One Step At a Time

Yankee Candle Village

Jordan's Mom came to visit us after Christmas, it was so much fun!

We went up to Yankee Candle Village one of the days she was here.

They had these really cool/creeepy masks for sale. I was very tempted to bring some home...

I mean, look at these little cuties!

They had a really cool fake Christmas tree village where it was actually snowing!

They had such a neat German Christmas section too, complete with castles and all the fun German traditions! Here are the kids sitting outside the castle moats

And don't forget the candy/kids section!

We filled up our own candles. The kids loved this part!

As we were driving home we saw some buffalo off to the side of the road and it ended up being a new restaurant! So we stopped there for dinner, it was REALLY good food!

Here come the Holidays!

Thanksgiving came and went so fast! We were so lucky to be near family this year and were invited to our cousin's house in Albany. They were so nice!

It was a long ride, and in the first little bit, Makayla threw up on herself and Oscar had an accident!

So their cute little clothes had to be changed when we first got there.

Then they "fell" into the backyard pond and I had to change them AGAIN!

Luckily I had brought their pajamas for the car ride home, but that's what they wore for the rest of the day! Oops!

Our first snow storm was awesome! And we love our landlord/neighbors and their kids too!

They are so sweet to my kids and play in the fenced in backyard with them!

My birthday landed on Thanksgiving this year (which I really hate!) And for my birthday present, Jordan took the kids and I to New York City to go see Santa at Macy's.

Even though it was not "quite" as magical as when Jordan and I went when we were first married, but it was still SO much fun and the line was hilariously LONG!

We also went to the big Toys R Us and saw all the sites :-)

Both kids were pretty excited about the M&M store!

And Makayla loved riding the subway

We had some friends over to paper mache and paint some "Santa" boots.

It was something Jordan and all of his siblings made in school when they were little and his mom still uses them as decoration. I love it!

Christmas Day was fun and we had a blast even though my kids were sick through that week.

We had lots of presents, lots of fun and too many things happened for me to even remember them all!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Halloween and Lego

Happy Halloween!

We had SO much fun in Connecticut this October!

There was a town festival that you got in for free if you brought a jack o lantern.

Just look at all of them together! How cool is that!

We went with our cousins the Fackrells and their good friends the Meads

These two families are seriously the best and I am so grateful that I know them!

There was no one at the bean bag toss so Jordan helped our kids, then ended up getting stuck there for quite a while as the person in charge of the game! It was so funny, he kept looking around for someone to come relieve him of his duty, but no one came!

Here we are at our new apartment. Jordan and the kids started a tradition of making dinners Sunday nights together. It was such a fun and cute tradition!

Toys R Us hosted a "bricktober" event for the kids to come play with their new monster sets. My kids LOVED it! (all three... yes, Jordan was excited too!) Just look at the concentration on Oscar's face, he must get it from his Dad. ;-)

We went to the cousin's church to go trunk or treating.

This was our car, I had so much fun decorating it!

We brought a lot of treats... but it was no where near enough because their ward is FULL of fun kids!

Speaking of Lego concentration, this year Jordan deemed Makayla old enough for the real Lego blocks and not Duplo, which was pretty exciting because Lego has a new line of more girly Lego called Lego Friends! They love putting setting up the sets together!

Jordan was working for Lego in a temporary position, but for Halloween they had all sorts of fun things to do each day. One of them was bring in Halloween themed treats. We made "dirty q-tips" and "used band-aids" it was horrific and awesome! But we didn't win anything :-(

My kids changed their minds every other day for Halloween costumes, but for the actual day of Halloween trick or treating, this was their costumes. I loved it, Bumble Bee Boy and a Ballerina!

Party hard... crash harder!

Connecticut!

So just when we were getting all settled in, in DC Jordan got a call to come work for LEGO!

We were so excited! It was a long time coming and thanks to my cousin Nathan we he was able to score an interview. So we packed up as fast as we could and with what little money we had, we bought him a suit and he went and interviewed. We stayed at hotels for a few days, then my wonderful cousin and his lovely wife offered their basement to us!

They invited us to go to The Big E, a 5 state big fair, with them and it was so much fun!

They even had butter carving there. HA!

And of course Makayla was all over the rides again.

Do I need to worry about this girl turning 16 and getting her license already? :-)

We stayed for almost 2 weeks waiting to hear back from the Lego, until we decided to leave. Jordan had a "for sure" temporary job in Washington working with Lego, but we kept hoping he could work at the corporate headquarters in CT and network a little more.

But with no call it was time to leave.

We loved meeting our cousins though! Here are the youngest two, Lucas and Abby.

We got on the road early that morning and drove till we were halfway between Albany and Buffalo when Jordan got a call from Lego to come back for another interview for a different position!

WHAT?

So we took a big gamble, made a u-turn and drove back to Connecticut and stayed at our cousins house for a few more days while we waited to hear back on the new position.

Jordan helped earn our keep by burning out some stumps in their back yard.

The kids were running and running all over in the back yard and woods having a blast, when Oscar started walking toward Jordan, then just collapsed, dead asleep!

Seriously, he ran himself to SLEEP!

Who even knew that could happen?

We loved staying with our cousins and getting ready for Halloween! Here are the girls making some eyeballs! I think Makayla ate more of the icing then she did decorate with it!

It was Justin's birthday while we were there and they were nice enough to invite us to his birthday party that was at a pumpkin patch! We went on a hay ride, played in the dirt, pet some goats, and had all sorts of fun

including a corn maze! Here every one is gathering around for the "rules" of not getting lost

And in we go!

We have been so blessed getting to know our cousins! They are such amazing people and so generous and open! Not only are they that nice, but their friends are too, and they found us a small apartment to stay in while we waited to find out if we were staying for the job or not.

I am definitely going to like Connecticut!