Thanksgiving In New York

For Thanksgiving weekend, we decided to take a little trip to Niagra Falls and then down to Palmyra, New York. We left Wednesday and drove through Canada to the falls. It was a little cold, but they were beautiful. Tom had never been there, and I had only seen the falls from the US side. Ainsley was fascinated by the waterfall, but kept telling us that she "didn't want to go swimming."
After viewing the falls, we drove to Buffalo, New York to eat at the Anchor Bar, the birth place of Buffalo Wings. Tom loved them, they were a little spicy for me, but they were delicious. After dinner, we drove to our hotel in Rochester where we spent the next few days.
Thursday morning, we woke up and drove down to Geneva, New York right along the Finger Lakes. We ate Thanksgiving Dinner at Belhurst Castle on Seneca Lake. We had a beautiful view of the lake while we ate Thanksgiving dinner. On the way down, Tom and I counted that this was our fourth Thanksgiving at a restaurant of the eight we spent together. And we've only had three with family, and the last one with all our friends in Indiana. We just like to travel on Thanksgiving week:)
After dinner, we drove back through Palmyra and quickly saw where everything was located that we would be visiting the next day. Then we went back to our hotel to skype with both families and relax.
Friday morning, we drove to Palmyra and visited each of the Church's historical sites. We started at the Hill Cumorah. It was really cold and windy as we walked around the monument. Then we drove down to the Smith Family farm and saw where Joseph Smith and his family lived. The missionaries there gave us a tour of the log cabin home and the Frame home. Then we walked through the Sacred Grove together as a family. It was so peaceful. We wish we could have seen it when it was green, but it was still beautiful. Afterward, we headed into the town of Palmyra to see the Grandin building where the Book of Mormon was published. Then we had some lunch and headed south to the Peter Whitmer Farm where the the Book of Mormon was translated and the Church was organized in 1830. It was special to see all these historical sites and see where our church began. After leaving the farm, Tom dropped me off at the Palmyra Temple to do a session. Then he went to a session the next morning before we left to go home.
We missed spending Thanksgiving with our family, but we had a fun trip just the three of us!

Old News

Two weeks ago we got some last minute tickets to go see the Utah/Notre Dame game. You all know how it ended....Utah played horribly, the weather was awful-it rained the whole time, and we were squished on really tiny, hard wooden benches. But despite the bad conditions and bad game, we still managed to have fun. Notre Dame is a beautiful campus. We had always wanted to visit it when we lived in Indiana and finally we got the chance. So anyway, here are some pics:




As you know, our family is divided when it comes to loyalty for BYU vs. Utah...so we'll just say good luck to both teams this weekend. Unfortunately we won't get to see the game at all...not just because we live in Michigan...but because we are traveling to Palmyra for Thanksgiving and will probably be on the road coming home right during the game. So good luck, hope everyone has fun. We can't wait to hear on Sunday who won! Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!

Baby #2

We had our twenty week ultrasound last night. It was so fun. Tom left work a little early and we drove to the hospital where I will be delivering. Ainsley was so excited. All day I told her we were going to go see pictures of the baby on a computer screen. When we got into the room they had a tv mounted on the wall in front of the bed so I could see the baby better. Tom held Ainsley up to the screen the whole time and she kept pointing out everytime she saw the baby. Everything looked good. We kept to our promise...we didn't find out the sex. Although it was really tempting when she asked not to just say yes. There were times when we thought we saw something, and other times when we don't think anything was there....so I guess it will really be a surprise come April!!! But we are excited, it looked adorable and we can't wait to meet it.

We also found out this week the baby will be a Michigander....Tom's next rotation is a really neat opportunity working on bringing a German Electrical Bike to the US. He'll be stationed at the Plymouth office which is only a half hour away, so that means we're not moving!!! Which is great for me since I don't have to worry about packing or finding a new doctor!

Face straight on

ProfileArmFoot

The length of body from head to bottom

Shutterfly Holiday Cards!

Hey Friends,

If you're like me, November means getting ready for Christmas which includes getting Holiday Cards ordered. Well, I heard of a great deal for Holiday Cards this year at Shutterfly.com that I wanted to share. I love Shutterfly’s cute designs and cards. We've received many from friends in the past and this year plan to send them out too! They always have great sales and promo codes to use to order cards, announcements, or photobooks. Last year when Ainsley went to sit on Santa’s lap, we got a $10 gift card to Shutterfly to use to print photos. Tom’s sister Annie also made Ainsley an adorable photobook for her first birthday. Since we live far away from family, she wrote it as if she was talking directly to Ainsley and taught her all about her first year of life. She included pictures from when we came to visit as well as ones we had posted on our blog. We keep it on her bookshelf, and Ainsley loves to have me read it to her at night.

I still haven’t decided which one I’m going to use…there are too many cute ones to choose from. I’ve included some of my favorites, but there are hundreds of cards to pick from including

Holiday Cards:

Photo Greeting Cards:

Birth Announcements

(perfect for our upcoming bundle of joy)

So fellow bloggers, if you are wondering how you can get 50 free Shutterfly Holiday Cards too, click here! I look forward to seeing all your cute cards this year!!!

Princess Time

Remember a few weeks ago when I said that Ainsley finally put on her princess dress? Well, I was right, she wears it all the time now. Today she was Cinderella while the missionaries came over to practice giving a discussion. She has a little friend who lives in the building next to us and everytime they are together they put on their princess dresses and glass slippers (her white Sunday shoes). It's so cute. The other day, she was Snow White and she came into the kitchen. I opened the fridge and she snagged an apple. Then she said, "Look Mom, it's Snow White's poisoned apple." Then she tried to take a bite just like Snow White did. It was really cute.
Our friends the Carlston's came up last week to interview at Bosch. It was so fun to see them. While Mike was interviewing, I drove Laura around to show her the area. Ainsley had so much fun with her best friend again. It took them a few minutes to warm up to each other since they hadn't seen each other for a few months. But by the end of the day they were giggling, chasing each other, and playing like they had never been separated. It was really cute. Last night when I was rocking Ainsley before bed, I told her that we were going to playgroup today and that we would see two little girls in our ward. She said, "No, I want to see Ella tomorrow." I said, "No, Ella is at her house, she lives in Indiana, that's far away." She replied, "Let's go to Ella's house tomorrow. I want to play with Ella." She kept saying it over and over. It broke my heart. Poor girl doesn't get we live hundreds of miles away and she can't see her friend anymore. But maybe one day we'll neighbors again:)

Happy Halloween!

This year for Halloween, Ainsley dressed up as an Indiana Cheerleader. We had bought Ainsley a cheerleading outfit before Tom graduated last spring. It fit her perfectly for Halloween. She had such a blast this year. Since Halloween would be on a Sunday, Ainsley did all of her trick-or-treating the week before Halloween. Our ward had a Trunk-or-Treat party. Tom took Ainsley around the parking lot trick-or-treating. She loved it! She talked about it all week. On the actual Halloween day, we didn't take her trick-or-treating again, but she did help pass out candy and she loved seeing the other kids come to the door. She kept telling me, "I went trick-or-treating too with Daddy."
The Monday before Halloween we finally got around to carving our pumpkin. First we all drew pictures of possible faces with crayons and paper. Ainsley thought that was fun. Then when we picked our design, Ainsley watched Tom intently as he carved the pumpkin. It is fun that she is old enough now to actually understand and enjoy these holiday traditions.

I have been taking Ainsley to a Mom and Tot pre-school class. She absolutely loves it. On Oct. 29, all of the kids in her class wore their Halloween costumes to class. It was adorable, I wish we could have got a picture of the whole group. But here are a few pics of Ainsley at her class in her cheerleader outfit.