Skippy Returns

This week we got to pretend we were camping and slept on air mattress and only ate food that I didn't actually have to cook because all I can do it heat stuff up. Oh the joys of moving. Luckily we have great friends who have taken pity on us and fed us. Thanks guys! We love you! A huge thank you to Carrie who watched my kids for 5 hours (YIKES!!) while I drove to Allentown for the boys to get echo cardiograms. It was just a super long ultrasound where they only looked at their hearts to check for any defects. While totally boring I got to leave knowing that my boys are very healthy! I get to have another ultrasound on the 11th so I'll get to see how big they are getting and luckily I don't have to drive down to Allentown again! Cody was gone for a while this week on interviews (again), pretty much the story of our lives right now with it being interview season. I guess I don't have much to complain about though. At least hes be lucky enough to get interviews at some awesome programs. Time is moving super fast for us! I can not believe that it is already December! That means that we have less than 2 weeks left here in Scranton. I am really going to miss our wonderful friends. They have made our time here in Scranton so much fun. Also, since its December our little friend Skippy has come back to visit!

The kids were so excited to see him on his first day back. Skippy was nice enough to come with a special surprise from Santa, magic seeds. Hopefully something neat will grow!

Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving we had plans to spend the evening with our friends but Casen ended up getting sick a couple of days before so we ended up spending the day just with our family. We had all the works (turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, cranberry sauce, rolls, apple pie, pumpkin pie and 3 bottles of sparkling cider) and really enjoyed getting to spend the day with just eachother. With Cody having a real job in the medical world next year who knows when or if we will get to do that again. The kids and I made the pumpkin pie the day before.

They were pretty proud of themselves for making it. We are so greateful for so many things. We are greatful for our wonderful friends who became our family members. We are greatful for all of the experiences we have had this last year. We are greatful that we are all healthy and happy. We are greatful that our family is going to be blessed with 2 more baby boys.

We are greatful that in a few more weeks we will be living by all of our family again (we have really missed everyone). The Friday after Thanksgiving we decided to make a quick stop out at Roba's Tree Farm in between finishing packing the house. It was the first day they were open for Christmas and Santa was there.

I was interested in seeing how Casen would react since last year he wasn't too sure about the big guy. This year he had no problem jumping up into the sleigh with him. Then of course we had to say hi to the animals and Rilyn had to put her face in every character, which means Casen had to do it too. Saturday is the big day for moving.

We are moving all of our stuff into storage (a few weeks early) because its the only day we knew all of the guys would be around. Luckily, we sold most of our big furniture earlier so we didn't have too many things to move. Thanks guys for all of the help!

Turtle Back Zoo

This week the kids and I hung out at home and waited for Cody to get back from his crazy week of interviews. Sunday we drove to and from Newark.

Rilyn had a hard week, she fell down the stairs twice.

Poor baby. Thursday we had our playgroup Thanksgiving party.

Casen kept himself busy with our collection of bandaids.

Hes in that phase. Friday night we drove out to New Jersey to pick Cody up at the airport and stayed the night in Livingston, NJ. The next morning Cody had another interview so the kids and I went to IHOP for breakfast

and then the zoo to keep ourselves busy while he was busy.

The zoo was really fun and the kids had a blast. Casen's favorite was the aquarium. He loves fish. Rilyn loved seeing pretty much everything. They miss not having a zoo close by. Just a few more weeks and we'll be living right next to the Phoenix Zoo. We can't wait!

20 Week Update!

This week was awesome! To start it off Tuesday was the election and Cody and I were able to get our vote on. President Obama is staying in office for another 4 years. This week Rilyn had picture day at school.

We went shopping to find her a new dress for pictures because she told me that she "NEEDED" a new one. Not joking it took us a hour and a half to pick our an outfit at Old Navy. Not going to lie, I may never take her shopping again. She is 5 going on 15!! Oh well, at least she looked absolutely beautiful for her picture. I can't wait to see how the ones the pros took turn out. Oh yeah and this week we found out what the twins are! I am now officially 20 weeks so technically halfway but with twins I'm claiming a little more than halfway because there is no way I'm making it to 40 weeks. Anyways, the ultrasound was pretty awesome and took forever because they had to check everything out. The babies were healthy and everything looks great. Rilyn and Casen were excited to find out if they were getting brothers or sisters. (OK fine Rilyn was way more excited than Casen he was just along for the ride) To tell them what they were getting I wrapped onesies and they got to unwrap presents to find a pink or blue onesie.

They unwrapped BLUE!

We're getting 2 more boys! And in even more exciting news they are identical so that should make things even more fun. It also means that I get a few more ultrasounds before I move to AZ. I'm excited to get to see the babies grow. Oh and you may notice our lack of furniture in the picture of the kids. We decided to sell a majority of our big furniture pieces so that we wouldn't have to store them and move them. Not to mention that now that our family is expanding (majorly) we won't fit in our old furniture so for now we are "white trashing" it and sitting on blankets and pillows on the floor.

Every once in a while we'll go real high class and bust our the folding camping furniture too. You know that you wish that you could be this awesome too!

Halloween Hurricane

This last week was a fun and busy one. On Sunday the kids and I went to a trunk or treat at Rilyn's school. It was a lot of fun and the kids loved dressing up and getting candy. They looked so cute as Jake and Izzy.

Monday and Tuesday the kids were stuck at home all day because we were supposed to get hit by Hurricane Sandy. While we got lots of rain and some strong wind we were very lucky to not get hit hard. The biggest challenge we had to face was boredom because school was cancelled and most of the kids toys are packed for the move already. Rilyn is very inventive and decided that they could pretend to go snorkling one day.

They used straws as snorkles and ran around the house "swimming" and looking at things. Luckily by Halloween things were back to normal. We went to watch Rilyn in her schools costume parade

and then that night we went to our ward trunk or treat.

The kids had lots of fun playing games and getting even more candy. Friday we threw a shower for Cassidy and her baby boy. Casen helped me pick up some balloons while Rilyn was at school. He was totally freaked out by all of the balloons in the car.

He is such a funny kid. And to finish this whirl wind of a week we decided to "run" a turkey trot.

 Since Cody was out of town it was me and the kids without my jogging stroller. Sad. Rilyn started the race running and yelling at me to run too. She made it a few blocks and then jumped in the stroller. We made pretty good time and Rilyn jumped out at the very end to finish the race running. I'm happy to report that we did not come in last but we were the only group of a mom with a stroller and 2 kids. Some guy that saw me during the race asked if I counted as 3 and I said NO 5! He looked a little confused and I was on a mission to not come in last so I couldn't stop and explain. Oh and did I mention it was a nice and tosty 40 degrees while we did this race! After the race we went to Home Depot to build something. The kids made these facncy turkey napkin holders which are now sitting on our kitchen table.