Happyfanily: October 2008

Combine Ride

When we went to the orchard the other night, Brett's mommy, Amy invited the boys to go on a combine ride with her husband Dan. Dan was very brave to take all three boys at once... It was so exciting and the boys loved it!

Here it comes!

Climbing up!

Off they go!

October Applefest and one other orchard visit

The first weekend of every October, the Apple Orchard has Applefest. It's a time to go ride the pumpkin wagon and see the pumpkins, to play games, and to buy apples! It smells so good out there! This is the same place that we went for S.Jessen's field trip and it was a gorgeous day this time!

Here are some other pics here of us coming back to take pics with the pumpkins and our friends Brett and Claire!

September candids

Here are some great shots we got in September!

Granny and Pops were able to make it to a soccer game, Grandma and Grandpa Brecht did, too! We're so glad they all came to see S.Jessen play.

Tate and S.Jessen are trying to take Nanny's teeth out! :)

Adam and Tate showing their curly tongues. S.Jessen and I can't do it!

Ready for another soccer game, but Tate has to cover up Thomas!

One day I was cleaning house and lost Tater, he was so quiet! I found him behind the couch surrounded by books! It felt really nice. Needless to say, I stopped cleaning, and we read books!

It's a boy!

We went to the ultrasound of course wondering if we'll ever get to decorate with pink and we found out our answer is no, not this time. I honestly don't care. It would have been nice to have a girl, but mostly I want one to dress her up. I can't wait to get a hold of this little boy and squeeze him. I can dress him up cute, too! The beginning of the pregnancy was a little scary, then the ultrasound was a little scary, and now all is well. We can't wait to see if he will look like S.Jessen or Tate, or be a completely new combination of them both. We have know idea what to name him so any suggestions would help. We need something more non-traditional to go along with S.Jessen and Tate. This week's top few names are: Charlie and Harrison. It's hard!

He is already really big. At 20 weeks he was already 14 oz and measuring a week ahead of schedule... big shock that I'd produce another huge baby! Tater was 9 lbs 3 0z. and S.Jessen was 8 lbs 3 1/2 oz. We'll see if we get a 10 lber this time.

The boys are thrilled to have another brother to play pile up with! We are just glad he is ok.

Here he is!

Top left: face

Top right: knees and legs

Bottom left: covering his face with hands. You can see his back, shoulders, and one ear

Bottom middle: penis

Bottom right: hands on face

Thomas the Train visit

S.Jessen, Tate, and J.T. were ready to get there! We watched a Thomas movie on the way there, too!

On September 18, our little family and another couple that we're friends with headed to Boone to see Thomas the Train! They had a lot of cool things there for us to do like: pet animals, color Thomas pages, get tattoos, see a magic show, bounce on toys, listen to a story on a real train, and of course ride Thomas! It was a super day! We had great weather, the boys were fantastic, and the Daddies were, too :) The pregnant mommies were thrilled when we got to go to Red Lobster and pig out:)

Petting the animals was very ticklish business!

Meeting Sir Topem Hat was cool, but this was as close as Tater would get :)

Three little engines that could!

Riding Thomas was very exciting to the boys :)

Beginning of September

At the beginning of September we began real soccer. August was soccer camp. We weren't so sure S.Jessen would like it as he didn't understand that it was ok now to kick the ball away from someone. All this time we've been teaching him not to kick the ball away from people and now it's ok? Defense is a very hard concept to learn. He ended up really liking it and got a goal at each of his first two games. He was done scoring after those games though. We were excited that he scored at all! Tate will definitely be ready when it's his turn to play in a few years. He really wanted to get in there and play.

Kicking the ball

S.Jessen and his buddy Brett before the first game!

Daddy and S.Jessen

Tater watching the game

The team with their medals on the last game day. The medals were a hit!

I was able to take a morning off and go to S.Jessen's first preschool field trip to the Apple Orchard here in town. It was raining, but still a lot of fun. Riding on the bus with a bunch of preschoolers who've never been out of car seats before was a little interesting :)

This is his entire preschool class. There are 18 of them! S.Jessen is the one waving.

Still here! End of July and August in review

Well I'm back. I've just survived the first quarter of school and it's going great! We've been so busy though with preschool for S.Jessen every day, Tater's potty training, and soccer every Saturday (p.s. glad that's over!). We were blessed with great weather for most of the Saturday games. We would have been fine with 3 games instead of 6. 4-year-old's attention spans don't last for 6 games. At least ours didn't :) Roger has also been very busy at work and finishing his MBA up~ he's done in December, yea!

I have been busy growing and growing and growing! We also found out in September that we are having another boy to add to the bunch! We are thrilled! We had a few worrisome weeks when they thought he may have some heart defects or worse, but he is perfectly healthy and we can't wait to meet him. Thank God for that and for all those praying for us. He is our little Miracle.

At the end of July we finished up swim lessons and S.Jessen had baseball camp.

Fort Dodge got a new splash pad that the boys really loved playing in. We got to go several times before school started.

Last night of swim lessons. Tate loved the baby pool best!

Baseball camp! Nice grab. Way to throw it back.

S.Jessen had a big time funny at camp. They were running the bases and he went from home, to second, to third, to first, and around again. We were dying of laughter! It was so cute.

August was a stay at home for the Brechts. S.Jessen had soccer camp the first week in August. We were trying to get the last of the play dates in before Mommy and S.Jessen had to go back to school! I'm just going to put a hodge podge of pics from August and then I'll do September and October hopefully before the weekend is over! Cross your fingers :)

First time poopin on the potty, yea!

Cute, but they look up to something don't they? I'm sure they'll teach the new little guy everything then know!

First day of soccer camp with shin guards on! Kicking the ball.

S.Jessen loved helping Daddy trim trees and then pulled then to the revene next door. Daddy was trying to get lots of yard work done before the good weather left us.