Halloween 2010

First of all, apologies for my previous outburst. It was quite a frustrating time for me. All is well now - popcorn-free and uvula still in tact.

Wow, just 7 days until Christmas and I'm only now posting Halloween pictures. I just love that I'm always so on top of things...Well, without further adieu, I present to you Dorothy and her entourage...



By the way, little Dorothy is Matt-matt's little girlfriend. They are so funny. (sigh) Young love.

This year we happened to be in Disney World on Halloween! The pictures above are from our church trunk-or-treat, but on the 31st, I was Dorothy. It was so fun being dressed up with the boys while in the airport and at Disney World. We went trick-or-treating in Downtown Disney.


My dad asked Matthew (who was dressed up as the scarecrow) what he was for Halloween. He told him, "I'm a scary man!" Ha!

And here's the whole clan. I had really good intentions of making Jeremy some sort of lion costume, but it didn't happen. Oh well! We're still totally cute. :-)

More pictures from our Disney World vacation coming up!! :-D

Rebels Without a Cause

Two adorably innocent little boys, just 3 days shy of 3 years old, sit at their picnic table to enjoy a breakfast of strawberry Poptarts and chocolate milk. I'm in the kitchen tirelessly typing away at the computer (really until my fingers fall off) so I can get as many emails out the door as possible before the morning really starts to get busy. I'm also carefully listening to the boys' conversation because I love to hear the weird things they talk about (oh, to be inside the mind of a 3 year-old). At one point I hear Jordan say:

"Mommy?..."

(no response from me)

"Moooommmy?..."

(again, no response from me)

"Hey Matt-matt...Mommy's not here...Let's do something..."


What?! 3 years old! 3 years old and they're already plotting against me! Boy, I'm in trouble...

Green Mommy

This is a post about Matthew. Matt-matt just has the funniest way of expressing his thoughts. I just want to share a few of my favorite Matthew-isms...

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One Sunday I wore this new outfit to church:

Jeremy and I were in Sunday School and the boys were in Nursery. Matthew had a poopy diaper, so the nursery leader brought Matt over to Jeremy for a change. Jeremy was carrying Matt over to the restroom and Matt-matt says, "I want my green mommy." Ha, so cute...For a few weeks after that, Matthew called me whatever color I was wearing - blue mommy, pink mommy, red mommy...

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I had Matthew lying on the changing table. He started coughing and sputtering like crazy. I asked him what was wrong and he said, "I need to...I need to bless you." He had a sneeze stuck in his nose. :-)

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Matt-matt woke up one morning with a headache and told us, "My head too tight...head too tight."
A few days later, he was itching his eyes and he told as, "Ah, there's bees in my eyes."

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For Halloween the boys dressed up as the Scarecrow and the Tin Man (their little friends were the Lion and Dorothy). When my dad asked Matthew what he was dressed up as, he said, "I'm a scary man, Crapa." lol, too cute. (btw, it's not a typo - my boys call my dad "Crapa".

Transformations

We can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Jeremy has about 7 months left of residency! There aren't words to express how excited I am to have this phase of our life over with. Anyway, since Jeremy's almost done, that means we've also been doing some job hunting. A few weeks ago, we made the decision that Jeremy would join a practice here in Dayton. He'll continue working at Miami Valley Hospital and we'll stay here in our little house on Rose Bower Ave. We both feel so good about staying. This opportunity is Jeremy's dream job and we've both grown to love the area. Jeremy says that the only fear he has now is that he won't ever want to leave! Ha! Neither of us ever thought we'd end up settling here in Dayton for a time, but we're excited to see what the Lord has in store for us.

Since the decision to stay was made, we've been doing lots of work around our home. Here is a sneak peak of the transformations we've made so far:

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The Search for the Great Pumpkin

I LOVE Fall. I love the crsip clean air and beautiful autumn colors. I also love doing fun fall activities like going on hayrides and visiting pumpik patches. We kicked off the fall season at Young's Dairy's Fall Pumpkin Festival. We had such a good time. Young's Dairy is a working dairy farm complete with homemade ice cream, tractors and a barn full of animals. They throw the coolest pumpkin festival at the end of September. We picked a pumpkin, rode the barrel train ride and ate pumpkin doughnut holes.

We had the opportunity of watching this little guy take his first steps. This baby calf was born about two minutes before we walked into the barn. I caught this sweet moment where tired Momma said hello to her new baby calf for the first time. How amazing.

This is truly the wildest pumpkin patch I've ever seen. We chopped our pumpkin right off the vine.

Bye-bye Summer

Dear Summer,

Goodbye good friend. We'll miss your warm lazy mornings sitting out on the porch in our jammies drinking chocolate milk, afternoons digging in the dirt and playing pretend in the fort, and cool evenings filled with hotdog grilling and penty of firefly chasing. We can't wait to see you again next year.

Your friends,
Matt-matt & Jordi

Over the river and through the woods...

To Grandma's house we go! We were lucky enough to spend a week in Utah with Jeremy's parents. The boys love being with "Grandma Bickie" and "Grandpa Mac". :-) We did as much as we could squeeze into a few days, but Matt and Jordi loved the dinosaur museum and the swimming pool the most. Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa, for such a great trip!!

Little Matthew just comes alive in the water. He is an animal in the swimming pool. Like father, like son - he's more at home in the water than he is on land!

Summer Getaway

In August, we went to Utah to visit Jeremy's family. While we were there, Jeremy's parents were nice enough to take care of the boys so we could take off for a few days to the family cabin in Island Park, ID for a little romantic getway. We had so much fun cozying up in the cabin, whitewater rafting in Jackson Hole, and viewing the scenery and wildlife of Yellowstone.

Jackson Hole

We went rafting with Jeremy's brother, Robbie, and Rob's fiance, Jalise. What a fun, cute girl. :-) We're SO excited for her to join the family in January!! Love you guys!


Yellowstone National Park

Lazy Summer Days

What better way to spend a summer afternoon than chasing bubbles?

Hilarious that I got a shot of a bubble on his tongue. :-)

Growing Our Family

6 years of marriage, 2 dogs and 2 kids later, we have decided that it's time again to add to our family.

































...Goldfish that is. ;-)

The boys named their new fish "Shark" and "Nemo" (how original). Actually, we bought the goldfish back in July and now we're on our third Nemo. Poor Nemo 1 and Nemo 2 didn't last too long. Nemo 3 is on his 4th day of living with us, which is a record for the gold ones (and that's 4 days of little tots "petting" him, and then spending a few minutes the other day flopping around on the playroom floor after the boys knocked over the fishbowl). I'm sure the poor thing is totally traumatized.

Summer Zoo Trips

What an incredibly fun, busy, amazing summer we've had! I LOVE the age the boys are - they're still so sweet, cute and cuddly, but are also totally enthralled in discovering new-found independence and are growing their wild imaginations every day. I just can't get enough of them! We've had so many fun adventures over the past few months which I'll continue to attempt to document in these next few posts. :-)

SO many trips to the zoo! We enjoyed countless visits to the Indianapolis, Columbus and Cincinnati Zoos.

Indianapolis Zoo

Petting the sharks, watching the polar bears & donkeys, and looking down a storm drain for...who knows what. Cute Matthew just had to find out what lies down that sewer. :-)

Checking out the giraffes and elephants (or, as the boys call them

"elf-a-nents").

The Indy Zoo has the coolest butterfly gardens. They had so much

fun "petting" the butterflies (poor butterflies!).

Columbus Zoo

Riding the zoo train

Watching the new baby elephant, looking for sharks and posing with Grandma. Oh, and I love little Rachel's face in this picture. Ha!

Feeding the Lorakeets. Way to go, Vickie, for not totally freaking out! ;-)

The boys thought the boat ride through the Monkey Islands with their cousins was so much fun!

For some reason I don't have pictures of the Cincinnati zoo (only video), but it's also tons of fun. It's HUGE, and among other things, they have a brand new giraffe area where you can feed the giraffes!