Erin's here!

Erin Louise was born on Wednesday (11/9/11) at 9:42pm. She weighed 7lb 6oz and 19.25 in long. As you can see from the pictures, she has the same complexion that Alex had when he was born----dark! The boys are quite taken with their new sister. But we'll see how long that lasts. :) Otherwise, not much to say. I'm sure I'll have more pictures to post in the next week or so.

Mom and Dad's House

When we drove up to get the boys we also stopped at Mom and Dad's. I couldn't wait to see the new house! Mom and Dad are moving in this weekend, so there's just a few finishing touches that need to be done. It was so nice to see it all cleaned up (most of it) and finished. They had just poured the concrete in front of the garage and made the steps out front this past weekend. In fact, it wasn't completely dry when we visited. But here's a few pics of the pretty well finished house!

back door in garage and deck

garage with all the appliances in it

back door into the kitchen from garage

same general area, just different view

pantry on the left, washer and dry will be on right

kitchen cabinets, counter and tile ---so nice!

basement

The boys will be disappointed when the basement is filled with stuff!

storage under the stairs

Halloween

We carved 3 pumpkins this year, all of which are called "Jack" by the boys. :) The first one we did earlier and it went bad pretty quick. These two turned out better since it's a cooler now. Alex dressed up as a firefighter and Adam was a construction worker. We went to a friend's house and trick-or-treated in their neighborhood. The boys had a lot of fun and really enjoyed playing with Gunnar (the crow) and Anna (Ripunzel).

We shipped the boys to the Rummel's this weekend (they came back in time for trick-or-treating). They were suppose to ride and watch the combine, but they've had way too much rain to be in the fields. So Pop just took them on a tractor ride in the lane (which is all Adam wanted to do anyway!) and let Alex drive the skid loader--thus the donuts in the driveway! But not being outside didn't phase the boys one bit. They were bouncing off the walls all week ready to go to Mimi's house and the excitement didn't wear off once they got there. So they had a great weekend.

I'd like to say Andy and I got to relax and rest a bit while they were gone, but we didn't. As soon as the boys left on Friday morning, I headed to town for some shopping. I did a little Christmas and birthday shopping, but mostly went to look at minivans. We recently figured out that Mom and Dad's Yukon (which they were going to give us) didnt' fit in our garage. So I went shopping all Friday afternoon and evening. And then when Andy got off work, he met me and test drove a couple that I had picked out. Saturday morning we got up and headed to the car lot again with a better idea of what we wanted, but not sure which van to choose so did more test driving. At lunch we decided on a van and after a couple hours we said goodbye to the Explorer and drove home with our new purchase! Technically it's used, however it only has 3700 miles on it, so it wasn't used very much! It's a green 2011 Toyota Sienna and we love it. Everytime we ride in it, Alex tells us he really likes this van and that we should keep it. :) We drove it up on Sunday afternoon to pick up the boys. On the ride home they got to test out the DVD player in it. It was the quietest car ride EVER! Although now they think everytime we get in the van they get to watch something! So I had to explain they only get to watch dvds on long trips. But anyway, we plan to have this one for a long time, so it's good that we all like it. :)

Road and Leaves

A few weeks ago they closed our road to tear it up and move it so it can intersect with the new highway. Our house was on the last section of road not tore up, so we saw alot of construction vehicles park or work close by. They happened to unload the asphalt paver right in front of us one day. And since the road was closed, I'd take the boys down by the mailbox and we'd watch them dig up the old road, dump rocks or dirt into and out of dump trucks, and eventually pave the asphalt.

The stick in the bottom right of the picture is about where our property line is...so that would be our front corner of the woods.

They just opened the road this weekend. Here's a couple picks of our country road intersecting the highway. The highway is paved in concrete.

The boys like helping rake leaves. And of course playing in them!