M's bday, Halloween, & Thanksgiving

October 13th was Maddie's third birthday. What a big girl she has become!! We had a little party for her and I made her a caterpillar cake at her request. Thanks heavens my sister Lisa was here visiting when I made it, and she helped cover the five half balls with stars. Otherwise it would have taken me forever by myself! It turned out cute and Maddie loved it!

My little ballerina girl :)
(she still walks on her tiptoes all the time; has since she started walking)

Halloween was a lot of fun with the kids this year. We went to a pumpkin farm and they enjoyed carving pumpkins with us (well, they helped with the gutting out part).

At the pumpkin farm (Jared is 1 mo here)

Parker was actually pretty squimish about the pumpkin inners, but Maddie wasn't. She loved it. :)

Then we also went to "Boo at the Zoo" at our local zoo. It was pretty cool. They had tons of lights all over and a ton of carved pumpkins too, and games and hay mazes and things like that for the kids. I think that might be a new tradition.

Maddie and Parker with our friend Giddeon

Our little cub (6wks old)

We actually didn't have our first snow until almost halfway through November. That is practically un-heard of here in Idaho. The kids had quite a grand time building a small snowman.


For Thanksgiving we drove to Portland OR to visit Ben's family. Ben is #4 of 10 kids, and everyone was there for the holiday. And they all got to meet Jared for the first time. :) He was actually at the perfect age to travel with too. He slept most of the time, but was happy and content the time he was awake. He had just gotten to that really smiley age, so that made it more fun for everyone to meet him. Here's Ben, Maddie, Jared, and I with Ben's Mom.

Cousin Hailey and Maddie helping me make rolls for Thanksgiving

Hailey and Maddie playing with Jared

Aunt Michelle and cousin Tyler with Jared

We stayed at Ben's sister's house, and she has three boys. So they have a LOT of nerf stuff and Parker had a blast with it. We actually got him some nerf stuff for Christmas because he had so much fun with them.

Cousin Porter and Parker with Jared

Jared has grown SOOO fast! I can't believe he's already three months old. He is still such a content baby and hardly cries. He's just happy pretty much all of the time (I'm so lucky!). He sleeps pretty much through the night (wakes up around 5am to eat, but that's it), and is easy to get to sleep. He has been showing his personality so much more, and getting so active. The kids love that he is interacting with them now. They love to talk to him and get him to smile and laugh. Maddie is actually the first one who got Jared to laugh out loud instead of just chuckle. Who knows what she was doing (she didn't really know herself), but it was so cute!

My little smiley boy (12wks). LOVE HIM!!

We made Santa graham crackers at my Aunt's house with some of the cousins. They were sooo easy and the kids had fun.


We hope you all had a great Christmas, and I'll be putting a Christmas post up soon. Love to all!