Thanksgiving and Christmas goodies

So the girls and I have made some fun yummies we thought we would share with you.

Here is an Angel Mocha Pie (sans mocha) my grandmothers creation and a thanksgiving tradition in my family. Along with spice cupcakes with carmel frosting that look like turkeys. This is from my hello cupcake book.Up close turkey A whole family of turkeys

Here is my Gige she is excited about cake pops. Yes Cake Pops by our beloved Bakerella (see my cool stuff links for her blog).We made these for our ward christmas party on the 4th. And boy did they dissapear fast!

Yummy! oh just incase you were wondering they are chocolate inside. :)

Fast Times in North Juanita

A lot has been going on. On the 21st of November we made the big move to our new house. We got lots of help from members of our old and new wards and family. The girls love the extra space they never knew the didn't have in the 8-by-8 foot closet they had been living in. Ben has had plenty of opportunity to test his handymanness on a wide variety of minor disasters with the house. We are proud to announce we now have towel racks, a garage door that closes, hot water on the main floor, laundry outlets that work, new toilet seats, and kitchen drawers that close.

We got a helpful visit from Bri's mom and we spent thanksgiving with the Wilsons at the Williams' house (Ben's sister). They're our new neighbors. We celebrated being new residents of Kirkland by going to the Kirkland tree lighting.

The next week we took a ride on the Santa Train. The Santa Train leaves from North Bend, goes to Snoqualmie where kids and parents get cookies, hot chocolate, and a meeting with Santa.

The girls were a little scared of the big man, but we all had a lot of fun. Oh yeah, those rail cars aren't heated, it was cold!Just yesterday we took Ginny to see the Nutcracker at the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle. We'd been encouraged by her ability to watch ballet on TV with trance-like attention. We went with Ginny's best friend Riley. It was the Saturday matinee in the nose-bleed section, so there were a lot of well-dressed kids around. She did great and everyone had fun.

No Net

Hey everyone just wanted to say we wont have internet starting midnight tonight for a whole week. So if you need to reach me call me. :) WE ARE MOVING!

Violet Portraits

So I was dissapointed with this time at the portrait studio.

Here are the ones I thought we okay. Enjoy!

Both girls

Halloween Goodness

Here are the cupcakes I made for the ward party,

from the cupcake book I got for Christmas "Hello Cupcake."

Here we have Violet attempting to gut her pumpkin.

Here are our finished pumpkins; Ben, Vi, Ginny.

Ben and I in costume at our adult costume party on the 29th.

Ben is John Adams and I am Bella Cullen from book 4 of the

Twilight series. I'm not so sure you can tell

but I am pregnant and I am drinking

blood (V8) and I have a Forks High School sweatshirt on. Here's the gang at the trunk or treatHere Ginny decided to change at the after party and match

her aunt Ashley (dressed as Elphaba).

Out front at the after party.

Here's a better shot of the octopus costume and fish

costume I made for the girls. You cant see the two

tenticles in the back but Ginny does have all eight.

And here is the back of Vi, tail and head fin. Happy Halloween!

Our house, in the middle of our street.

Lots of news

We will go from fun to big in these announcements. Last weekend we enjoyed the family tradition of going to the pumpkin patch. We prefer Craven Farms. There we had a lot of fun searching for the best pumpkins. Here are some photos.

Ben had his 27th birthday on Oct 7th. Yes late 20's. We celebrated at the Melting Pot with Brandon and Ashley. He also got some great gifts. A hula hoop picked out by Ginny, and Violet pick him an awesome new tent for back packing (lightweight and roomy!).

Ben made Brandon a card that was a flag of the their own country, Brotheria. He drew the national seal inside.
Here is Ben with some knifes that can cut through hammers and stuff, and me.

So like previously mentioned, Ben is 27 and we will be married 5 years on December 28th, He turned in his dissertation on September 27th, and is officially free of school with a PhD to show for it. He landed a great job in Bellevue at Intellectual Ventures as a Research Scientist and as of last week enjoyed his first paycheck. We are also expecting our third little girl December 17th.

When asked about the slew of recent accomplishments Ben remarked: "See-ya suckers!" to his fellow UW students. "Stay in school, kids," he thoughtfully added.

But that isn't all. Ben and I will be proud home owners on Nov. 19th. Yes we are moving. We are a little sad to leave Seattle and our great ward but we are also excited to be so grown up and independent. We have never paid rent before because we have managed apartments for free rent ever since we got married. So it really seems like a big step. We will be living in Kirkland and hope all will visit as we will have a cozy guest room set up for you and all your family. Come on over! Here are a couple pictures.

Living Room

Kitchen

(4 bed 2 bath, just in case you were wondering)