Where's YOUR Husband??

It's 4:30 am and 20 degrees outside. Do you know where YOUR husband is...??

I woke up this morning to discover Jaron's car still parked in the driveway. I double-checked the bed, but he wasn't in it. After checking downstairs to make sure he hadn't fallen asleep studying, I realized that Jaron had done the unthinkable: He actually RODE HIS BIKE to work!! Call me a wuss, but I stop running outside when the mercury dips below freezing, and when we consider the extra windchill one would experience on a bike...well, let's just say that my "low" limit would be more like 50 degrees!

I think Jaron deserves this week's official "I'm Too Sexy For the Cold" award.

Trip to Chi-Town

A.K.A. Chicago.

A couple weeks ago, we took a little family vacation to the "Windy City". We went to a couple museums and stayed in a hotel with a pool. We had so much fun together!

During the 4-hour drive there, we told the boys about skyscrapers. As we got closer to the city, we went through a town with some 6-story office buildings. Mikey saw those tall buildings and said, "Look Mom! Skyscrapers!!" Boy, was he in for a treat!

Chicago Children's museum:

We worked together as a family and built this super-tall skyscraper!

Trevor taking in the view:

I love this guy!!

Look Mom! I'm the Sears Tower!!

We didn't get many pictures at the Shedd Aquarium because it was EXTREMELY crowded, AND a couple of us were REALLY tired from staying up too late at the hotel, so we cut our visit here short. But we LOVED the 4-D Diego movie, especially the part when we got sprayed with water!

I love this giant statue of "Man Hugging Fish" outside the Aquarium.

We *Heart* IOWA

From fall leaves to pumpkin patches, from Big 10 Homecoming parades to corn up to your eyeballs, there's a lot to love here in our "North Texas" land! :-)

HALLOWEEN!

Elmo, Darth Vader, Batman, and Plain ol' Mom and Doctor-Dad hope you all had a great Halloween! Four Halloween parties (not counting the actual Halloween night) gave us PLENTY of candy to send us on sugar-highs all through the holidays. Jaron's work puts on a trick-or-treat / party every Halloween:

We also LOVED having Nana in town for the week!! Trevor puts on a good "stink-eye", but don't be fooled!! He has been asking for Nana at least 20 times a day ever since she left!

Gotta Love that Mikey

We're driving to church yesterday, on a beautiful winding road lined with autumn-colored trees. I was enjoying the view, and the rare peace within the car, when I heard Mikey share my reverence for nature's beauty. He said, "We sure are lucky to have so many trees..." (I was thinking, "Awww, what a sweet thought")

"...so that we can get lots and lots of paper!"

Way to be practical, Mikey.

Success

A truly successful day, by my standards, is when I haul a basket of laundry to the basement, wash and dry that laundry, then fold AND put away all the said laundry...before any more laundry piles up on the floor where the basket should be!!

Let's just say, I have not experienced success in a long, LONG time.

Best $3 Ever Spent

Trevor loves anything with wheels: cars, motorcycles, tractors and busses. He calls them all the same thing: "Kaa". Lately he's developed a greater love for busses because we walk his big brothers to the bus every morning and pick them up in the afternoon. And Trev gets to see lots of city busses driving around (and he squeals "Kaa! Kaa!" from the backseat every time we see one). I found the Score of all kid-toy-scores a couple weeks ago at a consignment store: a Little Tykes Bus, complete with passengers and battery-operated sounds. Trev has been inseparable with the bus ever since I bought it (over 2 weeks ago).

At the dinner table...

Along the lines of Trevor loving anything with wheels, he was thrilled to discover that his PJ's can hold several cars.

At a recent apple orchard visit, Trev wasn't at all interested in the apple-sampling or the warm apple turnovers. He ran right up to the tractor-trailer, sat down, and waited until it was time to go on the tractor ride. Mind you, he's never been here before, but he instinctively knew that the tractor ride was for him!