Gotta love Fall!

So far the Fall has been just beautiful. The weather has been between 65-80 and the trees are amazing. Last week we went out to have a porch pic nic and afterward the kids decided to run around and try to catch the falling leaves.

Grant checking out the differences between some of the leaves. It's interested what grabs his attention.

Little PB & J cutie face

Yes, that is a sandwich in Grant's mouth.

I made piles of leaves and told the kids to go nuts and jump in them. They decided they would rather sit in their "nests".

Some fun things we have been doing this Fall are: finding different types of leaves; tracing leaves with crayons and hanging on the window; making different spooky paper cutouts to put on the windows; going for long walks (before the winter comes); raking leaves; raking leaves; and raking leaves; and painting pumpkins

Before and After: Dining Room

Chris and I like working on different home improvement projects so we wanted to share one of the rooms we have finished.

The Dining Room. Below is a pic from the brochure from the home owners before us. The dining room was carpeted and painted with a faux gold sponging effect. Yikes! So we decided to change a few things. OK everything! We feel pretty good considering the only thing we paid someone else to finish was the flooring.

Below is a picture of the dining room after we closed on the house. The only difference is that we removed the carpet and replaced it with a darker/auburn hardwood. Looks better already.

Then we decided to pull off the existing wood trim and dated chandelier. We replaced all the wood trim (window casing, crown, chair rail, and baseboard) with a wider profile (in white), replaced the chandelier, light switches, outlet switches, painted the ceiling/walls, and added shadowboxes (faux wainscoting). Also, there were 5 outlets in that one room so Chris took 2 of them out and I learned how to patch up holes in drywall. So far I have been doing all the painting and Chris has been doing all of the carpentry stuff. And we are really enjoying working together. We love it and can't wait until we can find the right curtains and fill it with a dining room table :)

We have also finished Grant's room and the Living Room. So I'll post those pics sometime next week.

It's a girl!

We found out yesterday that we'll be having another baby girl! We are very excited to add a Maddie Jr. and glad to see that so far everything is normal and healthy. When we told Grant the news he told us that he would have preferred a brother- but I think he'll warm up to her. It was tricky to get really good profile pics because she was soooo wiggly during the ultrasound- but it was fun to see her move. Below is baby profile, head down. My due date is Feb 4th.

Random Summer Pics

Chris cleaned out the camera and we found some cute pics from the summer.

They really are best friends, which makes me really happy. I love when I find them playing nicely together.

Grant drew a picture of himself. I asked him to write his name on it and he told me that wasn't necessary because when people see it they'll know that its him. Right, I should have known better.

Grant turned 4 at the end of June and so we bought him this little bike. He loves feeling like a big kid and enjoys racing down our "steep" driveway.

Grandma and Grandpa Anderson came out to visit for Grant's birthday and got him a lot of awesome Spiderman stuff. I have to bribe him to take off the Spiderman clothes and gloves so that I can wash them. He is really into superheros right now.

For Grant's birthday he requested a Spooky cake. I bet the grocery store bakery doesn't get many Halloween cake requests in June.

Our ward's primary had a really neat activity this summer. All the primary aged children were invited to come inside the Chicago Temple and have a mini tour in their Sunday best. Pretty cool experience for Grant!

Grant enjoying our bay window in the kitchen.

Maddie just being cute and silly.

Funny Grant-isms:

1.) Grant calls baby squirrels cubs.

2.) Grant told us over lunch one day that he thinks baby kangaroos stay inside their mama's pouches to stay away from "creditors". (We laughed because we know he meant to say predators)

3.) Grant got really close to his sunbeam teacher's face and cupped his face in his hands and told him "you have the cutest nose I have ever seen".

4.) Sometimes I pinch Grant's bum bum when he walks in front of me. Today he responded by saying "Mommy, if you do that again, I will turn into a super hero (puts his cape on) and I will save my bum bum".

5.) "Mom, I don't want to eat food anymore because I don't want to get cavities".