Christmas is in the air!

Pumpkin

The other day our neighbor asked if we would be interested in a whole pumpkin. Their family had grown some and were giving them away. We said sure, we would love one. This is the pumpkin they brought us:

They don't have the orange skinned pumpkins here, but rather these white/green skinned ones. However, the insides are still orange and they seem to taste pretty much the same to me.

After skinning it, cooking it, and mashing it here is one of the MANY "tasties" we'll be enjoying from this pumpkin!

Yep, that's right, a pumpkin pie. For those of you that know Dan and I, you know we don't care for pumpkin pie. Originally I looked up this recipe to make one for my neighbor as a thank you for the pumpkin. After reading some of the reviews, several people mentioned that they don't normally like pumpkin pie, but really liked this one. So, we made a little "tester" for ourselves, and it was really good! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving!

If you missed the kids' Thanksgiving Day post in their blog, check it out with the link on the side of this page. Happy Thanksgiving to you all. Tell us what you're thankful for. Here's a family craft:

And on a side note, I took this for something else, but it's a macro shot of some the grass in the bottom right side of the picture above. I thought it was kind of neat looking.

CheeseQs and Caterpillars???

This is the CheeseQ, a wonderful little cheeseburger/BBQ crossover that was introduced to me in Wynne, AR, at a little restaurant called Wait's, which is, sadly, no longer in service. My wonderful parents brought me some Corky's smoked pulled pork, which we had for dinner last night, so today, we had hamburgers, and I made a CheeseQ. What is it exactly? You start with the bottom of your hamburger bun. Put down the all beef patty; cover it with cheese (American if you can get it; ours is similar to that.) Next comes the fun part. Top it with a generous helping of smoked pulled pork shoulder, coleslaw, barbecue sauce, and mustard. Then put the top bun back on. Very very good.

And on another note. Tami had lettuce on her cheeseburger. Then she had a cheeseburger wrapped in lettuce instead of on a bun. Then we looked over on the kitchen counter and saw this little guy on the lettuce.

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She almost threw up.

Autumn Crafts...

Here's our latest fall project. Can you tell which one of our kids is getting old enough to glue his own pieces?

Disney on Ice

Last night we got to take the older kids to see Disney on Ice! It was great! As Zeke said on the way home, "We had a lot of fun on our family date today!" Both the kids loved it, clapping along at some of the parts. Zeke started ice skating lessons last Monday. I asked him if he was going to learn to do spins like the characters were doing. He said maybe when he's an adult. We both agreed that maybe he should just learn how to stand on the ice for now!

During intermission . . .

Kaiyah's favorite part was Donald Duck. The "bad guys" took Donald and Minnie Mouse. Kaiyah kept asking, "Where Donald go?"

Geocaching again!!!

Well, it seems that the last few posts have dealt with geocaching, but geocaching takes us to some really neat places. Today's journey was to an old castle, not well-known to tourists, on the outskirts of Istanbul, where the Black Sea meets the Bosphorus straight. It was a really nice day for it, though slightly chilly. It took us about an hour to get out there and about an hour and a half to get back, as we hit rush hour on the way home. Definitely worth the drive, though. It was a great site. Here are some pictures. More are here.

Shooting a Videoer...

The other day, I was meeting friend and we found ourselves on a really crowded street at a conference with the local national basketball team. I was taking pictures, and got a few, but I really like this one. He saw me taking his picture, so he decided to take my video. (-:

And while we're on the topic of taking pictures, I took these out our living room window over the last couple of days. We've had some cool clouds hanging around.

Geocaching Adventures...

We had quite an adventure on this one, from locking ourselves out of the house on the way out, to driving the wrong way up a steep hill where we couldn't turn around, to breaking a side mirror off backing down the steep hill, but it was a fun trip and a great cache! We took the whole family and a friend with us on this one. We took a couple of toys for Zeke and Kaiyah and put in a doggy and a coin. We also exchanged some trackable stuff. Fun times. TFTC! Enjoy the pictures:

Zeke and Kaiyah at the Cache Site

The Whole Family

Catie with the Cache

In and Out

The View from a Cafe near the SiteWhere We ParkedWhat We had to Back Down
Why We Didn't Want to Back Down the HillDuct Tape to the Rescue!All Fixed Up

TFTC...

...means Thanks For The Cache...

Zeke and Dan have a new hobby. It's geocaching. If you don't know about it and you have a GPS that does coordinates, go to www.geocaching.com and check it out. People hide little things around the world and you go and find them using global coordinates. There are even quite a few where we live. The boys (and Kaiyah, though she wasn't as excited about it as Zeke) went today and found two of them. Both were just a little camera film case with a list inside to sign. It was fun and to Zeke, it's as if he's treasure hunting. Here are a couple of pictures from today's outing...

Zeke holding the list.

A few other things that were inside the container, along with my dirty hand.

Date Night

While Renee was here, she offered to keep the kids and let Dan and I go out for the evening. We had a great time! We went and walked (briefly, it was really hot) along the boardwalk by the sea. Yes, we're pretty cool with our shadow art.We walked through a little park beside the sea in an area we had never been to before. They had all these leaning trees. We're not sure why they were leaning, but it made for a good photo op.Then we headed to a mall we hadn't been to before and ate dinner.
We got a 3 minute massage in one of the massage chairs sitting around the mall.
Then we ended the evening watching "Knight and Day". We both enjoyed it. During the night Dan mentioned that when they were young, his parents would go on a date ever month on the day of their anniversary. We realized that it was the 15th of the month which is our anniversary. It's sometimes hard to get away on a date when you have 3 little kids and live a million miles away from free babysitters in the form of Grandparents. We just may have to adopt this tradition to make sure too much time doesn't pass before we have another one of these nights!

Toilet Paper

We needed toilet paper the other day and Dan came home with this:

I'm so proud :)

Introducing Sierra

We have a bad case of the 3rd child over here. Sierra turned 3 weeks old on Friday and we've yet to post a blog about her! So, allow me to introduce Sierra Nicole! She is a precious baby and we have loved every minute over these past few weeks. When she cries, you know there is a problem. She's an amazing sleeper. Since birth she has frequently slept 5 hours at a time at night. Last night she went 7 hours. There is something to be said for having a big baby! She is very laid back. Loves to be held and cuddled, but is fine just laying in her bed looking around. Zeke and Kaiyah love her. They've both been sick this week and have been very sad that they haven't been allowed to kiss and love on her as much. We're so thankful to God for blessing our family with our sweet baby girl.

Current Happenings . . .

Tami is now the most pregnant she has ever been, and not all that appreciative of the experience. At our last doctor's appointment (on Thursday) the doctor indicated that he is planning to deliver the baby this coming week. No day was mentioned, but Tami's mom gets here Thursday morning, so we're thinking if Sierra doesn't choose to come before then, Friday morning might be a good day to have a baby. On a side note, if she is born on Friday, she'll share a birthday with her cousin Averi!

Dan is enjoying the world cup. He has a friend coming over to watch the USA vs. England game tonight. He has been having a friendly banter about the game with a British guy who's villa we are renting in September for our FIRST REAL family vacation! We've taken several 1-2 night trips before, and of course trips to visit family which we love, but we've never just gotten away for an entire week! We're pretty excited. This place is a 4 bedroom villa with a BBQ grill (which is a real treat for us). There is a big swimming pool, plus 3 different beaches all close by. Also, we'll only be 30 minutes from Ephesus which Tami and the kids have still never been to! Very exciting!

The kids are doing great. Last night they were watching TV together and Tami looked over to see Zeke laying there stroking Kaiyah's hair. Too sweet. Hopefully a little video clip will follow sometime soon. Also the other day Dan took the kids to the park and for ice cream. Kaiyah ended up dropping her ice cream on the ground and started to cry. Zeke said, "Don't cry Kaiyah, you can share mine." We love this sibling relationship and pray that the addition of Sierra will just continue to strengthen this.

Shower

Last week some sweet friends threw a surprise baby shower for Sierra. With it being a surprise, I didn't have my camera, but some of the others at the shower took a couple of pictures. Even though we don't need a lot with still having all of Kaiyah's things to use, it was really nice just to have a little celebration of this sweet baby's up-and-coming birth! Plus, they made a diaper cake. I've never had a diaper cake and I think they are pretty cool!

Thank goodness for technology . . .

At the end of your pregnancy here you do these test to monitor if you're having contractions and how the baby is handling them (or at least that is what we think they monitor!). Anyways, you have to be strapped to a machine for 20 minutes, so we've been allowing the kids to watch their cartoons on our ipods. This is a picture from Tuesday's appointment. Today we only had one ipod with us so they shared. It was cute and Dan took a picture, but, alas, his camera is out with him today! Tuesday I was apparently having regular, light contractions. Today there was nothing. So, I guess we wait a little longer . . .