Gobble, gobble, gobble!

Anyone else have an exhausting weekend?? We sure did! It was crazy loads of fun, but I'm definitely tired.

The whole week felt like one long holiday. Jesse had work until Wednesday, but he pretty much came home halfway through each day because NOBODY was in the studios and he didn't have an assignment. He was so bored that he would just come home. I won't lie--it totally rocked that he got to be home. I hate that he missed the hours, but we had fun.

SO! Fast forward Monday through Wednesday, and that bring us to THANKSGIVING! We watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and the girls danced to the marching bands and the musical numbers. I was in love with the Newsies number. Not such a fan of Daniel Radcliffe singing in another number, but it was still fun. While the girls watched and I cooked, Jesse helped them make turkey hats. These pictures also show their adorable Thanksgiving outfits from Grandma Jenkins. Thank you Grandma!

What we would we do without our friends?!? The Brazells invited us to have Thanksgiving with them. I'm so glad they did because A) the texts from family were starting to kill me and I could not have handled being alone, and B) I could not have made a turkey to save my life. Brittany made an awesomely killer turkey. So moist and scrumptious. Perfection.

So here is Kevin carving the turkey. Hooray for Thanksgiving!

You should have seen our spread: turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, homemade rolls, bacon wrapped green beans, orange-glazed carrots, stuffing, oreo truffles, ice cream pies, a pathetic excuse for an apple pie (made by me), and sparkling cider to top it off. It was a meal fit for royalty. :) Because we totally are.

This is my pathetic apple pie. The crust tasted awesome. We just don't know what happened on the inside. It didn't cook.... weird. But Jesse pulled the whole pie out of the pan without it falling apart. Something is wrong with that. So here's Jesse finishing off our pie.

Thursday night at 11:00 p.m. I got in line with Brittany for some awesome Black Friday shopping. I've always made fun of Black Friday shoppers, but holy cow, it was so entertaining. We found awesome deals, everyone was loopy tired, and we had tons of fun. ...so much fun I may have to do it again. I wish I had pictures from it. Brittany and I looked slightly ridiculous shuffling our stuff through the forever long line at Kohls because they didn't have anymore carts. So awesome.

Friday passed by with sleeping, more lazy shopping, eating leftovers, and watching The Polar Express with the Brazells.

Saturday: THE SANTA TRAIN!
You hop on a train in North Bend and it takes you three miles to the Snoqualmie Depot where Santa is hanging out at the Northwest Railway Museum. The train is wonderfully authentically old and decorated in lights. Our train conductor sang Christmas songs almost the whole 20 minute ride. It was awesome! We went with Brazells and the Wahlquists.

Waiting at the North Bend Train Depot

On the train!

It truly is a Christmas miracle! Abby sat on Santa's lap! After watching The Polar Express, she decided Santa had to be nice. She asked for a stuff animal giraffe. Seriously?! I've been asking her for two months what she wants and the list has been the same every time. And now she throws a giraffe into it!? No.

So excited for Christmas!!

Whew. I need a nap after posting all this. P.S. My amazing friend took pictures of our little fam and she posted them at www.dandelionlipstick.com. Go look at them! We're absolutely adorable. :)

Thanksgiving Turkeys

My family has this awesome tradition of doing Thankful Turkeys, traced from our hands, every year for Thanksgiving. When I was growing up, I had some pretty stellar turkeys. My mom has most of them still. Jesse thought we were weird when we first made him do it, but I think he secretly loves it. This year he was the one to spearhead the activity in our house! So here are our 2011 Thankful Turkeys!

Jesse turkey. Awesome, as always. Done solely in crayon.

There is a Claire hand in there somewhere...

Abby's Fancy Nancy turkey! She wrote the names of our family in her turkey. But the letters aren't together... and most of them I don't recognize or they're covered in the fanciness.

This is officially the LAMEST turkey I've ever done. But 1) Abby insisted I do it a certain way--like hers and with polka dots and 2) Claire was out-of-control with the markers so I couldn't focus long enough to think of anything creative. At least I finished one.

We're thankful for so many things! We're thankful for preschool, the amazing autumn leaves, the awesome cantaloupe from Costco... so many, many things. Mostly we're thankful for family and for the gospel. If you get bored, I dare you to make a Thankful Turkey. Love you!

happy halloween!!

We had an AWESOME Halloween this year. We kicked it off with a stellar ward party the Friday night before. My friend and I were in charge of it so unfortunately there are no pictures. I was running around crazy and Jesse was on child-duty. But we had a chili cook-off, costume parade, cupcake walk, trunk-or-treat (in the church because it was raining), etc. It was great! People told us we did a great job and it was one of the best ward parties they'd had in a while. :) I'll have to harass my friend for her "before" pictures of the tables and stuff.

On Halloween, Abby's preschool class did a super cute little program at an assisted living center that is next door to her school. She was so excited to sing for all the "grandpa-greats and grandma-greats that need some help"... as she told me. Cute girl. I thought it was an awesome service they did. Afterwards, they had the kids come back to the school and perform for the parents. So this is Abby with her friends at school performing their fall and halloween songs!

And this is Snow White trying to step in on the party. She was so proud of Abby. :)

One of the many perks of Microsoft is... TRICK-OR-TREATING. The building essentially shut down for the families to come trick-or-treat. The girls LOVED it. It didn't take Claire long to figure out what was going on. She'd run to every person or random bucket and yell "Treat-treat!" and then stole five or six candies. I only got two pictures before one of the millions of security guards informed me that pictures within the building were not okay. It's cool. I understand. There's some crazy awesomeness going on in that building that I wouldn't want stolen either.

This picture is awful. Sorry, I was grabbing Claire away from the candy. We went with like four other families and it was a zoo. But not in this picture.... oddly enough... just our own personal zoo.

Halloween re-staged!

After trick-or-treating, we were totally exhausted. We didn't even go out that night. Abby loved handing out candy with us though, and seeing the other kids in their costumes. All five of them that rang our doorbell. I didn't get pictures that night, but today I made my kids go throw their costumes back on. And I put mine on. Though sans awesome black yoga pants.

There's a party in the Larsen house!

I have ALWAYS wanted to go to a Pumpkin Patch. But I had no idea where to go when I was in Utah, or I decided Abby was too young, or who knows why I didn't go. But I always wanted to go. So when my friend asked if we wanted to go along this year I immediately jumped on it! Wahoo! Bucket list, check. So here is the massive picture dump from our awesomely, chilly trip to the Stocker Farms Pumpkin Park in Snohomish, WA. Enjoy!

Bumpin' up and down in my little red wagon....
(Claire LOVED the wagon. I'm so buying one for Christmas. Don't tell Jesse.)

Abby and Jesse searched far and wide in the big field of pumpkins...

And this is the one she picked. A gourd. A freakin' gourd. Of all the beautiful orange pumpkins, she picks a gourd.
Be your own kind of beautiful, I guess?

Claire found her pumpkin pretty fast.

This is NOT a piece of fried chicken. It is a donut. And it was the most heavenly donut I've ever eaten. They were from a street vendor at the farm named Seattle Street Donuts. They were cinnamon-caramel flavored and they literally melted in your mouth.

And this is me eating the entire bowl of donuts. I was supposed to share. Whoops. :) (We bought three bowls because they were so amazing).

This is the pumpkin Abby was going to buy before she found her gourd. Check out her mouth. It's a half-eaten corndog. Personally not a fan, but she loved it. Let's hear it for fair food!

This farm was super cute. They had tons of fun activities for the kids. Like pounding nails. Who knew it could be so entertaining?! My girls LOVED it. So we pounded nails,

we hula-hooped,

raced rubber ducks,

fished for trout,

dug in a giant corn pit,

and apparently pounded more nails. :)

And Claire started her own band with some old pots and pans that the kids could bang on to make music. She's going to be a rockstar one day.

Oh you sassy child. This is her "hey grandma, come visit me" face. ;)

We had an awesome time! It was cold, but the girls were great. There was actually a train, pony rides, hay rides, face painting, human hamster wheels, and a pumpkin bounce house, but my four-year-old screamed bloody murder if we took her near those venues. So we pounded more nails. One day we'll figure out what scares her about all of those things, but at least they had fun! And yes, Claire spent the whole time trying to see out from under her hat. It's the only hat she'll wear. She loves it. So we make it work. :)

P.S. Current boy name idea: James. Thoughts?

This is for you, Kelsey. ;) Love you!

Oh my heavens.
I blogged;
Therefore, I rock.

It's been such a crazy month. Seriously. So much so that I didn't even blog my trip to Utah. Again. But I had to post at least this one picture of my girls with Maryn. How beautiful are they?! I wish Abby had been looking at the camera, but when you have three in your face, it's hard to get them all looking at the right camera. Anyway. This was taken by the reflection pool at the Salt Lake Temple. It's a new tradition for me to take the girls to Temple Square when we fly out there. Temple Square is another place I took for granted when I lived there.... So now I'm going to make it a point to get there whenever we go to Utah. Beautiful, just beautiful.

This picture was taken on Abigail's first day of preschool. So far she LOVES it. She goes three days a week and has made two super cute girlfriends that she loves to talk about. Yes, this was the best face and pose that I could get from her. She is an ultimate spaz. And she wouldn't let me dress her in anything cute.... She was also painting a school bag that day so I didn't want her to ruin anything that was cute. I'll post a new picture of her in an adorable outfit soon.


On September something, 2011, a new member was added to our family: the van. It's a 2008 Dodge Caravan. And I love her. She arrived at 11:00 p.m. and was delivered by some crazy Russian man. She's quiet, beautiful, and drives ever so smoothly.... We're still searching for the perfect name: Blueberry, Big Bertha, Big Blue, etc. Any suggestions?


This is what I stare at as I drive. It's ultra intimidating. When the car is actually on, that little screen turns into a touch screen. I have no idea what 95% of the buttons mean. I'll figure it out eventually. We have small successes each day. Yesterday, I figured out how to turn the air on. Today, the windshield wipers. Who knows what tomorrow will hold!


And this... is my 24-week-pregnant belly. What?! I'm pregnant?! Yes. I guess this is my formal blog announcement. It's a boy. Due date: January 20, but we're planning on February. And we have no idea what the name is going to be anymore. We had Benjamin in mind... but neither of us like that today. Jesse's favorites: Gabriel (yuck), Liam, Gunnar, and Bryce. I've debated Logan, Seth, Jude, James, and Bentley. YES I know Bachelorette evil guy was Bentley, but I still like the name. So... please put in your votes. I need opinions please.

And these are my girls after four hours of watching General Conference today. We LOVED General Conference, but after so many hours of being indoors, it was time to get out and blow some bubbles. :)

P.S. I have almost zero control of Abby's outfits these days. She's starting to look like an orphan. But at least she's a beautiful orphan. :)


Oh Claire. She kills me these days. She loves to sing "happy to you" and "twinkle, twinkle." She's constantly talking or parroting and she pulls THE BEST facial expressions ever. We tried to capture some, but we weren't fast enough... Claire also has a new love of all things babies ever since one of my best friends had her baby boy this month. Claire is always asking to hold him and she just wants to be with him always. It's super cute. And I love Abby too. Gotta give some Abby love. SUPER smart. And she remembers everything. She loves to write her letters and she's doing a great job with reading. Awesome, clever, and imaginative girl. Her quiet time monologues are good enough for novels. Her toys experience some incredible drama these days. Keeps me entertained. ;)
The rains have started and it's freezing my bones, but we're doing our best to be happy. Some days I think I'm really starting to adjust to being here. Other days, not so well. But we're getting there. And at least we're happy, right? My husband is awesome, my girls are amazing, and I have the best friends EVER to be my Washington family. What else could I ask for? (the sun, but really it's not an option). Hahaha... Love to all.