We enjoyed Thanksgiving with the Rands this year again.  Another year of successfully enjoying lots of great food, fabulous company and fun games!

We started putting up the decorations the day after Thanksgiving this year.  Due to my extremely late Thanksgiving night coupled with a touch of morning sickness, I sat out on the 3 am sales.  We took a quick kid’s shopping trip at 10 and then spent the rest of the day decking our halls.  Hudson and Annie were so helpful and very willing to help!

Will was sweet enough to finally let me get a real tree.  It fits perfectly by the front window

Amber and I did the Turkey Trot again this year the morning of Thanksgiving.  Will missed snapping our photo finish, but the guys were present to be our witnesses.  I love that the guys give us so much love and support!  I chalk Will’s confusion up to the fact that we were able to shave several minutes off last year’s time.  He just wasn’t expecting us so soon.  In all honesty, our speed wasn’t earth shattering…and in Will’s defense, the guy next to him was chatting him up about cameras.

Hudson and Oakley got to run the kids’ Mile race this year for the first time.  I was so proud of them.  They ran hard and they finished!

It was a great way to get Thanksgiving off to a running start.    Thanks to Amber for letting her cute family enjoy the day with us.  This was just another reminder of how much I love my family and how supportive they are of me.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hudson is finally 5!  We are so excited for him.  We celebrated the day with a carnival in the backyard and a few of his friends.  Hot dogs, kettle corn, face painting, balloon animals…we tried to keep them all busy!

We tried out some old school carnival games  and I think the kids enjoyed them.

Will did point out that my painted clown looked a little creepy, but it didn’t seem to bother any of the kids.

We had some serious competitors.

We had to give out tickets so kids could claim some prizes in the end.

Annie came back onto the scene about an hour after the party started.  We had a major melting down about 5 minutes into the party from her.

Happy birthday Hudson!  We love you!

I find that I struggle whenever it comes to making big announcements.   Parties, galas, radio announcements, proposals on the Jumbo Tron, the list is endless when it comes to proclaiming good tidings to the world.  Break out the banner flying airplane because, “We’re going to Brazil!”(Just kidding, we aren’t really leaving the country.  I just couldn’t resist.)  There is a place and a time for everything and to each his own.  In those cases, just sometimes, the actual tenderness of the moment is trivialized or over looked.  Believe me the irony of my making any sort of announcement via blog just kills, but what can I do?  So when you read this, just pretend we’re sitting in a little bistro chatting and eating PinkBerry or maybe sharing some peanuts at a baseball game.  What better way could you tell a friend that your family would soon grow a size bigger?  What’s that you say?!  Yes, we have been packing away the Halloween candy like it’s going out of style, but the growing of my waistband due to candy was not the reference I was making.  So watch out!!  Will’s expecting firework from me come the 4th of July…ok or technically the 5th.  Stay tuned.  We’ll try to keep you updated as we start the expansion process.   For those of you who feel I’m being a bit elusive, our countdown to baby #3 is at 32 weeks  or 224 days.

We had our first round of family pictures this year.  Really it was a recipe for disaster, but everything turned out great.

What made me think, pictures will go great during dinner time-the kids can wait.  They don’t look that hungry. As I wonder to myself, why are my children running up and down the stairs?  Why is Annie throwing books? Not a stellar, shining mom moment, I know.  That is neither here nor there and Jessica did a great job with them.  In the end I have a family picture that is unique and very much us!  The kids faces were completely unprompted.

We even got a few of Will and I that I love!

First off – yes, I’m green!…and no, I didn’t start out that way.  My initial plan was to be a rock star.  It quickly and wickedly morphed into an Alien Rock Star.  I realized Will needed a costume as well and I have always wanted to be , “matchy, matchy, green, green” (okay, without the green).  Did anyone catch that movie reference?!  I digress,  couples costumes have always seemed so fun to me, but they have never happened for us.  I seized my moment this year.  I was so desperate to match Will that I painted almost my entire body green.  Quite a bit of painting on my my end, but Will’s domed foil hat and, “They coming for me!” shirt made it all worth it.

Halloween brought more fun than we could handle.  I thought I would try to be the cool parent and let my kids go trick-or-treating 3 times.  Ha!  Boy was that lesson learned quickly.  Maybe when they are older they will enjoy it more, but we had major meltdowns during round 2.  Hudson just refused to trick-or-treat.  The stores in our area give out candy so we were letting the kids go from store to store.  Hudson started by telling Will he didn’t want candy from any of them because he didn’t like their faces.  What?!  I’m thankful he whispered that comment to Will.  His tact is starting to grow.  Then the truth came out.  He was hungry.  Will picked up some sushi and bought Hudson a snack.  Annie and I finished the rounds to find the two of them sitting by a rock waterfall chowing down.  Maybe Maslow did know what he was talking about.

Round 3 went considerably better.  I’m sure it was due to the fact that he was with his friends and had just finished up a fun Halloween party.

Hudson had his Halloween party at school today.  It was so fun seeing him parade around in his costume.  Some of you may be wondering about his incredible abilities at growing facial hair.  Yes, it was thanks to a Sharpie and a huge candy bar bribe.  I tried to avoid the bribe altogether and draw the stache and beard on in the middle of the night, but it rubbed off before morning.  I thought the dry erase would last, but Sharpie had to save the day!

This is the night we’ve waited for, always a treat we have in store.  We love each other more and more with every family night.  No stories and games this time around, just pumpkin carving and a killer lesson from Annie.

Annie and I joined forces for this guy.  She is an amazing guts and seed remover.  It’s very, Jack the Pumpkinesque.

Will and Hudson went solo.  Hudson was a little leery of the guts, but he got his pumpkin done eventually.  Thanks to whoever invented the spoon!

I tried Disneyland by myself for the first time last week.  Minus Hudson forgetting his shoes at home(this resulted in Annie getting the new pair of Minnie Mouse shoes), I would deem it a successful outing of fun and celebration.

It was a very relaxing day.  Once again, I find that a bag stocked with goodies does the trick!  We just wandered and rode whatever rides the kids felt like.  Of course Annie’s favorite ride is the carousel.  You’d think her favorite would be something unique to Disneyland, but alas, I’m not that lucky!

We were even able to do without the stroller for extended periods of time and I managed to avoid losing both children.  It was a good day for us!

And yes, I felt a little guilty standing in the, “Pirates of the Carribbean,” line when Hudson’s school called to see if he was out sick.  Yes, I told them where we were.  He actually did spike a fever while we were there about 30 minutes after that.  Talk about bad Karma.

We took our kids to the BYU game at Qualcomm stadium on Saturday.  Okay so maybe people around here called it the SDSU game, but really half the crowd were BYU fans anyway.  We had so much fun.  We went with some people in the ward so we kind of had our own section.  I screamed my lungs out and sang the fight song until I was practically too hoarse to whisper.  We are training our kids young.

Despite the nice man in line who so kindly gave Hudson an SDSU red and black pom-pom, the game was great.  What was he thinking?!  I don’t want to confuse my kids.  Clearly, he wasn’t so worried.  Althought I bleed blue, my previous voice was dripping with sarcasm(just in case you really thought that I was one of those pretentious people who look down on anyone who didn’t attend BYU).  I love BYU and my time there, but to each his own.The seats were great.  I tried on many occasions to explain what was going on to Hudson.  I’m not sure how much of it made it to long term memory.  He will at least tell you we were cheering for the white team.  Annie on the other time had a habit of covering her ears every time I started cheering.

I know it looks like we smashed the kids heads together before we took the picture.  I’m actually not sure why both little ones are holding their heads.  The score could have been tied at this point.  Maybe they were just both very worried.