It's a Wonderful Life

This Thanksgiving we took Erik's cousin, Danielle up on her offer to have us come to her place for the holiday.  The kids, being so excited had pretty much been packing since the 10th of November!  We started our trek at about 3:00 pm on Wednesday.  Since we were pulling our trailer, we had to take the truck.  The truck isn't my favorite mode of transportation, mostly because my feet don't reach the floor (oh the woes of being short).  But with my feet tucked under, I was ready for the road! :)  We didn't get too far, before it was time for an Arby's break for dinner.  Other than that, we only stopped once for bathroom breaks and to nurse Anna.  We had decided to just keep driving until the kids needed to stop for the night.  Both Erik and I really wanted to get through New York City if we could, because that's the one spot that can be crazy with traffic.  We got there about 9:30 with no problem, but then spent about ...

8 months old.  Boy oh boy, she is growing up!  This month has been a fun one for Anna.  She is really communicating with us in so many ways; it just feels more and more like she is a full on- interactive member of our family. She's still doing the army crawl a little, but in the past couple of weeks has started real crawling.  I'd say she's about 70 % real crawl/ 30 % army crawl.  Either way is so cute!  Her sitting up has gotten very stable in the past month too. She is more vocal than my boys were at this age.  Sometimes she just goes on and on, jabbering quite loud to her brothers or to me.  The look in her eye is just so clear that she really is trying to say something.  I love it! She's starting to really have stranger anxiety, but while I'm holding her she'll smile and have fun with people that she sees.  She did get babysat for the very first time for two hours on Saturday and did great!  She loves whenever her Dadd...

I'm not sure if it was because it was my first time out since having Anna or what, but I really enjoyed it.  It was most fun going with friends to the Alamo where I got to eat a delicious Greek Chicken Wrap while enjoying the silliness of it all. 

Probably didn't expect to see too many dead animals on my blog did you?  Well, I'm married to a hunter so there you go! :)  Erik had a great time during his trip.  I think it accomplished its task of de-stressing him and creating lots of bonding time for he and his Dad and Jeremy and Paul. He was pretty excited about the bull he got to add to the collection of antlers he has. I think I already mentioned this, but having not been around hunting growing up, it was definitely a different experience for me to be around.  However, I really believe that eating meat that you hunt is like the ultimate way to eat green.  Unless of course, you're a vegan and are strictly against any animal products, but I'm not.  Luckily too, the elk meat that we eat is much more mild and tastier than deer meat.  So all in all, I'm happy to support Erik in his hobby! :)

Well, this is the last post about my Mom's trek out here to Winchester.  What can I really say other than I am so thankful that she would take so much time to spend time with me while my husband leaves me to go hunting (haha)?  I also am thankful to my Dad for being OK with it.  I know he really wanted to come out for a bit, but couldn't for work.  Actually I wish more of my siblings could come have visited too.  Next time!   I'm sure I will no never grow too old that I won't need my Mom.  Physically, she helped me a ton: load after load of laundry, messy kitchen after messy kitchen, putting the boys to bed while I was with Anna, etc.- I would've been one wreck of a lady if she wasn't here (I only have to think back to my time last fall in AZ while Erik was working in VA to remember the wreck I was!!).  Emotionally, she always knows the right thing to say and willing to be the listening ear.  She ...

On Thursday we went to the Children's Museum.  The kids were excited to take Grandmother to one of their favorite places.  She was being her wonderful Grandmotherly self and was very interested in what they were interested in and played with them a ton.  Lucky kids! I love this picture of my Mom and Anna Wyatt's favorite thing about the Children's Museum by far is this apple truck set up they have.  It's all about pulleys, levers, and chutes- teaching kids about moving heavy things and such.  Wyatt immediately gets into "worker man" deep voice as soon as he starts playing with it.  Pretty regularly he tells me he is going to be a "worker man that drives a truck" when he grows up, so this is heaven for him :)

Oh boy little by little, I will finish blogging about my Mom's visit! :)  On Wednesday, we went to Marker Miller Orchard.  Definitely one of my favorite things to do here.  I'll be sad when it closes for the winter in a couple of weeks. I didn't take too many pictures while my Mom was here, but now I wish I did so I got more of her with the kids!!  Yes, I like to copy my cool 5 year old. My Mom picked up some pumpkin butter, orange/cranberry marmalade, and a bunch of different types of apples that we taste tested when we got home.  I love being in apple country :)