"It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas"

(Although not outside-we have no snow!)
We got our Christmas tree decorated-and then redecorated it-moving everything to the top half. Jessica kept bringing us bulbs with the tops off saying "bwoken."


We had fun making gingerbread people, and......


a gingerbread house!

Autumn!!

October was beautiful!! The streets in our neighborhood were lined with trees flaming with colorful leaves. Most of the leaves have fallen now, but there are tons on the ground for Jessica to play in!


We went to get our pumpkin to carve for Halloween at a pumpkin patch in a small town south of Urbana. Jessi rode around in the wagon with the pumpkin and later we buried her in spaghetti, butternut, and acorn squash (which they were selling for 25 or 50 cents!)




We decorated Halloween cookies with some friends in our apartments. I couldn't convince Jessica to do much frosting, but she loved eating the cookies and candy!



We had wonderful plans to be Little Red Riding Hood, her Grandma and the Big Bad Wolf for Halloween....I ended up sewing Jessica's cape the night before and never got anything made for us. I still tried to be the Grandma, but Nate dressed up in his bunny suit that he used in a chip-making class.
Jessica didn't quite catch on to the idea of putting candy in her basket. Once she got a hold of it she wanted to keep it and eat it!

Pumpkin Carving

Wedding Trip

We had a very fun trip to Utah for Crystal and Mike's wedding!!

Jessi and I were glad to go early and help get ready for the celebrations...



We also had plenty of time to play games...



The wedding was beautiful, and we are so happy to have Mike join our family.



(Which is getting very large!)



We also got to spend time with Nate's family!! The day following the wedding we took a fun trip to Hogle Zoo together.



We were so glad the whole family was able to come.

It's a....

GIRL!!!

We found out on Wednesday that we will be having another little girl. (We are due January 31st.) We are so excited that Jessica will have a little sister to play with-and we're excited we can probably reuse all Jessica's clothes.


She kept putting her hand near her mouth, making it look like she was sucking on her fingers!

So Smart!

Jessica can sometimes finish phrases in familiar books, rhymes, or songs. I realized the song "Heavenly Father Loves Me" has a lot of words she knows and we tried it out on her this morning. She was so cute we had to have her do it again so we could record her. (The word "tree" got her distracted finding trees out the window!)

Camping!!

We finally went camping this summer!! We went with our friends Joe, Ashley and Spencer Bair. (They are expecting a baby 9 days after us-last time our due dates were 12 days apart!)
It was raining as we drove there and set up our tents, but it cleared up quickly and we were able to start a fire and had a great time. Nate was able to use his dutch ovens again, and we had a lot of really good food. The Bairs introduced us to smores using a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. For any chocolate-peanut butter lovers, it was amazing!



We also had girls camp this week. I only ended up staying over one night. Our ward camp director, Marilee Johnson, did all the work, stayed the entire time, and did a great job!

Master Nathan Jack!

Nate finished his thesis and turned it into the graduate college this week. He now officially has a Master's degree-yay!! I must admit, I'm quite proud of him.



We're pretty excited. Now he gets to....keep on going for 3 more years!



Nate and Jessica took a trip to Walmart last Saturday and came home with Jessica's first doll. She knew how to take care of her right off. She loves to give her hugs and says "dolly, dolly!"

St. Louis Adventures

Nate's uncle Derek came to St. Louis on business this month so we took a trip down to visit him. It was so much fun to visit with him and to see some of the St. Louis sites! We wanted to stop and see "the arch", but because of a Cardinals game the traffic was so bad that we couldn't. We had to learn to drive like the other cars just to get through down town! A green light means get into the intersection-although you probably won't get through it. The pedestrians did the same. We did get a nice little shot of some of down town though, with a little of the arch in the background.

There is a large section of town called "The Hill" which is basically Italian Town. There were lots of fun Italian restaurants to choose from-and ours ended up being delicious!!

Not only did this nice Italian man let us take a picture in front of his house, but invited us to walk around and look at all the Italian figurines, etc. in his yard.

We also went to get a famous St. Louis Concrete at Ted Drewe's. This frozen custard is so solid that they pass you the cup upside down! Nate found out the hard way that it doesn't take long for the sides to melt and you can no longer hold the concrete upside down.


I think Jessi ate most of our second round-it was hard for us to catch bites in between!!

St. Louis Zoo

After going to the temple on Saturday we went to the St. Louis zoo for the first time. There were so many trees, and it was so humid that it felt like a jungle-but it was fun! Jessica really liked seeing the animals, although she may have liked the everyday birds that landed on the ground just as much!





We only got to see half of the animals, so we'll have to go back-especially since it is free admission.

Brushing Teeth

Nate is getting to be quite a pro at getting Jessica to let him brush her teeth. For it to be a tearless procedure she must have a tooth brush in each of her hands-then she brushes Daddy's teeth while he brushes hers.
(I'm glad to see that she got the correct toothbrush in Dad's mouth. I hope she does every night!)

Utah Trip

We had such a fun trip to Utah!!! Congratulations Rick and Camille-we are so excited for you.
I left taking pictures at most of the wedding festivities to everyone else, but I did get a shot of the post-wedding luncheon party...


I hope someone will take pity on me and send me some more pictures of everyone dressed up and such. I'm so forgetful (or lazy) when it comes to taking the important pictures.

We also got to visit the Jack Family over the Memorial Day weekend. The fun project for the boys was building a fence.



Jessica just loved both her Grandpas! She is usually pretty shy, but she warmed up to them really fast, and would reach for them, or sometimes cry when I took her away. She even learned to say "pa".
Here she is helping Grandpa Jack play the piano.



Everyone in Nate's family made it down to Monticello! It was fun to all be together.



Jessica and Cousin Carter.



We loved relaxing and playing games at the Alder house!! I just happened to take a picture of our 1 round of Settlers-usually we were playing Pinochle. Nate had to get his fair share to last until the next time we visit!

Congratulations Nate!!

Nate finished up another semester of graduate school. 2 years down- 3 to go!! He passed his qualifying exam, so he is now officially accepted into the PhD program-quite an accomplishment!
He had a chip making class this semester and he got to actually work in the lab with some pretty amazing equipment and procedures to make his own chip wafer.
Here he is in his "bunny suit" that he had to wear in the lab and his chip wafer.

Springtime in Illinois!!

Well, for all those who can't be here to walk in our neighborhoods this spring we wanted to share some of the beauty! It is unbelievable how beautiful our part of town is this time of year. We can't get enough of the towering trees full of leaves, fancy old houses, and the big lovely blossoms!!
I couldn't get the camera to capture everything I wanted, streets lined with old houses and tall trees probably hundreds of years old, it all seems to take you back to the past.