November 2012

November in Illinois was lovely and mild. 

The weather never dropped below 40, which meant lots of days outside. 

The path behind our house follows the golf course. We can take it right to Teya's school which is just a 5 minute walk away.

 We visited the park at Teya's school several times on Taber's days off.

The kids loved running around and playing soccer with their Daddy.

They also really loved climbing on the playground. Cam is getting pretty good at navigating the jungle gym on his own, so is Brinley.

 I'm starting to make friends and get settled out here. Last month I went to a Girls night out to see Twilight, got invited to a jewelry party with the gals in my neighborhood and did a Bunco night with some of the ladies from church. I'm so happy to have such awesome social neighbors and to have such a fun and social ward. 

 Last month we got a surprise visit from our besties the Hogges! They were driving through Chicago to spend Thanksgiving with their family in Minnesota and stopped by for a quick (3 hour) lunch with us. We love our Hoggie Hogges and are so excited that we are only 4 hours apart now!

For Thanksgiving we got invited to a friend's house and had a great time getting to know everyone better.

 We had all the usual delicious Thanksgiving fare, and plenty of pie for dessert.

 The kids had fun sitting at the kids table and making friends too.

 Naomi and Kevin were sick on Thanksgiving but they came up a few days later and slept over for a few nights. The girls are having so much fun living close to their cousins and are in absolute heaven every time they are here. 

 Teya got to be in a little play at her school for Thanksgiving. Her teacher gave her the Indian name, Gentle Fawn. I thought that was very fitting for our sweet little girl. 

 And the best part of November was having Daddy home for a few extra days during his Thanksgiving break. Everything is better when Daddy's around. 

11 Year Anniversary!!

Today is our Anniversary. 

I have a lot of blessings in my life, but one of the greatest is being married to such an incredible man. 

He is my very best friend. 

He makes me feel safe, special, loved and secure. 

He is patient, forgiving, thoughtful and kind. 

He loves being a father, and does everything he can to make me and the kids happy. 

Life is beautiful when you're married to a person like that. 

I thank my Heavenly Father every day for bringing Taber into my life. 

Happy Anniversary my love! 

Happy 32nd Birthday to Me!

Last month was my birthday :) 

Earlier in the week the sweetest girl from my ward invited me over for lunch and fancy gourmet cupcakes to celebrate my b-day with some other ladies from church. Those cupcakes were so good I almost cried (but didn't want to embarrass myself in front of my new friends, so I held back :) 

The night before my b-day Taber took me out on a fancy dinner date. The food was amazing and it was soooo nice to be out on a real date (no kids) with my man :)

After dinner we walked through the cute downtown and found this adorable coffee shop that had chocolate fondue. Delish!

Then we found the fancy little bakery where my sweet friend had ordered the cupcakes from and I just had to have another. This one was pumpkin with maplenut frosting. So good!

 The next day, on my actual b-day, Naomi and Kevin came up after church and had dinner and cake with us to celebrate. Naomi's b-day is 2 days after mine so it was kind of a joint celebration.

Me and my cute kiddos with my birthday cake. (Cam is doing a super intense cheese face in this pic)

It was a great b-day and I'm grateful I got to spend it with the people I love. 

My genius idea that worked!! kind of...

For some reason right when it's time to make dinner, my children suddenly meltdown and can't seem to function without me. The girls get super whiney and need my help for everything and Cam just latches onto my leg, throws his head back and lets out his signature howl that is the opposite of awesome.  So yeah, to survive I've resorted to plugging them into the TV or iPad to buy myself some cooking time in a sane environment.

The only problem with that is when Taber comes home, excited to see his sweet little cherubs, he's greeted with stone faced TV zombies instead. Not ideal...

So the other day, inspired by my friend Joanne, (Who has 6 kids and rocks at motherhood) I decided to forgo TV time and set them up at the table with homework, puzzles, blocks and coloring stuff to keep them occupied while still using all their brain cells. 

And it worked!!

Well, at least long enough to get dinner on the table. 20 minutes into their brain session Cam's tower fell down and he lost one of his blocks which sparked a meltdown. Still, for 20 beautiful minutes my kids were quietly engaged without the help of technology. Score a mommy victory point for me! ;)

This is what your pantry looks like when your husband works for a food company...

Taber had an opportunity to get cases of cereal and other food products for super cheap at work a few weeks ago, and let's just say he got a little excited... (as in, 144 boxes of cereal excited.)

If anyone ever wants to have a breakfast party, you know who to call :)

Halloween 2012

Since Thanksgiving is just a few days away, I figured I should probably blog about Halloween :)

In the morning we sent Teya off to school and then I made Brinley and Cam wear cute matchy Halloween shirts and take pictures on the stairs.

Taber had the day off, so in the afternoon we took the kids over to Teya's school to watch the costume parade. Grandma Karen had sent out a care package earlier with costumes, toys and some hand knitted scarfs for the kids. Teya was convinced that Grandma's scarf was part of her costume so she wore it with her fancy dress in the parade. So cute :)

 The kids liked watching the parade  playing on the playground at Teya's school. Cam looks like such a scrumptious little nugget in that puffy jacket. Love him!

After Teya got home from school we got the kids dressed up in their costumes (all courtesy of Grandma Karen) Teya decided to switch things up from princess to Pirate princess. 

 The cutest Belle, Superman and pirate princess on the planet!

 Cam's cheese face kills me. 

 He can also do duck lips. He's very versatile :)

 It was nice to have Halloween a week after we moved in because it gave us a good excuse to go meet all our neighbors. Our next door neighbor dressed up as a dinosaur to greet the kids. Totally awesome.

 This was Cam's first year trick or treating since last year we got snowed in on Halloween. He was digging it. 

 While we were out we ran into our cute neighbor boy who is in Teya's 1st grade class. She was so excited to see a familiar face and ended up trick or treating with him the rest of the evening. 

 We covered our whole block and got a pretty good loot

 We also hopped into the car and drove over to our bishop's house, since he lives in our neighborhood, and indulged in his Halloween tradition of grilling up hot dogs for the trick or treaters. Saved me from making dinner which was a huge bonus!

 When we got back to the house we let the kids dig into their loot. 

Then I put Cam to bed while Daddy and the girls carved pumpkins (better late than never :)

Fun night and fun way to kick things off in our new neighborhood. 

Happy Halloween! (a month late) :)

Trekking to Chicago!!

After a week of final goodbyes and moving preparations, it was finally time to go.

Our house was packed...

And the truck was loaded.

Taber flew in late Friday night and we crashed with our awesome friends the Hanns, who had a crib for Cam, trundle bed for the girls and a queen bed for us. It was the perfect set up. 

Dawnett made us a fabulous dinner the night before, and the next day she loaded us up with tons of delicious snacks for the road, including peanut butter jelly sandwiches for everyone and bags of homemade cookies, popcorn, chips and candy. Love her so very much :)

Ricky also helped Taber take one final load of junk to the dump before we hit the road, and he did a milk run for Cam so we'd have a good supply for our trip. He is the best :)

After big hugs from the Hanns we loaded up the troops and began our trek West!

The kids did awesome for the first 8 hours, they played on the iPads, colored, and slept. 

We almost made it through the first day without incident but an hour before we got to hotel, Cam had the most epic melt down of his life. He was screaming like a crazy person so we pulled over at a Wendy's to give him a break from the car seat, but even after getting out of the car he wouldn't stop screaming. We tried everything, food, candy, electronics, cuddling, soothing, but for 45 minutes he screamed and screamed. Finally we got the Wendy's people to warm up some milk for a bottle and it settled him down. Not my favorite part of the trip.

After the meltdown we continued on to the hotel. We got there around 10pm but the kids were wired so Taber took the girls swimming at the pool and I let Cam swim in the bathtub in our room :) They finally got all settled in bed around midnight. Sweet little snuggly bugglies.

The next day it was back on the road. Cam stayed entertained with his coloring books, Monty stayed entertained (or at least super comfy) cuddling up in my lap...

and Teya stayed entertained with my fatify app. Good times.

We arrived on Sunday night at Naomi's house!! My brother Jake happened to be in town so it was extra awesome seeing him and Scarlet too. 

The kids were excited to see their cousins, and so excited to be staying at a house with TOYS instead of a hotel!

It was super cute seeing Taber and Kevin read the kids bedtime stories. Such sweet Daddies.

We stayed with Naomi and Kevin for 2 days while we closed on our house and had the movers unload. 

Our 2nd night there we had a fun family home evening where we carved apples and painted pumpkins for Halloween.

my cute little pumpkin painting her pumpkin

Glad we made it safe and sound and so pumped to be just a short 45 minute drive from my sister. It's totally a dream come true, for both of us :)