Yea for Fall!

I am so excited that Fall finally seems to be here! The 80 degree weather in the end of September has been driving me crazy! We love this time of year at our house, and I am SO excited to be able to enjoy it this year. At this time last year I felt like death most days, well every day actually. I am not one that enjoys pregnancy, mainly because my life is spent in the bathroom...Anyhow. The leaves are changing colors, and the smell of Autumn is in the air. I always knew I loved this season when we lived in Utah, and I really do miss driving through the canyons and seeing how beautiful the trees are when they start to change colors. But out here it is something completely amazing. Everywhere you look the trees are changing into beautiful colors, and life just seems to slow down, and I feel like I have more time to enjoy the small things.

Now onto the really fun stuff. M is changing so much every day, and here is the latest example. She has learned to hold her own bottle!! We couldn't believe it. She has been on the verge of so many new things lately, and this was the first one to break through.

And this picture is just for fun. She still loves bath time, and loves getting dressed even more. Crazy, huh. Banana absolultely hated getting out of her bath. M would remain without clothes all day if I didn't care about her having a diaper on.
When my parents came out to visit they bought Banana this really cute Halloween sucker making kit. She has been dying to test it out for weeks now, and last night for FHE we finally opened it up. It was pretty fun, and not as huge of mess as I feared. Thanks Mom and Dad!


My exciting news is that I have started teaching dance again! It is only for one night a week, but i Love it. The girls are so cute, and it felt like coming home again when I walked into the studio. I knew that I had been missing dancing, but I didn't realize how much until I started teaching again. I am even more anxious now for Dad to graduate so we can settle down and I can open a studio! I teach at the same studio Banana takes from, and I really like all of the people that teach there. Banana still loves every minute of her class, and she loves to come home and practice all of her new moves. I'll have to get a video posted on here soon.
Also, I needed to update really quick that Dad found out that his team took 2nd, not 3rd in the adventure race!! He was so excited. It's fun to see his enthusiasm for these races, and I can't help but get excited for him. Only one race left this year, and I'm not too disappointed about that. I wish we could go with him, but I don't really want to stand out in the freezing November air for two hours with my little girls. Call me crazy!

A Post About Things

I promsie I think about updating the blog every day, but before I know it we're putting our kids to bed and in all honesty I'd rather sit on my behind and enjoy all that the wonderful world of televison has to offer. And I think that was the longest run on sentence ever. That shows you how my thought process has been going lately. I swear I haven't completed a thought in months.

A lot has been going on around here, but unfortunately I never remember my camera. Hubby's mom sent him some $$ for his bday so he decided to spend it on us! We went to Iowa City for the day and went to the awesome children's museum there. It was incredible, and puts ours in town to shame. We really could have spent all day there, but it wore me out! It is two stories, and packed full of things to entertain everyone from babies to the parents. I can't wait to go again. We are definitely making a stop on our way to Omaha for Thanksgiving!
Banana has turned into Miss Sarcasm lately and I blame it all on her father. For example, she was doing something totally inappropriate the other day, so I informed her that she was going to lose a toy (the only punishment that works). She turned to me with this totally incredulous look on her face and yelled, "Mom, are you SERIOUS?" I started laughing, which completely took the seriousness away from my threat...
Next, she has issues with listening when we are in parking lots. She knows she is supposed to hold someone's hand/leg/shirt/anything attached to us...So. We were venturing to Target the other night and she tried to take off running, so I yelled as loud as I dared (in public) that she was to hold someone's hand. She stopped, clasped her hands together, and yelled back at me. "ok I am holding my hands!" Really?
We were over at some friends' houser for dinner last night and they have this really cute ghost hanging from one of the doorways. Banana was running around and suddenly noticed the ghost, stopped, and said, "Hey, look Mom, it's the Holy Ghost!" It's so nice to know that she is learning something in nursery...
And she now informs me to be quiet, stop being freaky, and my favorite is when, in a totally exasperated voice, she looks at me and says, "Oh mommy." (This usually comes when I am completely missing the point of what she is tryng to say.)
That's our week in a nutshell. I will be back with more hilarious things Banana says!

We bought Banana her first pair of scissors today, and she loved it! I am excited at how quickly she picked up on the skill. This is her finished projecty from today!
Hubby has a new obsession. He mastered it, and now is ready to move onto the 4x4x4. He can do all kinds of fun patterns with it, and I don't mind him passing his free time this way.
When Grandpa and Grandma W. were here they bought Banana this fun little styling kit. It has all of the hair tools in it, and this blow dryer actually works. Now she joins me every day to get ready!
We started putting up Halloween decorations, and the first thing on our list was this fun haunted house. So for FHE tonight it was our project. It was so much easier than the Christmas ones because it came put together. All we had to do was decorate! It was a messy/fun project!

The Thunder Rolls Adventure Race

Hello everyone, this is Hubby. I decided I'd get on and write about my race this time and give C a break. This one was a 12 hour adventure race! And it was awesome...started out Friday night getting our maps and coordinates to plot the checkpoints for the race. No set course to follow this time, just some maps, a compass, and your skill in navigating the woods. I was on a 3 person team with friends from church. Friday night we plotted our course, camped out near the race start, and then the race began at 6am Saturday, still in the dark...there was a total of 28 miles biking, 12 miles trekking, 9 miles canoeing, and another 2.25 miles in an inflatable raft! Along the way you are required to orienteer to hit the checkpoints and punch a "passport" at each one. We covered some pretty beautiful country, and at one point got to do a tyrolean traverse...see the pic below. The canoing took us from Illinois, across the Mississippi River to Iowa at one point, and back again. Oh, and you have to carry our gear with you throughout the race. There is a lot to tell, but that is the basic outline. We finished right at 12 hours, and took 3rd in our division. We are excited about that, but if not for a couple of bad mistakes in navigation, we would have taken first...oh well, maybe next year. There is actually also a 24 hour division, which we might have to consider!

Coming in from the raft portion, it was one of the first things we came to...and it was barely big enough for the three of us and our gear!

Here is the traverse, across this little river at a dam. We just hooked in using our climbing harnesses and pulled ourselves across...if it looks hard, it was. If it looks easy, it wasn't.

Just some pictures somebody got of some of the other racers. I just wanted to show some of the terrain we were experiencing. This is in Wild Cat Den State Park on the Iowa side of the river. It was a blast!

Welcome to the Maggot Show!

Apparently it's been a while since I posted...I have good excuses, I think. My parents were here last week for a short visit, and we had SO MUCH FUN! And now we are all sick at our house. Even more fun...

So, an update on our life. Hannah started dance classes last week! I have been so excited for this day, probably more excited than her. I have to admit that I teared up when I put her ballet shoes on her. It was so much fun to see how excited she was. She has a fabulous teacher, and did so great! The best part was watching her check herself out in the mirrors the whole time. Hilarious. She would just run up to them, and start making faces and doing a little dance. Too cute.


My parents visit was really nice, and went by way too fast. We had a fun trip to the zoo, the children's museum, and lots of eating out. Oh, and lots of spoiling of their grandchildren. They came at the perfect time because Russ had a 12 hour adventure race that he left on Friday night for, and didn't get back until Saturday night. It was nice to have help and some company. Unfortunately I don't have any pics of the race...But Russ's team came in third!! Pretty impressive. He was pretty wiped out when he got home, and had no time to recover because he was getting ready for Boards, which start TODAY! Keep your fingers crossed! I think he'll do great,but he's pretty nervous. Which is weird cuz he NEVER gets nervous. About anything.


Ok, this pic explains the title of this blog entry. The girls and I have had pretty horrible colds this past week, which means that when we do try and talk our words don't really sound right. Well, Hannah is obsessed with doing these "magic shows" lately (I have another video to post later)...So. One morning she came in yelling at me that she wanted me to watch her maggot show! Um..maggots? Really? So I went into her room, she hopped up on her bed and started dancing around yelling "Welcome to my maggot show, my maggot show!"

I think this last week counts as one of the longest weeks of my life. It was my first time dealing with two sick kids, and then I got sick to top it off. Plus, Russ has been studying for boards pretty much 24/7, so that made the kids extra cranky because they missed their dad. I admit I was pretty cranky too. I guess it's a good thing my parents left because we wouldn't have been very good company..
Emma is growing and changing so much. She is almost rolling over. She is so close, all she needs to do is figure out how to get over that arm. She is also trying to sit up, which I think is pretty crazy. Whenever she sits on our laps she refuses to just lean back against us. She'll push herself forward until she is sitting up. She still has a while before she is strong enough to support herself, but I can't believe how fast the time is going by.
Lastly I realized that I never put pics of me oh here. With good reason. But a few people have mentioned that they forgot what I look like... :) So to satisfy all of your curiosity here ya go.

Pocus Pocus

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A Little Bribery Goes A Long Way

She finally did it! That's right, Miss Hannah is 100% potty trained. It has been a LONG ordeal for us, and it is so nice to finally be done. She has inherited a combination of mine and russ's stubborness, so I was seriously considering the possibility that she may be in diapers FOREVER. But, after a lot of good advice from my SIL's and mom, we are now diaper free at our house! (Well, that's not entirely true...Emma still uses her fair share and then some). I think the trick that finally worked was the potty chart I made for her, and some really good bribes. Hannah will soon be the owner a new, nice and shiny bike!

Russ likes to scare me with his little tricks. Crazy as it both of the girls absolutely LOVE doing this with their dad. It still gives me a heart attack every time. And this trick isn't even the worst of them...

For some reason I can't this pic to turn. Any ideas? But I just wanted to show you all just how much Emma drools. It's ridiculous. I can't keep her clothes dry for anything. Hannah was bad, but this is too much!

Emma is such a happy baby, and this is what she does whenever her Dad pays attention to her. She is starting to giggle and I love it!
We had a fun labor day pizza picnic at the park. If you haven't already noticed, Hannah acts like her dad... a lot.

They decided to go and chase some squirrels while we were there. I should have taken a video of this. Hannah thought it was the funniest thing EVER. She couldn't stop giggling.
She found some "nuts" lying around and was trying desperately to give one to one of the squirrels. Surprisingly, they weren't convinced to come and check them out.
These last two pics are just to prove to you how much my girls' love their dad. I have said it a million times, but they are total daddy's girls. I don't mind too much :)

Yet Another Day at the Races

Well another race down, only two more to go this year!! Russ and his friend Randy (a.k.a. Hannah's boyfriend) competed in the Taming of the Slough this past weekend and....TOOK SECOND PLACE! They were pretty excited about it, and I must admit that I am too. I didn't even think they were contenders to place cuz there are a lot of people out there who make these races their life. It was a 2 mile canoe, 2 mile run, and 7 mile mt. bike ride. Their trophies are pretty sweet too. You can see them in the pic, but they are made out of giant pieces of rock. I made the mistake, before I saw the trophies, of suggesting that he let Hannah have it. I totally thought that they would be those lame trophies with the bowling man/business man/sports figure on top. Russ wasn't too happy with me for that suggestion.

Hannah had tons of fun just hanging out in the canoe while we took some pictures. Russ really wanted to take her out on the river in the canoe, but unfortunately we couldn't find any life vests for someone so small. If any of you have any we could borrow sometime that would be great!


So after church on Sunday Russ had a meeting so we had to stick around for awhile and wait for him. Our friends husband was in the same meeting and the children were getting pretty restless, so she had the brilliant idea of shutting them in that little foyer area in between the two sets of doors. Such a great idea. They could run around to their hearts content, and we couldn't hear them screaming.

Our church is across the street from a giant corn field and Hannah has always wanted to go and play in the "corn trees." We finally got the chance and she had so much fun!

And here's Emma being her cute self. She is getting so big, and changing every day. She almost rolled over yesterday and I about died. She loves to talk to her sister, and gets so excited every time she sees her.