, the kid will not eat homemade mac-n-cheese.  He has this thing against melted cheese and if he sees a string of cheese, it's game over!  We are all looking forward to this passing and have learned there's melted cheese in more foods than we realized!  Thankfully, he is still completely in love with fruits and veggies and eats everything else!

Blew out the candles and is very happy they are chocolate cupcakes and not melted cheese cupcakes like we told him. :)

More Presents!  Construction add-on set for his new Duplo's from his Godfather, Uncle Mick:

Nice new clothes from Nana and Papa:

FOLDING RULER!!! from Godmother, Aunt Faith:

JIGSAW from Godmother, Aunt Faith:

To end the day, we headed to our school/church's fall festival.  Andrew painted a pumpkin and got his face painted for the first time...with a chainsaw!

It was a busy day and lots of fun!  Of course, we also spent a good chunk of the day video-chatting with family across the country.  Andrew is so blessed to have so many people love him and be so generous on his birthday!  Thank you everyone!

Oh, and so I don't forget, here's what Andrew's up to as he turns 4 years old:

1.  Building/Construction/Tools galore.  The kid can't get enough of talking, doing, watching, and learning about building and tools.

2.  Eating everything but things containing melted cheese.

3.  Thriving in preschool and, according to his teacher, being sought out by his peers because he's a happy and fun guy.

4.  Insisting on doing everything himself one day and having a total meltdown and claiming he needs help with everything the next.  This goes along with his responses when asked to do something.  They alternate between "Sure mom! Of course!" and "I don't want to be a helper today!"  Keeps us all on our toes! :)

5.  Letting us know at least 3 times a week when we tell him to go pee when he wakes up that he HATES our toilets, wants to live somewhere without potties, and never wants to go potty again!

6.  Taking great pride in making sure Matthew receives proper discipline when he misbehaves and really seems to enjoy letting us know each and every err Matthew makes.  We are currently enjoying the "MATTHEW'S OUT OF BED" shouts we get after saying good night to the boys.

7.  Letting me know quite frequently that my belly is getting really big!  Andrew's completely set on having a sister since "I already have a brother and don't need another one."  We'll see if he gets his way!  He's really looking forward to being back on choking hazard duty starting in February.

8.  Weighing a whopping 28 lbs!

9.  Talking talking talking...Andrew will chat from the second he wakes up until bedtime.  The workers we've had around the house have been quite impressed with his vocabulary--circular saw, jig saw, coping saw, level, hammer drill, etc etc etc.

10.  Sucking his thumb.  Napping 2-3 times per week.  Knowing his letters and getting really eager to read on his own.  Brushing his teeth all by himself.  Clicking himself into his carseat all by himself.  Getting dressed on his own.  Getting himself a cup of water.  Using words to ask for things more often than melting down.  Putting his dishes in the sink when he is finished eating.  Helping B with building projects.  Learning to share with Matthew.  Getting himself out of bed, down to the basement, and turning on the tv for Saturday morning cartoons while not waking us.  Pretending not to hear us when we tell him it's time to turn off the tv.  

Whew!  Lots of progress in 4 years!  We love that little man and are looking forward to seeing what the year has in store for him!