Fall Tradition Weekend!

I love fall weather, especially being 36 weeks pregnant!  The temperature is great, the leaves starting to change and even the bare trees after the leaves fall are beautiful!

Last year we started a new family tradition of going to pick apples and pumpkins before Halloween.  It really started because it was our first Halloween in our house and I really wanted to take Jack to a pumpkin patch.  Of course my husband had no recommendations, even though he was born & raised in the area, so we went off of the recommendations of a few friends.  Decided to do the apple picking while we were there to get pumpkins... might as well, right?  I had actually never been apple picking. 

Last year we did the wagon ride/tour and just picked one apple each to eat during our trip then bought some from the main market afterwards to take home.  This year we decided against the bumpy wagon ride with the fact that I'm 36 weeks pregnant and opted to drive right to the orchard to pick a bag for ourselves!  The fact that Jack was older and could be an active participant in the picking certainly helped.  The weather was a balmy 40 degrees when we headed out to the fruit farm, so we had to bundle up a bit.  It actually didn't feel so bad towards the end of our trip since it was so sunny!

Here are pictures from picking our very large pumpkins:

Father-son trek over the pumpkin vines!  P.S. I think this picture makes my son look very old!

Running to find pumpkins... there were so many he would've taken them all!

Sitting in our trunk after we decided on the two perfect pumpkins to take straight off the vine!  It was sunny so he was trying not to look up (even though I was below his eye level to take the picture).  I bet these will look amazing once carved!

Then we headed over to the apple orchard section to pick our small 10 pound bag to take home!  This weekend they had red delicious and golden delicious (as well as Jonathan, but we didn't get any of those) to pick.  Anyone have some amazing apple recipes?  Feel free to share because I don't know how all 3 of us are going to eat these apples!  (Yes, we've already started to give some to neighbors & family.)

Getting a golden delicious right at his level... some low hanging fruit for the little guy!

Daddy helping him reach a red delicious apple that was much higher!

Both of those pictures I have of him picking apples he looks so serious... I think it was because he was trying to pull so hard to get them off!

I'm very excited that the hats I got for Jack and baby's Halloween costumes arrived yesterday!  Stay tuned for Halloween pictures... sorry, you'll have to wait a few weeks!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!  I know mine ended up being extremely relaxing... much needed after my crazy work week last week!  This week will likely be just as busy at work, but I am very excited for my doctor's appointment on Tuesday!  Last week (36 week check-up) I was 2 cm dilated though not effaced at all but my doctor wants to do an ultrasound to check on the baby's size to ensure I won't have a baby that's "too big" this time.  (Jack wasn't technically too big, but his larger size probably didn't help my delivery.)  Hopefully I'll have some ultrasound pictures to scan and show off!

Jack's New T-shirt!

With spring and summer starting, my son is out-growing all of his clothes!  I may have had one or two items in 2T or 3T, but I seriously need to go shopping.  He's officially out of all 18 month clothes (which he could barely pull of shirts) and his 24 month clothes are getting snug.  Great... I love shopping for his clothes most of the time, but I was most excited to make this purchase:

Forgive the blurriness of the picture but he's quite difficult to catch in pictures these days...

And in case you can't read what his t-shirt says... it says "BIG BRO"!!!!

We're proud to announce that Jack is going to be a big brother this fall.  Our due date is approximately October 26, 2011 (just in time for one of my favorite holidays).  Baby is looking healthy and growing right on track.  Here are some adorable pictures of our 8 week ultrasound:

Pumpkin's head is down in this photo, and the longer & thinner part up at the top is the umbilical cord!



Another picture of how big baby is these days!

For some reason these pictures, from approximately the same time we had an ultrasound with Jack, baby looks bigger or we could see more in these pictures compared to his ultrasound.  Just an interesting observation, but baby's measurements confirmed our due date and a couple of days at this stage are a big deal for baby's development.

As far as me, being about 10 weeks along I am dealing with standard 1st trimester sleepies and nausea.  Nausea isn't too bad most of the time, but I am wearing Sea-Bands [almost] around the clock that have helped to take the edge off.  Other than that, I'm feeling great and already outgrowing normal clothes... supposedly pretty typical with 2nd (or subsequent) pregnancies.  I am still kind of in regular clothes, but those days are certainly numbered as I'm using my belly band to keep my unbuttoned pants up!

And with all of my posts I've had in the past on NFP... yes, it does work :-)  We're so excited to be adding to our family and look forward to the excitement yet to come.

Happy Halloween!

A very Happy Halloween to all of you!  Here in central Ohio, trick-or-treating (or beggar's night as some call it) usually doesn't occur on Halloween.  Silly in my opinion, but at least it extends the Halloween celebrations!

We had a great time passing out candy with our next door neighbors.  We sat out on our shared driveway, they brought out their fire pit, and saw a lot of kids in GREAT costumes.  I did get annoyed with some of the kids who just walk up & don't say "Trick or treat" although I'm understanding of the littler ones who may just be shy... in fact one child (about 10 years old) walked up and just stood there, I looked at him and said "Um, trick-or-treat?" and he finally said it.  Sorry, if you're too cool to say "Trick-or-treat" you're too cool for my candy!  After I took Jack inside, Matt said he actually had kids turn down what he was going to hand them and picked something out themselves.  (They're lucky I wasn't in charge of the candy, haha).  Overall, it was a blast!  My friend Brooke & her husband and 3 little girls came over to trick-or-treat in our neighborhood.  Jack LOVED seeing all of the other kids in their costumes, laughing & clapping for those coming up our driveway!  It was pretty cute!

This year Jack was a "Jack-rabbit" with an adorable costume made by my mother-in-law.  For most of the trick-or-treat evening he was a brown thing with a tail.  The headpiece wasn't worn but for a few split seconds as we continually tried to put it on him before he pulled it right back off.  Shocking, since the boy LOVES to wear hats, oh well!  Here are a number of failed attempts to get a picture of him in full costume.



My friend's daughter, Izzy distracting Jack as I attempted to take his picture!  Izzy is great at making Jack smile, her mom is "our" photographer.

Might be the best picture I have, but he's already in the middle of pulling the hat off and you can't really see the ears!

Here are some pictures of our Jack-o-lanterns from my wonderful husband who did all of the cleaning (which I hate to do) & carving:


From left to right: Little Jack (a Jack-o-lantern from Jack's favorite book), a pumpkin with Jack's name carved in it, and a kitty jack-o-lantern.  (And yes, this picture was taken in our kitchen on top of the stove, it was just too windy to keep the pumpkins lit outside)



Punkin Pickin' with my Punkin

We went to Lynd's fruit farm yesterday to go for a wagon ride & get pumpkins!  Matt & I have never actually gotten pumpkins because this is the 1st Halloween we've been married that we're in a house.  Jack's first Halloween was not very exciting.  Matt had to work & we were in the process on moving so things were hectic to say the least!  Here are some pictures from our adventure:

Jack & Me on our wagon ride!

Picking a Goldrush apple right off the tree!

Trying to take a bite... teeth must not be sharp enough!

On the wagon full of pumpkins... we didn't bother with these!  Have to get them from the patch!

Matt is an excellent pumpkin hunter!

Walking in the patch to find pumpkins!



Jack with our 3 pumpkins from the patch!



I Wanna Talk About Me!

Okay, so the post isn't so much about me, but I haven't really done much of a post about us as a family lately!

Things at work have definitely calmed down in the sense that I'm not working 12-14 hour days. The project is still busy, but I don't think it'll ever not be in full-steam-ahead mode even though I'm ready to get back to my routine. Matt's work has been slower since it is the off-season for lacrosse. In the off-season they close the store on Sundays and have more restricted hours... I love it! It means that we always have Sunday off together... its exhausting to only get to see him nights when we works whole weekends (sometimes) during busy season.



I can't remember if I mentioned that my friend Brooke just had her 3rd daughter recently (she'll be 2 weeks on Sunday). Her oldest is 3 1/2 and middle daughter is Jack's age... she's going to be one busy mama! She's also an AMAZING photographer (I've put her Facebook "fan bage" on the side of my blog) who's done all of our family pictures since Matt & I got engaged. Well, tonight we took them dinner and got to visit with two other families that we're all good friends with... it was such a fun night! I brought a crock-pot pasta dish which I really liked (I think it went over well with others, too) and cookies while my friend brought garlic bread & salad. To our surprise and excitement, Brooke & her husband asked Matt & I to be baby Emma's godparents! I'm SO excited and honored to be such a special part of this beautiful baby's life. I'm also the godmother to our youngest nephew and Matt is godfather to our oldest nephew. It is an amazing responsibility and I am so proud to be entrusted with being a source of guidance in faith in my godchildren's lives. Here's a picture of Matt with Emma from tonight:
Jack is sneaking out of the side of the picture because I originally wanted to get him in it, but he was too interested in playing with his friends! Jack is wishy-washy about Emma, got to "hold" her one evening when we were visiting and he kind of pet her head, but he was very sweet and had such a look of pride when he was finished holding her (insert comment asking when are we having another baby below; not really). But tonight when I was sitting on the couch holding her, he was NOT okay with it... he needed to be right next to me with my arm around him. He's still my little baby, and I kind of love it when he stakes his claim like that.

In other Jack news, he now is very interested in using utensils with his meals. Forks are very cool and Grandma got him some Disney Cars "big boy" silverware (a fork & spoon). I will have to try and get a picture of him using them, he's not too bad for getting started... definitely not great at the gathering of/picking up the food but he can get it in his mouth when on a fork or spoon. He's also been into graham crackers, or as we call them "cookies"... and when I say into, I mean he'll go to our pantry and bang on the doors yelling and occasionally saying "Kkkk" (with a a bit of phelm (sp?) behind it, haha) in attempt to say "cookie".

I've been getting excited for Halloween and trying to figure out what Jack should dress-up as... my MIL has offered to sew a costume if we want. Feel free to suggest anything in the comments! I guess we should really get on that decision so she has plenty of time to get it done. Speaking of upcoming holidays (ok, I know all holidays are pretty far away), but I'm REALLY excited for Halloween (one of my favorite holidays), getting to decorate our house and pass out candy to trick-or-treaters!

This weekend will be busy! Tomorrow morning we're walking in the American Heart Association Heart Walk with my company (now 5th in central Ohio for companies with participating teams). Starting in the afternoon, I will be with friends celebrating my friend, Jessie's bachelorette party... we're getting a party bus, so should be a lot of fun! I am a bridesmaid in her wedding at the end of September and we've been friends since college. She and her fiance, Russell, have been together since high school and are SO cute! He's hilarious too... always a good time! They both live about 2 or so hours away from here as of recently so it'll be nice to get to see her! On Sunday, I will be going to a jewelry party at a friend's house... should be fun and maybe I'll get some [very] early Christmas shopping done, as I won't be spending any money on myself.

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Frustrations in the Housing Market!

Well, we've put in/written offers 6 times on 4 different homes throughout this process... and none of them have been accepted! We're definitely most disappointed in the last home because we actually let ourselves get too attached to it. It was a great home (listen to me, talking about it as if it has passed away). We're trying to continue to be positive and really hope that we'll find something great and never look back... that is getting harder and harder to do with every offer. I am a bit discouraged by reading about how great the market is and that its a "buyer's market" when no one wants to sell us a house. And to answer everyone's question, no we haven't been sending in low-ball offers. I am very familiar with how to figure out offers because of learning from every move my parents have been though, and learning so much as we go through homes. Every house we see, I become more and more confident that what we've offered have been fair prices or maybe slightly under that for negotiation purposes.

Please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers so that we can find something SOON! We essentially need to be in contract on a home by Oct. 15th because we will need to move mid-Novemeber before going to TX for Thanksgiving w/my in-laws and Tiffany's wedding. We're going out to look at homes tomorrow evening!

I will try and keep updates coming more on Jack... we're preparing for the big plane trip in a week and a half! That will definitely be interesting. As laid back as he is, I am thinking he will likely do okay over all with the trip. I'm mainly worried about his ears popping during take-off & landing. I'm even more worried about trying to handle it all through the airport, not to mention the fact that I bet we'll overpack "just in case". I'm sure I will have lots more to tell after the trip!

Jack is getting bigger and bigger every day... he keeps outgrowing clothes, or at least fitting into the bigger ones (as we try to squeeze him into current ones to get more use out of them). I have his outfit picked out for Leah's wedding on the 10th and I think I know what I want him to wear for Tiffany's in November... just waiting to see what size to buy. We bought his Halloween costume last weekend, he's going to be a monkey, because a) Matt loves monkeys and b) Jack's been making this new monkey-like sound (that kinda sounds like "hoo-hoo"). I will be sure to post the video I got of him doing it the other day (or you may have been able to see the one my mom got and emailed to friends & family).