Thanksgiving & Gingerbread House Fun!

Starting off the morning helping Daddy taste-test Gramma Shelley's mashed potatoes. Needless to say, Gabriella loved them!

Here we are at Gramma Jackie's backdoor. Gabriella and I were showing Daddy our pretty smiles and hair. She kept wanting to go outside to play but it was freezing!

After a quick nap it was time to play with more cousins and family at Gramma Sandy's house before dinner. Here Nicholas, William, Amelia, and April are piled on Ariella who was trying to nap in the chair.

James helped Gramma make the rolls. I think punching down the dough was his favorite part.

After we got home, we took Gabriella's ponytails out and she had some CRAZY hair!

Time for bed.

On Friday we went back to my mom's house for dinner leftovers and some more fun with cousins. Cousin Jessica had a gingerbread house kit and the kids were super excited for it.

Here Uncle Jonny is installing the roof while James and Nicholas are assisting.

Gabriella working very intently on her edible modeling clay.

Auntie April helping Gabriella put candy on the roof. This was one of the few pieces of candy that made it to the house. Gabriella ate just as many as she put on the house.

William was a good decorator as well. And Amelia is working on her gingerbread man.

The kids had tons of fun getting "glue" (frosting) on their candy and then deciding where to put it on the house.

James and Nicholas working on the path to the front door.

The finished house!

Here James and Gabriella are burning off some of the sugar from all the candy they ate while decorating.

We had a great Thanksgiving and its still on Friday night! I love that Matt gets Thanksgiving and the day after off work and paid! It is such a wonderful blessing to have him be home with us so much and get to spend so much time with us. Plus I love when my California family comes up! We only see them a couple times a year but the kids all get along great and it is fun having our kids play together the way that we did when we were their age!

Baby X Photo Shoot

My friend runs a non-medical ultrasound business in Grants Pass and did a photot shoot for me this weekend of Baby X at 33 1/2 weeks. We got some awesome shots!

So sweet!

Snuggled up with his hand on his cheek

Baby yawns!

Gabriella loved watching it and kept smiling and saying, "Baby Nanoo!"

The whole way home she kept asking, "More Baby Nanoo?"

She is very excited to be a big sister :)

Sign Language

We've been meaning to get a video of Gabriella doing sign language for awhile now but kept forgetting! We finally got it tonight. She can say a few more words that we caught on video, but all in all she does great learning signs. She usually will learn one the first or second time you show her and then use it repeatedly.

We started teaching her Sign Language when she was about 9 months old. It took her 3 days to learn "milk" and then 3 days later she learned "cheese" (mostly thanks to Uncle Jonny who wanted her to learn "cheese" first). It was really nice because at that point she stopped crying when she was hungry or thirsty. She could ask for specifically what she wanted. She used "milk" for a drink and "cheese" for food for a long time.

Around 10 months we started with a few other ones, "please", "thank you", and "water"

Now, at 20 months, she uses and remembers without prompting, how to sign: milk, cheese, water, please, thank you, more, all gone, chocolate, ice cream, strawberry, water, orange, apple, juice, watermelon, popcorn, and more.  

Birthday Walk with Uncle Nate

Last night we went for a walk with Matt's family for Nate's birthday. It was freezing so everyone was super bundled up!

Gabriella got to choose between hot chocolate or hot juice (cider). She chose hot juice and drank the entire cup in about 2 minutes, barely coming up for air.

Here we all are, bundled up because it was so cold! I was loving my peppermint decaf mocha! Mmmm!

Matt was having fun dancing with all the kids to the music that was playing. Here he is with Gabriella and cousin Haylie.

Brannon got whipped cream on his straw and painted his lips with it!

We had a great time walking. I love the crisp, cold fall nighttime air!

Nummy Goo-Gu!

Gabriella  needed a snack before bed so I opened up the refridgerator and asked her what she wanted. She squealed and grabbed out a container of yogurt yelling, "goo-gu!"

She used her spoon for about 30 seconds and then switched to fingers.