i want to thank you, thank you

how thankful we are for our friends and family.  we had another great thanksgiving this year.  uncle mikey, aunt jen, and cuz' delaney stayed with us all week.  scattered in houses nearby were more visitors -- uncle gary, aunt pat, eileen, craig, joseph, and johnny all came to celebrate thanksgiving in the az.

we had a great week of family fun!  tuesday night we hosted the first annual pre-thanksgiving game night.  we had a great time!  we played shanghai, which is just like the hawaiian rummy that is played at young family functions.  it was a lot of fun!  we had prizes for the female with the most points, the female with the least points, the male with the most points, and the male with the least points.  kathie, pat, emmanuel, and joseph won prizes... we won't say who won and who lost ; )

kathie hosted thanksgiving dinner on thursday.  it was so delicious!  with a little bit of help from the guys, parker fried another turkey.  yum!

phelan was a little bit shy with the people she doesn't see all of the time, but she sort of warmed up by the end of the week!  it was great to meet nathan and catch up with eileen and craig.

friday we tie dyed shirts, which was also a lot of fun.  now we have something to remember the weekend by.

one of the week's goals was to get a picture of all 3 babies.  we had the hardest time getting everyone on the same page at the same time.  finally, mission accomplished!  sort of...

so flippin' cute!  thanks, everyone, for coming to visit!

ohhhhhh, we're halfway there...

well, it happened.  phelan turned six months old yesterday.  holy cow!  time has gone by so quickly, but it also seems like we've been a little family for years and years.  a tribute to our cute little munchkin, the pk babycheeks...

new stuff in phelan's life :

* real food!  she is now eating rice cereal, squash, bananas, pears, sweet potatoes, and carrots!  there was an adjustment period, but now she likes them all!  *note* this video is from early on -- we don't see as many funny faces these days!

* scooting!  she wants to crawl so badly, but for now, rolling and scooting will do!  she soooo wants to chase the dog.  if anything gets her to crawl, it will be dylan!  i'm constantly amazed at how strong she is.  she can get into this plank position that i haven't been able to get into since high school!  she looks like she could do a push up from that position.  when she is on her back, she holds her feet up at a 30 degree angle.  man!  she also has this side yoga pose.  parker thinks she's trying to go from her stomach to sitting up (and i think he's right), but it is so funny!  she's a strong little one.  underneath that bottle belly is a killer six pack!

* the walker!  she has a new bouncer/walker that she loves.  she can cruise all over the place in this thing!  it took a couple of weeks, but now she practically runs in it!

* babbling!  she has all kinds of stuff to tell us.  she gets in these moods and just talks and talks and talks and talks!  so sweet.

* sitting up in the bath!  she loves bath time.  now that she can sit up in the tub, it's even more fun!  her favorite things to do are chew on the toy monkey, and splash.  i think it's her favorite time of day!

* look up and back at us from her car seat.  love.

* giggles.  she is getting smilier and gigglier ; )  so much fun, and so adorable!

dearest phelan, you make us so happy.  it's hard to imagine what we did before you.  thank you for making us smile, laugh, and love you more every single day!

pump(kin)ed up kicks

if you can't tell, fall is my favorite time of year.  the weather is beautiful, so this morning phelan and i took a little ride to the local pumpkin patch.  i had to wake her up when we got there, so she was sleepy for a little while, but she warmed right up to those pumpkins!

we do the monster mash

oooohhhhhh, spooky!  nothing says halloween like a delicious, death-by-chocolate graveyard cake!  it's one of my favorite parts of halloween!  i was so excited to have phelan's help this year.

we actually used brownie mix for the "ground."  on top of that was whipped cream mixed with chocolate pudding (the powder).  on top of that was a layer of crushed up oreos.  we used ghost peeps (gross), milano cookies, gummy worms, and candy corn pumpkins for decoration.  we have SO many sweets left over from making this cake!  i'm going to be huge by thanksgiving!

here are some photos of the experience...

ummmmmm, yum!

are you ready for some football?

happy monday!  even though our weekend was too short, as always, it was a good one.  phelan had some friends over to watch football yesterday.  koko, lisa, emmanuel, grace-anne, bertha, esther, and isaiah were here to watch tebow's start against miami!

grace-anne is getting so big!  it was so much fun to see her new facial expressions.  soooooo sweet and so pretty!

and... she can support herself in the bumbo!!!  atta girl!

isaiah is also growing up.  too bad he doesn't like having his picture taken...

grace-anne and phelan continue to bond...

thanks, you guys for coming over!

oh, and the broncos won!  woohoo!

knee deep in the water somewhere...

what an adventure we had last weekend!  phelan is becoming quite the little traveler.  kathie was nice enough to invite us on her trip to lake havasu.  she went friday through wednesday, while parker, phelan and i joined her just for the weekend.

we had a suite, which was more like a 1 bedroom, that worked out great!  one great thing about the trip (i thought) was the distance from home.  it was a 4 hour drive.  it was really nice to have our own car, carseat, etc.  we didn't bring the pack and play, but the resort had one that we borrowed.  we should have thought of that the first night... we tried to make phelan a bed on the floor, but she scoots around now and kept bonking her head on the wall or scooting until she was halfway under the bed.  not much sleep that night.

saturday morning phelan was up and at 'em, ready to explore, so we went for a walk.  the lake was beautiful with the sun coming up.

fact #1 that i did not know about lake havasu -- they have the real london bridge!  to learn more, go here: http://www.golakehavasu.com/activities/more_to_do/london_bridge.aspx

it was pretty cool!

we went on a sunset boat tour saturday night -- definitely the highlight of the trip.  i should have taken a picture of the boat (named "serenity now").  captain kenny designed it himself.  there were 6 seats, with theater seating, so that everyone had a good view.  the seats were comfy and they rotated.  kathie and i sat in the last row, while parker and phelan got to be co-captains!  they sat by kenny and his first mate, janene. 

phelan loved it and watched kenny talk to the whole time!  parker liked his seat because he got to ask kenny and janene all kinds of questions about the lake, the river, the boat, etc.

we started out of the english village, toward the lake, through the "party alley."  this was not a busy time of year, but we heard from the locals that this area gets pretty crazy!  thousands and thousands of people!  our ride was very chill though!

once we got out onto the lake, the views were endless.  it was absolutely beautiful.

(cupcake mountain, for kaci and jen!)  this made phelan hungry, so she had a snack...

we saw some beautiful scenery...

some wildlife...

and a gorgeous sunset...

it was a great experience.  a few more of my favorite pictures :

we highly recommend captain kenny's tour if you visit lake havasu.  http://sunsethavasuboattours.com/index.htm

our sunset tour got parker itching for some more boat time, so we decided to rent a boat for a few hours on sunday.  there was a minor glitch involving some sea grass and the water valve on the boat... it was nice to be out on the water though!  after that we went back to the hotel to swim.  the water at home has been too cold, so phelan had been missing her swimming lessons!  she picked up right where she left off and LOVED it!

thank you, koko...

and thank you havasu, we'll be back!