Christmas Tree Hunt

We cut down our own Christmas tree again this year, on Natalie's birthday (it was her birthday request). It didn't take us too long to find one, maybe an hour to search, cut it down, and drag it back to the truck. I think the kids started to get cold and tired by the end, but we had hot chocolate in the car afterwards, and that got their energy level right back up.

Here's Mike cutting our tree down.
Here's Carson:

And Natalie:

The kids climbing the ladder to decorate the tree once we got it home:

I'll have to take a picture of the finished tree sometime to post. It was a fun day, and now our home is almost ready for Christmas!

Birthday Weekend

Natalie just turned two, and the day after was my birthday! It was a birthday weekend for us, and we had a great time. Here's Natalie in her new princess outfit from Grandma G.
Natalie's present from Carson. He helped her open all her gifts.

Dresses from Grandma L. She loved them, and gave them a big hug!

Kitchen stuff from Mom and Dad.

Natalie's breakfast request: pink waffles with pink ice cream!

All Natalie wanted for her birthday was hot dogs and a Christmas tree. So we let her have hot dogs for dinner, and we made her a Christmas tree cake. So easy, and the kids loved putting on the "decorations."

Happy Birthday Natalie!

And here are a couple of pictures from my birthday. I got to pick breakfast and dinner (of course, I always do that), and Mike fixed them for me. No birthday cake, because we still had a ton from the day before, and we were leaving for Colorado in three days. Still, it was a good day.

What a fun weekend! This week, it's Mike's turn!

Private Pool Party Anyone?

We told the kids we'd take them swimming at the pool here for FHE this week. Everybody got swimsuits on under warm clothes, and we grabbed our towels and drove across town. Only to find out the pool is closed for the next couple of weeks for cleaning. So we loaded two crying children back into the car and drove home. Mike suggested swimming in our bathtub, and the kids decided this would be an acceptable substitution. As you can see, it was a bit of a tight fit for all four of us, but the kids had a blast, and Mike and I were able to save an otherwise doomed evening. At least the water was warmer this way. I can't help but notice that this seems to happen to us frequently. Maybe we're unlucky. Or maybe they see us coming and shout, "Quick, it's the crazy family! Put the closed sign in the window!"

What Goes with a Calculator?

We had a lot of Halloween fun last week. Some friends had a family costume party, so Mike and I even came up with costumes this year. At the party, we realized that a lot of couples had matching costumes, which never even occurred to us. I suppose next year we ought to try that. Of course, Mike mentioned being a calculator, so I'm not sure how I'm supposed to coordinate with that? A friend of mine suggested being a nerd, but we'll see.

Carson found his costume and loved it, even though he's never seen the Transformer movies or anything. Somehow he knows they are awesome, and he loves them. He was cute, talking in his best "Bumblebee" voice. Natalie was a witch, and she was very good at cackling like one. I had her hair in little braids for Thursday and Friday festivities, and on Saturday, we took them out for a frizzy fro (no pictures, sorry).
Natalie as a witch and Carson as the Autobot Bumblebee.

Here's our little family before a Halloween party on Thursday night. We had a party on Thursday, trick-or-treating at Mike's work on Friday, and trunk-or-treating at the church on Saturday. The kids loved spreading it out like that. On Saturday, Carson told us, "Today is the last day of Halloween!"

Mike, as a crazy Indian.

Me, as Little Red Riding Hood.

Mike and Carson cleaning out pumpkins. Unfortunately, we didn't take pictures of the finished ones, but they were fun to do with the kids!

Carson cleaning out his pumpkin.

Natalie cleaning out the insides of her pumpkin.

Carson now thinks this is a tradition, pretending to eat pumpkin goop for a picture.

Here's what I found Natalie doing the other day; talking on a shoe "phone."

Pigs and Purple Potatoes

Rolie Polie Olie, a.k.a. Rolie
Okay, so it's a Guinea Pig, but if you ask my daughter, it's just a pig.
Yep, we went shopping with my last bread money check and bought ourselves a new pet. Since I don't like the dog, and he's too big for Natalie and completely ignores Carson, we thought maybe a smaller pet would be good for the kids (and me). We arrived at the pet store with the intent of purchasing a small hamster. However, the girl working there convinced us that with small, loud, energetic children, hamsters were not the best choice, as they bite. I asked about birds, thinking a parakeet would be fun. She told us that parakeets really don't like people. Mike and I thought she was being a little hard on these two kinds of animals (Mike had hamsters growing up, and I'd had a parakeet), but we decided to take her seriously. We asked for suggestions, and she said mice (ewe! Thankfully, they were all out of mice that evening, so it wasn't even an option) or guinea pigs. Supposedly guinea pigs are calmer and don't bite. We finally decided to look at the guinea pigs. Carson was very upset, as he'd been promised a hamster. But when the gal took out the first guinea pig for us to see, he changed his mind pretty fast! They had a whole new shipment of guinea pigs in the back that hadn't been brought to the front yet, so we got a lot of different ones to choose from. Some were pretty crazy looking, but we ended up with a pretty classic looking one, partly because he was cute, but mostly because he was amazingly calm! Carson named him Rolie Polie Olie, but we just call him Rolie for short.

Unbelievable! I mean, how many young pets (we've had him less than a week) can sit calmly on a nearly 2- and nearly 4-year-old's lap like that?

Carson really likes Rolie, but he's nothing to Natalie! She is practically obsessed with him! The first thing she does every morning is check on Rolie. And she loves to hold him. She doesn't really like large animals from the front, but this little guy is just her size. No fear with this one.

I couldn't be happier with our choice of pet. No bites yet, and believe me, he's had the time and the motivation. See how she's holding him below? He's great for young kids.

Also, my mom came to visit us last week. We had a great time visiting with her, and can't wait until we get to visit at Christmas. After she left, I told Carson she had to go because Grandpa missed her. He told me, "We both miss her. Grandpa misses her and I miss her. Next time, Grandpa should come too." Carson thinks this is the perfect solution, and that way she never has to leave! My mom celebrated her birthday here, and that was fun! Here's her cake:

We gave her 4 candles, at Carson's request.

Unfortunately, I didn't think to get the camera out again during her visit. But here's a picture of Mike and the kids outside with our football. We've been listening to our favorite team's football games online, and so the kids like to go outside to play football with Daddy during halftime.

And last of all, here are some awesome pictures of the coolest potatoes I've ever seen! Our neighbor grew them in his garden, and he gave a few to us. They are such a deep, vibrant color of purple! Has anyone else ever seen such a thing?

And they're even purple in the middle. I'm going to see if we can grow some next year, too. They taste really good as well!

P.S. Mike's lab results came back negative for Celiac! Now if we could just pinpoint exactly what IS wrong with Mike, and especially Carson...

Chili Snow

We took all the red peppers from our garden before the first hard frost and Carson helped me sew them onto a string which we hung in the kitchen to dry. He was surprising good at it, and he didn't poke either of us with the needle! Now that they're dried, I can throw them in my food processor for garden-grown crushed red pepper!

Here are the kids playing outside in the first snow of the season. Not much, but Carson was so excited about it that he had to go out as soon as he ate breakfast. It was 8am, and very cold, so they only lasted about 10 minutes out there, but they had a great time. Carson's favorite was the slide, which was fast since it was wet with snow.

Tomatoes and Toilet Paper

We saw Rachel's post of Layla with toilet paper curlers, and we decided to try it with Natalie (we used Kleenex though). All I can say is, so cute, and not that much work! We'll definitely have to do this one again.

The before picture:
The after picture:

And here are the kids helping me can. Carson was awesome at peeling the skins off the tomatoes and peaches. I figured he'd get bored after a few minutes, but he never did! He peeled almost the whole box of tomatoes in one sitting, and he could peel them faster than I could cut them up. Definitely more help than I could ever have hoped for! And of course Natalie wanted to help too, though I think she ate more than she peeled. We had a great time canning, and now we have a bunch of peaches, pears, pie cherries, salsa, and spaghetti sauce! Yummy...

Goodbye Rice, Hello PIZZA!

Okay, I'm being dramatic. We're not getting rid of rice, but we ARE adding pizza and other gluten foods! Carson's blood work came back negative for celiac, so we're going to slowly add gluten back into our diets! Mike will have to get in to get his blood work done, but until then he's going back on gluten as well. I am going to monitor Carson's other foods so that we can hopefully get a better idea what causes him to vomit every 6-8 weeks. Or it could be cyclic vomiting, which is like migraines for children, but vomiting instead. Anyway, we don't regret our 8 months of gluten free, because we've learned a ton about the things that really do upset Mike, and we'd never have figured them out otherwise. Carson is thrilled, and so am I. I'm going to have so much time on my hands, now that I don't have to make EVERYTHING from scratch!