And our Rapunzel.

And here's our Rapunzel after school, in the playroom before homework starts.

Halloween time!

We carved those big beasts the other night...Joe even took off early from work, which is actually more of a treat than the activity itself.

The finished products all lit up.  See how mine looks like an old man's face or perhaps a scary skull (which is about as far from what I was going for possible).

Here's my owl in the daylight see how the wings are only scratched out, apparently I didn't go deep enough to be able to see it at night.

The girls school does Book Character Parties at school rather than Halloween parties.  Here's our Elsa before her party yesterday.  I completely forgot to get a picture of Austin this morning so I will have to take one this afternoon when we pick her up.

Fall Time

Our weeks are crazy busy right now, I am sure Joe feels even more like that.  With some recent changes at the business he is working a lot more and with two kids in school we are running a lot more...both of which make it feel as though we never really get any time off.  But just as this change swept in and disrupted everything so will the change that makes it all different.


I drove past a pumpkin display the other day and told Joe about it so he could go back and pick some up.  I love how the vines weren't cut off all the way so they have so much character.  If you'd like a size comparison...take a look at the toaster oven that looks small.  These pumpkins are huge!

We went up to Denver to cheer on our friend Anna who ran in the marathon up there.  This crazy statue was outside of one of the state buildings.

Look at that troop...even Jackson and I were in our jerseys.

Matisyahu performed at the finish line, this was the kiddos first concert so it was fun to watch them feel the music.

The girls and Nate made signs for the race, the girls were in charge of glitter.  Which as you would imagine is a very important job.

There she is crossing the finish line...what a great accomplishment.  And a great experience for the girls who both want to run marathons some day now.

Afterwards we went to Hoss and Leslie's house for a fall party complete with a hay ride.

Holy Smokes!

Holy Smokes.

Ok so first for the big news!  As most of you should know by now, we are expecting our fourth child and third daughter on March 24th (or in my case two weeks later) .

Between watching the heartbroken faces of three of my friends miscarry in the last 6 months during the first trimester AND the big wedding in Iowa AND Tadd and Carri's baby shower, I had to wait slightly longer than I normally do to tell anyone.  Especially Joe who just gets too excited not to mention it.

Here's the little wiggly girl all snug in the belly pudge that her brother Jackson left her. :-)

We hosted our 9th annual Chili Cookoff last weekend and I managed to WIN!  With a green chili that took my four days to make, smoked the pork shoulder and roasted my own peppers.  Yahoo!

Just look at that beast!  I made a cumin and salt crust and smoked it all day, turned out amazing.

Of course adding a major life event like birth and another child does come with it's own stress like the fact that my last day with Verizon is supposed to be the end of March, which will also be the last day of my insurance.  Although for the first time ever there are a ton of options to just go out and buy insurance through a CO-OP like our bank(s) or even COSTCO offers it.  So while it may be a little more expensive than Verizon's offering at least we won't go bankrupt.  The silver lining (other than welcoming an amazing little person to the world) is that Verizon can no longer ship me off to Pittsburgh due to the pregnancy. :-)