Fall is in the air....

I love living in the Pacific Northwest because you can actually witness the changing of the seasons. Right now most or all of the deciduous trees are starting to change colors and loose their leaves. Portland is beautiful this time of year.... despite what you might hear about all the rain.

I also love the seasonal vegetables that you see in the stores... like small gourds and pumpkins.

This was the view from our patio the other morning? See there are blue skies here during fall!!

The scenic drive to Tyler's work is filled with hillsides which look like the picture below.

And lastly, I couldn't resist putting this picture of our Jack O Lantern. I love his grouchy eye browns and how he's peeking through our sliding glass window at us. Every day Quincy says, "There's my Jack Lantern out there."

Pumpkin Carving and Trunk or Treating

This year was our first time pumpkin carving....

Quincy seemed pretty happy about the idea of pumpkin carving....

Unfortunately as we actually progressed into the carving process Quincy was showing less enthusiasm.

I don't know what seemed to make him so nervous about this pumpkin carving activity... maybe it was Tyler jamming a knife into a pumpkin, oh who knows.....

We had to have a little sit down with him and explain that pumpkin carving was fun. We would get to carve a face on our pumpkin. Then after we made a face on it we could light a candle and put it inside. This seemed to cheer Quincy up a little bit....

That was until it came to the part where we had to gut the pumpkin out. Quincy was terrified of the stuff inside of it. Note the nervous smile in the picture above. Tyler made the mistake of just grabbing his hand and shoving it inside the pumpkin. He FREAKED out. He was screaming and clinging to me and must have thought that pumpkin was never going to give his hand back. After we calmed him down once more we explained that there were seeds inside. We needed to take out all the seeds so we toast them in the oven and eat them. This wasn't exactly enough to convince him so what did we do? Bribe him with smarties of course! Then he was really excited................

Look at how he excited he was after pulling out one seed.

After a lot of hard work on my part in sorting guts from seeds... this was the final result.

And here Quincy is with his Jack O Lantern.

Our ward had a Trunk or Treat and home made chili with cornbread dinner. We decided to go and Quincy was thrilled with the whole concept of trunk or treating. It only took him a few cars to figure out that magic phrase that resulted in his getting lots of treats.

By the end of the night our little pumpkin had a pumpkin full of candy!

In other BIG NEWS

Quincy went poop 2 times!

Yeah, I know some of you don't want to hear about our two year old son's bowel movement accomplishments, BUT this is huge for us. We bought him a new potty chair, which has a soft foam seat. He seems to like this one much better. We are still a long ways off from being potty trained, but we have taken a humongous leap in the right direction. He was very excited about his first potty success and as a reward we bought some Elmo stickers, two coloring books, and some potty treats. I will be sure to keep you all updated about how the 'potty training' goes. Those of you who don't are..... just skim over these posts. :o)

This last picture is of Quincy's final piece of work after a little 'craft time' with mom. He was very excited about the glue sticks part of this project. He kept saying, "More glue stick Mama!"

His project ended up being displayed on our fridge and rightfully so..... look at how nice it turned out!

Announcing to the world.....

On October 20th we found out that we are going to have...........

...............Another Boy!


I was also somewhat relieved to see that we still have ONE healthy baby inside my tummy verses two. I know it seems silly, at my last ultrasound in August we had confirmed there was only one baby in there, but I sometimes get worried that there are two in there instead of just one and the doctors somehow missed the other one. Luckily we have one VERY healthy and very ACTIVE little boy in there.

I have to say, this pregnancy has been NOTHING like my last one so for a while I was thinking, **maybe it's a girl**, but the closer we got to my Dr. appointment the more I was feeling that it was yet another boy. Sure enough, as soon as we looked at the screen during my ultrasound there HE was..... showing off all his goods before the Dr. could even tell us that he was a boy. I knew immediately what I was looking at the second the picture pulled up on the screen. So here we go again, Boy #2!

I will openly admit that I was holding out for a girl, but there are also many reasons why I'm happy it's a boy instead. First, we already have boy stuff. And secondly, Quincy will love having a little brother to play with. So in that sense all is well for me.

The part in which I'm sad about is not being able to buy all those cute little girl things. Growing up I always wanted a sister..... and never got one. I do have an older, half sister, who I didn't meet until a few years ago. I feel sort of jipped in the girl department. I never had someone with whom I was closely bonded by blood to share all my secrets with. Fortunately, I DO have a wonderful relationship with my mom, which is why I was holding out to have at least one girl.

Alas, all is not lost... because we plan on having at least one or two more kids. So there's still hope for a little girl in our future, at least that's how I prefer to look at it.

The second part of finding out we are expecting boy #2 that is sad for me is that we DO NOT agree on boys' names. It took us forever to agree on a handful of names last time around. We only had about 5 that we BOTH liked; I was hoping this baby would be a girl and save us the headache in trying to figure out a way to compromise on something as 'insignificant' as a name. :o) So far we have maybe 2 names that we agree on......................

..........................................Wish us luck.

The part that I am very excited about for this next little boy is holding him. I can't wait to see all his 10 fingers and toes, I can't wait to smell his sweet baby scented skin, and feel his soft hair (if he has any, Quincy didn't have much), and I can't wait to feel his warm little fragile body next to mine.

We feel so blessed to have healthy babies. Though my baby #1 isn't much of a baby at all anymore. I know he will look gigantic next to Pipa.

On another note I will write a little update about what's new with me, at least in my pregnancy. My belly is getting bigger daily. I've always hated Tyler taking 'pregnancy photos' because I always felt they look unflattering. Who wants to remember looking so big and uncomfortable anyways? I am considering having my pictures taken by a girl I know... perhaps they will be something I WANT to remember.

I am officially 24 weeks today, so about 6 months along now. My due date is something like February 18th or such.... the estimated due date means nothing to me since I know of very few women who actually deliver on their EDD. While we were in for my ultrasound looking at Pipa the Dr. informed me that he was transverse breech, so it looks like I have another stubborn baby on my hands again, one that doesn't want to lie vertically inside me. Lucky me, it's extremely comfortable carrying babies horizontally! Although since I'm only 6 months, we have 3 more months before we need to make any definite plans for a c-section.
Only time will tell.

I have only gained 15 pounds so far.... this has been great news for me. I gained close to 50 when I carried Quincy (although I lost it all very fast--like 30 lbs within 2 days and the rest within 2 months) .... still it was extremely uncomfortable to carry that much weight. This time around I was hoping to stick closer to the recommended weight gain of 25-35 lbs. So it seems I'm on track this time for a more steady weight gain.

On Tuesday night Quincy and I went to Tyler's basketball game. While we were waiting for the high school volley ball game to end before the city league basketball could start I felt Quincy hit my stomach really hard. It was so hard that I looked down to scold him and realized that it wasn't Quincy it was PIPA! This little boy has got quite the power behind those kicks! What does the mean will happen when I'm 9 months pregnant??? UGG!

Lastly, I'm grateful to not be sick anymore... food has become much more enjoyable, although I do occasionally have bad heartburn. This has been a new experience for me, since I've never had heartburn in my life before. Lets just say it's not something I hope to carry on after pregnancy.


And I just thought I'd end with this picture of somebody else's pregnant belly. Mine isn't near this big yet, though I'm sure it won't be long. At first I was kind of creeped out by the little foot print through her belly, but you have to admit.... that it's pretty freakin' amazing that they

1.) caught it on camera and
2.) that we, as women, carry life inside of us.

I feel very lucky to carry this little boy.... and I'm even more excited to meet him!

Seaside, Oregon

A few weeks ago we decided to be spontaneous and take a day trip to Seaside. It's been a few years since I've been to the Oregon coast.... and even longer for Tyler. Seeing as how Quincy has lived in Idaho basically his whole life there are many things he has yet to see.... like the beach and the ocean.

It wasn't necessarily the best time of the year to go visit the Oregon Coast, but actually the weather couldn't have been nicer; All considering of course. We kept telling Quincy that we were going to the beach and we would get to see the ocean. He repeatedly asked the whole drive there: "where the ocean go?" and "where the beach go?" By the time we had reached Seaside...... he was passed out.


He didn't seem to mind that he was woke up from his nap prematurely though, after all he had heard great things about this 'ocean'.

Quincy's first encounter with the beach was discovering all that sand. I do have to say, I think the sand at the beach in Seaside is much prettier than other beaches along the Oregon coast. Most of them are very rocky and have lots of sticks and such all over them. I think we all managed to get a little sand in everything, but that's what the beach is for right?

Quincy's second new adventure was seeing the ocean. He was NOT a fan of this. The ocean seemed to terrify him and Tyler tried countless times to try and coax him closer to it, but he wasn't budging. Personally I'm a little terrified of large bodies of water, especially the ocean since it seems never-ending. So I couldn't really blame Quincy for wanting to keep his distance. He eventually, after an hour there, allowed me to hold him close enough to let the water run over his sandy toes and fingers. (Which by the way, the water was icy cold, so yet another reason why Quincy wasn't too hot on the idea of all that water.)

Quincy and I managed to have fun playing in the sand. We made a big letter inscription that said "I heart Dad". Quincy had so much fun getting sand between his fingers and throwing it. Tyler refused to bring his flip flops from the car so he wasn't in the sand as much as we were, but I think we all managed to have fun.

After some fun on the beach we had lunch at a place called Sam's Seaside Cafe. Tyler had some yummy fish and chips, I had a deli sandwich and homemade chili, and Quincy got a basket of freshly made french fries. We also managed to stop by the Salt Water Taffy outlet to bring home a bag of Taffy. I think this was Tyler's favorite part! He looked just like Quincy in the store as they went from bin to bin choosing out their favorite flavors. I wish my camera had batteries!

It was a beautiful day trip to Seaside and we hope to go back next year in the summer with Quincy and Pipa.

We're all settled in our new home!

Well... we officially made the move to our new apartment on Saturday October 3. It was quite the eventful day-- (errr, I should say 3 or 4 days for me) of packing, loading, unloading, and organizing. Luckily we were able to pick up our new leather couches on the way to our apartment since we had a moving truck.

All in all, we have no complaints about our new apartment. (Except for the fact that our car was towed on our first night there... because we didn't put the parking permit sticker in the window... but that is another story in itself!!)

It is absolutely beautiful! See for yourselves.

Our Living Room:

Note the pictures above the fireplace will have photos in them after we get some done this fall.

Our new Black leather couches... I compromised on these ones... the ones I liked were a little more modern and Tyler wasn't going for it. Since I gave in for 'his' couches.... I got to choose the pillows. Also, note the coffee table redone. I will post pictures of all my projects in 'before'/ 'after' phases.

The lamp I redid.....

Our fabulous kitchen with all stainless steal appliances. Boy does our lonely white toaster stick our like a sore thumb now!

I love that my oven has a broiler that actually works, the door shuts, and get this.... it cooks evenly!! Oh the blessings of a functioning oven.

Our sink with a fancy garbage disposal.

Our Dining room.... with wood floors, very nice for easy clean ups!

Our Bathroom with dual sinks and granite counter tops.... no more brown stinky laminate counters for us. :)

I also like that we have nice wood floors in here too.

Master bedroom.

Our big closets are nice... but I HATE the fact that there is no rod to hang our clothes on.... the racks are nice but truly limit how many clothes you can have hanging. Though it does look extremely organized.

Quincy's big boy bed... which was a "hand me down" from the Lines in our ward in Boise. We repainted it and bam... a brand new bed for a big boy!

I was apprehensive about how Quincy would sleep in his new room and in his new bed... but he must have been worn out from all the moving. He slept like a rock the first night.

Pipa's side of the room.

Pipa's crib and baby stuff.

Quincy's toys are now in the closet... easily accessible for him, and nicely put away for me when a clean up is rushed. :)

We all love our new place... now we just need to make some friends in the area.

Will try to keep you all updated.