a little gift

I couldn't resist sharing this, especially since I wasted precious sleep hours playing with it last night -- and then almost woke Corey up laughing about it. I like that I can crack myself up ;-)

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Also, there are some blog updates for the little guy and princess frumplepants. Check out our good news!

fall with sister!

I'm finally finally getting a chance to post pictures from my sister's visit... it's just been that kind of month so far! Since this series of posts has already taken me through nap-time and could possibly end up being my Friday night activity, I'll keep it short and sweet.
Here's the short part:

oooh fall

yay for visitors!

Here's the sweet part:

Many more pictures (and a few more stories) can be found at their respective blogs. We're heading down to CA for some Thanksgiving fun next week, so I'm going to try and pop back in for a REAL post before then... Lord knows that after next week I'll have waaay too many pictures to share (Madeline's first trip, and all) and probably not a lot of energy (finals week already!!!)

JOB!

I've got a lot of homework to finish in the next few days, but I had 4 things I wanted to share:

1. My boy got a job!! He starts in December, and we are PRAISING GOD for this answered prayer. Thank you to everyone has been praying with us, and sharing your thoughts and concerns for our family.

2. Benjamin reached the year-and-a-half milestone on Sunday. Read about him here.

3. Madeline reached the one-month milestone on Sunday. Read about her here.

4. The rain has started in Oregon. I don't think I'll be going outside again before April, if I can help it. (Really, I can't think of a #4.)

My sister was up here with us for an extended weekend, so I'll be posting some pictures from that visit soon, and I'll be in class for the majority of this weekend, so I'm sure I'll be posting some whining as well. In the meantime, enjoy my children!

popping in

We have had an interesting few days over here, which I'm sure I'll write about soon. But in the meantime, there's FINALLY an update on Grammy's visit here and a ton of pictures here. Hopefully I can finish the rest tomorrow!

happy... all saint's day!

OK, I'm a little late on Halloween... but I think next-day counts as pretty good, considering. We had a relaxing day, with a visit to the mall and some Mommy/Daddy time in the afternoon. (Did I mention Grammy has been visiting us this week? Hence, the possibility of Mommy/Daddy time!) Benjamin, probably not a big surprise, was a monkey this year:

(complete with tail)

"What does the monkey say??" "Oooh ooh oooh!"

We were going to send Grammy, Daddy, and Benjamin out around the block for his first trick-or-treating experience, but our little monkey had a bit of an explosion during nap time and his costume ended up in the washing machine for the duration of the evening. Oh well! We improvised with a little camo-gear (see picture at top for hat, the pants match but aren't visible) but since it was pretty cold and wet outside anyway, we figured we could hold off for another year. Madeline borrowed a costume from our little friend Ryan (who was a month old last Halloween) and debuted as a pumpkin:

(obviously it's a little big on her!)

Since she spent most of the day sleeping anyway, she showed her spirit with this little get-up:

(awwww. so cute.)

I wanted to take some pictures of the monkey and pumpkin outside, since our trees are starting to look like this:

but the only sunshine we saw all day was the 5 minutes when I stepped out to take the above picture... and naturally Benjamin was napping. If the sun comes back out this week, I'm taking advantage!

As I said, Grammy was with us this week -- and I have a lot to post about! I'll be updating the kiddos' blogs in the next little bit, but probably pop back over to say they're done. My head is spinning a little with the fact that it's NOVEMBER already... I realize I had a baby in October, but where the heck did the month go?? So I'm also trying to play a little catch-up with schoolwork, bills, cards, and housework. You know, all those things I've been able to (mostly) ignore for the past 4 weeks thanks to major nesting pre-Madeline. Whew!