An Activity-packed November

It's hard to believe this all happened in one month, but here are some highlights.

November started with a visit from Jason's brother, Tim, who lives in Texas. He flew in for the BYU v. Cincinnati game and stayed with us Friday and Saturday. Friday we drove down to Lexington and gave ourselves a very brief tour of the University of Kentucky basketball arena, library, and hospital lobby. If is seems a little random, it kind of was, but we had some good laughs. Friends of ours watched Ethan and Lydia for us and Jason and I were able to go to the game together. The weather was perfect and BYU won so it made for a great day!

UK library is big and has beautiful architecture. It has a lot of natural light and would be a great place to study....probably not the best place for young kids though. :)

There were a lot of BYU fans at the game which made it even more fun. Part way through the game we sat by our friends, the McKinleys.

The week after the football was also eventful. Donald Trump surprised many Americans and won the presidential election in spite of all the polls that pointed to win for Hillary Clinton.

We were also surprised that Lydia started crawling that week and a few days later was pulling to a stand. She loves to get around now and you can find her following us around the house.

Crawling at 8 1/2 months

Pulling to a stand a few days later

Love that smile :)

 We had pretty nice weather in November so we could be outside a lot. Ethan really loves riding his tricycle, going down slides, and swinging.

Ethan trying to do what he sees in the pictures. :) It's adorable. :)

For Thanksgiving Jason's brother Andy visited us again this year from Beloit, Illinois. They stayed with us Tuesday night through Saturday so we had plenty of time to play and visit. Wednesday, Andy and Jason had to work a half day so the rest of us went to the Cincinnati Children's Museum. On a cold rainy day, everyone else had the same idea and it was packed, but the boys still had fun

Cincinnati Children's Museum with the cousins

Playing with the water toys

The boys plus Kimra and Maisy went to a Cincinnati Bearcats basketball game

Both Lydia and Maisy loved this table toy. Maisy isn't quite crawling yet, but she can wave and clap her hands and Lydia hasn't mastered those skills yet. 

 Thanksgiving morning Jason, Andy, Drew, and Grant went to a Turkey Bowl organized in our ward by Jason. It was very successful and lots of people attended it.

We ate a delicious Thanksgiving meal that the babies slept through. The boys helped set the table and assigned our seats.

 Friday we forgot to take pictures, but we drove to the Louisville Temple and did a babysitting swap and the stake center nearby. Jason and I were able to do some family sealings together that was really neat. It worked out really well. Ethan loved riding in their new van with them and Kimra rode one way with me so we could get some girl time. That evening we also rented the movie "Finding Dory" and watched it together. We played games and ate good food. Thanks for joining us for another Thanksgiving Andy and Kimra!

Our Thanksgiving crew. We added two girls since the last Thanksgiving together.

Last year we got a photo of the two of us pregnant together, so we decided to get another shot of us with our babies this time.

Lydia was put behind bars so she wouldn't fall down the stairs after learning to both crawl and pull up and everything.

I love, Love, LOVE this darling girl of mine!

And she loves to play with the girl in the mirror too. :)

This picture was just taken a couple days ago. Ethan just keeps growing up so fast. I have loved watching him ride his tricycle "cheetah fast" the last few months.

October Activities

Besides a fun trip to Arizona in the middle of the month, we spent the rest of the month enjoying the nice weather. Ethan enjoyed riding his tricycle around our neighborhood, Lydia worked on learning to crawl and got her first two teeth, we visited the zoo a few times with beautiful weather, and we participated in some fun Halloween activities.

Ethan learned to ride his tricycle in our flat basement, but then enjoyed riding it on the sloping sidewalks in our neighborhood.

Ethan liked feeding the camel at the zoo

We also visited the petting zoo at the Creation Museum and fed the goats.

The grounds at the Creation Museum

Ethan has gotten a lot better at climbing and enjoying the big toys at the playground.

Lydia wearing one of my sister Kristilyn's dresses from when she was a baby.

Lydia 8 months

Jason and I went to a Halloween Party with friends of ours. It was a fun date night! We dressed up as burglars.

A strawberry and train conductor for Halloween

Sitting on our front door step

A Visit to Melody and Brandon

It seems almost like a dream now that just over a week ago Ethan, Lydia, and I were in Mesa, Arizona. Ethan just turned three a few months ago, Charlotte and Kate are 2 1/2, and Lydia and Victoria were close to 7 months. Let's just say we had our hands full! We stayed with Melody for a week. It was so nice to be together doing mostly what we do every day, but doing it together. We could sneak in conversations during car rides, TV times, or after bedtime....but the rest of the time was dedicated to playing or helping five needy children. Melody was awesome to feed us yummy food all week and give me extra help when I needed it. We hit a different park every day we were there except Sunday. Brandon took Friday off of work so he could help us go to the splash park and give us extra help with all the kids. And Saturday Melody and I even took Lydia and Victoria and got away during toddler nap time to eat lunch at Kneaders. It was so delicious!

Highlights of the trip for kids included trips to parks, dancing/singing parties to songs on my phone, watching ice cubes melt on the sidewalk, hula hoops, and playing with glow sticks...which turned into an obstacle course in the dark with couch cushions and a slide. Ideas that flopped were bowling with water bottles and trying to use a blanket as a parachute. Both of these activities produced immediate melt downs but still made me laugh.

I'm grateful we were able to visit Melody and Brandon. They were so good to us! We hope we can visit again...and we especially hope Jason can join us next time!

Because we were constantly dealing with full time mothering, these aren't the best pictures in the whole world, but they are real, in the moment pictures that show a peek into the constant busyness of five children 3 and under who hardly stop moving and never want to look at the camera. Ha! :)

Reading books happened A LOT during our trip. The whole pile of library books was read several times.

Lydia was pretty content to just play with toys on the floor a lot of the time. She did get pretty fussy at times though and actually cut her first tooth during our trip.

Our first park and one of the only pictures I got with the three of us together

Victoria started crawling before we arrived so these two didn't stay near each other very often.

Dumping sand on the end of the slide and then sliding through it.....actually kept them busy longer than most activities.

Two cuties sitting by on the sidelines at one of our park visits

Jumping in puddles at the Splash Park

Splash park fun! Ethan really loves going to splash parks!

Charlotte and Ethan

Kate

Brandon and Victoria

A park trip that Brandon was able to join us for.

Charlotte

Ethan

Kate

Glow stick fun! I wish I could have taken better pictures of them playing with these.

Visit to the Gilbert Temple  "Look Mom, we're all holding hands." :)

Who wants to look at the camera when you can look at the temple?

Sisters with our miracle babies

Babies who eat together, stick together.

Yes, this is the best picture we got of us. This was our life! :)

And this was me on the flight home with one baby sleeping on my shoulder and the other one sleeping on my lap. I'm just glad they slept and were calm on the flight home. We were up at 4am for a 6:30am flight. And I prayed we would have an empty seat next to us on the way home and my prayers were answered! So, so grateful!