he's growing too fast

taking pictures of a baby is fun. why? they're great subjects. they're cute and they hold still. so much easier to get a shot with a baby as opposed to a running toddler that purposefully hides her face when you so desperately want her to look at you.



tanner has now discovered that there is an easier way to deal with tummy time. that's my boy. finding the easy way out. really though, his neck muscles are getting strong, so i'll let him slack off every once and a while.

two things i love about these pics.
1. the dino outfit. boy clothes are pretty darn cute.
2. katelyn's foot in the corner of my photos. she would not move her foot no matter how hard i tried. and for some reason her foot looks hobbit-ish.



katelyn still continues to love (read smother) her brother with love. but i'll take smothering. as long as she's not trying to hurt him.

by the way, he's two months now. it's speeding by faster the second time around and i don't want it to.

thanks for comin'

lucky us. tyler and i had more visits from family. tyler's parents flew out to wisconsin at the end of october. they had a pretty good excuse to come and visit too now that they've got two grandkids here. i know they miss those kiddos like crazy, so it's always fun when they can get some time off to see katelyn and now tanner.

it was a laid back kind of visit, and it was perfect. while they were here we ran errands with and without the kids (tyler and i had a hot date to the grocery store thanks to lori), we went trick-or-treating, went out to eat to celebrate darren's birthday, blessed tanner and hung out and talked. i should add too that i got to take some awesome naps and sleep in because they were always happy to take the kids. it was wonderful.




katelyn is in love with her grandpa and has him wrapped around her little finger. grandpa is the one who will spend hours upstairs playing in her room with her when everyone else is busy, and she loves it. i know i have a picture of katelyn with her grandma and grandpa, but i couldn't find it anywhere, so this will have to do.



it was nice to have some family here when we blessed tanner. the blessing was wonderful.



tyler's mom made this gorgeous quilt for tanner! we love it and wanted to show it off. it fits perfectly in his room. she also made his bumpers and crib skirt. what a talented mother-in-law.

halloween fun

does anyone else feel like october flew by? i had all of these great plans for the month, but the medical college had plans of their own. most of october for tyler was spent studying, so we had to cram in most of our halloween activities the last week and half of october.

last year we missed out on the tradition of carving a pumpkin, but this year i couldn't do it again. now that katelyn is a little older and can "help" out with this kind of thing, i wanted her to experience it for herself.



katelyn had her head in the pumpkin pretty much the whole time watching tyler work.



the finished product. when we were done we put some candles inside and put the newly carved pumpkin on our front porch. apparenty a 2 year old doesn't understand that part of carving pumpkins because she insisted that the pumpkin did not belong on the porch and that we needed to bring it back inside.

we were able to participate in the annual trick-or-treating at the medical college again this year. i must admit, we are being completely spoiled getting to trick-or-treat this way. we get to trick-or-treat inside away from the cold weather, the stops for candy are close together, all of our friends are there as well, and the kids get tons of candy.



our little pumpkin



katelyn the witchy witch.

katelyn was a huge fan of trick-or treating. she kept telling us, "i probably need some more candy," and "i think i forgot some more candy." lucky for us she has already forgotten about her stash that we hid away.

growing up, my mom started a fun tradition on halloween. she always prepared a halloween dinner for us. the first year she just made up some bean with bacon soup and put plastic spiders in our bowls. then she started putting the soup in pumpkin bowls. but since then, it has become so much more. i'm pretty sure now that we are all adults we get more excited about our halloween dinner than we did when we were kids. probably because we love to find and make new creepy cuisine every year.

the whole meal. we had a ton of food, but it was all delicious. and yes, we are still eating out of pumpkin bowls. yum.



brainy watermelon. tyler and i found that it is actually more difficult to carve a brain than we thought.



bloody mummy fingers



cobweb seven layer dip



putrid punch



donut hole eyeballs



enjoying the meal. tyler's parents were here to enjoy it with us. promise i'll do a whole separate post on that later!

happy halloween