Thanksgiving Trip

The kids at the airplane park - located right by the Baltimore airport where they could watch the airplanes come in to land.

A cold day in D.C. - the view from the Jefferson Memorial looking back towards the mall.

Thanksgiving

This year, I planted mini-pumpkins and had a bumper crop. I couldn't stand the thought of just throwing them away. So I decided to use them as a Thanksgiving decoration (being too slow to use them at Halloween).

But as I worked on them, I began to feel, well, surrounded!

But, eventually, I got them done - the whole tribe!!!

Here's a closeup.

The table when it was all decorated:

Eli was really thrilled (yes, sarcasm) when I invited the kids to take home their pumpkins and then some.

Colby really took it to heart. I think he thought it was a competition!!

Morgan liked them, too.

Skip just enjoyed the food.

It was a great time.

Grandma Fillmore was able to walk with only her cane. That was a big improvement over a wheelchair.

Grandma and Grandpa McGee stayed home ill.

Skip, Ann, Alex, and Elizabeth joined us - along with Lydia and Jon.

Bryan had to work but stopped by after dinner and took home plates of food for him and the sickies.

It was a pleasant time together.

More picts and an update

Looks like we have a house! When it's final, I'll send out the address. We are scheduled to move in around Dec 15th - hopefully we can do it earlier.

Here are some pictures of Jimmy. In the first, he's helping me make waffles.

The next is of J on our way home from Sacramento. Anything to keep him quiet.

The last is from tonight. Jimmy asked so nicely (in sign language) for his giraffe to have a diaper, that I just couldn't resist. He was delighted and kept signing "giraffe...diaper...giraffe...diaper". Then he took giraffe for a ride in the big red truck.

Smythe update

No picts today - just an update. A week or so ago, we found out that we can't stay in our rental house past mid December, so that's lit a huge fire under us to find a house. Seth took off work last Thursday, his mom (a realtor) drove to Portland and we looked at houses all day long. We came out with 4 possibilities. We eliminated the first one pretty quick - the owners were being relocated and the relocation company was going to pay them more for their house than we could. We then made an offer on our second choice on Monday. We offered quite a bit less than they were asking. They countered and we re-countered. We are waiting to hear if they accept our final offer. We should know sometime on Thursday. If they don't take it, we'll move on to our third choice and then finally our fourth (which we know we can get - but it's much smaller than the others!) Regardless, we should be in a new place by Christmas. It will be a wonderful Christmas gift. I told Seth that if we move in right before Christmas and then spend the holidays in Utah, I will probably leave all of our decorations up until February - just so i can have Christmas in my OWN house. I'm a little giddy at the thought.
That is what is keeping us really busy. Seth still works pretty long hours, but isn't coming home past midnight lately. I'm continuing to work 10-15 hours a week for myself and that has been working out really well. I love the interaction and the extra money is nice too.
Jimmy is signing like crazy, he actually signs that he wants to watch his sign language videos and heaven help you if you put in something else, he throws a fit. He also has some sign language books, I am amazed at him because he looks at the pictures, hears me say the word and tries to figure out the sign from the photos. It completely cracks me up. I am always going on line to figure out new signs for him. He signs "signing time," the name of his videos, "giraffe, sleep, mom, dad, dog, cat, sit, car, bike, hat, eat, cracker, drink, more, soap, toothbrush, frog, bus, train, bird, squirrel" and a few things where I know he's saying something, but I haven't matched it up to a word. He is also starting to talk. Yesterday he told us he was "silly". So now he says "silly" and "movie". If you only say two words other than mom and dad I guess those are good ones.
His favorite food is oatmeal. He had it three times today. He calls it "oh-ee, oh-ee, oh-ee/beep, beep, beep" because the microwave beeps three times when it's done. It took us forever to figure out what that was. Then one day we were heating something else and when he heard the microwave, he imitated it perfectly, "beep-beep-beep" and when we took out our food he started crying because it wasn't oatmeal. He wants everything that comes out of the microwave to be oatmeal. He life is full of disappointments.
He loves shoes, socks, frogs and buses. And his giraffes. Tonight he went to bed with his big giraffe "Dad Giraffe", Mr. giraffe, his blue hound dog, Boone, a train, 3 binkies, a frog and a pair of Mom's socks on over his footed pajamas. We aren't sure how much longer there will be room in his bed for himself if he keeps accruing nighttime friends and accessories.
I love all the new postings and Halloween costumes. We were sick for Halloween, so we turned off our lights and hid. Jimmy was a porcupine for the ward party - I'll have to find some picts of that and post it.

Look at me!

Alyssa is standing so well against things these days. She had her back to the couch and was standing and cooing at me. She is growing up so fast! She just isn't growing much hair yet! It won't be long until she is walking/running away from me! :-)

Disneyland

Becky asked me to post pictures for her of their trip to Disneyland this summer. So, here they are!!!

Our little scholars

Just wanted to share school photos with everyone. These pictures are from Challenger. Both Chloe and Parker are now attending the same school and love it. Each day Chloe walks hand in hand with Parker to his classroom, gives him a hug and kiss and tells him to have a great day. When it is time to go home Parker has me roll down the window so he can give his 20+ salutations to his teachers and the school director. If only the excitement for school would last 12 more years and then some.

Park City Getaway

Morgan with Sophie. Morgan said she also brought her imaginary friend Sophie Lard but I never saw her.

Colby with his treasure from Park City. It's a tree stump full of stuffed animals.

Becky and Kelly above the Jordanelle Dam. After taking this picture I turned around to go back to our tour van. Somehow a big rock had positioned itself right in my way and I tripped over it. I got a little rash on my shins but luckly was able to save the camera.

Morgan celebrating climbing a rock. See below for Colby on the same rock.

All in all we had a good time. I read a lot and Diana knitted a lot.

Kaylee's First Lost Tooth

After months of wanting to be like friends and cousins - Kaylee has finally lost her first tooth. It has been wiggly for weeks and tonight Mom and Kaylee pushed and pulled to get it really loose and then Dad finished the job and pulled it out. She couldn't be much more excited.

Doctor inthe house

We had a great Halloween. We went trick-or-treating and were totally entertained by the kids. Chloe was so excited she ran from house to house, it was hard to keep up with her. Parker just wanted to stay at each house and chat with the people. When he was finished he would yell "your welcome, happy Halloween" instead of thank you. All in all it was a good night, now we just have to find a way to get rid of all the candy we received without the kids noticing. Parker chose his own costume this year and was excited to be a doctor. Chloe was bat girl (she doesn't know who that is, but knew it was a super hero). I dropped the camera and it stoped working so unfortanutly didn't get pics of Chloe in her costume.