Thanksgiving and Transitions

This month has just flown by! For Thanksgiving, we went out to Rob's parents' house and had the traditional Thanksgiving dinner. My mom also came, along with Rob's brother Rick who flew in from Alberqueque and Rob's grandmother from Riverton, WY was also there. Nothing too eventful, which is good because on most holidays, we rush around to two houses and have two large dinners, so it was nice being in one place all day.

This week also marks the end of the Kenzie era as this was my last week of watching her. Her mom is having a baby at the end of December and is now done with her job also. It's both sad and happy as I know Ashleigh will miss her good friend coming over three days a week. It will be good to be able to give more time and attention to Ethan now that he's almost mobile and will be starting solid foods next month. It was a good 13 months with Kenzie, but I'm definitely looking forward to the break and hopefully, won't get too bored. I seriously doubt I will be as the kids keep me busy. The kids and I went to Open Gym on Kenzie's last day, so I posted some pictures from there and my first ever blog video is at the bottom (no sound as it is from our digital camera and our video camera is not digital).

Rob worked every Saturday of November, on top of his 5 days/week, so December is looking better in even more ways. He still works the 1st Saturday of December, but is then back to normal days and no weekends in December. We're also planning a fun weekend trip to Crested Butte in December to teach Ashleigh how to ski and get some skiing in ourselves with my sister and her husband, so we're definitely looking forward to the weekend away! Pictures to follow in a few weeks...

Ashleigh and Kenzie having a snowball fight

Ethan grabs his toes now!

Ashleigh helping Kenzie on the balance beam with Kellyn behind them

Kenzie and Ashleigh playing on the bar

Kids' Halloween Costumes

Ethan's First Halloween at 4 mo

Kenzie (2 yrs) as Elmo and Ashleigh (3 yrs) as Cinderella

Janice, Ethan, and Ashleigh at the Harvest Festival

Ashleigh playing a duck game

Getting ready to trick-or-treat at the library

We celebrated Halloween this year at Pinecrest's Harvest Festival. I love that the kids have a safe and unscary place where they can go burn off some energy in the bouncy castles, playing games, and still come home with a bag of candy. They did a great job and had a walk-through-the-Bible theme to the games. Ashleigh went as Cinderella and my mother-in-law sewed her costume. For Ethan's first Halloween, he was a kangaroo. Although we only made it to the last half-hour of the festival as our new truck tires took longer than we expected, it was still fun and she got plenty of candy! We also did some trick-or-treating at library story time and the Denver aquarium last Saturday.

We also found a newer used car this week to replace the Daewoo we sold last week, a Kia Spectra. We got a great deal on it and it only has 21k miles, so it'll be a long time before that car is miled-out and we need to replace it with something else. With Rob's commute, he puts 28k miles/year on a car, so it doesn't make any sense to buy new. Hopefully, the Kia will be better than the Daewoo and it'll be easier to find parts as they are more common. One plus is that the A/C works on the Kia and just went out a few months ago on the Daewoo.

Rob's grandma and grandpa were in town last weekend, so we took a four-generation photo with Ethan - very special! They went with us to the aquarium to help celebrate Ashleigh's birthday with us too.

Four Generations!
Terry, Rob, Grandpa Don, and Ethan (4 mo)

Happy kid! I love this age with his shrieks and laughs

Ashleigh's Third Birthday!

I can't believe my little girl is already 3! The speaker at this month's Mom's R&R brunch was speaking on Sanity Savers for Moms yesterday and said that "the days last forever, but the years fly by!" Isn't that the truth with so many of my days?!? Especially this past week, between sanding our deck, the Mom's brunch, selling our car, trying (unsuccessfully) to get World Series tickets, watching the games, and Ashleigh's birthday, it's been a long week and I'm very thankful today is Friday.

We had a great birthday party for Ashleigh on Wednesday with the neighborhood kids. We did a little painting/stamping fall centerpiece craft and then took all the kids outside for a picnic lunch in our backyard. We also had cupcakes and ice cream, which was Ashleigh's favorite part! It was a fun, low-key party, which is just what Ashleigh needed with her shy personality. We are also taking her to the Denver aquarium tomorrow with a few other people, which I'm sure she will also enjoy.

Frosting and decorating cupcakes for the party

Making Fall Centerpieces with Luke and Kellyn

Picnic lunch in the backyard

Kenzie and Ashleigh waiting for cupcakes

(I know this is Ashleigh's birthday post, but I took this adorable picture of Ethan yesterday (4 mo) and couldn't resist!)

Anniversaries and Fall Fun

Ashleigh at our neighbor, Chase's birthday party

Ethan (3 mo) in his carseat

Ashleigh (almost 3) and Jonas (4) watching the Broncos

Laina (5 mo), Ethan, and Ashleigh

I can't believe Rob and I have been married for five years! The time goes so fast and I guess having kids makes it speed up even more than when it was just the two of us. Ethan is already three months and 14.5 pounds, so he also is growing quickly. During the past few weeks, we've been mainly hanging out with friends, going to the park, and enjoying the last bit of summer. They're predicting snow and a cold and rainy weekend, so we have been taking advantage of the warm weather. We even went to Cold Stone for ice cream after dinner tonight and Ashleigh just loved it! Ethan watched us with his big eyes the whole time (just like in the second picture up above) and can't wait to eat what we're eating. He gets hungry just watching us eat dinner, even if he just ate.

Earlier today, we went to storytime at the library down the street and after the books on firefighters, we took a tour of the fire station next door. That was great and my first time in a firehouse. Ashleigh was quite nervous and scared of the man in his firefighting gear and mask, but loved their pet salamander and touched it and told daddy all about it when he got home.

I can't believe our Rockies are doing so well in the playoffs! They're up two games and play their third tomorrow night, so GO ROCKIES! Wouldn't that be crazy if they win tomorrow and the division playoffs and make it into the World Series?!? Broncos on the other hand... not doing so well, but it's still fun to watch the games.

Cell phone mishaps

For the record, cell phones do not survive being submerged in hot chocolate. We've been having cooler weather this week as fall is quickly approaching. What better way to bring in fall than with a nice mug of hot chocolate. I don't even know how I managed to drop it in, but I did with a big splash all over the carpet, and now it no longer works. Even with my engineering husband's wonderful talent to fix things, he couldn't get it to work again after taking it apart and cleaning every piece, it still didn't come back to life. So now, we have 1 1/2 months to go on our current contract and are hoping we can get new phones before then.

I also just realized Ethan is 12 weeks old today. He's doing great and converses with me in baby babble talk. His smiles and coos are the cutest! Here are a few pictures of the little guy. Also, potty training is going much better since my last post.

Four Generations on Rob's Dad's side

Four Generations on Rob's Mom's side

My sister, Jen, and Ethan celebrating her birthday