Happy Halloween!

 But don't let Count Kurtis the vampire scare you.. his teeth fell out. They wouldn't stay in!

 Sarah HATED her hat, but was still a very cute little witch in our scary little monster family

"How do skeletons get pregnant?" Was the question I was asked all night at our ward halloween party..

Very carefully. Ha! My roomate painted this outfit for me in college to use as a teaching prop. It barely fit over my tummy and I didn't have time to add his little bones in the mix.. but he's here! And on a sugar-high from all the candy Mommy has eaten in the past 24 hours.

Bathroom remodel

OOOOOOOOOH I am so excited to announce.. drumroll please.. our bathroom has been remodeled! YAY!! Well, the important part anyway--the tub and shower surround. You see, our bathroom has a window right in the middle of the shower. Ingenious idea.. unless you want to reveal yourself to the entire neighborhood and get water inside your walls and grow mold. But these old houses don't know any better.

So we finally got fed up with our mold situation and had our shower remodeled. Once we shopped around and decided on a company (the job was just too big and time consuming for Kurtis, who is an offical student again!) we were told 1-2 days to finish the job.

How it looked during the demo.. and how it sat for a week

Well.. a week, 3 days of actual construction, 2 installers (the first one quit on the job for personal reasons.. I'm not going into it..apparently we're too much to handle), many personal visits and phone calls from the owner and a few extras thrown our way for our 'patience and understanding' later.. it's done! We should have known that contracting jobs are NEVER as easy as they sound and ALWAYS take longer than expected. But no matter.. it's done. It's clean. It's fresh and new. Thank the Lord!

Even Sarah's cuteness doesn't make up for the fact that it's GROSS in there! She does love bubbles though..

TA DA! We put in a curved shower rod and it makes such a difference! It's so spacious. They encased the window in the same acrylic material but we're still putting up a small curtain for privacy and to keep any water from going inside the window itself.

 I feel SOOO much better washing my child (and myself) in this clean tub!

We're so glad that it's done. Yay!!

Pumpkin Patch

We went to a local orchard to see their pumpkins.. we didn't need apples since I already got some and made applesauce this year! They also have a some animals to see, which Sarah thought was so great.

 She rearranged the pumpkins.. thinking "This one looks better over here, not there" I'm sure

 She loooooved her wagon ride.. but wouldn't smile when I took a picture of course

 "Dad's feeding the chickens again, Mom"

 'OOOOH a rabbit!'

 Cowgirl.. with lots of props to encourage smiling

Happy Fall Y'all!

Leaves

We play in the leaves from our tree a lot. Not so much any more as they are mostly gone..yay for no more raking! Sarah loves it.

Inspecting this year's crop..

 One of the pumpkins we grew. We got 3.. all in increasing size. Very representative of our little family

 Have some?

In the gigantic leaf pile I made

Other..

Taking a break from major events..

 Big shoes to fill my dear..

 Kurtis' work roommate got married a few weeks ago and this was at their reception.. this is Kurtis' other friend Lauren. Sarah thoroughly enjoyed running around and making herself center of attention before dinner

 In her halloween shirt, in one of her favorite places--climbing and hiding under the table and in search of crumbs

 She's got hair! Finally! These lasted all of a few minutes before her curious little fingers got to them.. but she's got enough hair that I can do this. The trick is to distract her long enough to have her keep them in

 Who, me?

We visit our sweet neighbor, Jan, almost daily..Sarah insists. She's got all kinds of fun things to play with including a box of handkerchiefs, which we put on Sarah's head the other day. Our little Dutch girl.

Great-Grandma Tucker's visit

Kurtis' grandma Elaine took a bus tour which happened to be centered around western Wisconsin, only a few hours away from us. So we were happy to hop in the car and meet up with her at a cranberry bog. What is that you ask? Giant fields of water where cranberries are grown! Why in water, you may wonder? Because cranberries have 4 little air pockets inside them that make them float. So when you release them from their bushes.. voila! Floating fruit! Yet another science lesson for you. :) Go ahead, cut open a cranberry and see those air pockets. Also, did you know that white cranberries are no different in taste then red ones? Apparently, consumers don't realize this and so they have to sort them out of bags and sell them individually. Now you know not to discriminate.

Most of the berried had already been harvested.. this is an empty field

 Waaaay out in the distance are some berries waiting to be harvested.. the wind didn't cooperate though

 At the Cranberry Center

 Sarah even let Elaine hold her! I guess Grandma's have that special touch

 But what's more fun then looking at cranberry bogs?

 Playing in the sand!

 And picking up rocks for Grandma!

It was so fun for Elaine to meet Sarah for the first time. It had been a while since we last saw her too. We went to a lovely dinner that night and ate authentic German food. Yum! Grandma was part of a bus tour with other older folks who all adored watching Sarah. It was a pleasure to spend time with you Grandma! oxoxox

What are you reading these days?

 Sarah loves books. I read the girl about 30 books a day.. the same ones about 2-5 times each. I'm not complaining because I love that she loves to read. Does she speak? Not really.. but she knows exactly what's on every page of every book. I've taken to hiding certain ones that I find more annoying to read. It's more exciting when I 'find' them again. Haha. I'm also trying to get some pleasure reading in before the baby comes and have a stack that I'm never going to get through... as seen here. I did just read the 'Hunger Games' series which is amazing and 'Rebecca' by Daphne du Maurier for our book club. An intriguing mystery! Although I love to read quick, simple-worded rhyming books time after time.. it's a nice to get a break with more sophisticated books.

I look forward to the days where we can both sit on the couch and read our favorite books.. together and individually :)

So long Henrietta!

 

You may remember (as per our last post) that we 'adopted' a monarch caterpillar on our canoe trip. With my superb science teacher background :) I thought it would be fun to raise it and let it change into a butterfly. Sure enough, a few days after we took it home it formed a chrysalis. Kurtis actually caught it in the act (which only takes a minute or two) and we watched it form. It's an exciting thing. After about 2 weeks SHE emerged into a healthy female butterfly. Males are known by a large black spot on each of their back wings. They are pheromone sacks to attract females, which don't have the spots. So, ours being spotless, was a female. She was no Henry the IX.. but Henrietta. It was quite cold and rainy for a few days after she hatched so I kept her inside with some honey water and sticks to walk around on. Sarah was really interested, in a scared sort of way. Hopefully she's warmer and hibernating in Mexico by now. That's what they do. Learn all about monarchs here. There's your science lesson for the day.