Some updates

 We went to a BYU graduate Christmas Party, and they were taking pictures and giving out suckers, and Samuel wanted a sucker, so I took and picture with him, and I'm sure Joseph got his picture for the same reason.  They had a good dinner, and an awesome ice cream bar full of tons of different kinds of candy all laid out in glass jars, the kids were in heaven, I think most of them had more candy than ice cream in their bowls.  They had fun craft activities for the kids too, Samuel loves his countdown rings that he made and is counting the days down until Christmas.

 I thought for Thanksgiving it would be fun to make some chocolate bowls, and put chocolate pudding and fresh berries and whip cream on the top, so the kids and I blew up some water balloons and melted some chocolate.  After letting the chocolate cool off a little we tried dipping the balloons into the chocolate to form the bowls. The balloons kept popping, so we'd wait a while and try again, until we had popped 4 balloons, and chocolate splattering us and the kitchen all over.  We kept laughing every time the chocolate flew all over, cuz we looked pretty silly.  I finally determined that we needed thicker balloons, and not having any gave up on the idea, and just poured the chocolate into some heart molds I have.  It was quite the messy clean-up job, but the kids and I had fun, and we had baths to get chocolate out of hair etc..  So anyway the kids were happy to play with all the balloons we had blown up and had fun with the static they create when rubbing them on your head, and played for a long time with them.  We ended up having a wonderful Thanksgiving with Travis' sister Maia and her family and his uncle Nick and Aunt Nora. 

 Samuel turned 4 on November 17th, he is turning into such a big boy.  He wanted a car cake, with marshmallows, so I just baked a cake mix, and frosted it with the pre-made stuff, and used M & Ms to make the road, and used marshmallows for the snow on the side of the road, and stuck a car on the road. It was the easiest cake I've made yet, and Samuel loved it, although he was a bit worried about his car being "dirty". 

 For Samuel's birthday we went to Chuck-e-Cheese to play, the kids had a blast as usual, and loved every minute of it. 

 For Halloween the kids and Travis and I all went out around the neighborhood Saturday night.  It was cold and pretty rainy at first, and we ended up just going around the cul-de-sac and coming home, then Travis took Joseph to do more, since he didn't care about the rain and cold.  Then when the rain cleared up, I took the other three kids out to Trick-or-Treat some more.  This is really a great neighborhood for Trick-or-Treating.  Betsy was always polite and asked how many pieces of candy she could have and Samuel had fun with his costume.  As a soccer ball he has lots of padding, and some of the house, were up a hill, and was quite a hike to climb up there driveway and then up stairs to their door, Samuel would always need my help to get all the way up there, then would flop down on the door step, until the door was answered and then pop up and say "trick-or-treat" then I would help him back down the stairs, but when we would get to the driveway, he would let go of my hand and start running, then rolling down the driveway.  When he would get to the bottom he would laugh and giggle and say how much fun that was, while I was trying to catch my breath, and keep him from rolling into the street.  It must have been quite a sight to see this little boy rolling down the driveway in a soccer ball costume.  Anyway it was exhausting for the both of us, and we soon headed home.  Samuel was so tired that when we got home, I gave him his one chocolate bar, and took him out of his costume, and helped the others kids get their piece of candy and put the rest away.  I realized I couldn't see Samuel, so I looked around and finally found him asleep in bed, still gripping his candy bar I had given him.  The poor boy was so exhausted he didn't even have the energy to eat any of his candy before falling asleep. 

 Joseph went as a solider, Austin as Snow White, Betsy as a Princess, Samuel as a soccer ball, and Travis wore his high school Letterman's jacket.  It was a good Halloween.

Now that I've explained the pictures, I'll give a few more updates.  I had my ultrasound at 24 weeks, and we're going to be having a boy.  I was shocked at first, I was so sure we were going to be having a girl, but I've adjusted and I'm happy to have another boy.  Austin was devastated as well, especially since that means the boys will out number the girls, but we had a talk and we're both happy about it now.  I'm now 30 weeks pregnant, and still not in perfect health, but much better then I was before.  I'm currently having trouble with itchy rashes on my hands, restless leg syndrome, and insomnia, which may just be something I need to deal with until after the baby is born.  Travis has been extremely busy with school work, but just has one last week for finals, and he'll get a nice two week Christmas break, which we are all looking forward too.  The kids and I love the Christmas season, and having been baking our Christmas cookies in preparation for Christmas Caroling in about a week.