24 weeks...I think

I think it's been four weeks since my last picture, which would put me at 24 weeks. Here you go, Mom! Does it look bigger?

Tadd and his funny ways

This is one of my favorite things Tadd started doing. Whenever he's on the windowsill and he wants to see or he hears us talking to him, he holds the curtain back with his paw.
Trying to keep warm in our freezing house...

Christmas Parade of Lights

Parade of Lights - Montrose, CO

Our town has a parade each year at Christmas time called the Parade of Lights. It seemed especially long this year. Here's some of the highlights...

We are especially proud of Olathe's football team. State champions! They had a special place in the parade.

Half way through!

This is 20 weeks along...half way! I think my belly button is gonna pop out soon. hehe I've been feeling the baby a lot more now, and even Mike can feel it if he's patient enough to leave his hand on my belly long enough. We both think it's pretty weird... My weight is all up front though. Anybody have a prediction on what we're having? I've heard everything in the book so far, I think.

Our ultrasound

We had our ultrasound today. I can't believe how much fun it was! I wish I could go every week and just look at our baby. This is the profile shot. This was a lucky shot to get because the entire time (except for the one minute when this shot was taken) the baby had its hands and feet up over its face. It was adorable!

This is the baby yawning about 45 minutes into the ultrasound. We even saw it sucking its thumb. Uh-oh!

This is it's foot. Five little toes and all.

Happy Halloween!

We wanted to wish everyone a fun and safe Halloween! I always have to carve a pumpkin, and this is my creation this year. :)

The second grade teachers all decided to be M & Ms this year. We had a variety of types - I was a peanut (because I have a little peanut in my belly), Erin was a mini, and the rest were regular M & Ms. Unfortunately, Doris and Kelly are without their costumes because they gave them away to children who didn't have costumes.

I only had 13 kids with costumes this year, which I thought was an extremely low number out of 20. I guess that's what you get when you teach in a low income community though. They were cute anyway. And second graders sit much stiller than first graders.

Dallas Divide with Mom

We took Mom up to Dallas Divide on the second day of her visit to see if we could get pictures of the fall colors against the snow on the mountains. Unfortunately, we had a big wind storm the day before and most of the leaves had blown off of the trees. We still got some pretty pictures. The dark frame at the top and bottom of this picture is actually the fence rails.
The three of us in front of Mt. Sneffels.

A little farther down the divide we got into some trees that still had their leaves. I think this is our Christmas card picture this year.

A good picture of Mom and I.

Mike, posing on the fence, looking like a "pimp," according to him.

The nursery

This is our nursery so far. We decided not to paint the walls for two reasons. It's a rental house, and we're hoping to move out of it by next summer, and thus, we would just have to paint the baby's room again. I think it's still really cute though.

8th grade football season

Mike had the opportunity to assistant coach the Olathe 8th grade football team again. He is in charge of the defense. There he is in the huddle, coaching the defense during a timeout.
I just wanted to show the size difference in some of these boys. Standing on the sideline is the largest and smallest member of the team.

Talking with one of the boys who just ran in a touchdown...

Looking all coach-like on the sideline...I think he's concentrating on that defensive line really hard.

Happy Birthday Claire!

Our friend Claire turned 27 last week. We enjoyed having pizza and ice cream cake with her, her husband Travis, and some other friends.

This is Claire, opening her gifts. I think every article of clothing she got was purple. It's her favorite color.

Mike enjoyed playing the Wii Mario Kart with Claire's nieces. Hanna is 3 and was the greatest thing to watch drive on the Wii. She literally just drove around in circles because she was severely over correcting all the time.

Emma, who is almost six, was much better (and much more competitive). She wanted to play "Mr. Mike" many times over.

14 weeks and growing...

A little bigger at 14 weeks... At my most recent appointment I had gained a whopping 2 lbs in the last 4 weeks. I thought that was pretty good, considering I had only started having a decrease in my morning sickness 2 weeks ago. Doctor says that everything looks and sounds good. I get to have my ultrasound in another 5 weeks. Should we find out the sex or not? hmmm... Let us know what you think in the poll on the right!

Elk Hunting Colorado

Elk Hunting

Last weekend it was a nose to nose encounter with a Mountain Lion (15 yards) this weekend it was two bears. This one was about 45 yards away. I had to bull rush it to get it to leave. You'll have to click the picture to enlarge it if you want to see the Bear. He is just left of center. It is dark in teh timber and he was dark, so it is a bit hard to see.

This bear I saw from my vantage point. It was bout 130 yards away. Again if you click this picture to enlage ti the bear is just left of center. You can see his head.

What not to do in Bear country. That tent had about 3 doors that it didn't come with. Bears can be like a big Raccoon.

Me looking west one evening.

A nice "park." It just looks elky. No elk for us today though. This pic and the ones following are from my trip with my new friends. I met these guys on Saturday and went out Riding on Sunday with them. Great people!

The view as we came out of the dark timber. It was gorgeous. I saw the prettiest scenery I have ever seen in this trip, and a lot of good elk country.

Looking out over elk country.

Here is Curly in front of me riding Elvis his mule.

Gary and Tammy

Another view. Lots of nice aspen groves down there.

This was my favorite view. If only you could have seen all of it panoramically. There was a beautiful basin down in front of us.

More riding. I wish I could have gotten pics of the really rough riding, but I was busy riding trying to stay on my mule and on the trail. There was some wicked steep stuff.

Me riding "Romie." She was a great mule. Gary and Tammy behind me.

A beautiful fluke

This group of sunflowers in our backyard flower garden was a total fluke. We actually used to have our bird feeder sitting here. After some time we found that the sunflower seeds were beginning to sprout around and even in the bird feeder! Shortly after moving the bird feeder to a less fertile spot, these sunflowers began to grow!

10 weeks along

I've been ordered by my mother to take pictures of myself during my pregnancy so everyone can watch me get bigger. Okay, so it's not much yet...but this is me pregnant at 10 weeks. And I should also mention that this is at night, after I've had lots to eat all day, so in the morning it's not even this big.

Our New Tent

We haven't used it yet, but Mike wanted to practice setting up our new camping tent. Now that school has started, we'll have to wait for next summer...
Here's what it looks like without the fly cover.

Black Bear and Ophir Pass

The boys did these two passes by themselves one day. This pass is pronounce "O-Fear," which I thought sounded appropriate.
If you can see the zig-zag trail on the face of the mountain on the left, that's Black Bear Pass. It's a one way up and one way down trail.

At the top.