Belly Picture

Alright friends, I have heard you! I keep getting requests for belly pictures. It's not that I don't want to take them and post them...it's just that I either forget or when the camera is out, there is no one else around to take the picture for me. Well, tonight, before we finished with everything, I had Alex take a picture of my belly. I will be 22 weeks on Tuesday! Sorry about the attire...I just stayed in my "pumpkin carving" outfit!

A night of pumpkins, seeds, and carvings!

Tonight we cut open two of the pumpkins we bought on Saturday and pulled out all of the seeds. Madison was sooooo excited to help with every process. She even helped me rinse and prep the seeds for roasting. Once we cleaned up from the "real" pumpkins, Alex and Madison pulled out a small fake pumpkin we had bought awhile ago to carve at a friend's house, but never ended up being able to. Alex and Madison first created Madison's pumpkin on Starfall.com so that they knew what they were hoping to make. Then, Alex helped Madison bring her starfall creation to life. (A side note: for those of you who have never used starfall with your kids...it's an amazing website. I used to use it all of the time in my classroom. Check it out, you won't be sorry you did).




While they worked, I roasted the seeds from our "real" pumpkins.



I think Alex and Madison created a beautiful pumpkin! Madison is so proud of it. She has it on display in her room. Now we have to find a little light to put inside of it, since we can't use a candle.


Once the pumpkin was carved and the seeds were roasted, we watched Monster's Inc as a family and ate our seeds! It was a great end to a wonderful weekend! Hope you all had great weekends too!

Heritage Farm Pumpkin Patch

We had been wanting to go to the pumpkin patch for some time now, but our weather kept spoiling the fun. Well on Saturday, we finally had the time and the weather to go have a fun morning of rides, animals, and pumpkins. We always think the more the merrier, so we invited our friends the Williamson's to come along and, as usual, they were up for the adventure! We seriously had soooooo much fun! We did a little of everything. We took pictures, of course. Then, Madison rode a train, went to a petting zoo, rode a ferris wheel, went on the swings, drove a motor boat, went down a HUGE slide, and picked out pumpkins! We had a blast and would highly recommend this pumpkin patch to all who haven't been or are going to try to go again!

Domino Cookies

Madison has really taken a liking to playing with dominoes! Well, one day when we were playing dominoes she asked if we could make domino cookies? I told her I had never heard of domino cookies, but that I'm sure they exist, so I did a google search and found a recipe. Here are a couple pictures of us making the cookies. (I forgot to take a picture of the final product). Below is also the recipe.

Domino Cookies
from www.food.com

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1/3 cup water
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cups flour
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:
1Preheat oven to 325°F.
2Cream together butter, sugars, vanilla and salt.
3Beat in cocoa powder.
4Dissolve baking soda in water and mix into dough.
5Stir in flour, and then chips.
6Place dough by spoonful on a greased baking sheet.
7Bake for 14 to 16 minutes.

(Do not overbake! Cookies will seem a bit underdone when they should come out of the oven - this keeps them from drying out).

Fall Festival

I have made some awesome friends here in San Diego and they all decided to put on a Neighborhood Fall Festival for all of the kids. We had so much fun! All of the kids dressed up in their costumes, and then we had a huge potluck and had fun fall crafts for the kids. Here are some pictures from the fun evening!

Peanut Butter and Jelly...."all by myself"

The other day, Madison asked if she could make her own lunch. I was a little puzzled being that she usually has yogurt and fruit for lunch (by choice), so I asked her what she wanted. She said she wanted to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich "all by herself." She had a very determined look in her eye and so as she went to get her stool, I found all of the supplies she would need and let her have at it. She did a great job!!! She was very proud of her accomplishment, but very sweetly told me that she prefers my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches over hers and she hasn't asked to make another sandwich since.

Minnie Mouse is in the House

This year for Halloween, Madison asked if she could be Minnie Mouse. I am not exactly sure where she got the idea, being that her life has been consumed with princesses as of late, but nonetheless she asked to be Minnie Mouse. So we went and found a fun costume and she had the opportunity to wear it last week at our neighborhood Fall Festival. She has two more little events where she gets to be Minnie Mouse and she can't wait!

My Little Teacher

Madison loves to pretend to teach her little stuffed animals (just like I did when I was little) and one day my sweet friend Amy came over, with her twin boys, to watch Madison for me while I went to a doctor's appointment. While I was away, Amy snapped this sweet picture of Madison trying to teach Henry about Queen Esther, from her little Bible. She's been learning about Esther at church in Sunday school, so she was eager to share her knowledge with a willing and listening ear.

Little Man's First Shoes

So today, we went out looking for a few things and didn't find anything we were looking for, BUT we did find some pretty handsome shoes for little man. Here are the shoes we found. I think they are just darling. They are Brown and Blue, if you can't tell from the picture.

"Shaggy"

So, today was the day! We had our Level 2 Ultra Sound appointment bright and early at 7:50 am. It's been quite the day! I have been up since 2:00 am. I kept having weird dreams and then finally I couldn't go back to sleep. Well, the time had finally come...it was 7:00am and the morning started for us. We dropped Madison off at our good friend, Melissa's house while we went and hoped to get a peek at what we were going to be holding in our arms a few months from now.

We were on our way to our appointment and we both were so excited and anxious to find out what we were going to be having. We had already decided that as soon as we were done with our appointment, we were going to go pick up Madison and then head over to Build-A-Bear to build our #2 a bear, a tradition that we started with Madison when we built her Lulu.

On our way home from our appointment we were both wondering how Madison was going to react to our news. She knew that we were going to find out if she was having a baby brother or a baby sister, but I don't think it really sunk in that she was going to be able to know (hopefully) with certainty after this appointment.

When we arrived at Melissa's house, we told Madison that we found out what we were going to be having and that we were going to go build the baby a bear and she was excited to go build a bear with us. We also told her that baby was going to give her a bear too, so that she could feel part of the celebration.

When we arrived at Build-A-Bear, the choices were all very different than they were three years ago. We let Madison help us pick out baby's "bear" and she picked out a very cute dog (she's kind of been obsessed with dogs lately). We all built the dog together, but Alex, as is tradition, recorded his voice with a sweet message for the baby and gave it to the lady to put in the dog's arm. When we were all done stuffing our baby's dog, the lady had each of us pick out a heart and make a wish for the baby and then put the hearts in the dog. Finally, we gave the dog a "bath" and picked out a name. Because of the existing tag on the name and because Madison is going to have a little brother, we thought it appropriate to call the dog "Shaggy." Madison created a beautiful Pink Bear, that she named Teddy. (I am lacking a picture of this one b/c she is sleeping with her now and this was my first chance to post something so all of you sweet friends could find out what we are having).



I have to admit that in the beginning I was a little shocked and disappointed, BUT I talked to my dear friend Diana and she (as always) put things into perspective and now I am very excited about having a little baby boy to hold and call my own in a few short months. God is so good, all the time. He knows just what our family needs and what a blessing he will be. We are close to solidifying a name and when we do I will post it, but for now he's Madison's "baby brother", my sweet baby boy, my gift from God.

Here are a few pictures from the day. Hope you enjoy! We think he totally has Madison's profile...their ultra sound pictures are very similar. He was sleeping when we started the ultra sound and by the end he was being a ham and waving to the camera and it even looked like he might also be a little thumb sucker. :) We can't wait to meet him in person, but for now these pictures will have to do, but I can tell you this, he has already stolen my heart!