November and Exciting News!

Wow, another month has gone by! I need to catch up on here more than once every month! And before you wonder what the exciting news is, if you are my FB friend you already know- I'm pregnant! That's it- more on that later. :)

November was a nice mild month for us- yay! I will never complain about our first snow arriving so late in the year. Fine by me! We still had a couple roses and day lillies blooming in mid-Nov!

Of course on Nov 8 we did our civic duty and voted in the presidential election.

I'll just say that the chocolate donuts were the best part about that.

Hope keeps me on my toes. Always.

She even learned how to play hide-and-seek! Kind of.

She's such a book lover! If she's "reading" to herself. If someone tries to read her a book, they usually read "too slow" for her, and she does not have time for that!

Flu shot time! No one consulted J when they decided the flu mist should not be used..... he was quite put out by that news.

However, we are not above a little bribery in this house.

We headed to WI for Thanksgiving/Christmas with my side of the family. Adam got 3 whole days off in a row!! One was Thanksgiving since they're closed, of course, so it was nice he could schedule his other 2 days off for Fri and Sat.

Wednesday night, Grandma was busy preparing for the big day. She had already made the peach pie, so J helped her use the leftover pie crust dough for pie crust cookies! My fave.

Thursday was Thanksgiving AND Christmas! We had to make the most of the time we were all there! So we went to Thanksgiving church at my parents' church, and then headed home to open presents! We even were able to include Matt, Cheryl, Josie, and Evan on FaceTime so we were all "together." :)

It's always fun to see your cousins and make silly faces on FaceTime.

 After presents, it was back to Thanksgiving. Time for dinner!

First sip of...... sparkling cider. He's a fan.

After Hope's (and maybe a few other people, too) nap, we went over to Uncle Lew and Aunt JoAnne's house for some pie and visiting with them and my cousin Jane and Steve. We were also able to have them snap a pic of all of us wearing our shirts in support of Cheryl.  She is currently undergoing her first chemo treatment to treat this recurrence of Lymphoma. She has more chemo and also a stem cell transplant in her future. Prayers for her and Matt, Josie, and Evan are much appreciated!

On Friday, my mom, Abby and I enjoyed a lady's afternoon in Cedarburg (one of our favorite places!). Lunch at Creme & Crepe, a little shopping, and caramel apples from Amy's- perfect!

Sorry. I can't NOT post a pic of the deliciousness. There's chocolate ice cream in there!

Saturday..... no pics. I don't remember what we did.

Oh! Abby, Neil, Adam, and I went to see a movie. No kids!!! :) We saw "Arrival," and it was pretty good!

Then Abby, J, and sometimes Neil made homemade pizza for dinner!

It's so nice to have an aunt you can talk to about your hair issues.

Sunday morning we packed up and headed back to Clinton, since Adam had to work in the afternoon. So thankful for just a 3 hour drive and not having to drive through Chicago anymore!

And of course, our exciting news!

J really is excited. For real.

So tomorrow I will be 12 weeks, and I am so looking forward to being done with the 1st trimester! This one has been rough on me (and the rest of the family, by default). It's been way worse than when I was pregnant with H, which is surprising since at that time I was single mom during the week, full time teaching, trying to sell our house, dealing with nausea, exhaustion etc. At the time, I thought it could not be any worse! But guess what- yes it can be worse. Especially when the first couple weeks are spent vomiting multiple times a day, barely being able to get out of bed, a couple trips to the ER for fluids, a UTI, antibiotics, nausea meds, etc. I'm so happy I've made it this far! I'd say from about 5-10 weeks were the absolute worst. Thankfully about Thanksgiving week I started feeling a bit better, not vomiting every day, being able to eat small meals rather than just nibble crackers/toast. I'm still taking my Zofran for nausea, which I really don't like doing. But I've found that if I stop taking it, it is only a matter of time before the vomiting starts again. And I feel like nourishment is important for this baby! Hopefully in the next few weeks when the first trimester is officially behind me, I can try to stop taking it again.  I'm able to actually cook (sometimes) for the family, too, which is nice. 5 weeks of PB&J or chicken nuggets was probably getting kind of old for the kids, but it was all I could manage at the time! 

At the same time, I'm thankful again to have symptoms that confirm that all is going as it should with this pregnancy. We know all too well that getting pregnant and staying pregnant are never a guarantee. It has been so reassuring to see a beating heart on an ultrasound at 7 weeks and then to hear it again at 11 weeks, beating away at 155 bpm. We are praying that everything continues to go well with this pregnancy, and we could not be more thankful for this "surprise"! :)

 
 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 

 

 


 

 

Halloween!

We had a few different Halloween adventures, so it always makes me happy when the kids can wear their costumes more than once. Getting my money's worth! J also got to wear his for a friend's birthday/costume party in early October, too. And Hope's puppy costume was a hand-me-down from J (I added the pink bow), so we really got our money's worth with that one! :)

The Friday before Halloween- off to Treat Street with the Middendorps!

It did not take Hope very long to catch on to the purpose of trick-or-treating! :)

Also the weekend before Halloween, we (Adam) carved our pumpkins!

J loves the pumpkin guts!

Not this girl. No way.

J's pumpkin!

Both masterpieces 

Our neighborhood trick-or-treating was Sunday evening. Adam was working, so we stopped and saw him, too. Then I took the kids for a stroll through the neighborhood. J was excited and was moving fast! I had brought the stroller for Hope, thinking I could at least push her from house to house. Ha. Not Miss Independent, she needed to walk! So I had J running up ahead of me, and H lagging behind me. And me in the middle pushing a stroller with a light saber in it.

Then on Monday evening, the real Halloween, we had the Clinton Halloween Parade! The Pizza Ranch was in the parade, so we got to ride in the car, wave, and help keep the candy passers stocked. And this was no small parade- these people mean business with their Halloween parade!!

And that's it! Can't believe it's November already, and we have Thanksgiving and Wiers Christmas coming up in less than 3 weeks!!

 

 

 

 

 

October and Hope is 2!

More football. A lady must never leave the house without the necessities.

Even when going to football practice.

Our little book-lover!

One of the weekends in early October, Grandma and Grandpa Wissink and Kobe came out for a weekend visit and early birthday celebration for Hope!

Hope was one happy little girl! :)

We also got to go swimming in Grandpa and Grandma's hotel pool, and they were able to come along to church (and saw J sing with the Sonshine Choir!) and to J's football game. It was a really nice weekend!

We finally got our Holland, MI tulip bulbs in the mail! Yay! Adam did some rearranging in the front, and he and J got the bulbs planted (with plenty of time to spare before the ground freezes! Ha!). I'm so excited now to see how they come up in the spring!

One or two mornings so far it's been cold enough for hats! 

My little fox

We have a very large tree in our yard, which produces a LOT of leaves! This year was our first year ever having to take care of leaves in our yard (house in Ankeny= had no trees, townhouse in Holland=yard maintenance not our problem). The kids were pretty excited! Adam, not so much. :)

Hope's 2nd birthday was October 24! We had a little party with our friends here on the 22nd, and Grandpa and Grandma Wiers came to town for the weekend, too.

In the morning on the 22nd, we drove to the QC to take H (and J, by default) to Build-a-Bear! This is what we did when J turned 2, so we thought it would be fun to do for Hope's 2nd birthday, too. The thing is, apparently every child is different! :) When J was 2, he was SO into it- he helped stuff the animal, bathed it, etc. Hope, on the other hand? Didn't care one bit! She much preferred wandering around the store and getting into stuff!

J and Adam did a great job of bathing and dressing the animals, while Hope roamed the store.

This is your new stuffed monkey. You will like it.

The kids with their new animals! She DOES really like her monkey, just apparently didn't enjoy the process. Oh well!

We had a great time having our friends and my parents over to help celebrate Hope!

She ate her cupcake like such a big girl!

The 23rd was J's last football game, and grandma and grandpa got to come along!

Hmmm, ya think Hope is a little sick of the football games? :) We're not sad the season is over, either. Adam and I were kind of disappointed in the amount of "teaching" that happened.... for some boys who were having their first experience with football. Lots of focus on scoring and winning, and not much playing time for the boys who weren't as into it, or as athletic, as others. Anyhoo, J still had fun, but is excited to move on to swimming lessons this winter and soccer when the weather warms up!

Monday the 24th- Hope's 2nd birthday! Even though we had already partied, we still had to celebrate on her actual day! So we did the presents from us, pizza (Hope's favorite!), and more cupcakes. :)

We love our sweet girl so much!

Never quite sure why all the people sing "Happy Birthday."

This time she dove in!

More presents!

Hope brings us so much joy! Can't believe she is a big 2 year old already!! A trip down memory lane....

We love you Hope!

Next up- Halloween!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 
 

 

 
 

 

 
 

Catching Up!

I don't even know where to start! Going to have to divide the eventful last month and a half into a couple different blog posts, so hang on! :)

The end of September!

J and Daddy went on a little fishing adventure with some friends. J caught his very first fish ever!!

From what I hear, he did a great amount of woo-hooing and celebrating!

Grandma and Grandpa Wiers came to Clinton for a day.... I don't even remember why. I think just for a grandkid fix! :) They brought along an early birthday present for Hope (with the thought that she could enjoy it while the weather was still nice.... little did we know the weather would still be nice in November!)

She loves her car so much!

The kids and I checked out the FlyIowa Air Show at the Clinton Airport (yes we have an airport). Unfortunately the weather was kind of foggy/cloudy and they had to postpone the start of the show so we had to miss part of it (Miss Hope needed a nap!). But it was a great show and there were lots of cool airplanes to see and fun things to do!

J's football season kept plugging along!

And no. No flags pulled, no runs with the ball.... but he did a good job of blocking!

Hope decided to show us her two-ness a little early.

I'm scared. Can't wait to see what 3 is like! Yikes!

School pictures came back! Still have some available if you want 1 or 10!

Love our handsome 1st grader!

That wraps up September!