Thanksgiving

In front of Thomas Jefferson's home.

We had quite the adventure for Thanksgiving this year.  It started out with a nice looooong drive to Virginia.  Actually, it was eight hours long.  Enough complaining about the drive though.  We've tried to make any person (who was willing to listen and willing to pretend to care) feel bad for us, which is kind of immature. 

We went to Richmond, Virginia and stayed in a hotel with Ryan's mission buddy, Matt Snider, and his wife, Chelsee.  For Thanksgiving day, Ryan and Matt headed out with Matt's cousin, Randy, to play football.  Even though Ryan had no football gear and never touched the ball, I'm sure he still had fun. :)  When the boys got back, we headed over to Randy's house to have a delicious dinner prepared by his wife, Amber.  Sounds like a potentially awkward situation (eating a Thanksgiving dinner prepared by people you just met), but Amber and Randy acted like they didn't care at all.  Very nice people, I know. 

Matt and Chelsee

 Randy and Amber with their little girl Jaynie, along with Lisa and Nick, their friends in VA.

Saturday, before heading back, we went to Monticello, where Thomas Jefferson's home is.  That was pretty neat.  Josh wasn't quite as impressed with the house tour as we adults were, so after the tour guide suggested we take a break, Josh and I headed outside to get rid of some energy. Once we regrouped, we joined the others and were able to see the rest of the tour.  All in all, we had a great mini vacation, spending time with the group, spending time in the pool, and mainly spending some time with each other.  Josh was on cloud nine with his dad being around so much.  In fact, this past Monday, Josh couldn't figure out why Ryan wasn't still hanging out with us.  

The only downsides to the trip were the drive and the short time we spent there, but usually both of those things factor into vacations, so we have little to complain about.

In honor of Thanksgiving, I just wanted to quickly note how grateful I am for Ryan and Josh and our new baby.  Ryan is such a good husband, and he's very supportive of me.  Joshua is so much fun, and he's our pride and joy.  I'm so grateful for the gospel and to know that we can all be together for forever.  Hope you all had wonderful Thanksgivings, and if you want to have another one, let us know...we really miss those leftovers!

It's a......

Boy!  Yes, that's right, we're having a boy.  Ryan is just too manly, I guess.  He can't make anything else.  We're excited to have two boys close together.  Hopefully they'll get along, right?  The official due date is April 9th, which was my due date.  Kind of fun.  Now we're looking for good boy names....any suggestions?  If you have a favorite and want to save it for yourselves, don't worry, just share it with us.  It's not like we're family, right?  (Excluding family of course).  

We're getting excited to be reaching the holiday season because it means Ryan's getting close to finishing this semester, and we're getting closer to visiting friends and family in Utah.  We can't wait to see everyone!

Josh isn't handling his weaning from the binky too well.....

Josh got bored drinking from his normal sippy cup and decided to give himself a challenge.

Maternity clothes

Last night I was looking online for cute maternity dresses because New York doesn't tend to have much of a selection for modest maternity dresses.  Go figure.  I guess my problem is that I want a dress to go with brown shoes...most are black.  However, while looking online, I found a little gem, where they have any kind of fabric imaginable and dresses made to custom fit the buyer.  This is all for around $45!  I honestly couldn't believe what I saw, and Ryan told me I needed to share it with all the other ladies out there.  So here you are.  To reach the site, click here. (The swimming suit is my favorite.)

Things to remember..

I was on Facebook the other day, and Carrie, a friend from college, said hello and then told me that I needed to post pregnancy pictures on my blog. I was thinking about it, and I've got to admit I too love to look at other girls' prego pics. Why is this? I know we women tend to get excited about babies...but I think the real reason we (yes I'm grouping the rest of you girls in with me) like prego pics is so we can compare belly sizes. I've caught myself doing this with other pregnant bloggers lately. I'll look at their belly in the picture, figure out how far along they are, and decide how I'm looking compared to them. Wrong, I know, but I'd be surprised if I'm the only one who does it....haha, wouldn't that be funny if I was the only one? Anywho, for those who are interested, here's my 17 week picture. And just for the pregnant bloggers who are now feeling self consious, I've made a pact with myself to stop comparing, especially since the baby doesn't care what I look like as long as I get him/her here. (And because the last girl I compared myself to is due at the same time and hasn't gained any weight at all. zilch. zero.) It's like my mom always said, "Katie, there will always be people better and worse than you at something so it's best to just not compare yourself to others." So there you have it: Here's my prego picture and my best attempt at sneakily guilt-tripping you girls into not comparing my belly to yours. Did it work? :)
And I wasn't going to say anything about this, but is there a different word I could have used besides "compare"? It's really being overused here....

To wrap things up I wanted to write down a few things to remember about Josh:
1) We've been teaching him to wipe up messes and trying to get him to blow his nose, always on separate occasions. Being the smart kid that he is, he now grabs a tissue, blows his nose (successfully might I add), and then wipes the windows/floor/high chair/my face with the same tissue. Gross, but ingenious. I guess he figures he'll kill two birds with one stone.
2) Josh is really sweet and has started attacking me with kisses, which would actually be really nice if he didn't have a snotty nose right now. Also, when I'm rocking him to sleep, he brushes the hair out of my eyes like a little mother.
3) The other night we were all driving in the car, and Ryan was asking Josh what sounds different animals make. He decided to ask Josh what sound mommy makes and Josh started into his monkey noises. He wouldn't come up with anything else when we asked him, so I guess I'm a hairy monkey in his eyes. It's okay, though, because Ryan ended up being a dog.

This is Josh's idea of a good pose. He saw the camera and had to ham it up.

Goodbyes and good times

First off, we want to let the Silva family know how much we'll miss them!  They moved to upstate New York a week ago, and we were not happy about it.  :)  They had a sleepover with us their last night here because their gas was turned off, and it was fun to see Caleb and Josh interact the next morning.  They were both trying to make each other laugh...I must admit it's funny what makes a toddler laugh, but what do I know?  They were having so much fun, it was sad to think the boys won't be able to be better buddies.   I will especially miss Danielle, she was my go-to-girl!  If I had a question about Josh, she was the one to answer it.  So in a nutshell: we hope you guys miss us too but still have a great time in upstate!

Caleb and Josh after I told Caleb to give Josh a hug! :)

As for Halloween, we had some good times.  We carved a pumpkin for family night, and you can tell that from the pictures, Josh wasn't thrilled about getting all gunky from the pumpkin insides.  He wanted to help his dad carve at first, but once we started pulling out the seeds, he was done!  At our ward trunk or treat (the Saturday before), Josh again wasn't too thrilled.  He hung in there, but his bee costume was annoying him, and he was a bit to shy to grab candy from the people handing it out.  Ryan sure had a good time though, haggling all the teenagers and showing off his Napolean Dynamite costume.  I tell you what, he has that certain Dynamite look down to a tee!  For the actual night of Halloween, we went to our friends the Reed's house for a party and finally got to see their cute baby girl!  They had a ton of yummy snacks and soups too, and my cherry cake dessert (thanks mom and dad) was a hit.  There were a lot of kids running around, so Josh just watched them the whole night, not making one peep.  He's so funny.  He'll talk my and Ryan's ears off, but with new or not-so-familiar people, he'd rather observe than be observed.