Thanksgiving

Rhett had to work all week and on Thanksgiving, so RJ and I went down to Utah to be with family.  RJ was glad to see Grandma and Grandpa.  My dad has this ring from my Grandpa.  RJ's always liked it and put it on...it's a little big. 

My brother-in-law Drew (Lynette's husband) cut my dad's hair which was a big deal because Scott is very particular. 

I didn't take very many photos, it was a fun weekend, and RJ was excited to be able to watch Nightmare Before Christmas.  Lynette was carrying him on her back and he was holding the DVD.  Drew told RJ not to drop the movie, and RJ said: "I got it Drew." 

The way he's sitting in this one really makes him look like he has a thick neck.

This is an old post, but a fun memory.

I think I've mentioned my mom's a big gardener.

Some of the gardening is fun--like eating fresh corn on the cob, and other parts stink.  Like a childhood of picking 2 buckets of rocks every day all summer.

But RJ and I happened to be visiting this year on the big harvest day when a lot of produce has already come and gone.

Harvest day is mainly the orchard and pumpkins, and grapes.  It's a lot of fun actually.

I opted to start off in the raspberry patch.  My absolute favorite.  I think it's genetic and got passed to the next generation. 

This year my mom grew butternut squash that I was excited about. 

Apparently this was a bad year for the orchard.

My mom didn't get any peaches, the plums stunk, and not much else was as great as years past.

There's a tree with golden delicious apples that had nothing, but the gala apple were good.

Then we had all the pumpkins.  My mom always grows a huge pumpkin patch with different varieties.  Some for canning, some for carving, some just for looks.

Lynette was nice to give RJ rides after dropping off a load of pumpkins--he looks pretty comfy lazy kid!

As kids we would sell pumpkins off our porch.  But I guess my mom just gives them to friends and family now.  

She also grows concord grapes.  She saw a youtube video on pruning them specifically for juice, and she said it made a difference, along with harvesting a lot later. 

It took 2 days to juice them all.

Once on a girl trip a few years ago, we were eating our fancy complimentary breakfast in the hotel and Jayne said how grape juice was such a luxury.  That seemed so weird to me.  Grape juice for me was like peasant juice for poor people since my mom made it and we had it a lot.  For me, orange juice is a big splurge and delight.   Grape juice is good too, but not special.

I did have a little garden this year and it didn't do too well--a total disgrace to my farmer ancestors.

I'm blaming it on planting late since we didn't move until July, having to leave from the end of Aug to Oct to Boise for Rhett's work, and it being my first try.

Maybe one day my harvest will be as plentiful as my mom's.  For now I can only help eat it and cart it out of the field.  She really grew it all.

A Little Early..

We put our tree up.

If you know me you're probably not surprised... I really like Christmas.

Rhett had an easy rotation this week, so we took advantage of him being home to put out our Christmas stuff.  Monday he starts Internal Medicine and we won't see much of him, so it was fun to put it up so he wouldn't miss out, and our house feels really cozy, especially since it's been snowing a little this week.

RJ had fun helping fluff the fake branches, but his favorite was the lighting.

This was our first Christmas with a normal sized tree.  We've always used a little crappy tree.  We bought this 7 foot fake tree this summer at a garage sale for $10.00  Pretty sweet deal.  I thought some things might be missing, but everything was there, and it looked better than I expected.

It was also fun because I've been buying a few red or silver ornaments once they're on clearance in January for years, and this was the first time we actually opened our stash we've been collecting and putting everything together.

I really liked the silver and red combo all together after all.

So sorry if early Christmas gags you.  I've always liked it, and I guess I've converted Rhett to tolerate it.

It's also fun this year because we have a fireplace and mantle!

Snowman

 Rhett came home from work and helped RJ build a little snowman.

The arms are tassels from our dead corn stalks,

Rock eyes, and a dead crookneck squash for a hat.

First Snow of the Year!

We were glad Rhett's sister handed down these snow clothes!

Week in Delta and Halloween

Rhett had a week of vacation scheduled, and we went to visit his family in Delta.  The boys went on the deer hunt and no one caught anything.

RJ had fun playing with cousin Drew.  They hunted bugs and rocks in Grandpa's rock junk yard, fed the chickens and the bunny.  RJ calls everything black Halloween, so the black chickens were "Halloween chickens" and the black bunny was the "Halloween bunny". 

For Halloween this year, I made RJ an ewok costume.

I think most people thought he was a bear, but a few people knew he was from Star Wars and liked it.

It was also nice and warm for trick or treating.

 I had to wake him up from a nap to go trick or treating, and he was sad and mopey.  I asked him to smile for a picture and this is what I got:

He ran around to see himself on the camera, and saw the above photo and busted up laughing saying: "RJ sad!"

Then I got this one of him laughing at his sad self.

Weird sense of humor...wonder where he could have got that. 

We went trick or treating with the cousins, princess and butterfly.  I didn't get any photos of all 3 kids looking up because Hannah and RJ kept looking at their candy.

Our little fam on Halloween. 

RJ got quite a bit of candy, and we let him run around all night once we got home eating it and helping himself to the cooler of homemade rootbeer.  He also watched Charlie Brown's The Great Pumpkin, which he loves.

Finally I took the pumpkin of candy away at 9:30 and he quickly had a sugar crash, still holding his "pumpkin patch" balloon. 

He picked out these jammies from Costco, not because he especially likes dogs, but I found out later because the little dog heads on the feet, which he puts on people to "bite" them.  It's pretty funny...maybe it shouldn't be funny since that's kind of a bully action.  And he is kind of a bully.  His little cousin Drew (age 5) told me RJ beat him up 3 times in one night, putting him in a headlock and squashing his face in the bed.  Hopefully we can steer his passion for wrestling and playing rough into being a productive athlete or something because he's on his way to becoming a Scott Farkus...minus the coon hat so far.

Hopefully a little sister might soften him up, or she'll also become good at headlocks and choke holds.

It's A Girl!

We're thrilled to share our big news with everyone:
We're expecting a baby girl March 22, 2011

I'm 20 weeks along, so half way!

We're so grateful to be pregnant, and to have come this far.  She is my 5th pregnancy and today was kind of bittersweet because we had the ultrasound, and it just happened to also be the due date of our last pregnancy.  My miscarriages have always been the hardest first when you find out you've lost the baby, the DNC or passing of the baby, and then again on the baby's due date.  But today our exciting news about this girl made the loss of the last baby easier to handle, although I can't help but think about the last pregnancy at the same time I'm cutting out fabric to make Ellaria her baby quilt.  Miscarriages are hard, but one positive thing I've found is a deeper gratitude for these occasions when we do have a healthy baby that survives the dreaded 12 week appointment.  Those past, and potentially future heart breaks make me more grateful to be a mom than I would be otherwise.

We actually knew this baby was a girl for a while.  Out of nowhere Rhett had a strike of father's intuition and came home and said he knew it was a girl all the sudden.  He was the same way knowing RJ was a boy.  So far he's been 2 for 2 accurate on just knowing. 
But this time we went into his work--the resident's clinic one Sunday afternoon to clean out his mailbox and while we were there he did an ultrasound.  Their machine was pretty old, and Rhett hasn't had that much experience doing ultrasounds yet, but as we were leaving he said he was 50% sure it was a girl--the same accuracy with no ultrasound, lame.  A few miles down the road he upped his confidence to being 70% sure it was a girl.  By the time we got home, he was up to 90% it was Ellaria after all saying: "I looked at that baby's crotch a lot, and not once did I think it could be a boy."

So I actually started making/ planning baby girl crap based on his 90% surety, and today we found he was right all along.  RJ will have a little sister.

We're naming her Ellaria.  It's Italian, but I think the Italian spelling is actually Ilaria.  A four-syllable name can be kind of long, so she's already nick-named Ellie.  We've been telling RJ about the baby and he says: "Baby Ellie's in your belly!"  We've had mixed reactions about the name.  Years ago our nieces said they don't like Ellaria, and they told me they plan to call her exclusively Ellie.  Kind of funny.  We thought as an adult she may prefer Ella as an option to shorten it too.

It's surprised me how excited I've been with the idea of having a daughter.  I always thought I'd be an all-boy mom, but I've been really thrilled about a daughter.  Having a girl is fun to think about the cute stuff to buy/ make, but at the same time it is terrifying to me.  When I heard this talk about mother's relationships with their daughters, I thought how glad I was I didn't have daughters--the pressure and responsibility.  With boy's their hero would be Rhett and I always felt good about that.  But now I will have a girl of my own and need to step it up I guess to be a better example for her.

Anyway, this pregnancy is going well.  Ellaria is healthy and I am in the happy stage where I'm not sick anymore and feel like my energy is back.  My gut has popped, although I was home visiting my family and Herschel (little brother) and a brother in law both asked if I was pregnant.  I thought the news had spread.  Actually, a few weeks ago my older  brother visited us and said he thought I'd just "let myself go since I was married".  So I think this protruding gut in the front is obvious I'm pregnant, but apparently I'm still in the "chubby or pregnant? phase".  But my belly is big enough I can't breathe when I bend over.

I feel like a Twinkie trying to bend in half.