Decorating the Tree

Here we are decorating. Andee loved to decorate the tree. She still decorates it everyday. She pulls off the ornaments and then puts them back on. She can't keep her hands off the tree. Luckily she hasn't broke any ornaments yet. It was really fun to watch her decorate. She had a lot of focus and concentration in her face. The first thing Andee does every morning is go turn on the Christmas Lights. She loves Christmas Lights. If we drive at night she points them out and wants to see "mo mismis ights" (More christmas lights).

Adam's the big 3-0!

Adam is 30 this year. I asked him what he wanted to have for dinner and this is what he chose: a HUGE steak and shrimp. We then had some friends over to play games and have cake and ice cream.

Opening presents, The Office season 1.

Jeff Zimmer sang the prettiest Birthday song we had ever heard!

Happy Birthday Adam!

Thanksgiving!

This Thanksgiving was in Chicago with my brother Karson and his fam. I made my first apple pie. I tried to make a turkey in the crust. I also made my first rolls. It was fun to have Thanksgiving with family. This is the first time in the four years we've lived in Chicago.

Andee loving the food eating on her chair on the floor. We only had four chairs.

Eating dinner.

Thatcher and Andee played all day long! They love eachother!

Andee's 2!

Andee is 2! We had two parties this year for her. We had one early while my parents were here that was combined with an early one for Adam. Her second one was later after she was actually 2. She liked being sung to. She is growing up too fast. Here are some pictures of the partay. They are out of order. I couldn't get them to move.

My cute little 2-year-old!

Kissing Grandma Howard, Thank you!

Andee cheesing it with Daddy.

Andee's Birthday Cake. Adam made a two tier cake for her. It was cute. I did the writing. We forgot to take a picture before so here it is half eaten.

Halloween Fun

This is a long post of all the October happenings. First is Trick-or-Treating! Andee's first year trick-or-treating and she loved it. My parents were in town and my brother Karson lives here now so it was a big family affair.
Ladybug Andee and Giraffe Thatcher ready to go trick-or-treating.
Andee with "papa howa"



Adam and Andee trick or treating.

Andee would always stand there after she got a piece of candy expecting more. They'd have to say goodbye ladybug or she would stand there and wait for more candy all day.
Karson, Mom and I. I could barely zip this jacket up. My belly is getting big.
Thatcher slept for actual trick-or-treating so he tried to steal Andee's hard work. She got tons of candy!
Here is Thatcher stealing a piece.

----CARVING PUMPKINS-----


Final Product

------Halloween Party with Friends------

Adam dressed up as Michael Jackson for a friend party this year. He won the costume contest. Andee was a little ladybug.

The Zimmers, they always have the best costumes.
Adam, Andee and I at a friends Halloween party.
The hosts of the party, Dave and April.
Here is Garrett(The horse) giving all the kids a ride! Halloween was really fun and busy! It came and went too fast!

New Ride!!

We've wanted to buy a car for quite a while now but we've never had enough guts or money to do it. I have to drive downtown everyday for the next three months and our car hasn't been the most reliable so we decided to seriously start to shop. After much resarch we decided to look for a Honda Pilot, so we started checking dealerships and test driving cars in our budget. A few test drives and a pushy salesman later we found a Pilot in Milwaukee that fit our criteria. We made the hour journey to only find that the asking price quoted to us on the phone and the sticker price was $8,000 different. The salesman told us the price quoted was a mistake. So after nearly an hour the manager agreed to give us the price quoted on the phone. So we made the purchase. We feel like we got a steal. We were even able to meet the previous owner, a little old lady who would only drive the car a few blocks every day and "babied the car", in her words. The car is a silver 2006 Honda Pilot EX with 31,000 miles and seats 8. Krista's favorite part is the keyless starter. We love it and we feel pretty lucky to have found it.

Adam Jr. is on the way!

We are so excited to say that a boy is on the way! We found out this morning! I had to go to the ultrasound by myself and then Adam found out at lunch. I decided to get some little boy clothes and have him open a present to find out what we were having. I wanted to do something more than just say...We're having a boy! He got the biggest smile! It was cute!

By the way....

We thought we would make the official announcement that Krista is pregnant. She is 17 weeks along and due February 23rd. She has been a little sicker this time around so I'm thinking boy. We'll find out in a couple of weeks what it is. We both are kind of hoping for a boy, but we will be completely happy to have another little girl. Andee is so cute with little babies so we think she will love having a little sister/brother.

4 Externships down! 1 to go!

A lot has happened since our last entry. We spent a month in Tacoma and then a month in Portland for Adam's externships. The two months were very different, the first month Adam had tons of free time and the second he was extremely busy. We had great experiences and a lot of fun at both places. Surprisingly it only rained a few days out of the two months. Here are some pictures to catch every body up on what we've been up to.

The second day of our three day journey across the country at the badlands South Dakota. Andee was an angel the entire three days.

More Badlands.

At the Hoh Rainforest near the coast of Washington. It was extremely hot and dry for a rainforest but very beautiful.

Downtown Tacoma with Mount Rainier in the background. That mountain is so pretty and HUGE!

We headed out to the beach a couple of times. These pictures were at a beach near Forks. The entire beach was black round pebbles. I had never been to a beach that didn't have any sand before. The sound of the waves on the pebbles was really cool. The waves were huge and even though I was cold we loved that beach!




Andee was scared of the waves.

To end our month in Tacoma Andee thought it would be nice to poop on the floor and have me step in it right after she got out of the tub. Adam's flip flop suffered some poop smear as well. So I had her sit next to her little present and show how proud she was of her little log.

PORTLAND

We stayed with Adam's Uncle Roger and Aunt Judy for the month. I had never met them before we went there. It was nice that I finally met them and we had so much fun. Adam's cousin Heather and her husband Jay were staying there also and there was always family around so I had someone to hang out with everyday while Adam was working long hours. They were all soo nice! They made us feel right at home and we were sad to leave, especially because we don't know how long it will be until the next time we see them.
Andee with Adam's cousin Terri and Andee's second cousin Sawyer.

Adam's Uncle Douglas (and cousin Kenny in background), he hadn't seen his uncle in years.

Andee's cousin and friend Quinn. They played together almost everyday.

We took a day trip to the Oregon coast with Heather, Jay and baby Gwen. We saw the Tillamook cheese factory, the octopus tree, a light house, and visited the beaches Oceanside and one near Pacific city. I was in heaven because alot of these were places I used to visit when I was a kid.

Heather, Jay, baby Gwen, Andee, Adam and Me at Oceanside.

Here we are in the cave headed over to the SECOND beach.

It was cold and windy as it always is on the coast it seems.

Next we headed to Pacific city to see a sand dune that Heather said was huge. We were expecting something the size of a house but no, it's that mountain behind us.

Adam and Andee climbing up the dune.

Heading up. I had to take a lot of breaks.

Gwen and Jay
Heather, Jay and Gwen at the top of the HUGE dune. It was tiring but fun! They entertained us the whole time. We had tons of fun with them!

Heading down the dune.

Uncle Roger and Aunt Judy. Thanks so much! We cannot thank you enough! Hope to see you soon!

Andee at Multnomah falls striking a pose.

Multnomah Falls in a tree

The Family at the Falls. There are so many more pictures but I really need to end this post. It is really long. We had a lot of fun! We hope to see everyone and go to Portland again soon! Thanks for everything!