Family pictures

The picture is embarrassing but the memories are great!

Lazy carvers

Morgan has been begging us to carve the pumpkins. I finally confessed that it's just not my thing. That confession was followed with Koby and Steve's "me too"! So in order to make everyone semi-happy I came up with a compromise and it turned out really fun, not too messy and lots of smiles.

We painted the pumpkins! Here are the results...



Morgan, Maylee and my pumpkins



Steve & Koby's

14th

On October 25th Koby turned 14 years old. I don't know how it's possible that he has grown up so fast. We had a couple of celebrations with family. Yummy cake, gifts and lots of laughs and love!

Smiling

Koby will you please smile for the camera?

Please just a little smile...

He starts to smile but turns away to hide it.


Koby please please smile!


Uncle Rick says, "I'll make him smile!"
He really wasn't beating Koby with the crowbar-in fact Koby is the one holding it. Look close and see if you can spot Koby's smile!

Pickin' pu'kins

Last weekend while visiting my parents, my mom promised Morgan a trip to the pumpkin patch. However Morgan decided that they should wait for Steve, Maylee and I to get there since Maylee (7 months old) would just love it!


Morgan and Maylee went on a little ride-it was a little terrifying for the parents but they both lived through it and even loved it! Koby had a lot of fun-can you tell? We just got a few pumpkins but it was a fun little trip.

Audiologist visit

Yesterday Morgan got to meet with an audiologist-again. This is her second time of failing a hearing test and second time of having follow-up testing with the audiologists. Last year the audiologist said not to worry that he thought her hearing was normal and there was no problems. This year a different audiologist said that Morgan does have borderline hearing loss. She will always fail the hearing tests done at school and that she has probably always had this "congenital loss". The loss is slight though and there really isn't much that needs to be done to accommodate her.

I have to admit that I have been a bit depressed about it. What a hypocrite right? I mean I have worked with people with disabilities for almost 11 years now. I work at an institution where we have the largest population of Deaf students and I know that there are amazing advances in medical conditions and that people with disabilities can still do just about anything that they want to do.

However I just don't want my baby to have any of these challenges. I don't want my own children to face the things I see every day.

I do realize that it could be much worse so I should be grateful-I mean-I am grateful! Just give me a day or two and I will be fine with the whole thing. Probably.

Obsessed

So I hate to admit it but I have a new obsession. It is very addictive too. Everyone around me has been talking about Pinterest and I finally could take it no more...so I jumped on the bandwagon and needless to say I LOVE it!

I love the recipes, though I have only tried a couple of things. But my favorite is the DIY (do-it-yourself) projects. I would like to say that I am a crafty person but I am more of a copy-cat crafter. I especially like to copy ideas that look amazing but are very easy.

You should check out pinterest if you like sharing (or in my case-stealing) ideas.

On Saturday Morgan, Maylee and I had a girls day. It was a lot of fun and I felt like I accomplished a lot. I almost felt Martha Stewart-ish. I slow-cooked some yummy chicken. The house smelled so good all day.

We deep cleaned a few rooms in the house! Yeah I love a clean house!

I decided to try this smart money saving idea and it works very well! I soaked these towels in fabric softener. You are supposed to be able to use these for about 40 loads of laundry!

Morgan and I made this.

Morgan picked out the ribbon and colors-she has a good eye!

Maylee played contentedly and watched us work.


Thanks Pinterest for an amazingly talented day!

Sleepy, but in a good way

I adore my Maylee! She is so sweet and adorable and so much fun, which is very good because for the past two weeks she has not been sleeping well-which means I am not sleeping well. I am not sure if it's because she is growing so fast that her little tummy is feeling empty every couple of hours or if it's just this cold that has hit everyone in our family. Either way, despite going to bed earlier and sleeping in way too late in the mornings, I am exhausted.

Last night I was up with Maylee at about 2AM, I was trying to get her to fall back to sleep, but it wasn't going very well. She was perfectly content to sleep in my arms but as soon as I laid her down she was awake and crying. So I was sitting in the rocking chair, my eyes were most likely barely open, mere slits I am sure. Maylee was nestled in my arms just looking up at me with her huge brown eyes. After moments of gazing at me, she reached up and removed the pacifier from her mouth, stretched out her body and plopped that binkie into my mouth. Then she giggled. Despite my weariness, my eyes popped open a bit wider and I couldn't help but smile around that pacifier that was jutting out of my mouth. We played the little game a half a dozen times and then she snuggled in a bit deeper, kept the paci in her mouth and dozed off to sleep. And then my desire for sleep dimmed a bit and I just watched her sleep for a few minutes longer.

So even though I NEED more sleep, I have to remember that these moments in the middle of the night with my baby will be gone soon and she will be grown up and too big for cuddles with me. She will think I am uncool and embarrassing and these moments of quiet one-on-one time where I am the world to her, will be gone. So I will do my best to remember to cherish my sleepless nights.

Moving weekend

Over the weekend we got to help my parents move. I didn't take many pictures because when I wasn't packing or carrying boxes I was holding one or two babies. Not to brag too much but I got pretty good at hold both Maylee and my nephew Jackson. Although Jackson is over 3 months younger than Maylee they are pretty much the same size. (The dr calls Maylee petite and since she is taller than only 5% of the babies her age I guess it's true.)



I had to come up with something to keep Morgan and Peyton happily entertained and out of the way, so I gave them a couple of empty boxes and a pack of crayons. That worked for hours! They had so much fun writing messages and coloring pictures for Gramma. And hopefully when she is unpacking those special boxes it will make her smile.
Sorry for the butt shot but it also shows their art work a bit and how creative they got at decorating the entire box! Also I am not quite sure whose feet are sticking out in the picture.

We wore Koby out-he was so tired at the end of the day-I tried to get him to just go get in bed but he said he was too tired. He swiped Maylee's blanket and took a little "rest" on the couch. (can't wait to blackmail him with this picture!)

The new house is so beautiful and I didn't get a single picture of it! Oh well we'll go back and visit again and take some then once it's completely done and the boxes are unpacked and the beds are put together.

Assorted pictures from September

Uncle Rick let Koby take him for a spin. The only rule was that you had to look ultra-cool!
Never too young to learn
Soccer