Yummy!

There is nothing better on a Sunday morning than Justin hopping out of bed when Noah wakes up, loading him up into the car seat, and going to get donuts so I can sleep a few more minutes. That is what he did a couple of weeks ago. It was wonderful. There is a Lamar's doughnuts not too far from our house, and Hannah loves to get their gigantic cinnamon rolls. We tease her that they are bigger than her head, but she loves to get them. She is only able to eat about a quarter of one. Just look at that sucker!

We Justin left to go get the donuts, he asked me what kind I wanted, and I couldn't decide between a chocolate or vanilla one, so I told him to just surprise me. Well, he found the perfect treat for a person with my dilemma; check it out!

We spent the rest of the day hyped up on sugar, but we certainly had the energy to get our errands done that day!

So Comfy!

The other night Noah was a little cranky, so Justin cuddled up with him on the couch and started watching some tv. Soon, Hannah decided she wanted a snuggle, so she crawled up next to daddy as well. Before we knew it, Noah was getting very quite and then fell asleep. The three of them sat that way for a good 30 minutes before it was time to get ready for bed. I guess I'm not the only one who knows how nice it is to cuddle with Justin after all!

Here Comes Noah!

Noah has really taken to crawling all over the place. He is getting to be pretty quick, too! One minute he'll be sitting and playing with a toy or something, and the next minute you look, he's gone! The phrase "here comes Noah!" has become quite frequently shouted by Hannah in particular. She can't seem to get over the fact that he is very much mobile.

Anyway, the other night I was sitting on the floor upstairs trying to get a good picture of him. You can tell in the first photo that I had just called his name, trying to get him to look at me and smile. Well, as is the game these days, he just started crawling on over to me the second he realized I was there. I snapped a bunch of pictures right in a row to catch him as he got closer and closer. Here they are!

A Lot to Look Forward to!

As we put the finishing touches on planning our December trip to Salt Lake, Hannah has become more than a little excited. She can't wait to go see her cousins Alexis and Lily. All weekend she kept asking "today, mommy?". I knew that saying "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...." wasn't a good idea, seeing as how we had 26 days to wait. So, we sat down to make a ring count- down, Christmas-style.
At the top we put a picture of Lex and Lily, then attached the rings. They dangle quite far down! We put the count-down on the closet door just outside Hannah's bathroom, and at night after she gets ready for bed she gets to rip off one ring and be one day closer to seeing her cousins. She was especially excited because we told her we have a pool at our hotel, and that we will invite them to come swimming. It only got better for her when I shared with her that Aunt Lindsay wants her to sleep over at their house one night. Hannah sure loves her sleepovers!

It makes me sad that the cousins are so far away. We've always had a hard time with Justin's brother and his family living in Utah while we live here, and having my daughter and son miss their cousins as they gets older will only make it worse. Luckily, the Sevy's make a couple of trips a year to come out here, and we have always gone out there at least twice a year as well. Basically, the pain of missing them will grow as time goes one, but so will the fun that they have when they are all together!

A "Great" Visit!

A few weeks ago we were lucky to have Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Withers come to town to visit. Hannah was especially excited, and she insisted on sitting next to Grandma during dinner. Later, Justin was tickling Hannah as usual, and she ran to Great Grandpa to hide. She started tickling him, which he loved. I don't ever remember seeing a bigger smile on his face. Noah was pretty easy going, as usual, and let both Great Grandma and Great Grandpa hold him. We had a great time and
hope that they can visit again soon!

Trick or Treat!

Happy Halloween! Hannah and Noah both had a blast this year, and I must say that I did, too! This is the first year that I haven't worked on Halloween. The day is usually long and tiring because my school always had a big parade and then parties afterward. Since we are on a
"traditional" calendar now, I was on Fall Break for the week of Halloween. Instead of being tired (and, let's face it, cranky),
I was happy to spend the day with my kids.
We began the day by going over to Grandma Dianes's for the daycare party. Grandma had decorated with cobwebs, spiders, balloons, and other spooky stuff. The kids had cupcakes with cobwebs and spiders on them, then we went outside to play games. Hannah had a hard time admiting defeat during musical chairs, but still had a great time.

After we left Grandma's we rushed home to make and eat dinner with Grandma and Papa before my sister came over with her family. It has become a tradition to go trick-or-treating with them. Hannah and Milla set off walking, while Aiden and Noah had their daddies carrying them. One especially neat house is down the street from us. They decorate like crazy for the few weeks before Halloween, adding something new each day. Then on the 31st they pull out all the stops. This year we walked past their open garage that had the infamous bedroom scene from "The Exorcist". Their little daughter, who is just a bit older than Hannah, was waiting at the door dressed and made up to look just like the creepy little girl from "The Ring." That house is definitely the craziest I've ever seen.

After about an hour of cruising the streets full of kids (did I mention it was like 50 degrees? I've NEVER seen a Halloween like this one. So nice and warm, and because of that the neighborhood was full of kids and parents. It was like the a scene from the movies.), we headed home because Leslie and her family needed to leave to see their other cousins. Hannah wasn't anywhere near ready to be done, so Daddy and Grandma kept going with her, while Papa, Noah and I went home to hand out candy and let Noah play.

While they were out, some moron tried to scare poor Hannah. She was riding on Daddy's shoulders, tired out from going so far, and a kid who Justin guessed to be about 13 or 14 walked up with a super scary mask on, and started growling at Hannah. He actually got close enough that Justin put his hand out and pushed this kid's face away from them. My mom also let him know that what he was doing was not cool at all. I was proud of my husband for being so protective of our little girl. Luckily it was him that was there and I wasn't, because I probably would have embarrassed everyone by yelling at the idiot.

In the end, we all had a great time, and Hannah got to pig out on candy that night. The next day we took her to buy the new movie "Tinkerbell". This is our trick to keep her from eating all that nasty candy for the next month. We let her "trade-in" her candy for a new toy or movie. She loves it and never even asks again about the bag-o-sugar!