a lot of lagniappe

Where do I even begin? Thank you to all those friends and family who have so mercilessly hounded me for more posts and pictures. I'm doing my best here people! Since I last posted, a LOT has happened. I guess I should start at the beginning. Around the beginning of September, I came to a realization. We were driving home from eating dinner at some new friends' house -- which was so spacious and comfortable -- when it finally clicked. We don't have to stay in our tiny 2 bedroom apartment! With the neighbor problem, the space issues, and a third child on the way, I decided to start looking into alternate housing options. That's when the blessing fell into our laps. Without saying anything about our looking around at new apartments, Scott's mom talked to him literally the next week and very convincingly told Scott that we'd be more than welcome to move into their basement to save a little money during this school year. After talking it over and realizing that we'd be really stupid not to take advantage of this opportunity, we gave our landlord 30 days' notice and thus began the longest month ever.

So, with Scott in school full-time at this point, and my two little kiddies constantly underfoot, my poor pregnant self started packing up our apartment in what turned out to be the never-ending move. Finally, at the end of September we were officially moved in and glad to be done with our landlord forever!

However, after a month of constantly trying to keep the kids quiet so they wouldn't wake up our neighbors, the kids sleeping habits were jacked up. The first week in our new place, they started waking up earlier and earlier, and by the 4th day -- when Grace was up at 4:30 -- we decided to make an executive decision. She is just not ready to be out of a crib. So, at 4:30 in the morning, we dragged her Pack N' Play into the back storage area in the basement, plugged in a night light and tucked her in. The end result? She LOVES "her room." Now that she's back in the loving confines of her Pack N' Play, she sleeps in until at least 7 o'clock every morning.

Grace's "new room"

Check out all the junk she sleeps with

Not to leave poor little Ethan out, here's a shot of him asleep from last night. Notice the night lights? Yeah, that's right its a little dark in the basement and Ethan has become a little scared. So, he sleeps with 3 night lights in his room, and one in the hall. Its kind of funny.

Those are his new frog rain boots that we got at Target. Don't ask me why he put them on to go to bed.

Well, in an effort not to bore you with a lengthy narrative, I'll just post a few pictures from the last month or so.

Okay, just kidding, I guess you will have to endure a little narrative. First up is a trip to Cornbelly's at Thanksgiving Point. We went with the MBA spouse association group, so we got a great discount. Rather than 10-15$ a person, it was only 2. And boy am I glad I only had to pay that. I think the kids are a little too young to enjoy all the activities there, because they spent the bulk of their time going down a big slide.

Here's Nell. She's trying out her new smile.

Here they are in front of a giant tractor wheel.

Climbing up the ladder to that slide!

Up next are a series of pictures from our first official pumpkin carving of the season. Laura invited the kids over to help her carve a jack o'lantern.

Here's Ethan helping to scoop out the seeds.


And here's Grace helping.




The finished product.

In my ongoing effort to learn how to sew, I decided to make the kids' costumes this year for Halloween. Let's just say that I spent more on materials for the 2 costumes than I would ever have spent on actual costumes for the children. Grace is going to be a princess, but she won't ever try the dress on, and Ethan will be a lion for the third year in a row. His costume has been the biggest hassle to make. I won't even go into all the details of why its so frustrating, but Ethan loves it and wears it around the house whenever I'll let him, even though its not quite finished yet.

Here are some random shots of Grace from today. We're working on growing out the bangs (and hair for that matter), and its slow-going.

And for some exciting news, we had our ultrasound a couple of weeks ago and found out that...its a girl! I was pretty surprised, I have to say. This whole time, I've been thinking its a boy, so its been weird to change my whole mindset. But, I am fully adjusted now and very excited! We got one of those really cool 4D ultrasound pictures, and I'm making Scott scan a picture of one right now so I can post it on the blog. In my biased opinion, I think Sophie looks like she's going to be a very sweet and mellow baby. The power of positive thinking right? I figure I'm due for a mellow child. Ethan and Grace are a lot of fun, but they're a little exhausting sometimes. They're both very excited about the new baby, and I'm hoping that once she's here, they'll be able to keep each other busy while I take care of her. We'll see.

Last, but certainly not least, here is a shot of my favorite little scholar hard at work studying for his first round of MBA mid-terms. Doesn't he look studious typing away on his Macbook?

Well, folks. Thats it. I hope it satisfies for the time being. Hopefully my next post won't take over a month to get up. Hahaha. Peace out, friends.