thanksgiving time

We had a lovely Thanksgiving. Brigg & Hava came up for a couple of days and we had some friends, the Curtis & Wintch families from our ward, come over for dinner on Thursday. And it still hasn't snowed yet! I forgot to take a picture of our dinner & everyone there.

But I did capture the aftermath

Just one of the many conveniences of a super size gut

(don't worry, just sparkling cider in my cup)

First original Hyrum pillow house

Said he was being a spider

Our cute Hunterbug

Friday we ventured out into the Blackness & went to Frankenmuth to enjoy the Christmas festivities there

Smooch

Hmmm...

1.5 hours into our walking tour of the world's largest Christmas store Brigg got me a wheelchair. I felt super wimpy but it made for a good stroller for 3/4ths of our family

First time Hyrum sat on Santa's lap willingly (all for a candy cane) and without any crying involved. He told Santa he wanted a chair to sit in and a car that drives. Whew! We have both of those so Christmas should be simple this year.

Downtown

Our cheesy Twilight/gazebo pose-Jeremy chose not to turn me into a vampire that night; maybe another time if I'm lucky

Rotation Complete!

This handsome man finished his eighth and final rotation for school last week!

So while he went to beautiful (and cold) places like this

And this

I got to stay home with these two stinkers

I have been dreading these rotations since I learned about them. Eight, week long rotations without my husband from Sunday afternoon to late Friday night. How would I do it? I classify myself among the needy wives of the world. I love my husband, I love spending time with him one on one and I love to watch him play with our boys every day and to have family time. And he helps tremendously with everything.

But I must say that this has been really good for me. It showed me I could take care of our family and home by myself if I had to. But what also helped was knowing this was temporary, so I admire you lovely women out there whose husbands are gone a lot, a lot, a lot on a regular basis. I don't know how you do it but you are amazing! It's so great to have Jeremy home.

TWIN UPDATE

1. We decided on names-sweet! (They're not Hazel and/or Howard)

2. We bought and own two new infant car seats

3. Best news ever-I had an ultrasound last week, they measured them and they each weigh exactly the same (very uncommon esp. for boy/girl twins) at 3 lb 13 oz! They're 90th percentile HUGE for babies and looked super healthy and active in there. So we will for sure make our goal of 6 pounds each, hopefully even 7. The bigger, the better.

4. I'm now constantly enjoying super puffy calves, ankles and feet :)

29 hours

We left Friday at 2pm to go to Brimley and Sault Sainte Marie in the Upper Penninsula of Michigan. It takes five long hours to drive there. We got back this evening at 7pm and out of the 29 hours we were gone we spent probably 13 or more hours in the car.

Jeremy has had over half of his rotations up there and we wanted to see it too.

The boys love sleeping in hotels and eating in restaurants so despite the long hours in the car they had fun

Scenic overlook

This is what Hyrum thinks of throwing rocks in Lake Superior in 40 degree weather and horridly cold wind

Hunter didn't want to leave despite the rest of us feeling slightly frost-bitten

Tree-climbing

I love, love, love this picture of Hyrum. I love his goofy faces and goofy smiles but I can't ever seem to get a "normal" picture of him where he actually looks like himself - today I did.

Speaking of goofy...

Happy HALLOWEEN!!!

ZooBoo & Jackson

My brother Zac and sister-in-law Joy had their third baby a couple weeks ago-Jackson-so we wanted to come down and meet him in case I am too large to travel back for his baby blessing in December. I'm so glad we did! The Pittsburgh zoo was having a Halloween celebration so we brought the boys' costumes and they had a blast with their cousins getting candy and looking at animals. We were also able to enjoy Sunday with Brigg & Hava up in Erie. Hunter certainly proved that his lungs are completely healthy by throwing some first rate fits this trip.

Somehow I forgot to take a picture of Jackson. He is quite the cutie and seems to be a really good baby so far. He hardly cried at all! (I want babies like that, please).

I had a slight panic attack coming home from Erie Sunday night. Even though Jackson is a great baby it was something about being around a newborn that had me realizing what exactly goes into taking care of a baby. These were my thoughts silent and spoken aloud to Jeremy the whole way home...

"What were we THINKING getting pregnant again so fast???"

"I am not in any way ready for another baby let alone TWO new babies!"

"I can't do this"

"Help"

Well, as my brother pointed out, sorry it's too late! I am feeling better now thanks to a lot of prayer and reading and re-reading this scripture over and over and over again.
Matthew 11:28-30

Poop Camp Graduate

I have sadly neglected to mention Hyrum's star performance at Poop Camp this year. We started on August 15th and it's safe to say he was completely potty-trained by the 17th or 18th, even at night he just gets up to go!!! The first couple of days were a bit tricky with a few accidents because I think he was hoping we would give up and put him back in his beloved diapers but by the end of the 2nd day he knew we weren't going to give up so he just went with it. What a pro. Every time he went he got one treat and a sticker and after 10-15 stickers he could choose a dollar store present and that really kept him going. When the chart was full we celebrated at Jump City.

I think it helped that he was older and I think it was worth it to wait longer (at least for Hyrum) and not have to deal with too many accidents. Too bad we'll still have 3 in diapers for about a year starting in January-oh well maybe Hunter will go sooner!

Here is a photo I found of Hunter that Jeremy took a couple months ago, I think it perfectly represents him

3 months

Today is October 10th. In exactly 3 months it will be January 10th and I will be exactly 38 weeks pregnant. I have decided (99%) I do NOT want to go beyond 38 weeks and if things are not progressing on their own then I will be induced or something. So that means that I have 3 months or less before my twin babies arrive!!! It seems soon when I think of them being here but super far away when I think about being preggo that much longer...sigh! Overall I can't wait until they show their cute little faces!

Here I am today at 25 weeks

Here I was at 36 weeks with Hyrum

Here I am at 32 weeks with Hunter. Hmmm. I seem to be about the same size in all of these pictures. These just might be the last preggo pictures that will be viewed to the public :)

My new best friend (sorry Jeremy). This has been a fun development over the last week. I may have to give up eating altogether.

My friend Andrea gave me two big garbage bags full of girl clothes!!!
(Thank you!) I made Jeremy look at them with me and his comment was 'Wow. These are really different from boy clothes.'

My cute boys before general conference and after a regular run to the cider mill for pumpkin donuts

Strutting their stuff in their new twin church outfits. I wasn't sure if I liked them on the rack but they definitely look cute on.

Here Hyrum is enjoying a pumpkin donut today

Picking out a pumpkin

Hunter loved 'patting' the horses.