A Little catch up...November

Its been a while since we updated so here it goes...

November was a great month (really, November is my most favorite month out of the whole year :) ) We had lots going on last month.  We got our family photos taken for the the first time ever since we were married. We figured two kids later, it was about time. Here are a few we really like...

Merrilee and I also got our photos taken for the local newspaper for an article about how literacy can save a child from all sorts of unfortunate life circumstances. Here is a link to the story if you are interested. It is a 3 part story. This is the first part. My amazing neighbor is featured in the 3rd part and I am in a picture in the background with Alice in the third part of the story. (if you want to see the pics bigger, click on the "images" tab  at the top of the story.) It was fun to talk about how much Merrilee loves to read and to advocate for reading to children.

In mid-November, Alice had her 6 month checkup. She is still just a tiny peanut in the 9% for weight at 13.8 lbs. She did great with her shots! She only cried when the needle was actually poking her, but after it was all over with, she started giggling uncontrollably and smiling! What a silly girl. Alice has also been continuing with physical therapy for her torticollis and we just got her a helmet last week to help fix her head shape. I must say it is a little hard to nurse her with that big hard helmet, but other than that, she's been doing really well with it and she is really CUTE in it too! Ben has dubbed her "Tron baby".

We also celebrated my birthday in November. Ben got me a sewing machine which I have been wanting ever since Song taught me how to sew when we were living in Virginia with them. I am so excited! I went to JoAnn fabrics on black friday and waited in crazy long lines to get some good deals and stock up on some fabric! I've already started a few projects. For the birthday celebration, Ben and the girls took me out to lunch and then we had some cake and ice cream at home with my sister's family. We also got out the Christmas decorations on my birthday (a few days before Thanksgiving). Since we will be gone for actual Christmas, we decided to put our stuff up a little early so we could enjoy it in our home a little longer before Christmas.

We had a nice small Thanksgiving here with my sister and family. My sister and I split up the food responsibilities and just had a great time cooking and eating together! All the kids thoroughly enjoyed it too.

Merrilee had fun eating

My awesome nephews

My cute niece Ellie

This is how Alice enjoyed the meal...watching everyone stuff their faces.

Adam and Kylie hung out with us a couple days after Thanksgiving and did some black Friday shopping with us. It was fun to see them. We look forward to them being on the same flight to WA with us for Christmas so we can all help out with each others babies. :) During the Thanksgiving break, Ben and I also took the girls to the nicklecade and redeemed our tickets for a cute little doggy piggy bank for Merrilee. It was genuinely very fun to just do this fun little activity with our little family.

Another fun thing I started in November is singing in the Orem Chorale (Local community choir). Its been way too long since I've sung in a choir. We've been preparing for a Christmas concert that we will perform this week. Its been great to sing again! It really just brings my heart so much joy to be able to sing with a decent choir.

Well, that about sums up November. We feel very grateful for all of our blessings and look forward to spending the Christmas holiday with family in the Northwest!

Halloween!

Halloween was a blast this year! On Saturday, we had our ward Trunk-or-Treat. We dressed the girls up, went and ate a yummy soup dinner, and passed out candy. We didn't end up getting any pictures, but it sure was fun! On actual Halloween, I took Alice to physical therapy, finished making Alice's witch hat, got the girls ready and we were off! We took the girls Trick-or-Treating with my nephews and niece and a couple other families in the ward. Alice was a witch, and Merrilee was Jo-Jo the Clown. Ben had a lot of fun taking Merrilee up to the doors. The first of many years ahead that he will be taking his kids out on Halloween! Merrilee got the hang of things pretty fast and she was quickly holding out her bucket to be filled with candy and saying "Bye-bye" at each door. It was a nice night. Not too cold...perfect fall weather.  Merrilee got a pretty good loot for Ben and I to devour...oh and Merrilee. (We give her a piece every once in a while....).

(Oh yeah...I also chopped off my hair this past weekend! I like it!) After trick or treating and getting the girls to bed, Ben and I made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies together and enjoyed the Halloween lanterns I made (Isn't Pinterest the best!?) We decided making these cookies on Halloween will become an annual tradition...Because we need even more sugar after all the Halloween candy, right? :)

 Halloween was great, but personally, I am thankful it is November...The BEST month out of the year for many reasons.  One is it is my birthday month! Another is it is Thanksgiving month. And a third reason is I get to start listening to Christmas music. Yes I am one of those people who start listening to Christmas ridiculously early, but that's as far as I go...Christmas decorations, shopping, etc. is to be done AFTER Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving and it deserves attention during its own month. I just wish there were more "Thanksgiving" songs to listen to! ;)

Pumpkin patch + Friends and Family+Alpine Loop= FUN weekend

We had a really busy, but FUN weekend! Friday we went down to Springville to Jaker's pumpkin patch with the girls.  It was a pretty big patch and we got some cute little pumpkins. They also had a few animals for a "Petting Zoo" and a corn pit! 

So Random...a llama and a kangaroo (or wallaby) together.

On Saturday, Ben had a service project in the morning, then we loaded up the girls and went through a house in Provo, then met Grandma and Grandpa Brewer for lunch! (Yummy! Thank you G&G Brewer!) Then we went through a house in Orem. Its really fun/exciting to be looking at houses. We have a feeling its going to take a while to find the "One" though. We aren't in any big hurry.  After the showing in Orem, we came home, got the girls down for naps and CLEANED the house (It DESPERATELY needed a thorough cleaning). Our good friends Grant and Bri and their little Bracken came for dinner and we had fun playing with babies, going on a walk and carving pumpkins together. Ben and I did the cat and Grant and Bri did the fun face! It was a fun evening (Thanks Grant and Bri!)

Sunday was a great day at church. I only got to teach sunbeams for a few weeks, and now they've called me to be the Primary Pianist. After church, Ben and I went to choir. Ben watched the girls there while I subbed for the choir pianist. I love singing/playing Christmas music so early! After church/lunch/naptimes, we went for a nice Sunday drive on the Alpine Loop. It was GORGEOUS! The fall colors were so amazing and vibrant! The girls did extremely well on the long drive! The pictures don't to it justice...but here's a few.

What a GREAT weekend it was! Looking forward to Halloween weekend! Fall is the BEST!

FYI- Alice's MRI a couple weeks ago came back CLEAN AGAIN! YAY!

Cornbelly's!

This past Saturday we took the girls to Cornbelly's at Thanksgiving Point. It was a BEAUTIFUL day and was a lot warmer than we expected! We started off with the cornmaze. We wound our way in a good ways and then tried to back track our way out. It usually takes us a LONG time to do these mazes and we didn't think the girls could make it all the way if we tried to do the "real" maze. I felt we were successful though! We got ourselves pretty lost and managed to find our way back out so that counts right? :)

At the beginning of the outing both girls were so happy and excited to be there!

eventually Merrilee had to get out and help push the stroller!

Merrilee had fun playing with the corn she found in the maze!

After the maze Merrilee loved playing in the corn pit while mommy fed Alice

After Alice was fed, we let Merrilee play on a big spider web and a hay tower/pit!

Then Daddy took Merrilee through the Snake maze for kids. Merrilee Loved it! Ben had to bend over and duck his head the whole time.

After the snake maze it was time for the Train ride through the non-maze corn fields. We did this a couple years ago at night and they had these creepy scarecrows and pumpkins and goblin scenes that were pretty freaky at night, but this time we saw them during the day and they were pretty silly and fun!

This is the best we could do for a family photo while we were there

After the train ride, we let Merrilee play with the duck races, watch the robotic farm animals sing and dance, get a snow cone, play on tractors, go down many slides throughout the park and see the pumpkin princess!

Alice had fun too, although I think next year she will be able to enjoy it a little more! She spent most of the time observing all the commotion like this...

But we did manage to get a cute picture of her in a little hay/pumpkin display! We tried to get both the girls together, but that failed miserably.

We were going to get pumpkins there, but they were crazy expensive, so we might go to a real pumpkin patch in the near future to get our pumpkins. If not, I guess Winco pumpkins will have to do! :)