Zoo Day

The first day of Thanksgiving holiday started with an impromptu trip to the zoo.  We had a nice day, though a touch chilly, to wander and see the animals.  

 The kids posed with the giant elephant that squirts water in the summer time.  Nolan thought it would be the most fun to climb on the trunk.

 Nolan pretty much worships Tanner.

Can you tell?

 I'm guessing the rhino horn was a little less comfortable than the elephant trunk.  Aubrey got the prime spot for this one.

 All of the kids on the lions.  Nolan was giving his best smile, obviously.

 Tiny posing for daddy's camera.

 In front of the giraffes.  She got so excited when she saw them.  We attribute that to her chew toy, Sophie.We were suckers and got her a stuffed one on the way out of the park.

 

Nolan from above.  He was banished to the stroller for a lot of the day...  

we'll leave it at that.

Holland & Food

Baby's first Kit Kat...  a post trick or treating snack.

Daddy gave her a first taste of refried beans he brought back from Del Taco.

 

I'd say she liked them, wouldn't you?

catching up some more

Annnnddd.... a month later I finally return.  Geez.

A few moments from our fall, in photo form.

Nolan started going to preschool at Challenger up in Lehi 3 days a week.  I drop him off when I go to work and pick him up when I'm done.  He absolutely ADORES it.  He is such a social kid and he loves learning, so this was a no brainer for him.  And it's so close to my office that I am right there if he needs me (which he never has).

He wanted his first day of school photo in dad's tie "because that's what dad wears when he goes to BYU"

 

Nolan and Holland are fast friends these days.  Sometimes he loves on her a little too much...  but that's pretty natural for an older brother, right?

 

Holland has entered the brave new world of solid foods.  This was her first meal of oatmeal (mixed with breastmilk, so it wasn't totally foreign)

 

Frankly, she doesn't love it. She would much prefer to steal whatever we are eating.  

And we let her.

But we also fill her up with this concoction because she's been on a bottle strike for several weeks now and I want to make sure she's getting the good stuff somehow when I'm not home.

We went Trick Or Treating with our good friends the Chandlers on Halloween.  This is their family photo.  They were all good sports.

I was not.  I sort of hate the practice of dressing up.  But I did put Holland in black and then attach stuffed black socks to the Bjorn so she looked like a spider.  That's something, right?

 

Nolan dressed as Mario again...  Which was convenient for me.

Nolan's birthday is the day after Halloween...  which is fine with him still, because he likes Halloween.  We just did a party with my family to celebrate, because his cousins are some of his favorite people.  And all he wanted was vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting decorated Mario.  So I copped out a bit and printed pictures and put them on toothpicks.  It worked.
We also had vanilla ice cream.  He's a purist, this one.

Pictures with Nanny Tamera

Tamera was trying out a new backdrop yesterday, 

and was nice enough to use my children as guinea pigs, yet again.  

Thankfully, they were nice enough to smile for her. 

(If only Nolan had gotten a hair cut one day sooner...  his curls do some interesting things when his hair grows out & he looks like a hippy.  But I guess that was reality.)

I love the lists of their current favorites on the chalkboard, for memories.

And that last one...

It's going on the wall.

In a Nutshell

I have photos and video spread over SO many computers and hard drives right now...  So rather than a proper post on any of these things for today, I will give you a quick recap of the last 2 months. I will likely come back to all of this again, but as an overview...

We're tired.

-- We enrolled Nolan in preschool.  He goes to Challenger School just up the hill from my office 3 days a week, from 9am-5pm.  And he is LOVING it.

-- Ben started yet another school year, checking in students, training RAs and RHA kiddies, organizing programs...  and trying not to lose his mind in the process since his normal busy time happened to overlap my busy time this year (normally our convention is in November.  This year it was in September)

-- XANGO Convention came and went...  thank HEAVEN (on the went part).  It was huge for my department, given that we had to rebrand the company and all of our product lines in the 3 months prior to convention.
To call it insane is an understatement of EPIC proportions.  

I wish the fact that convention is over meant that things were slow around here... but alas.  I'm still crazy busy. Project management is a lot of work on top of my archiving duties.

-- Her wee tininess is 6 months old now.  She won't go in for her check up for another 2 weeks, since we were late last time, but I know for sure that she is getting bigger daily.  She's still little, relatively, but she's got some chunk on her, finally.  She's rolling all over the place, eating some solids, and sleeping...  pretty much like her brother did at this age...  which is to say, not very consistently.  

I think I can speak for all of us in saying that it feels like a bit of a miracle that we even survived the past couple of months.  And if someone offered to let me start over and try them again, I would punch that someone in the face.  

But we did survive.  

And we're going to try to make Fall awesome...
because it is, after all, the best season there is.

We're not dead

Seriously. 

I know it's been two months...

but the longer I spend not blogging, the less I remember how.

I will now update my header instead. 

And be back tomorrow.

Friday Randoms

this is Holland's "I don't feel so good" face.

1- We all got sick a couple of weeks ago...  starting with the baby getting croup and then passing along the joy to the rest of us.

This is what I get, I think, for planning on having a Spring baby to avoid getting the plague.  

This is karma laughing in my face.

True, it was only croup and not RSV...  but 3 weeks later we have all FINALLY finished our antibiotics and are not coughing ourselves awake at night.

And that's just wrong when it's 90 degrees outside.

2- Because of the sickness, her Wee Tininess got to go to the dr. with Ben to get drugs.

Her weight...  11 lbs, 10 oz.  

At almost 4 months old.

(Nolan was 17 lbs by now)

She's a skinny mini.  but still growing, so that's OK.

Check her out in the Bumbo.  Not quite sturdy enough to stay in it for long... but we definitely don't need to wedge her in like we did her brother.

3- We have been having a lot of afternoon rain storms this summer.  It brings me back to my VA days.

Upon arriving home from Tamera's one day, Nolan decided he wanted to play in it...  and I was trying to be a cool mom, so I let him. . .

It actually didn't rain for much longer, but the metal roof over our parking spaces was nice enough to create a fountain of water so that Nolan could continue his fun...

I begged Ben to go out and take his picture, as he was SOAKED, and was having so much fun...

 After which, Ben turned the camera on us girls.

 4-  Nolan is a pretty typical 3 year old.  He has obsessions...  Several of them.

He has a marvelous imagination, and is constantly pretending to be a character from one of his favorite shows/games/etc..

 On this day he was wearing his Lego Harry Potter t-shirt while swinging his Yoda light saber...

It's hard to know what's his favorite thing from one day to the next, but I'm guessing that won't change as he gets older.

5- And finally, a first for our family.

Professional soccer!

Every summer my company hosts a party for all of the employees.  There's food and games, and usually it's held at 7 Peaks so that everyone can enjoy the water slide fun.

But a lot of us don't go...  because we don't want to see our co-workers in swim suits, and don't want to be seen in ours.

This year, the company leveraged our RSL sponsorship and got us all tickets to a soccer game instead.

We cheered the team on from great seats surrounded by our friends.

Nolan loved it.  As did my friend Clint's son Vinnie, who was sitting in front of us.  Clint is the resident soccer expert at XANGO, so Nolan chose to sit by him and ask him all about the game.  Clint was nice enough to answer him.

Vinnie looks strikingly like Nolan, doesn't he?  red heads gotta stick together!

As a side note, this was also Nolan's first day without diapers or pull ups, and he weathered it like a CHAMP!  He's going to be fully potty trained before you know it. (finally!)

Another Visit from Lolo

We were thrilled to see Loraine again last week.  She wasn't planning on visiting UT this trip, but she felt that she needed to meet Holland...  And we were so thrilled to see her again.  We crashed the Knudsen house several days in a row to see her.

We had a giant Costco chocolate cake along with our game of pinochle to celebrate Trishmas...

It's been 2 years already.  Hard to believe.

Nolan had a FANTASTIC time playing with Dane & Jack.  They have the most amazing back yard, and the boys made good use of it.

I saw this photo that Lillie posted on facebook right before Loraine arrived, of them together when Lillie was about 2...

And I forced her to restage it.

13 now!

Jen's kids were totally enamored with Holland.

Luckily, Holland can sleep through ANYTHING once she's out for the night, and she let them love on her while she slept.

Ben was able to take the kids to the zoo with them the next day (I had to work, so I didn't get to join them)  

Apparently I mostly missed a lot of heat and people...

And some ice cream cones.

We managed to snag a fantastic double stroller from KSL classifieds for a STEAL!  I am so glad we have it.  & even more glad that we didn't pay full price for one. Who knows how much longer Nolan will dig the ride vs. the walk...

Luckily, Holland thought it was a pretty sweet way to see the zoo.

 

 We're so glad Lolo got to visit and meet Tiny.  

& we're hoping it won't be too long before we see her again.