Birthday weekend fun!

My birthday was last Friday and I had such a great weekend. John Michael woke me up by giving me my present - a new camera! WOOHOO! I have been wanting one small enough to fit in my purse (although our other digital is a point-and-shoot, it's 4 years old and fairly bulky) so that I would always have it with me. It is an awesome camera - a Canon Elph. It has face recognition (not exactly sure if someone would ever not be able to figure out where the faces were on their friends/family, but I digress) and most importantly - IMAGE STABILIZATION! This is super important because I have a tendency to move the camera a lot while I am taking pictures. My photographer friends get on to me all the time - oops! So hopefully this will help that.

ANYWAY - Friday was a great day! I had a good day at work and then Friday evening we went to PF Chang's with some awesome friends (Lynn, Kris & Holland; Leslie & Skye; and Lynn and Matt). I'm not quite sure what it is about that place, but I can't get enough! It didn't disappoint - it was as good as ever :) And Lynn made the most gorgeous cake for me, too. YUM!

Saturday, we had plans to go to Franklin's Pumpkinfest and then to the pumpkin farm, but JM wasn't feeling the best so we ended up taking it easy and staying in until going to my parents' house for dinner, which was...AMAZING. My dad smoked a brisket for us and my mom made my favorite potato salad and what may have been the best chocolate cake ever. Seriously, ever. Mmmm...I've been munching on it all week!

Sunday was great, too - we ended up heading to the pumpkin farm for a quick trip in the afternoon, but had to leave early because Addie has a cold and was getting wheezy. I guess it was the combination of the running around and the dust in the barn. Nonetheless, we had a blast! And the weather was perfect. I was glad we got to go because it was the last day of the season that it was open! Where has the fall gone?! I can't believe it's November this weekend.

Addie is doing much better after her cold and is looking forward to being a kitty cat for Halloween tomorrow! Pics to come of that :)

The baby boy is doing great, too, and is quite the night owl. I'll go practically all day without feeling him move and then the afternoon and evening are spent with him doing what I can only assume is training for a marathon (much like his big sister :)). I am 21 weeks along now, and on one hand, it has flown, but on the other hand, I'm ready for him to be here NOW! I am craving interesting things this go-around: the biggest one is Greek salad...how odd. The citrus cravings are back again too. I'm excited it's almost grapefruit season - ha! :)

Anyway - that's about it for the past few days! I'm sure I'll have more fun news after Halloween tomorrow. I have taken the day off work and Addie and I have quite the agenda! I'm excited :)

The cake Lynn made for me. Yes, I'm serious.



SORORITY POSE!
(Lynn will love that caption ;))


Our little family!
(I really haven't gotten quite as big as I look in this picture, honest...)


I loooved this picture because of the way Holland is looking at Addie :)


Mommy and Addie at Gentry's Farm - hooray for pumpkins!
(I copied this pose from Lynn & Holland :))



Checking on the goats!



Addie is serious about her sliding...



Carving fun time!


"What are you doing, Daddy?"

Instead of saying "cheese"...

Uncle Kris asked them to say this instead...




(In case you've misplaced your Toddler Translation Manual, they were saying "chocolate bananas!")

Cute kiddos - this was our first cookie "decortating" party with H & A the other night. They had a blast and actually didn't make too much of a mess. The only problem is that I'm pretty sure that I ate a year's worth of sugar. Oops!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

I "borrowed" this recipe from my friend Amber's blog. I made them today and they were AWESOME! Thanks for sharing (and letting me share), Amber!

Ingredients:

1 2/3 c flour
1 c sugar
1 tsp pumpkin spice
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 c canned pumpkin
1/2 stick melted butter
1 c chocolate chips
2 large eggs

To Make:
Preheat oven to 350.

Mix flour, sugar, pie spice, cinnamon, baking soda, and baking powder.

In another bowl mix eggs, pumpkin and butter. Add to dry ingredients.

Stir in chocolate chips.

Spoon into muffin cups.

Bake 20-25 minutes.

Makes about 12 muffins.

*Note - the first time I make recipes, I follow exactly as written. But Amber makes a few changes and she says they're great! She leaves out the pumpkin pie spice and lessens the amount of sugar and butter, and also uses milk chocolate instead of semisweet chocolate chips. Either way, I doubt you could go wrong. YUMMY!

Oh - actually, I did use miniature chocolate chips, just because I like them better. Mmmm...

Fast-forward?

Last night, John Michael and I babysat my boss' sweet baby, Claire. She is three months old and a little doll! I brought her home from Franklin, and when I walked in with her, Addie got a huge grin on her face, came up to Claire and said,

"Is that my baby brother?"

She's such a cute little stinker :) Although I'm sure come March, there'll be times I'll wish babies came as three-month-olds - ha!

Happy October!

October has been fun for us so far! It's my favorite month of the year (for selfish reasons...Happy Birthday to me, coming up ;)) and this year has been no exception. Although we've been sad that John Michael has been out of town what seems like every week (at least for a few days each week for the past month and a half...), we've been having fun! We got to meet up with my college best friend and her new husband for breakfast a few weeks ago, we found out we're having a BOY (AAAH!), and Addie just keeps getting cuter every day. OH - another exciting thing! I tried my first case ever today! It went okay. We won, but I definitely had the assistance of my boss (which, granted, is the whole point of the Supreme Court rule under which I'm certified to try cases, etc. - so that law students get to learn!). I'm hoping the things I did wrong are things that I'll be able to learn to do right and not just "you're born with it or you're not" type things :)

Anyway - Addie's vocabulary keeps amazing me every day. It is so much fun to have conversations with her and I just crack up at some of the things she says! Part of me has a really hard time correcting her if she says something really wrong, because it's just so stinking cute! I have even found myself copying the way she says things because, seriously, I know it won't be long that she'll say these funny things. My favorite things she says:

*Every morning, she'll say, "Who's taking me at school today?" (She hardly ever uses the word "to" but always says she wants to go "at" certain places)

*She opens the viewfinder on the camera and every time will say, "Oh! It's so cute!"

*The first thing she says when she comes downstairs (if JM gets her ready) is "You cook my biscuit yet, Mommy?"

*Whenever she draws any kind of scribbles, she'll proudly announce, "I write my name!"

*She's really into matching, so each morning I have to point out a way my outfit matches whatever I want her to wear (color, stripes, length of pants, etc.). Then once she's dressed, she'll say, "WE MATCH!"

*Note - I began writing this on Tuesday night and had tons more stuff but Blogger messed up and I lost everything. Now I can't remember! AAAAHHH!


In other fun news, the baby boy is moving all the time now which is fun! We're still deciding on names but have narrowed it down a little bit. We may or may not keep the name a secret - I'll let you know ;)

Now time for pictures!

Picking pumpkins (and gourds!) at Nana & Papa's

Painting the loot :)


Quite the artiste - she likes to wear the paint to get in the mode...




Mommy and Addie comparing bellies :)

Lots of news...

so little time! I promise a nice long post soon (actually, probably tomorrow night)! But in the meantime, we had our ultrasound today, and...

IT'S A BOY!