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!"