Fall 2014

Oh my.  It's happened again!  I completely skipped a month of blogging.  In fact it's been almost 2 months.  Whooops!  I guess this time my excuse is that I have given up blogging and even reading to concentrate on other endeavors for a bit.  This time it has been photography, quilting, and Thanksgiving/Family/Christmas!  I took some killer pics of the kids in October and have been practicing my editing skills via Picasa.  You're welcome for the Christmas card by the way (can you believe I actually sent one?!?!).  I have also been attempting to complete Mikey's baby quilt (can you say finally?) by Christmas.  It is not looking like I will make that goal either (previous goals include his birth, the summer, his first birthday...then I gave up!)...but I am hoping while Gil is in Honduras in January that that might just get it done.  So 2nd birhday....not bad for the third kid right?!?  That will free me up to learn to crochet so I can complete 4th baby's blanket by...at least the 3rd birthday!  Also, Christmas.  It seems that it takes up so much time these days, what with kids and all.  Plus my sister Alissa came back from Hawaii in November for 3 weeks and we had 2 Thanksgivings, a Thanksmas, my family's Christmas weekend at a waterpark resort.  All that with the cooking and cleaning and getting the tree and putting up stuff and ordering gifts and shopping for gifts and wrapping the gifts and making the gifts.  You get it.  So I guess we have been busy which is nice.

Yesterday Gil's sister came from Alaska with 2 young children and no husband (he is coming in a few days).  Yikes, I know.  But we are totally excited about seeing them today or tomorrow!  Jude has his last day of school tomorrow with an early dismissal and a community coffee in the morning where they are going to sing their Christmas songs.  Then the Christmas concert is Friday night after being postponed due to a bad weather day on Monday.  Saturday we are off to Missouri to celebrate with the Buhmans and then to CB for a few days to spend more time with the Ridenours.  We will be home for Christmas morning which I so love as that is where I always was Christmas morning growing up.  And after Grandma Mary Lou's that night we are pretty much done with family things.  It will be nice to have the week after Christmas to rest and recuperate as Gil will be leaving for Honduras again of course shortly.  That is the black lining of the Holidays for me.  Looking "forward" to two whole weeks alone with kids.  I don't know how people do it!

Oh, I should probably also mention that I am now I believe somewhere close to the third trimester.  Almost 27 weeks I think.  Anyway I am getting huge and my feet and back ache, but I don't take pregnancy selfies anymore.  Sorry, I know you were hoping for one!

Here are some pics as our signs of life this fall!

Our kids are cute aren't they?  The first ones are all from my photo shoot that I did alone mind you.
Gil was helping harvest that day.

The "little" tree in the kitchen.

The "BIG" tree in the living room.  We opted to go to a tree farm in West Point instead of Missouri Valley this year (on the absolute coldest day of the year!) to save some time and gas...but we did pay about $100 more for these babies.  Yeah...