We love #4!

For those who do not know, I am pregnant. Here is a picture of #4. I am 23 weeks and due June 19th. We do not know the sex of the baby because they could not tell at my ultrasound. I believe it is a girl because she was being modest by keeping her legs crossed :) We will have another ultrasound at 32 weeks and will hopefully be able to find out at that point.

All of Christmas

I am obviously behind but I would like to post about Christmas. It is going to be a lot of pictures and a quick blog.

We somewhat decorated our house and somewhat decorated a tree because we were leaving for Utah on December 16th for the holiday season. I wanted it to feel like Christmas in our home but did not want much to clean up. So here is our tree.

We also had Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa Bramhall before we left so we would not have to have so many gifts with us to bring back. Taylor was really excited he got a shark remote control truck and legos. Drew and Lana got a his and her tricycles. They love them but are a little too small to ride them at the moment, soon enough.


Then we took off. We left really early on the 16th and it was a decent flight with 3 young kids, 2 that are still sitting on our laps:) We were looking forward to 3 1/2 weeks in Utah. Dave was ready to ski and I was ready to see family.

Dave did a lot of skiing. The snow was really good and he had a lot of family and friends to ski with. Thanks to all those that so kindly gave out passes. As much as I complained to my husband that he got to have fun while I stayed and took care a kids, I am soooo happy he got to ski that much. He deserves it. He is a wonderful husband and father.

The kids loved being around cousins and Grandma and Grandpa (It was the first time the twins really got to know Grandma and Grandpa Draper). We got to see so many friends and family that I really enjoyed that long of a vacation. Thanks to all those that took time to see us and have parties at their homes and fly to Utah to spend a night with us. We love you all.



Christmas was great. We did small gifts for the kids, due to high costs with return luggage. My favorite memory about Taylor-he opened a gift from Santa, a Leapster, and he said it didn't like it and didn't want to play with it. Then he opened a gift from G&G Draper, a Leapster Lightning McQueen game, he turned to me and said now I want to play that thing. Drew-loved all the cars he got and would not leave them alone. Lana-loved her Etch-a-sketch and purse full of girly things. I loved my new boots from Dave and Dave got ski passes and money for new ski pants.



We had lots of snow to enjoy. We did some sledding, Taylor got to ski (he is getting good, he can ski by himself now), I got to ski, we all got to go bowling, enjoy lots of family parties, and so much more. It was a great vacation.

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in New Jersey, surrounded by part of the Bramhall Clan. We had a great dinner that Tim and MaryAnn provided and I was excited that we got Taylor to eat some turkey. We told him if he didn't eat it he would disappear. I love how sometimes he believes us. Taylor hardly eats anything so it was a big step to get him to eat some.



For the rest of the weekend we traveled to Hershey, PA and had a great time at Hershey Park. All of the large rollercoaster rides are closed but the small rides are all still open (that is all my kids can ride anyway) and they had a beautiful Christmas light show. It was very very cold but the kids did pretty well. I thought it was a lot of fun. We stayed overnight in town and had a great time the next day. We toured a small town near Harrisburg, PA, that my father-in-law grew up in. Lana got car sick and threw up all over Dave and Taylor. Then we toured the Indian Echo Caverns, a great cave that the children loved to run around in and get dirty.

Thank to the Bramhall's for a great weekend.

The Rest of Fall

So, I really have not been posting much and I need to get back to it. I realized that I never posted our pumpkin picking or any of our fall pictures.

When we went pumpkin picking it was so so so so cold but the kids did a pretty good job dealing with it. We did go to a pumpkin farm and they had some animals there. The kids loved to look at them. Drew loved the cow and we loved watching the mommy pig and her many piglets. They were so cute. We also went for a hay ride and Dave and Taylor did the corn maze.

After pumpkin pickin' we did a little pumpkin carvin'.

I really wanted to enjoy the fall leaves here on the East Coast and it seemed like they were only beautiful one day. I think I just didn't do enough watching. The day I thought they looked great I wanted to take the kids pictures. The problem is they were dressed nicely, I wasn't going to leave our yard and I didn't even do Lana's hair. They were still cute pictures though.

We also loved playing in the leaves. It is sad that the older you get the more concerned you get, well at least I do. I did not want to touch the leaves because of buys (mainly ticks). It ruined the enjoyment for me. I tried not to ruin for Taylor.

Costumes!

So I really didn't get many pictures of the kids in their costumes cause they keep me too busy to let me take pictures. But we had a great a Halloween and a great time dressing up. The first few pictures are from Cecily's halloween birthday party. Drew and Taylor were in different costumes because we didn't have their true 2010 Halloween costumes ready.

We also dressed up for fun at home one day...

and then we went to the Truck or Treat at the church. Dave as a hunter, Taylor as Lightning McQueen, Drew as a bumblebee and Lana as a flower.

Now Dave spent many hours working on Lightning McQueen. He searched for the right cardboard, the right tire material, the right stickers and the right paint for a couple weeks. When we got to making the actual car it took a lot of time doing detail work. It was worth it though. It turned out awesome and Taylor loves it. Unfortunately we spent so much time on it we don't want the kids playing on it and ruining it. Dave has hidden it in the closet. I sure we will eventually let it out.

CHOO-CHOO!

Taylor loves trains, so we decided to go for a train ride. It was located in Essex, Connecticut. We all went and it was a lot of fun for the kids. We had a picnic, rode the train, rode a boat in the river and then rode the train back to the car. It was a very scenic and slow ride, just right for the kids.

Boston

I saw our pictures of Boston today and I realized I never blogged about it. On Labor Day we were lucky enough to go to Boston. We woke up at 3:45a, got ready and loaded the kids in the car. We had the oppurtunity to go to the Boston temple but we had to be there by 7:30. We arrived there on time and our friends, the Ogdens, watched our three kids at the church next door we went in. Then we watched their children whild they went in. It was such a great time. The children really loved being able to walk around the temple grounds and see how beautiful it was. I left my camera in the church by accident, so no picutres.

Afterwards we drove down into Boston and drove around Fenway Park while the twins slept and then parked downtown where we walked across a bridge to the USS Constitution. Taylor loved the battleship. He also loved following the red line that went throughout the city to all the historical sites. I have to agree, it was pretty cool. After a little site seeing we met back up with the Ogdens for lunch and a street performer magic show. The last thing we did was take Taylor back to a water fountain play area that we had seen earlier. He really wanted to jump in. I had a change of clothes so we let him get soaked. He loved it.

We had a great time. I love sight seeing and love to take my children on little historic adventures. The best part of all though was the temple and talking about it with the kids, while they experienced it.