November 2017

Here is a compilation of pictures from November of 2017:

As you can see from the following few pictures, Brenna is always wanting some stuffed animal friends to sleep with her :) Brenna has been such an easy baby overall, but especially with naps. She is so easy to just lay her down and say it's nap time or night time and she snuggles up with her stuffed toys and says, "nigh-night" and goes to sleep. It's pretty dreamy!

Brenna went through a phase of loving
Garrett's "Hulk" toy. We were Face-timing
with my mom and she was so excited to
show her the Hulk toy, haha!

Garrett snuggling Brenna on his lap. They have
their rough patches together but really Garrett
has a soft spot for his baby sister and it's the sweetest.

The view from our backyard- I thought the clouds
were really cool.

Saying "bye" to Kimbri in the morning as she
got on the bus.

After getting so much Halloween candy, Brenna
discovered a new-found love for suckers! She was
being sneaky, eating one without asking, haha!

As the temperatures went down, the kids started wanting to eat
by the fireplace.

We scored this costume at Walmart for around $3
for the post-Halloween clearance sale. We bought
a size up and so Garrett can maybe still fit in it for next
year (we had to roll the sleeves/legs WAY up for Brenna).

It looks like Kimbri took some selfies!

Another Kimbri selfie :)

Brenna LOVES geting her nails and toenails painted.

Garrett really enjoys school. We have loved
his preschool at St. Andrews Academy!

Brenna playing babies. I love that I have little
girls that get to play with the wooden baby bed
that my Grandpa Haycock made for me when I
was a little girl. 

Having a dinner picnic by the fire.

Whipping out the winter clothes! It's starting to
get cold here in North Carolina!

The kids love walking through the Christmas
section at Walmart. They sat there and pushed
the button for on the Santas over and over to watch
them dance.

They also like to stop by the fish tanks. The
neon fish are always a hit. Maybe someday I'll
actually get a pet fish for them...

Just playing "beach" over here, wishing that it was
warmer enough to actually go to the beach!

Dawons and Stacie sent us this fun "Go Fish" game and the kids
totally love playing it!!

We decided we wanted to get the Christmas stuff up earlier than normal this year! We were all in the mood and Rick was home so we went for it! We whipped out our $5 tree that we bought at a yard sale our first year being married and we are still using it. A strand of lights finally bit the dust so we just added more on top of it, haha. 

We put this little tree upstairs next to the kids'
rooms in the hallway. My mom gave them this little
tree last year when we were living in UT and they
were so excited to put it up again!

Sometimes I feel like I blinked and she suddenly
grew up. I love this beautiful Kimbri girl with
all my heart! She's going to do great things in life.

I made rolls a week before Thanksgiving and freezing them so there is one less thing to do the day of

Crazy hair and mismatched shoes with her pjs on...

I wonder how much longer they'll all be able to
pile onto Rick...

It used to be Hulk, but now her heart
lies with Spiderman.

Brenna was sad about something and Kimbri
was trying to hug her and make her happy again.
Kimbri is always so thoughtful that way.

It was warm! So we went on a walk, in pjs and all.

The kids love for me to trace their bodies and then
they spend a lot of time drawing their face, clothes, etc...

A morning at Clark Park!

Rick got off early one day and we met up at Sam's Club for a lunch
date ( I had to go get some groceries anyway). Garrett and Kimbri
were both at school so it was fun to go on a little date with Brenna.
She was tickling Rick over and over and thought it was hilarious.

The boys.

Brenna looooooves coloring.

And she also loves doing puzzles. I can't believe how good she
is at doing them!

Kimbri wanted me to take a picture of her because
she thought it was cool that her sucker stick could
fit through her lost tooth space :)

Garrett is trapped between 2 girls and so it's only
fitting that he rides a pink bike anytime we go on a
walk, haha! We need to get him his own bike!

Garrett~ Thanksgiving Feast

Garrett seriously loves preschool! And I really have been so happy with his amazing teachers and the whole school in general. They are very organized and on top of things and offer so many great opportunities for the kids. 

In November they performed a little Thanksgiving program and then had a Thanksgiving Feast afterward for all the students and family members. It was so fun! I took Brenna and we got to watch Garrett sing in the program and then we ate some yummy food.

They even had the kids make placemats during school
and had them laminated so they stayed nice. 

Garrett really enjoyed the chocolate turkey cupcakes!

This is a random picture that somehow got included in this post.
But he has totally been loving drawing on the white board lately
and drew me this picture and wrote "I Love You" all by himself.
I love you, too, Garrett!!!!

Kimbri ~ Success Day & Winter Concert

Kimbri goes to Howard Hall Elementary here in Fayetteville. So far she has really liked school! She was awarded 4 different awards for the 1st Success Day assembly that they had at the end of November. I'm so proud of her hard work! She received the Academic Excellence, Perfect Attendance, Achieved Goal for Accelerated Reader, and the B.E.E Awards. 

We had received a note saying she was going to
be awarded at the Success Day assembly so I made
sure to pack a special note in her lunch box :)

Kimbri also participated in the 1st grade Winter Wonderland Concert. We were hoping to all be able to go but they only allowed 2 tickets per family. Rick and I were going to go but Garrett got sick and we had to cancel our babysitter because we didn't want to spread the sickness. Rick offered to stay home with the kids so Kimbri and I could have a little girls night out. Afterward I took her out for an ice cream cone. We didn't get home till after her regular bedtime and she thought that was pretty great to get to stay up late!

She wanted to pose like this in front of the tree :)

Thanksgiving 2017

So Thanksgiving this year was the day that we told the kids about how another baby would be joining our family! I made a little scavenger hunt with clues that they could find and they had a blast doing it. I thought I took pictures of each thing but could only find some of the pictures. Oh well. Here is the list of clues I came up with and then there are a few pictures of some baby-related stuff we used to hide the next clues by.

1-    Today is Thanksgiving! I’m happy you’re here!

We have a surprise so listen my dears.

Follow the clues to find stuff in our home.

These things will help you. Go find mom’s comb.

2-     Now what you need is a pink baby bib.

You will find it on Brenna’s crib.

3-    Look on top of your white toy shelf.

Inside a house will be a girl by herself.

4-    There’s something in Garrett’s room where his socks usually are.

Find the clue to help you get far.

5-    The girls like to play babies with the mini toy bed.

Look under the covers to find something red.

6-   The next place you kiddos need to look,

     Is a place in our house where you read lots of books.

7-    To find the final clue, you must start walking,

Go downstairs and find a red stocking.

8-   What do all these clues mean to you?

Can you figure out all the clues?

We took a video of the whole thing to be able to see their reactions and go back and watch it in the future, so that should be fun. We told them that this is a really big secret that they aren't allowed to tell anyone because we decided not to tell all the rest of our family members until we find out the gender in December. I think they feel very grown up getting to be in on knowing such a big secret, haha.

We had originally had plans to do Thanksgiving with another family in our ward that doesn't have any family nearby, but we all came down with some sort of sickness that we just didn't want to spread. This has been a year of a lot of sickness it seems. I feel like whenever I'm pregnant my body's immune system isn't very good. So I just didn't feel up to doing much. And to be honest, I've never cooked a turkey before and didn't feel up to trying it, haha. So I just threw a roast in the crock pot, made mashed potatoes and gravy, and threw together a green bean casserole. I had also made rolls the week before and put them in the freezer so we whipped those out and had them with our meal. Nothing fancy but it was fun to have Thanksgiving dinner with just our little family. Oh, and I also made a banana cream pie along with a pumpkin pie.

I think Garrett's favorite part is the whipped cream :)

My dad sent me this picture of their Thanksgiving dinner with
the Utah crowd.

Thanksgiving ended with a beautiful sunset!

November 19, 2017

Two significant things happened today:

1- Garrett was trying to be like Spider-man and was climbing the door frame in the kitchen, fell, and knocked his face agains the floor and his chin split open. So sad! I seriously felt so bad for him, yet I have told him over and over that he is only allowed to climb the door frames upstairs where there is carpet and a bean bag that he can put underneath him. Thankfully, Rick was home and able to take him to the Express Care. Luckily it didn't need stitches but they did numb it up and close it with glue. Poor guy. By the time he came home he had 3 Spider-man stickers they had given him-- 1 on his forehead and 1 on each of his knees. He definitely learned his lesson the hard way. 

2- While Rick was with Garrett getting his wound fixed, us girls did FaceTime with Olivia and my mom. We showed them how loose Kimbri's tooth was and Olivia said she would pay Kimbri $2 if she let me pull it out. Kimbri was a little hesitant but then my mom said she'd add another $2 too. I told Kimbri that it was totally her choice and she didn't have to if she didn't want to, but she decided she wanted to give it a try! It literally looked like it was holding on by a thread. She was nervous but so brave. I reached in and just gave it a slight twist and it popped right out! Just a tiny bit of blood and she was soooooooooo excited about earning $4 from Olivia and my mom plus whatever money she is going to get from the Tooth Fairy. Hahaha! It totally made her night :)

So here are the pictures from our eventful evening... Garrett was traumatized and Kimbri was elated!

I stuck this quick note in Kimbri's lunch the next
day for school. I can't believe how fast she's growing up!