Thanksgiving at Grandma and Grandpa Coleman's

We drove down to Fresno for Thanksgiving this year, and the kids had sooooo much fun playing with their cousins and spending time with grandma and grandpa . . . not to mention all the food!

Here are some pictures we took while we were there . . .

Nathan and Jenna playing cars together

All the little kids (plus Ryan, who was evidently their dog) kept running to the back of the house and hiding themselves away in this room to play house for hours at a time! They had a blast!!

Jerry and I don't really tease too much (just not our personalities) so it is pretty fun for the kids to experience the teasing that comes with uncles. Here is Emma being teased by Uncle Mike (and loving it, of course).

Grandma and Grandpa and all the kids!

Backyard Fun!

This weekend the sun was shining . . . it was a little cold, but beautiful weather, so I got a few shots of us hanging out in the backyard yesterday! We had a blast playing soccer and swinging etc. Mostly just soaking up some delicious sunshine!! It was one of those days when life just seemed perfect. Everyone was happy and healthy and just having a great time together!

Some days life is just good.

My project

About 3 months ago we bought a custom made changing table off of Craigslist for $25. It is a really well-made solid piece of furniture, but it was pretty ugly (white paint with wood top and brightly colored knobs that had some kind of glue all over them to make them textured . . . UGLY) plus it was pretty beat up. So, this weekend I finally got around to working on it and was so excited with how it turned out! Wish I had taken a "before" shot so I could compare it to the "after," but I forgot. If you look at the below post of Jeffrey and Nathan combing hair you can see it a little in the background. But, anyway, here's the "after" shot!

Jeffrey

We have a new baby at our house! His name is Jeffrey and he is just over 8 months old. We picked him up at 4:00 last night, and we are all already loving him! He is a really sweet calm little guy and loves to just play by himself or with the kids. He is a good crawler and can pull himself up to standing against all the furniture and toys. He had a really rough night last night, but he is getting over a cold and still has a little cough which seems to be waking him up. We put him to bed about 7:30 then he was up at 9:30, 11:30 4:30, 5:00, and then finally I just sat on the couch and let him sleep in my arms for the last couple of hours until everyone got up. We are hoping this isn't a habit. (His other foster mom said he usually sleeps through the night, so it's probably just the change and the cough.)

Anyway, here are some pictures of him from last night and this morning.

Here he is getting to know the kids.

Here he is exploring the living room

Here he is getting rides around on the Spiderman car this morning . . . the kids loved it that he could hold on and sit up on the car!

Here is Nathan helping him comb his hair this morning (not that he has much to comb)!


We don't know much about his life before foster care, but we do know he was very badly malnourished and hadn't been to the doctor for well care or immunizations. I feel so happy every time I feed him I could just cry! This baby may become another super chub. It just feels so good to feed him and know he's not hungry or hurting!

IT'S A BOY!!!!!

At least, we're pretty sure it's a boy. He happened to have his back turned to us (face to my spine) through the whole ultrasound which gave us lots of good butt shots, but he kept his legs together. Anyway, doctor says he is almost 100% sure it's a boy (he kept pointing out what he called a weiner . . . nice technical way of referring to it, don't you think). He also said it looked like a turtle, not a taco. If he was trying to impress us with his mastry of human anatomy he failed miserably. But, we left pretty certain it's a boy! YEAHHHHH!!!!!!!

Here is the pic to prove he is a boy. If you notice, his bum is down and you can see between his legs.

We weren't able to get a good frontal shot or a face picture or anything since he refused to turn around and look at us (we did get some really good views of his spine). So, the only other picture we brought home was this cute picture of his feet against my tummy.

Also, it's been a while since I documented the pregnancy . . . so here's a picture of me this morning at almost 22 weeks!

Halloween!!

Halloween was so fun this year!! All the kids were old enough to really have fun with it!! We went out trick or treating around the neighborhood with Nana this year, and that really added to the fun too!!

Lindsay was a beautiful bride!!

Emma was a Racoon (notice the black eyes)! Just like RJ in over the hedge!

Nathan was a ferocious lion!!

He kept telling everyone he was the Lion King (and then he would ROAR)!!

They all looked so cute and had so much fun in their costumes!! Halloween was a blast!!

Now we have to figure out how to get rid of all this candy (hopefully without putting all 10 lbs of it on my hips)!!

Nana Came to Visit

My mom came down to visit this weekend! She was here from Thursday night to Sunday morning and we all had so much fun having her here!! Here are a few pictures to commemorate the occasion!

After school on Friday, instead of a snack, we all had a tea party complete with dainty purple dishes, chocolate milk, doghnuts, candy, kiwis, and crackers!

Then, later that afternoon we painted little pumpkins! The idea was to paint a jackolantern face on your pumpkin, but all the little pumpkins just turned out black. So the kids pretended they were ugly rotten pumkins and loved it!

We were all sad to see Nana leave on Sunday . . . hope to see you again soon Mom!!