STOKES HUB

New Family Pics

2011-01-10T12:02:00.001-08:00

I love new family Pictures. My cousin took these and did such a great job!! I love what she did. Enjoy!

Gotta Love the Pics!

2010-11-04T12:01:00.001-07:00

A Whole Lotta New Stuff

2009-07-22T15:38:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been just a long while since we blogged about anything...and there has been a whole lot to blog about too!! So, where to start?

Well, kids is always good...not that they are the center of our lives or anything. Let me share just a few (okay, a lot) of adorable kiddy pics!!

Lets start with Audree. She has offically declared who her very 1st best friend. And the 1st best friend award goes to...FOOD! This girl doesn't say no to any food. Here she is with a roll from Sunday dinner chowing away. You name it, she eats it. At barely 6 months old, she has tried cereal, strawberries, bannana, peas, carrots, sweat potatoes, carrots, squash, zuccini, a gazillion different types of breads, and a gazillion types of more of crackers, cereal puffs, juice, apricots, apple sauce (which she seems to prefer just a bit more than the others), pears, and this just to name a few. The list could be quite a bit longer. I think most Dr.'s say to start these foods at 6 months. There was no way she was waiting until 6 months to start anything!

Audree with her Favorit Cousin Tricia at Salem Ponds. (In this new town of ours, if you don't know about Salem Ponds, you are just not cool! Well, you kind of have to know about the ponds because it's just about the only thing to do here!)

Every Mom needs naked bath pictures. Here are a few of Audree. We had to stop her from eating the bubbles a few times...but I can't say I blame her!! They were strawberry scented and as I said before, this girl will eat anything!

More cute pictures of her putting things in her mouth!!

This is her pacifier clip. Tasty!

tAsTy TOeS ToO!!

Next, is my favorite little boy Dalan! I am putting this in red because it is his favorite color and he will let you know. We have recently mastered the art of using the potty and it has been an adventure to say the least! We have throughly been shocked at some of the things coming out of his mouth! But, whatever may come out of this 3 year olds mouth about using the potty, none the less we are SO EXTATIC to be done with diapers!! YEAH!!!

Here we are at some friends in Provo who put on a huge neighborhood block party for the 4th. They had a pinatta and Dalan is showing off his stash!

As mentioned previous, Salem Ponds is just about the only recreational thing to do in Salem City's bounderies. It is acutally a fun place. There is a beach area where you can swim in the pond and Dalan thinks its a blast! I just wish this picture wasn't blurry! Where's Jillian (my cousin, the new, hip, fashionable and upcoming big professional photographer!) when you need her!

More pond pictures. I love the real smile I caught on camera! All his posed picture smiles are not true Dalan smiles.

Bath time is always fun!

Dalan is the best big brother there is! I'm sure the "I love my sister" faze will end some day, but for now, Dalan loves Audree and she loves him. They play very well together and Dalan shares his toys (that will probably end too). He calls her "my baby" and "sisty". Some other things he is really into is telling you what you want to do! Yeah, Mom's out there, please tell me you can teach them that not everyone wants to do what they tell them they have it! What a darling boy! With all the crazy things that Mom's do, it's all worth it for that cute face!

In honor of my favorite color, we are now in green. (another very touching thing about Dalan. He is very sensitive to what you like...huh...funny...he still tells me what I should like though.) Regardless, Dalan knows green is my favorite color and brings me all his green M&M's, Mike and Ike's and other things as well. Sweet huh!

This picture is going to be good black mail someday. I have made sure to get the moments that show they once liked eachother on film and camera. Dalan asked if Audree could watch his movie with him. Again, a sweet boy! And she does watch with him too.

I'm always behind the camera, so I don't have too many shots of myself with my kids. I'll need to work on that one.

Kalab and the kids during bath time! Dalan is showing us his "winkles" on his fingers.

Kalab at Salem Pond on the 4th. It took me several shots just to get a smile this good. He can be a B-R-A-T sometimes! And the worst part is he thinks it hilarious!

Audree's Blessing & General Update

2009-04-02T17:11:00.000-07:00

We had Audree's blessing this past weekend. It was amazingly beautiful! Plus, we felt so much love and support from family and friends! Sharing some pictures with you...

Cute Kids of Mine!

The Dress - F.Y.I. I bought the basic dress for $8.00, then bought ribbon, pearls, sheer, etc to embelish the dress. It cost me a total of about $25.00! Betch ya you would never be able to tell!

Huh?..."what's the deal with all the pics?"

Full view of the dress

More dress...I love it! (Good thing, 'cause it would be my own fault if I didn't)

Flowers across the bodice

Isn't she a REALY CUTE girl? Okay, maybe i'm bias, but I am allowed to be!

Smile! This is the latest thing she has learned. It's the funnest when they start to react to you!

"Yes, I am cut and I know it. If I am cute enough, I bet I could get you to pick me up..."

Cheese!

We kind of think she is turning into a daddy's girl. Most often she seems to calm down more and like to cuddle more with daddy more than mommy...not so sure about that.

Mommy and me

Mission Reunion

2009-03-07T11:02:00.000-08:00

There will be a mission Reunion for President and Sister Stoker Friday Night April 3rd from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm located at 308 W 7500 S Midvale UT. The stokers will speak to us for about 15 min each and then we will spend the rest of the time getting caught up with each other. Please bring a desert to share with others. Since we will be in the chapel we will need to use Sunday Dress. The Stokers haven't had a Reunion in several years. So please try to make it if you can. Please help get the word out by email or phone call to those who haven't found our group yet so that we can have a good turn out for this Reunion. If you have questions please let me know.

Kalab

My Kids

2009-02-13T18:14:00.000-08:00

I haven't talked about my kids very much in the last while. Here are some pics I have recently taken of my kids...

Dalan is in the "CHEESE!!!!!!" stage when we take his picture (that is if you can get him to hold still long enough to get his face in the shot!). CHEESING for the camera obviously includes squinting his eyes...what a goof ball!

For those of you that know Dalan, know that he is the energizer bunny! This is not a kid that will fall asleep where ever he is... until a few days ago!! I walked into Dalan's room expecting to find him watching the latest craze at our house (Kung-Foo Panda!) to put him to bed, and this is what I found!! I was amazed!

I think every parent wonders if their first child will react to their new sibling. For us, we got lucky with Dalan! He loves Audree!

Kalab was trying to iron his shirt for work the other morning and couldn't hold Audree, so he laid her in Dalan's bed. Dalan thought it was the coolest thing that "sister in my bed! I lay with her daddy? I lay with sister?" Good thing Kalab thought to take a picture of the moment...we will need this picture for future use to show Dalan and Audree that they liked eachother at one point in time! (Again, we have the "CHEESE")

And last, we have been looking over the features of our two kids and deciding what features are the same. It is shocking to me their hair is so different! We never expected to have a dark hair infant because Kalab's hair was strawberry blond and mine was blond when we were born. But, we LOVE the dark hair! Both kids are about a month old in these pics.

What a CRAZY Sew-a-thon!!

2009-02-01T17:39:00.000-08:00

Okay, I have sewing coming out my ears!! And heres way...I have a neice that just had twin boys this past week. Just so you know, it has been a little scary. The twins were born prematurly at 33 weeks, with one babies lungs underdeveloped. But on a positive note, both twins have been taken off the machines they had on and are doing well on their own. I'm not sure when they get to go home, but all is looking well.

Well, to the sewing part...since that's what this post is about! This neice lives in Idaho and I couldn't make it to her shower, so we never gave them a present. Since my in laws were here, I wanted to send a gift for the babies home with them to save on shipping (can we say expensive!!). I decided I wanted to make both babies car seat covers like the one I made for Audree a while back (I blogged about it and put pictures on an earlier post if you want to look at it). It was a ton of fun to pick out themed covers for boys since I have only done a girl one. So, the themes...they have two dogs they love and Josh played soccer and coaches soccer now.

Now for the "a-thon" part. I forgot how LONG these covers take me to complete. For someone who is an amazing sewer, i'm sure these wouldn't take that long, but I am for sure not! Each cover took me 3, 3 1/2 hours each (lets just say my seam ripper is my best friend when I sew!). Also, as anyone knows who have kids, I couldn't just sit down and sew either...oh no way! Between changes bottoms, feeding tummys, burping babies, feeding husbands (an absolute must if you want a happy marriage!) and all the other mom responsibilities, I was distracted. All though, my mother law loved the fact that I had to sew the whole time to get the covers done before she left, because she got to hold Audree non stop! And I wouldn't have been able to finish them in time if I wouldn't have had her there to hold Audree (she is a cuddly baby and thinks she needs to be help 95% of the day!).

All though the covers took my whole weekend, I enjoyed sewing them (now I have to hope they hold together...I wonder if they will withstand the washing machine??). Kalab thinks I could sell them. The supplies alone (not on sale) cost $25 to $30. To make it worth my time and cover the overhead costs, I would want to sell them for $45 to $55 each. Any one think people would buy them for that much?

As for now, I am planning on making more for fun for family and friends who are having babies (I have three coming up in the summer...yeah!)

Audree's Name

2009-01-22T18:20:00.000-08:00

We here at our house are doing well with our new addition to our family. The adjustment of going from one kid to two has been a little bit of a roller coaster as many of you other parents know. With that being said, Dalan has been doing surprising well. These past three days have been the hardest...everyone went back to work and I was alone. Even though I call these "hard" days, overall I think they have actually been pretty good. I can tell Dalan is wanting more attention, but he hasn't been doing purposfully naugthy things or telling Audree to go away, etc.

And on to the reason for this post. I have had several people ask where we got Audree's name and middle name. The name Audree has been picked for several years...within the first year of Kalab and my marriage. One evening we decided to go out to dinner (I remember it was a big deal because we were dirt poor!!). We decided to go to Ruby Tuesday (I could do a whole blog on our bad experiences we have had with eating at Ruby Tuesday!) and had a waitress named Audrey. Kalab asked out of the blue if I liked the name for a girl. I thought about it... and I did...a lot actually. There was no changing Kalab's mind after that point about our future baby girl's name (assuming at that point we would get a girl). When we became pregnant with Dalan, Kalab hoped for a girl at first just so we could use the name. Of course we were happy when we found out we were having a boy, but had no names what so ever! The only good thing that has ever come out of our dining experiencing at Ruby Tuesday's was our daughter's name...at least it was something!

Audree's middles name, Clair, is purely my decision. I'm not sure what triggered me to consider using it as a name for my daughter, but none the less, I LOVE it. Kalab is okay with the name, but has never loved it. Kalab's dad's name is Kelly and we thought about using that as her middle name. Although I like the name Kelly and it has family meaning, I was worried about not getting another girl down the road (assuming we even have more children...right now, the out look is dim! You'll have to ask me again in at least a year!). Plus, I would love to use the name Kelly for a boy middle name as well. I think Kalab eventually gave in when I pointed out that he picked and held FIRMLY to with both Dalan's first and middle name and Audree's first name. I'm guessing he firgured it was time for me to get the name I really, really wanted (I wanted to give Dalan the middle name of Carter...I was over ruled the last week of my pregnancy with Dalan).

Enjoy the pics!! I was inspired by a friend Katrina who just has a baby girl a week or so before us and had taken some ADORABLE pictures of their little girl and posted them on their blog (by the way Lund's, your daughter is beautiful!!!). I don't have a very good camera so my pics didn't turn out anything like my inspiration of Katrina, but at least I tried and I have some pictures.

NYNY North Mission Reunion with Stoker

2009-01-18T21:03:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, I wanted to let you know that I have been in contact with President Stoker and we are looking at doing a Reunion with him sometime between April and the first part of June. I proposed to have the reunion in two parts. The first part would be on Friday night as an adult only devotional with President and Sister Stoker as the speakers followed by a pot luck dessert social. The second part will be Saturday late morning and this will be for our families. I would like to have some fun activities that the kids and adults will enjoy. Things like three legged races, gunny sack races ect. It might be fun to have a big blow up slide or a jump house for the kids as well. I also had the thought of doing a BBQ on Saturday as well. I would like to know what every thinks about have it over two days or if you would prefer one day. I just know that catching up with each other isn't easy when we are chasing kids around. So if you know of other missionaries who have blogs please send them to my blog for details of the up coming reunion. Please help me by getting the word out about the Reunion and check back for the date, time and location. I am just waiting on President Stoker to let me know when he can come in from CA.

Kalab Stokes

Audree Clair Stokes

2009-01-13T11:47:00.000-08:00

Audree Clair Stokes was born at 7:01 pm on January 12, 2009. She wieghed 7 lbs 7 oz and was 22.5 inches long.

The day started off by the hospital calling us at 8:00 AM and asking us to come to the hospital because they were ready to start the enduction. We arrived around 8:15 and spent the next 30 mins getting Emilee started with IV's. One of the reasons Emilee was in Labor almost 12 hours is that Emilee tested positive for Strep B so she had to be on antibiotics for 4 hours before we could have the baby. They started Emilee on the the anitbiotics around 9:00 and then about 9:30 they started her on pitocin. When we arrived to the hospital she was dialated to a 3 and didn't really change until after they broke her water then she went from a 3 to a 4 with in seconds. They broke Emilee's water at 1:30. Emilee got her Epideral around 1:45 and that was the best thing for her. We waited several more hours and Emilee only dialated to a 5 around 5:00 pm. Our doctor was a little worried because she wasn't progressing very fast. So they inserted an internal monitor to see how storng the contractions were. With in the next hour she went to a 6 and by 6:45 Em was a 10 and the baby was right there ready to come. Our doctor came rushing in and with in just a few minuets she was born. Emilee only had to push 4 times before Audree was born.

I went home last night and spent the night at home to be with Dalan and this morning when I got back to the hospital Emilee told me that Audree slept through the night. She only woke up when Emilee needed to feed her. We are doing great today and so is Audree. We are so excited and happy that Audree is finally here at last.

Accidents Happen Unfortunately!!

2009-01-11T18:07:00.000-08:00

Audree is coming tomorrow and we are counting our blessings that Emilee and Audree are okay and eveything is ready to go for tomorrow. Friday, Emilee had a competition with her Drill Team she coaches. I was planning on picking Emilee up from the competition that night, so her Assistant coach picked her up that morning. The night before, a storm came in. The weather was warm enough that it rained. Later that night, the tempuratures dropped and it began to snow. Of course, the rain freezed and made the roads sheets of ice. While driving to the school that morning, Emilee's assistant hit some black ice and fish tailed for several feet and ended up hitting an electiric pole head on. Both of them were okay, but I was very concerned when Emilee called me (of course I was still asleep in bed!). Emilee complained her sternum hurt from the seat belt and was instantly concerned about Audree. Our Dr. sent us to the hospital to have Audree checked out. Luckily, she responded just fine and everything came back great. Emilee has very tender seat belt bruises across her shoulder blade/upper chest area, her sternum, across the side of her belly, and down by her hips were the lap belt crosses. It was a nerve racking morning, but Emilee is fine except for the tender bruises and a little stiffness. We will keep you updated on the delivery tomorrow. We are very excited...Emilee can't wait to sleep on her stomach again. She has been talking about it for a long time!

Our Christmas in a Nut Shell

2008-12-26T10:33:00.001-08:00

Christmas this year has been a blast! D is finally to the age where he is understanding the idea of Christmas, Santa, and presents. We had the opportunity to see Santa twice this year. The first time, D didn't really care about Santa himself, but the display of reindeer and snowmen he had around him. The second time was at an extended family christmas party. He sat and talked with Santa for a very short period of time...then he just wanted the candy that he knew was the wrapped present Santa was holding for him. He took it out of his hand and jumped off!

Christmas Eve here at out house was fun also a lot of fun. My Mom, Dad and brother joined us. Unfortunately, we didn't have anyone from K's family here because we just had everyone down from Idaho for Thanksgiving. We made a delicious dinner and (smart as I am!!) made things for breakfast the next day that could be put in the refridgerator over night. All I had to do was pull out the breakfast caserol and pop it in the oven! Genius! No dishes to clean! After dinner we played games and enjoyed the evening. It was very nice not having to be somewhere or do something. My Mom made D a pair of Christmas pajamas that we let him open that night. At first, since they're clothes, we wasn't into them, until my Mom showed him she had a pair of twin pants. He was eager to put them on after that. Then we set out cookies for Santa and carrots for his reindeer on D's special chair we have just for this. D set the chair by the fire place. Usually when its time to go to bed, D is the type of kid that crys. Not this night! He knew from all the talk that Santa was coming...he gladly welcomed bed!

Christmas Morning, D has forgotten about Christmas, Santa and presents. When we reminded him that Santa has come, he was so excited and hopped and hopped and hopped! He was excited! He saw the plate of cookies and carrots and thought we needed to put more out for Santa and the reindeer. We had to explain that Santa only comes once a year. He didn't get that concept...he ran into out room this morning (that day after Christmas) and told us Santa had come. D was so good when we told him he had to wait a half hour or so for everyone to get ready to open presents. Of course, since he is the only child of ourselves, the only grandchild for 2 out of the 3 sets of grandparents, and the only nephew on one side of the family, he made a killing! D made it about 3/4 the way through his presents before he was done with opening and just wanted to play. As with most 2 year olds i'm sure, the toys were the hit. He wanted to play with each one immediately as they were opened. All clothes were held up and literally tossed to the side. Very boring according to him! For K and I, we kept Christmas small this year and it was great. It was kind of nice. We each put more thought into what we got eachother. Even baby A (who is still showing no signs of wanting to be born yet!) got a few presents...a blanket, and a soft teddy bear.

My latest Project

2008-11-23T16:44:00.000-08:00

K will be so proud of me...this is my first time adding something to our blog! I have just finished a project inspired by my friend Heather and her new baby. As a gift for her own baby girl, Heather received a car set cover that is just absolutely adorable!! Of course I asked if she knew where the gift giver had gotten the cover and she told me the giver had made it. It inspired me to make one for my own baby girl coming. I have been needing a project to do. The idea of the cover is very simple and the pattern easy to create without an actual pattern. It took me a few days, but I just love the result. For those of you interested in making your own or making one to give away here are the basic instructions for it.

Choose two coresponding fabrics (you could pick any theme in the world: simple and pretty with no dominating theme, flowers, animals, baseball, dogs, princess, or gender neutral). Cut each peice into rectangles big enough to cover the car seat from the top of the seat, up to the handle and back down to the bottom. Sew them together creating the basic outline. Pick one of the fabrics to be the "top" fabric that will show when you have the seat covered. For the handles, take two long strips of fabric and sew them together. Place them on the "top" fabric in logical spots according to where the handles should be located. Sew them into place by stitching in a square pattern to make sure the handles won't rip off. Velcro is what closes the straps. Sew them on so the handles close in a cirlce around the car seat handle. Heather's bow's on top of the handles were hot glued on. I tried sewing them and gave up...I ended up hot glueing them on as well. The button is hot glued as well. you could get really creative and do large flowers, large buttons, or anything that would fit your theme. Around the edge of the fabric I sewed ribbon about two inches in from the edge. The created a pocket that I ran elastic with ribbon sewed onto the ends. The allows you to pull on the ribbons and pull the cover tight over the car seat so the wind doesn't blow the fabric open.

I had a ton of fun making it!! As mom's, I think we all enjoy making and doing things for our kids. I am excited to use it coming up soon! If you want to make one of these yourself and need more specific instructions, let me know!

Great News

2008-11-13T08:30:00.000-08:00

As of today I now work for Far West Bank.. We are very excited about this new opportunity to further my career. I will get a base salary plus commission along with benefits, 401k and 2 weeks of paid vacation. We are grateful for this wonderful blessing. I will still be doing mortgages at the bank, my assigned location will be in Utah county. This is great because most of my business comes from down there anyway.

Gas Prices

2008-11-13T08:26:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it GAS prices are below $2. I thought it would never come. I had to text Emilee yesterday when I filled up her car and it only cost me $30. Anyway I hope that it stays like this for a while and maybe even keep dropping!!!!

Hospital Visit

2008-11-03T20:44:00.001-08:00

Today was a very long day and a little stressful at first but in the end things are a bit better. For the last two days E has been complaining about getting light headed and feeling like she is running a fever but isn’t. She has also felt nauseated and tingling in her arms like they are falling a sleep. So this morning she felt these things again while she was giving D a bath. She asked for a blessing and I gave her one. After the blessing we called her doctor and he said to go to the hospital for some tests. We got to the hospital around 11:45 and didn’t leave till after 4. When they took E’s blood pressure it was 129/86 by the time we left it was 106/72 so it had come down a lot. They also drew some blood and ran test. When the test came back he potassium was a little low and so was her sodium so our doctor told her to drink a Gatorade once a day for the next few days to help with the sodium level and hopefully that will fix the problems.

Since we have been home E has been really tired and went to bed shortly after 8 tonight. I am glad that every thing is fine so far with her and the baby and we pray that these problems will be solved and we won’t have to deal with them any more. It is nice having her parents living with us so I could leave D with her Dad this morning as I took her to the doctor. I will keep you posted on how she is feeling in the next few days.

Halloween

2008-11-02T17:40:00.000-08:00

We started the night off a little rough. After dinner D was running around the house because he was excited about going tick or treating. Well as he was running around he slipped and face planted on the tile and gave him self a bloody nose. He cried for a while and I think he was more upset about me holding the tissue to his nose then his nose actually bleeding. So that is how we started the night.

As you can see from the pictures D's costume was Mickey Mouse. D loves to watch Mickey in the morning and drags around his stuffed Mickey all day. As we started the night trick or treating D was a little apprehensive at first but after the second door he had it down and was saying trick or treat at every door. D decided that he needed to hurry the process along and that the people we

re taking to long to answer the door so he would ring the bell and then try to open the door before they would get to it. We

keep having to stop him and tell him to wait for the people so they could open the door. After we were done trick or treating we took him to the famous Halloween house for one last look at this great display. It has been so fun seeing him get so excited over all of the Halloween decorations. We can't wait to see how he reacts to the Chris

tmas decor. Over all Halloween was a great hit this year and lots of fun.

Pumpkin Carving

2008-10-28T16:06:00.000-07:00

D is so excited about pumpkins this Halloween that we had to carve pumpkins last night for family night. Here are some pictures of the pumpkin carving extravaganza!!!!!

Below we are lighting the pumpkins!!! D wanted to blow them out like birth day candles...

As you can see E has started to look very pregnant.

D was very into cutting his eyes and nose out of the pumpkin. One thing he wouldn't do is reach in and pull the guts out.
After he was done carving his pumpkin he started to help mommy by taping the design on her pumpkin.

Baby Number 2

2008-10-23T08:12:00.000-07:00

Well since we started this blog we should probably tell you that E is pregnant with our second child and is due in January. Now for the really exciting part we are having a Girl!!! We are very excited about this. I think I am probably more excited about having a girl than E is. We are going to name her Audree (Clair or Kelly) we are not sure on the middle name; E likes Clair and I like Kelly so we will see as it gets closer to having her what we will choose. E was so sick for the first trimester I felt so bad for her because it wasn't just in the morning she was sick, it was all day. As you know E is very strong and she didn't let it stop her from doing what she wanted to do each day. If that would have been me I think I would have laid in bed all day and really milked it.... E is starting to get in the mode of decorating Audree's room and if you know E at all you know that it won't just be a white room with a few things hung on the wall. It will be its own color and design... I do have to give E credit, sometimes when she tells me what she has planned I think it won't turn out and that she is crazy but so far they all have turned out very well and I have loved them all. So we will have to see what she comes up with for this room...

Halloween

2008-10-22T11:06:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,

Thought I would update you on things here and Halloween. K & I are doing great. K got moved to 1st counselor in the Bishopric a few weeks ago. The old 1st counselor had his job hours change on him and couldn't make it to anything on the week nights and only every other Sunday. So, a new counselor was called and the Bishop decided to move K as well. Loans have still been pretty slow for him with work, as we all know with the market, but we are surviving. Hunting is the big thing for K right now!! He has already been on several trips for himself and with some of his friends. Most recently, we as a family went camping for the spike elk hunt with K's hunting buddy Mike and his family. His wife, Courtney got to spend time together at camp with D and their little girl Hannah. We had a good time together as a group. (Did I mention it was 16 degrees at night!!) He is looking forward to his cow elk hunt coming up in a few weeks.

For me, Drill Team, D and having a big belly are the big things in my life right now. We just finished a crazy homecoming week with 6 performances in 2 days. It was a lot! It keeps me busy and I love every minute of it. I love D, but I couldn't stay home everyday all day long. I have also taken over the Cheerleaders as well this year. They have their own coach, but she isn't a certified teacher so they need a "teacher" for the class. She has had me do some choreography and cleaning their routines and I have really enjoyed working with them. As for pregnancy, I just keep getting larger! The throwing up and feeling yucky phase is pretty much gone (thank goodness!). It seemed to hang on forever this pregnacy. I am starting to swell like a balloon and am just getting to the "uncomfortable" part, where you're feel so large you feel like you're going to pop! I just remind myself I will have my body back soon and a baby too.

D is as two year oldish and boyish as ever. Today, we watched Spencer and Austin for Jeron while he worked and Heather was in Georgia. I swear he thinks he is as old as they are and trys to keep up with them too. They were both so good to him and really let him play with them. He is also old enough this year where things are starting to get really fun!! There is a "Halloween House" close by that has all sorts of motorized Halloween characters on top of the roof. There is a Dracula with "wed" fingernails and goes to sleep and wakes up in his "boat" (which is really a coughin, but he thinks its a boat). He loves it and asks most every night if we can go see the Halloween house. We went to a local pumpkin patch the other day to pick out pumpkins. It was the funnest thing to watch him get so EXCITED about the pumpkins and how many there were. He makes sure to show everyone that comes to the house which pumpkin is his, which is Daddy's and which is Mommy's. It is a ton of fun.

Well, that is all for now!