One WILD Week!!

Well it all started last Monday night and it ended this morning! We had visitors!! :)

Late last Monday night Dan went and picked up Daddy from the airport! Yea! He came because he had some Southwest credit to use up! Then Tuesday Mary, Ryan, and Novella flew to NY, and on Thursday my personal chauffeur (because we KNOW what happens when I drive to NY) and I drove to Manhattan and picked up this sweet bundle!! Yep! We stole Novella and brought her to Connecticut for a couple days!
Look at all these happy cousins!!
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BUT WAIT! There is MORE!!


Thursday evening Mom & Dad H., Laura, Garen, & Adara flew in! Fern and Novella were SO happy to have a baby to hold and Adara put up with it very well! :)


This all pooped out Jake! :) When Jake was a baby he would only sleep if he was in the living room with all of our commotion around, and as you can see he is still the same way! The only problem now is there is no way I can move him! So if Dan is not here he sleeps there for the night! :)
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Then on Friday evening Mike, Anna, & Zach; then Saturday, Donna, Sarah, Kira, & Ari all drove in! And Saturday afternoon the girls and I picked up Mary at the train station! What a house full!!
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And why you might ask? Well Daddy and Mary just happened to plan trips here and since they would be here we started praying that Dan would be here too so that Riley could be baptised! Then everyone else made time and came to be here for Riley too!
YEA! And it actually all worked out!

So this last Sunday Riley was baptised! Here is he and Dad in their white duds all ready!

Then all five of us afterwards. It was a great baptism, the Spirit was there in abundance!

Here is Riley with Aunt Mary, Grandpa, & Novella!

Riley and just Grandpa!

Novella really enjoyed Riley and wanted to get her picture with him!

Aunt Donna and Riley! Riley was so excited Aunt Donna could come (but was a little bummed she showed up with out Sam and Jarom, his cousins closest in age)! :)

And Riley with Grandma and Grandpa!

Poor guy he got caught by Mom and Dad again!!

We then said good bye to Aunt Donna and crew, and Mike, Anna, & Zach who all had long drives ahead of them!

Later after dinner Riley received his first set of scriptures (with his name on them)!!! And he has continued to carry them around ever since! :)

After dinner Grandma & Grandpa, and Laura, Garen, & Adara all headed up to Hartford ahead of the impending snow storm!

Everyone left at the house then crashed and everyone was in bed around 8pm!! :)

During the night we got a little snow! :)

Yea like 8 inches!! In the morning we said goodbye to Daddy, and then after lunch the kids all went out to play! Here is Novella all ready for fun!!

And our cute little stepping stones!! How cute are they!

Even Aunt Mary braved the snow for a couple runs! Then she joined mom in the warm kitchen and left all the kids to Dad/Uncle Dan! :) They had a great time!!

When everyone came in there was hot tang waiting for them! Here is Novella with her first glass ever (this one is for you Grandma)!!

Monday night we had a birthday party for Aunt Mary and Novella complete with cupcakes and candles (although we forgot to pull out the ice cream!! Opps)!! Novella was VERY excited!!

And she enjoyed her cake! :)

Novella got a baby doll sling from us and she immediately loved it! Yea! What a cute little mommy! (Made from this FREE tutorial!!) And Aunt Mary enjoyed her earrings that Fern spilled the beans about, before the party!

Fern and Novella were "matchy-matchy" all day yesterday, Fern thought this was too cool!! :) Don't mind my "ugly" chair it is the most comfortable in the house and someday I'll have $$ to recover it! :)

And here is Novella this morning, getting all ready for her plane ride today!

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Whew, I'm pooped! :)

Thanks everyone for coming and sharing Riley's day with us!

Photo Shoot!

Now I know you all have guessed that I like to take pictures (3 blogs worth)! :) But did you know there is a budding photographer in the house with me!? Riley LOVES to take pictures and asks OFTEN for a camera of his own, to which (much to his dismay) he hears, "then save up your money"! :) But today the sun coming in was so pretty that I wanted to get a few pictures, so I let Riley loose with my camera and became his subject (those of you who follow this blog know I am not usually in front of the camera, so enjoy Mom & Dan! :) ).Mom offered a few suggestions...


he said this was of the baby :)...

Then he started giving direction!

And just so you all don't think I get to sit around by myself, this is the norm! But it is nice to get a nice picture of my babe and I!

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So there you have it, Riley's hands, a few suggestions from mom, direction from Riley, and a little cropping from mom (who really wanted to see the air conditioner behind me)!

And do you see I am just about finished with Riley's blue Valentine's Day scarf!!!

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Hope you had a little sunshine in your day! :)

Favorite Things!

Well I have been trying to get this post up for a couple days but Photoshop has been freaking out! :) And I promise to get Riley's birthday pictures up ASAP! :)

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But in the mean time...If you are looking for me after lunch this is where I am. On my bed basking in the sun. It is the only room in our house to get good winter sunshine! So I am ether just sitting there doing something or yep you guessed it, napping! :) This pink yarn is now a Valentines scarf for Fern, I have Riley's blue one still left to finish!
Guess where Jake found me with the camera on this day!?! Jake took this picture because the yarn on my belly looked like a bunny to him! :) His green scarf is all finished and will go in his valentines bag tonight! :)

One of my most favorite times of the year is when Trader Joe's gets in their tulips and daffodils! These are my Valentines flowers from Dan, and do you see the miracle? That window is OPEN!! It was 60 degrees F. yesterday!! I know it was a fluke but boy I wish it would stick around!!

And my daffodils! I love these because a bunch of them are only a couple bucks and I usually have enough to have two small vases of them! I LOVE daffodils! :)

And yesterday I bought a little something for the babe wiggling all over in my tummy! Target is now stocking these, I wanted some for Jake when he was a babe and then for Fern and finally I just bought some! They make cloth diapering a little easier and they are too cute! :)

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So there you are some of my favorite things to go along with a few new songs! :)

Celebrating!

I am sure everyone knows that the Steelers won the Super Bowl last Sunday and that my hubby can conservatively be called a "Steeler's Fan", :) So we of course had a little celebrating to do! And of course it involved Eat n Park Steeler Smiley Face Cookies! All the way from Pittsburgh (although thankfully the shipping was much more reasonable to CT. vs. 4 years ago to CA.)!!
Jake my bottomless pit was the only one to wait for the camera...

Fern dug in...

Riley nibbled away...

and Dan, well you can see the proof! :)

They are very yummy!

RACE DAY!!

Riley and his friend Orion (they met at LLL, and then we recruited Orion and his family to our pack) are all set for the race to begin!! Riley's car is the second blue one (with red light sabers on the sides), and Orion's is the green one right next to him!

Ahhh, the suspense! Who won??

Well in the end after many heats Riley won FIRST place, for the entire pack! And since Dad was on the pit crew he got to award Riley his trophy! Riley will now get to go on to the district race since he was the fastest wolf car too!

The best part? Orion won second place so they were both happy for each other and they both get to go to the district race! Orion's car was the fastest tiger car! Orion was the only other person Riley let hold his trophy! (Needless to say Jake was not thrilled!)

The two happy campers together!

And my sweet cheesy boy! Good job Riley!

It's That Time of Year Again!!!

Cub Scout pinewood derby time and Super Bowl time!

Dan did a good job combining the two for the adult race this year, too bad he did not place well. He could not get his hands on a high speed drill before the race, but he did borrow one this week and so now Riley's car is really ready for his race this Saturday!

We'll unveil Riley's car and race photos then!!

And as for Sunday, it is actually one of the very few times I wish we had cable. Dan will have to watch the play by play on the computer, but we will be enjoying these (hopefully)!! :)

January Happenings!

JAKE IS FAMOUS!!

In our little community newspaper there was this picture of Jake at a class he got to take at the library, the guy in the back with the top hat did some exciting reading I guess! I was taking a class for parents while Jake got to take his class. Is that not a happy boy or what!! :)
Then for the first time in their short little lives the kids got to walk into a toy department and BUY!! Thanks Grandma & Grandpa H. for the Christmas gift cards, they had a great time!!
And yea that is Fern without a jacket, I can never get her to wear one!

And for all of those of you waiting to see just how big I will get (yes I can get REALLY big), here is an update. Sorry I did not do my hair that day! :)

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And if you want to see just how fidged it is here check over at our nature blog in a little bit!

Dreams

Well you all know I am a bit of a dreamer just from my blog title, but you know nothing brings out the crazy dreams like being pregnant! Really, if you have never been pregnant you can not appreciate what I mean, really crazy! Take for example last night, the part I woke up remembering was Melissa and I being really excited about getting to "bedazzle" our jeans, and everyone's jeans we could get at around! Seriously we were just going crazy!

So there you are crazy pregnancy dreams! But the good part of pregnancy has finally appeared, I get to feel the little one wiggling about, and boy he/she is wiggly!! Today it was so strong I could just barely see it while sitting in church, and I think Riley got to feel it too! It is the part of pregnancy that makes all the other parts worth it, and I usually miss it after my babe is out. Although this time I am really looking forward to the out part! :) Mostly the then holding and nursing, and just general love of the out part! :)

To go along with my long ramble-y post here I thought I'd point you to the new sidebar addition, Baby links! And let you know I deleted the "blogs I read" links because they were outdated and I was not in the mood to go through and update, plus there is the "followers" links above that if you are not on please go add yourself!! :)

Hope your Sabbath has been lovely!

WATCH OUT!!

If your sound is up you'll know why! :) If your sound is not up, TURN IT UP!! :)

Oh and I think Zinnia has taken the lead in the house! I was quite impressed with all the flowers you all were able to name!

Let me know if the music is annoying or fun! :)

New Addition!

No not the human kind! :) YET! :)

We got a new kitty yesterday! We rescued her from going to a shelter, a family at church who were moving could not take her and while Dan was over helping with the move he thought she might be a good fit for us. So he came home and picked us up to go meet her. And even though she was very scared (who wouldn't be) she let me hold her and she let all the kids pet her! Petunia still does not let Fern pet her, so I decided this was a good sign. Plus I hate to see an animal go to a shelter. On the way home in the cat carrier on my lap she purred for a little bit and I thought most definitely this cat has a good disposition! :) So here we are, at the moment we have a cat for upstairs (Petunia) and a cat for downstairs (New kitty), they are afraid of each other!!!! Funny hu! :)

So now a name, we thought we would continue on the flower theme and so our first thoughts were Chrysanthemum (we enjoy the children's book), or Zinnia. Then Last night Dan threw in Viola or Violet. I think the kids are leaning towards Zinnia, but I thought I'd ask all of you your opinion! :) So lets hear it! :)

Oh and she is not as petite as the picture makes you think, she is a bit bigger than Petunia and a little more stocky, she has this little squeaky meow that at first seems weird to come from her, and she loves to purr! :) And I have no clue why the last family didn't "click" with her! :)

Happy New Year!

We hope you are warm, we are trying to stay warm! Here is what we woke to this morning, when the temp was 9 degrees Fahrenheit! :) Don't even ask about the wind chill, it made the windows creak, whistle and bang all night!!Ice on the front door window, I hung blankets over the doors and front windows last night to keep our warmth in!! :)
Ice on the front window!

Ice on the back slider!

Ice in the bathroom!

And even though my bedroom window has plastic on it, this is what I found when I tried to peek out this morning. A full sheet of ice!!!

At least the garage windows had pretty ice! But those dang power lines always ruin my shot! :)

Pretty ice up close!!

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It is nice an sunny this morning, but still very windy. I have not opened the curtains/blankets yet because the cold is so permeating so we are missing the sun. :(

Last night I dreamt of Grandma's Beach, I think that is what heaven will be. :)