Bryce's Favorite Book

So Bryce's dad here. He has a book that he absolutely loves. It is called "Silly Faces." In the middle of the book there is a giant hole and you put your face in it and you become the sheep, the rooster, cat, puppy, pig and cow. Bryce will laugh and laugh when mommy reads the book. What happens when daddy reads the book and becomes the cow? I will just let you watch and see.

Thanksgiving

Things I have learned from our first go at hosting Thanksgiving:

1. Inviting 9 adults, 9 kids and 2 babies to your house three weeks after you move in may be an insane idea.

2. If your husband asks you to have 9 adults, 9 kids and 2 babies over for Thanksgiving and you say yes because you love him, there are no take backs or do-overs.

3. If you are so pooped that you fall asleep and leave your husband to put the thawing turkey in the fridge before you go to bed, it may still be frozen in the middle, causing mild panic and some extended hot water rinsing to get the neck out of that cavity.

4. If you manage to figure out that the neck and giblets are supposed to be cooked outside the turkey, you are already half way to being a Thanksgiving expert. Or at least an Intermediate Level Hostess.

5. If you are trying to brine a turkey, you should get a friend to help dump the extra juice in the sink when it's in a 5 gallon bucket and you are for some reason dumping it out inside.

6. If you call the Butterball hotline, your own personal home economist can tell you how to cook a 14lb and a 16lb turkey in the oven at the same time.

7. If you call the Hazmat people, they will not come clean up the floor in the kitchen.

8. If you have coffee and good desserts, no one cares if the floor in the kitchen is thrashed.

















Things I am thankful for:

My mom coming to help, and Andrew's mom and sister bringing desserts, rolls, yams and jello.

Lots of food to share.

Our new house.

The 9 kids eating in the kitchen.

Bryce being a super good boy and just eating puffs and laughing in his highchair the entire time we were eating.

Football!

It's Saturday, gotta sport the colors....

Apple Break

We've been working on the house all day every day, so it was nice to finally take a break. We went to Tehachapi on Friday to pick some apples and barely made it before apple season closed. Bryce had a good time. As you can see he likes apples, and if he could figure out how to chew them, he'd totally go for it. For now, he is eating sweet potatoes and peas.































This last one is of an attempted diaper change. Bryce has decided that flipping over and trying to get away is more fun than lying still. This is for sure going in the slide show at his wedding some day.

C is for Cereal

that's good enough for me. Cereal, cereal, cereal starts with C. Grannie gave us the assist we needed to really get going on the cereal today, since I am now a big boy eater. (Guess mommy was making it too runny and having a hard time keeping it in my mouth since I take after my daddy and have to look at everything besides what I am eating)


Cereal Face

I've Been Working on the New House

all the livelong day...literally.

The boys fixing doors:

Checking to make sure daddy's work is up to par. Yep, looks good daddy.





















Playing with my toys while mommy and daddy clean (and mommy sneaks a break to video me)

Halloween in our New House

Just to warn those of you who clicked on this post hoping against hope to see pictures of our new house, it's going to be a while. Technically we are living here, but the only things we have inside are our mattress, baby wipes and Bryce's menagerie of toys. We are hopefully going to paint this week and then get the carpets cleaned this weekend and then it will look like someone actually lives here.

But even with the state of the house, my husband was not to be swayed from chopping up some pumpkins and getting candy to hand out last night. I dutifully got a huge bowl's worth of candy (after being told not to skimp) and we got set up with the lights on (and nothing in the house).




















This is our second attempt at Bryce's costume, because you can only stuff so much of him into a pea in a pod costume (0-6 months) before realizing he does not fit and will be squawking about it it you continue to stuff him in. So, he was a penguin. A very respectable second option.