Serena crawls!

I know many of you were wondering if she was already crawling and I just hadn't posted it, but no, she did it for the first time this morning! Actually, all my kids have been slow in the large motor skills of crawling and walking! I had put her down on the floor and she acted like she had known for a while, she just didn't let anyone know. Here is some video of her first time.

Cute huh! (Don't pay any attention to all the blankets and other messes!)

I can't believe my little girl will be a year old in just a few weeks. She is weening herself off of nursing right now, getting ready for cow's milk I guess. I want to write about her, but I think I will wait and post her one year old letter after her birthday. But I do love every minute!

Triumph of the Turkey Trot

Homage to Angie Brandt, Triumph of the Turkey Trot, Konqueror of the 5K, Hero of Historic Downtown York! You set your sights on the 12th Annual YMCA Turkey Trot and, never wavering, trained on the treadmill like Rocky IV in Siberia, persisted through a sustained cold, and braved race day temperatures in the low forties, all the while making those old-school running pants look fine, yes ma’am! You not only finished the race but ran fast enough and strong enough to be annoyed by narrow bottlenecks and dawdling joggers. You earned that stylish poly-cotton long-sleeved race t-shirt, baby! Wear it! Who needs a door-prize frozen turkey or pumpkin pie—you’ve got running pride, sister! Love and admiration from your husband and fellow runner, Mike!

Thanksgiving 2008

Happy Thanksgiving! I am feeling good because I ran the Turkey Trot 5k (3.1 miles) this morning. To all you runner friends out there, I know that is just a stroll for you, but for me who is NOT a runner (bad knees), I definetely feel good about it. I wanted to run it in 35 min.(again, very slow, but a breakthrough for me!), but these past 3 weeks I have been battling a cold, so I didn't think I could do it. I was able to run with my friend Jamie and her son Harrison most of the way, and they helped push me at the end to finish at 34:40-yeah! Harrison by the way is only 7! I am so glad I did it. It was a lot of fun to experience a little taste of what Mike experiences in marathons. I loved the very start when they played music and I was feeling good. And it was such a family friendly race that people at my end were not competative, just running with their kids and having fun. Maybe next year Hayden can run with us and I can push the other two in a stroller.

After the race we came home where my parents were watching the kids, and got ready for some Good Eats (Alton Brown!). Mike and Connor made our traditional rolls for the dinner and I made a little sweet treat I found in Family Fun magazine.

We went over to Wanda and Bob's house (my Dad's side).

After a yummy dinner we went outside to play in the leaves. The boys started this tradition last year, but unfortunetely this year there weren't as many to play with. Of course we still had fun and got some cute pictures.

Some more pictures from inside the house.

Great Uncle Dan (my Dad's brother-can you tell!)

This is Uncle Bob that I wrote about in Sept. who had the heart attack. He ended up having lots of other complications in the hospital which kept him there for over a month, but he is finally home now and recovering well. He lost 40 lbs. which he is slowly trying to bring back in the form of muscle, but we thought he looked pretty good.

Great Grandma Weikert

Great Grandpa Weikert We finished off the day with a few games on their Wii. We may have to ask Santa for one next year!

So Proud of Hayden

We've always known that Hayden is a good kid. He does what he is told, he always helps, he reminds us to say prayers and have Family Home Evening, etc. But this past month or so I have been amazed at some of the things he is doing. I'm sure there are some kids out there reading chapter books by age 5, but considering Hayden was not even interested in learning words when he started kindergarten, I am truly amazed that he just finished his first chapter book last night! It was from his favorite book series-Magic Tree House. The book was Christmas in Camelot. He checked it out from the school library just 3 days ago and didn't put it down until he was finished! I am so excited that he has discovered a love for books. Two other things that have happened recently are that he was chosen as "Top Dog" at school for October. A child has to be good for the entire month and then from those students, someone is chosen. He had been hoping to be chosen since the beginning of the school year, so he didn't have to wait that long. One other thing that he gets to do at school is tutor a kindergartner in math. I think it's so cute they have these programs for little kids! I think a big factor in his doing so well in school was that we decided to wait a year to put him in kindergarten. (He had just turned 6.) It has definetely helped his self-esteem.

Every day is a new adventure

That's the beauty and sometimes the set-back of being a stay-at-home mom. You never know what life will bring your way that day. You may have a great, stress-free day playing with your kids, getting the house clean, talking to friends, sending off birthday cards, feeding the pets, getting homework done, meals prepared ahead of time, exercise done, laundry done, children bathed, coupons clipped, scriptures read, bills paid, e-mails sent, Christmas gifts ordered, light bulbs replaced, blog updated. The list could go on and on. Then again, life may throw you some curve balls along the way like vomiting children, pooping children, crying, tired children, and the list goes on. But at the end of the day, no matter what kind of day it was, I still thank my Heavenly Father for letting me be a mother and for the ability to stay home with my children every day.

Fall Festival and Halloween '08

This year, Hayden had planned months ago to be an alien and had this helmet already prepared. Connor said he wanted to be grapes which we loved because it was cheap, cute and original, just like him! Serena decided to be a mermaid because that was the costume that Mommy bought for her! I thought this is the only year she won't mind her legs being wrapped up.

Mike was in charge of an autopsy table for our church party. He did a great job and all the kids loved it.

Instead of bacteria ridden apple eating, we chose to eat doughnuts on a string-clever! And very difficult to not use your hands!

They also had a hoop game that was like skeeball-you try to throw the hoop around the furthest pumpkin to score the most points.

Then on Halloween night, the Coats family had us over for their annual party and trick-or-treating in their neighborhood. This is little Lily Perry, or should I say Tinker Bell! (She's a McGladrie)

This is always fun to try and get all the kids together and smile for a picture before they go get candy! I think Serena was crying because it was so hot with all those bodies! She was smiling once we went outside.

Grace was Belle and Will was Luke Skywalker.

I spy with my little eye, walking grapes.

I'm not into the scary, creepy part of Halloween, but even Hayden and I were amazed by all the displays this one house had put together. I couldn't get very good pictures of it because of the fog they were spraying. This is a picture of a dead pirate coming out of his coffin. They also had a big outhouse with a halogram of a ghost inside.

This is another guy, a mad scientist I guess.

After the kids get totally worn out by walking around the neighborhood, we stop by Gram and Pap's house for one last goody bag (my mom tries to keep it somewhat healthy). Halloween is always a little crazy with loud, screaming kids begging to eat more candy, but the kids love it and that's why I like it.

annual fall NY trip '08

What a great weekend we had in the great state of NY. We stayed with Mike's older brother Steven and his wife Amy, and got to spend time with Mike's brothers Joel and Allen, his wife Michelle, and an "adopted" sister Jen. We had a lot of fun eating yummy fall comfort food, picking pumpkins, shooting pumpkins from a sling shot, riding the hay wagon, carving pumpkins in the frigid NY weather, and laughing together as a family. Missing from the family were Mike's mom, who is serving her mission in Salt Lake, and Mike's younger brother Patrick and his family who live in N. Carolina. Among the list of classic NY foods that cannot be duplicated by Pennsylvanians-bagels, pizza, cheesecake. We also enjoyed freshly made doughnuts, fresh-pressed cider, homemade chicken pot pie, roast beef, surprise potatoes and carrot cake. (The cheesecake and carrot cake were for Mike's birthday on Sat.)

We drove up on Thurs. night so that we could have an extra day to relax and catch-up. We went on an "educational field trip" to a butterfly conservatory about an hour north of Endicott. It was fantastic.

Besides having over 600 butterflies in about 350 different species, they had cute quail and 5 or 6 tortoises.Serena could keep her eye on this guy.

They also had some cute iguanas. This guy was climbing up the window, we're not sure what he was after.

This guy makes me laugh. He didn't move hardly at all, but just his appearance has personality! These guys change color depending on their mood. If they are really calm and relaxed, they are dark green. This guy is coming down from black which means he was really upset. Maybe he needs some anger management!

They also had beautiful birds (all the varieties are ones that don't eat butterflies!). This one was my favorite, I think it is called a black-headed Dactus.

Now onto the stars of our show, the butterflies. They were so friendly we had them landing on us.

Another turtle.

This one has glass in it's name because it is see-through.

Hayden asked a good question (as part of his education), "How do the butterflies eat?" The owner showed us the stem that they stick into the sponge to drink from. Something I didn't know is that they taste with their feet so they know what they have landed on is something they can eat.

This is my little butterfly!

This is the grand finale picture taken by brother Steven. In fact, he took a lot of the pictures throughout this post.

After the boys had wilted from lack of sleep and a warm, moist environment, we went outside in the crisp fall air to eat a picnic lunch.

I love this serious picture of Hayden. He is looking so much older. After the drive home and some preparations, we enjoyed Amy's delicious comfort food-pot pie.

Amy made Mike a carrot cake for his birthday.

Then we made popcorn and enjoyed a classic, The Great Pumpkin.

After eating pumpkin muffins and visiting with Joel who had appeared in the middle of the night, we ventured out to the Cider Mill. Hayden drew pictures later that night illustrating how the doughnuts and cider are made. They also have lots of varieties of apples to buy.This is the cider being pressed.

This is a picture of the doughnuts.

We look forward to those warm doughnuts every year!

Then it was off to our next tradition, Iron Kettle farm.

You can't quite tell in this picture, but Hayden is exactly 4 ft., Connor exactly 3 ft., and Serena exactly 2 ft.! We all went on the hayride this year.

This is Allen and Michelle on the left, and our friend Jen on the right.

Amy, Steven, and Joel.

I love taking pictures in the pumpkin patch. Unfortunely, it was afternoon and Serena was exhausted. The funniest thing about this picture is that when I put her down and walked away to take the picture, everyone around turned to see her and said, "Awe!' Jen drew a picture of that later in the night too. Connor and Hayden picking out their perfect pumpkins.

They added a new game this year, pumpkin launch. It was fun to watch the boys do that.

Hayden and Uncle Joel.

After that we made one more traditional stop-to Tony's pizza. Then went back to Steven and Amy's house to visit, eat Jen's yummy cheesecake, and carve pumpkins in the frigid cold.

We love when Joel plays for us.

This is when the kids were coloring their masterpieces. Following is Mike's.

Actually, Mike, Hayden, Joel, Steven, Amy and Jen were the only brave ones enough to stay out in the cold to carve a pumpkin. This first one is Hayden's, the next one is Amy's.

It's Tinker Bell!

On Sunday we were lazy and tired. But Jen was busy finishing up a lovely dinner she made of traditional roast beef, surprise potatoes, green bean casserole, and cranberry fluff.

Serena was amazed at all the food in front of her!

Before leaving we stopped at the park down the street from their house and had lots of fun taking pictures again.

Mike was having fun with this shot!

Steven took some great pictures, but I have to post them later when we get them.

Thanks for a wonderful weekend family!