Pumpkins Death

So last night we ran out and bought some pumpkins, invited Bryce's sister Bekah over and broke out our brand new pumpkin carving kit that my mom gave us. We have some artistic people around this house so I knew they would be awesome pumpkins. Here are Bryce, Kendal (Paul's Girlfriend) and Paul sitting around the table waiting for inspiration:



Paul trying to draw his creation before putting it on his pumpkin.
Paul drawing on his pumpkin.
Can you guess what this is going to be?
And here they are in all their beautiful glory. They look amazing lit up, but I'm not talented enough to take those pictures apparently...from left to right we have Bryce, Keely, Bekah, Kendal, and Paul.
Here is Bryce's amazing WSU creation:
Mine is a pretty lady...
Bekah did the bat signal
Kendal did an amazing scary tree scene
And Paul did is infamous nautical star
Although we live in a great neighborhood, I decided it was best to leave the pumpkins on the deck rather than the front porch. I would be devastated if some hooligans smashed our beautiful artwork. Unfortunately, I never considered the damage a dog might do...




Yes, three of the four pumpkins were sent to an early grave when Thisbe decided they would make a good snack. Our masterpieces did not even last 24 hours, let alone last until Halloween. Fun was had by all last night, but today we are mourning the loss of our pumpkins...

Thisbe will be mourning the loss of her bed tonight as pumpkins are a great laxative, she will be spending the night in her kennel.

The Chimney and Outlets

It was another productive weekend around our house! On Saturday morning we got right in and started working on projects. First, we convinced Paul to climb up on our roof and clean the chimney. He doesn't really like two story houses because you can not jump off the roof semi-safely if there is a bees nest in the chimney. Fortunately, our chimney was bee free! Unfortunately, there appear to be some soft spots on that roof that will need attention when re-roofing takes place. But, on the plus side we did find some of those super cool, heavy-duty, fun to play with magnets in the gutter.

I put up Halloween lights last week and since there are no outlets outside on the front of the house there has been an extension cord running out the front door. I found that if you do something that annoys Bryce, he will quickly find a solution! So he put in an outlet on the front porch for my Halloween lights and Christmas lights!


Then came the really tough project, and apparently during this project I was too distracted to take any pictures. While SIL Sarah's house was being built they had the option to put an outlet in the eaves to plug in Christmas lights. Bryce thought this was a great idea, keeps the extension cords out of the way and such, and since I am a HUGE fan of Christmas lights, he decided we should have one of these outlets as well.

Unfortunately it was a little more difficult than anticipated because the roof lines in our house come down making it impossible for Bryce to get from the back of the house, where the attic access is, to the front of the house, where we wanted the outlet. But after a couple of extra runs to the hardware store and some help from Paul, they were able to feed the wire across the attic without climbing in there, and we now have a working outlet in the eaves. I am starting to get excited about our first Christmas in our house!

Oh baby baby!

We got to see our little one for the first time on Wednesday. The Dr. wanted to check on my due date, but either way it's still the first week in April.


Ohhhh, scary skeleton looking picture!

Look at those little tiny legs! They are so cute!

The little one was moving around like crazy, flipping over and then looking at us and then moving around, and waving those little arms. It was so amazing! Only 5.5 months until we meet the little one in person!

Why homeowners rarely go on vacation...

So we spent the last week driving all over Washington, Oregon and California. It was an amazing trip, with two national parks and lots of great camping. My little brother who is living with us, was of course put in charge of the house while we were gone. He called while we drove home to tell us that a massive wind storm had come through and our fence had fallen down:




Fortunately, Bryce was able to pick it up and prop it up with more t-posts. Hopefully next year we can afford to start replacing the fence, and maybe avoid the constant falling and leaning of this 20 year old maintained-very-poorly fence.

Road Trip!

So our big 1 year anniversary is coming up in less than a month. Back when we got married we talked about where we would go and what we would do for our 1 year anniversary. I think it was sometime this spring that we decided to go to Yosemite National Park and meet up with my Uncle Steven to hike half-dome. I did this once before, several years ago with my brother and Uncle Steven. And I would like to insert a picture here, but I can't fine one, so they must be on a disc somewhere...

Anyway, the original plan was to fly of course, but then I realized for two people to fly it would cost twice as much as driving my super efficient Dodge Neon. So we thought how fun would it be to drive to Yosemite and camp all the way there and back with all our sweet new camping gear that we got for our wedding? So on Wednesday morning we will be taking off to drive to Yosemite. On the way back we will drive through the Red Woods and hopefully find a camping spot on the beach.

We are both very ready for a break from work and excited to try out our road tripping skills as well as all our sweet camping stuff. Now if I could just get excited about packing and shopping for our trip...

Tune in next week for pictures of all our fun! (I keep going on and on about how fun this is going to be, please don't be surprised if you come back and find pictures of us with flat tires and stranded on the side of the road, it runs in my family!)

Babysitting

Earlier this summer our niece Arielle was over for a visit. We were pretty busy mowing the lawn and cleaning out the garage, so we showed her the dog kennel:

We are going to be GREAT parents!

Happy Birthday!

Bryce celebrated Birthday number 26 on August 29th and I then I celebrated number 27 on September 17th. Although Bryce still holds to the "fact" that he is older than me. Here is the first birthday cake I have ever made for Bryce.

Then my very sweet niece decided to help me out a bit, so the spelling of Bryce's name changed slightly as her hand entered the cake unexpectedly...I only cried a little bit even though I thought it was funny, I still cried, silly hormones...



This has been MY favorite present that he recieved (so far). He has learned a lot about pregnancy and babies and it has made him very understanding (and worried in a very sweet way!)
I bought him this light so that he can continue working even after it gets dark out, haha!
Here is Bryce trying to guess what this present is by touching it, he couldn't guess. His parents bought him a chop saw, now he can really get a lot of work done.
Then it was my Birthday! And my amazing sister-in-law Bekah made this amazing cake! I love Rainbow Brite and Bryce asked her if she could make me a cake, she did awesome, and all by free-hand even.
This is my surprised face when I first saw the cake.



Bryce bought me the Belly Book. I've been having fun filling it out and taking pictures to track being pregnant. So fun!
We both had great birthdays with our families and each other of course. We got lots of fun baby things, including a Little Saints blanket from Carroll College and a Cougar stocking hat from WSU. Our baby will be all decked out whether in Montana or Washington!