Abe Lincoln slept here last night...

and here's the proof!

Carving Pumpkins

Wednesday night we had a blast carving pumpkins with cousins. First all the kids drew their designs on a piece of paper, then with the help of the adults we cleaned out the pumpkins and carved out their jack-o-lanterns. Caleb just about lost his dinner when he smelled the inside of the pumpkin. He has such a sensitive nose and the smell was just a little too much for him. He observed from a distance until it was time for the carving.



The next two pictures are the kids with their jack-o-lanterns. In the second picture the kids tried to make the same face as their pumpkins.


Caleb and his pumpkin.

After we were all done we frosted Halloween cupcakes and ate them. Yum! Lindsey said that it was just like a school party. I think that means she had fun!

Commence Phase I

Well, okay, it's phase 1 out of who knows how many. When we bought our house there was not a green thing anywhere. No grass, no trees, no bushes...nothing! We won't be doing the rest of the stuff for a while, but we finally got some things planted right in the front of our house. It's not much, but it looks so much better to have something growing!

We Love the Zoo!

Last Saturday we had a blast as all of us siblings and our kids gathered together for a great day at the zoo. We missed Carolyn and Henry, but they were catching up on much needed sleep! Here are some pictures from the day.

Taking a break in the shade

We thought this snake looked pretty cozy all wrapped up like this!

What? I don't know where the oreo cookies went...


What does a tiger say?

Who's the real monkey?

Aah... He's so cute!

Two buddies. Matt couldn't see the rhinos without a big boost from his Uncle Russ.

The baby elephant was so cute. She even acted like a little baby. She just kind of toddled around and was really curious.

Matt was a little nervous by this big metal elephant. Eli had to hold him there to keep him from running away.

Alex enjoyed his train ride :) Look at his sweet smile! What a cutie.

The whole group. The kids outnumbered us by a lot...it's no wonder we lost a couple of them! Luckily, with so many pairs of eyes, we found them quickly.

What a great day! Families are the best!

Alex's Blessing

This last weekend we had Alex's baby blessing. We were able to have a lot of family in town for the event. Alex also started smiling this last week, and we were able to capture it in a picture.

Here's a picture of the cousins that came to the blessing. Madilyn and Norah came also, but they're not in the picture. Thanks everyone for coming!

Welcoming Alexander

July 27, 2009 we welcomed the newest little addition to our family. Alexander Clark Winfree was born at 13:13:13 (military time) and weighed a whopping 5 lbs. 14 oz. He was 18 1/2 inches long and just plain cute. The doctor had estimated his due date to be August 23, so according to that estimate he was born 4 weeks early. It all began Sunday, July 26 when Chris and I had to give talks in church. It was so terrifying it caused me to go into labor....no, it didn't really, but we did have to speak the day before. I was feeling fine, maybe a little tired, but I was totally not expecting to go into labor the next day. I woke up at 5:00 a.m. with the first of my intense contractions. I had a scheduled dr. appt. that day for 9:00, so I figured I would just wait it out until then and see what he thought. When I showed up to the appointment, I mentioned to the doctor that I'd been having contractions all morning long so he hooked me up to the monitor to check out the frequency and the intensity. At that point I was dialated to a 2 1/2 and I was about 80% effaced. The contractions were coming every five minutes. He told me it could be false labor, but from the look on my face during each contraction he said he figured he'd probably see me later that day. I went home and had Chris drive my neice home (she'd been babysitting my kids) and I mentioned that maybe he should take the boys to my sisters house, just in case. He hadn't been gone a minute when all of a sudden my contractions hit full force. I was SO glad that the boys were gone. Chris couldn't get home soon enough. By the time he got back, I was to the point that I couldn't even walk. He had to carry me out to the van because it felt like I was having one long continuous contraction that wouldn't ever end. At the hospital they checked me in and told me I was 100% effaced and dialated to a 6. Keep in mind this all happened within an hour of the doctor's visit. They gave me an epidural (thank goodness!) and not too much later, we had a beautiful, healthy, baby boy. Enjoy the pictures!

This is post-epidural and pre-baby :) See how relaxed I look? That was not the same face a couple minutes earlier.

Day 1

First bath--You might notice that he's being bathed in a regular sink, instead of how they usually do it. This is because he was born early, they put me in a room close to the NICU, just in case. So they don't have the same amenities as normal maternity rooms.

The happy parents!

Day 2

Day 3-Ready to go home

First bath at home. You can see how much he loved it! He immediately stopped crying as soon as we wrapped him up in a towel. He was just freezing.

1 week old.

We've had a lot of fun having this new little guy around!

July already!

March

Here we are brainwashing our child. Go cougars!

We visited Valley of Fire again this year. It was a quick overnighter, but we had fun hiking and camping. Here's my cute boys:

Caleb and Chris mastering the elephant's trunk at Elephant Rock. They freeclimbed all the way to the top.

Do these two even look like brothers? I think they're handsome!

April

For Easter this year we had extra family in town so it was extra fun! The Easter Bunny visited that morning, and then we had an Easter egg hunt in the backyard after church.

May

Caleb graduated from Kindergarten. His class put on a really cute program. They sang songs and also had a little play from the story The Billy Goats Gruff. Caleb was one of the trolls. He did so well! It was a really a lot of fun watching him act out his part and really get into it.

This is Caleb and his teacher Mrs. M.

I wanted to show you a clip of the Billy Goats Gruff play, but my computer was having trouble downloading anymore video clips. It's a little long, but worth the watch! Caleb's voice is the one you can hear the loudest over the other trolls. Maybe I'll be able to get it on sometime later (if I get to it...knowing me!)

Here's another clip of a song he sang. It's a short clip because my batteries were running out on the camera, so I got short clips here and there. It was such a great performance, there was a choreographed dance and everything. He's got such great rhythm!

In May we also had Matt's 2nd birthday. This is Matt in his new Superman pajamas and holding his new bat and ball.

His construction birthday cake, made by me:

Aah...this is the life!

June

June had two major events. The first was Caleb's birthday. He was excited to get breakfast in bed:

Chris and I made Caleb this Phineas and Ferb cake. He loves Phineas and Ferb. It was pretty funny having both of us create it at the same time. We ended up cutting out the pieces of cake we didn't need and leaving the rest in the pan to design. Caleb liked it!

Blowing out the candles.
The second thing June brought was a move! We just got our first house and we are totally excited. I don't have pictures of it yet, but maybe sometime soon. We had a yard sale after we got settled and Caleb set up a little lemonade stand. He got bored of it rather quickly and his cousin took over until he later realized it was hot and people were willing to pay for it. He made his own sign that he posted on one of our moving boxes he was using as a table. It was pretty cute.

July

Well, so far all we've done is 4th of July celebrations. We headed to Chris's sister's baby blessing for the weekend. While we were there we visited the beach and got to hang out and visit with his family. We had a great time!