Turkey day

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We returned home yesterday after spending the majority of the week in Idaho Falls. We stayed with Sean's parents this year. Both Sean's family and my family have some pretty great cooks so we never have an "off" year with the food! All of the food was awesome, but some particular standouts for me were the dressing made with homemade gf jalapeno cheese bread (collaborative effort from Sean's mom and sister), and the sweet potato casserole Erin made (sinfully delicious). I should have taken a picture of all of the food. We also had like 7 or 8 pies, which is never a bad thing. Too bad you needed a saw to get through the crust of my gluten free pumpkin pie! haha, I figure there is always next year!

Unfortunately Jackson had an ear infection for the first few days in Idaho Falls. He was pretty tired and moody, but seemed to cheer up towards the end. We have been having quite the battle getting him to take his medication... the first few attempts proved unsuccessful as he spit the hot pink goo everywhere. I am happy to say there have been no more spitting incidents since I started disguising the medication in strawberry/chocolate milk.

This was also the first year in quite some time where all of my siblings have been in Idaho Falls for Thanksgiving. It was nice seeing everyone and getting a chance to hang out. We saw a few movies (Harry Potter and Tangled) and watched the BYU game. We always have fun with Sean's family and had a great time Saturday night hanging out at Erin's. She made Pioneer Woman's jalapeno poppers and I ate about 30 and consequently gained 10 pounds. It's all in the name of Thanksgiving! ;)

We have a lot to be thankful for this year and I am so happy I got to spend Thanksgiving with so many of the people I care about most!

Happy birthday to Sean!

Sean turned 29 yesterday! I asked him how he wanted to spend his birthday and he chose bowling :) My sister and her family and our friends Rob and Heidi came with us and we had a great time.

Here are the few pictures I snapped before politely being told I needed to put my camera away because it was distracting the hard-core league players...

Sean pretty much smoked everyone. I guess it is fitting for the birthday boy to be victorious!

I did better when I got help from Jackson (and the bumpers).

Unfortunately I did not get any pictures of Rob or Heidi before I had to put away my camera. They looked fab though! ;)

We ended the night with cake (gluten-free) and cupcakes (gluten-full) and ice cream. It was a really fun day and I am hoping Sean thought so too!

Finally, I took this video on my phone yesterday at my sister's and meant to post it for Sean's actual birthday-- I figure late is better than never!

Family pictures 2010

My friend Ashley is a photographer and happens to be my next-door neighbor. Jackson LOVES her two daughters and makes himself right at home with them (literally--he just walks into their house on an almost daily basis). We had Ashley take our family pictures this year and we are SO happy with them.

Here are some of my very favorites:

Jackson did not want to let go of the apple he was eating from the orchard. I thought it was cute addition in the pictures!

I had to include this one just because it makes me laugh. The ultimate cheesy grin-- it almost looks painful!

Getting ready to tackle dad

I love this one even though Jackson isn't smiling. I am pretty sure his mouth is full of candy.

It was great Jackson was so comfortable with Ashley. She has a toy bear in a sleeping bag that really helped get smiles out of him. The session was relaxed and stress free-- opposite of what I am used to feeling about family pictures. Usually by the end I am just happy to be done and don't even care about how the pictures turn out. I really like Ashley's experience with kids and understanding that they aren't going to sit still and smile perfectly for the camera all the time. I also really like that she took both posed and unposed photos. All I know is it is good that we had the pictures taken about a month ago because if we took them today I would need some heavy-duty Spanx!

Thank you Ashley for taking pictures that we absolutely love and feel represent our family so well!

Ashley's Web site: http://www.irresistiblephotography.com/

Sneak Peek!

Baby #2!!!

Coming late April/early May

Amazingly, no doctors, medications, or procedures were necessary, despite being told earlier this summer we only had a 2-3% chance of conceiving on our own. Our tentative plan was to try in vitro again next year, but thankfully we don't have to worry about that now!

I am about 14 weeks along and starting my second trimester. We'll find out what we're having a few weeks before Christmas :)

We are excited to share the good news and are so grateful for another miracle!

A few Halloween pics

Jackson and my friend Andrea's cute boys:

Bam Bam and a couple of cousin garden gnomes:

A sleeping skunk and papa gnome (love the mullet Jer!):

Hopped up on sugar after trick-or-treating: