Ho Ho Ho!

Have you visited Santa yet?  Santa was nice enough to come to the lobby of our apartment complex, so there was no lines and only a little tears.  We are getting really excited for Christmas around here. The presents are wrapped and ready to go.  I spent today cleaning my house so I can leave for the next few weeks and come back to a clean house.  Now all that's left is to finish packing up tonight and then we are going to my parents tomorrow and then on to Utah Saturday night.  We are so excited and can't wait to visit.

A boy after my own heart

Today Alden and Leigh were napping while I was laying in bed reading.  When Alden woke up he came in to get me.  He walks in and says "up" and wants to lay down and snuggle right up next to me.  He then tells me he's hungry.  So I asked what he would like to eat.  His reply is "chick, fries, and lemonade".  Around our house this means one thing...Chick-fil-a.  I just started laughing and said that we might be able to make that a possibility for dinner tonight.  I love watching him discover and learn new things each day and I especially love that he is developing opinions and is able to express them.  Sometimes it's difficult since he is a toddler and once his mind is made up it's hard to distract him or change it, but when the request is Chick-fil-a, I'm not going to complain.  I had just been lying there asking myself what was I going to get started on for dinner.  And thanks to Alden, now it's going to be an easy dinner tonight!

A post of pictures

I've finally got Patrick to help me with all of our pictures, since they aren't on this computer.  (Our mac died a few weeks ago and we've been struggling with transferring everything over to our other dying computer).  Here is just a ton of pictures from the past little while.  Enjoy!

Chillin' in our pjs

 Patrick wore this church outfit when he was little, it's too little for Alden now, but it makes a great picture

 About to go out Trick or Treating

 Leigh's blessing day

 Eating raisins with Oma

 Leigh hanging out with Opa

 Our "juicy" baby

 Look at those cheeks

 New shoes!!  He wore them out of the store and had to wear them with our pjs and again first thing the next morning

 About to go to one of our Halloween Parties (A cowboy and his piggy)

 Alden won the costume contest at one party

 New church clothes

Leigh's 2 month check up

My baby is getting so big!!  We just got back from taking Leigh to the doctor for her two month check up.  She is getting so big and the time is just flying by.  She is weighing in at 13.2 lbs and is 22 inches long.  I knew she had put on some weight, but I was shocked at how much.  She's in the 93rd percentile.  We just love her chubby cheeks and legs.  The nurse today kept calling her "juicy".  I think that is a perfect way to describe Leigh.  She's so sweet and smiling.  The doctor was checking her and she just kept smiling and cooing at him.  She had to get a bunch of shots today and I always hate that part.  But she did well and then we were ready to go.  We got home and she took her medicine, nursed a little, and then passed out.  I remember Alden always taking really good and long naps on days that he got his shots.  I wish I had a current picture of her on this computer, but I don't.  I'll try to upload one later this afternoon.  But now, both babes are sleeping so I've got stuff to do.  Mostly that means I'll probably lay down for a nap too :)

Enjoying a Fall Afternoon

I know I have lots to catch up on, but currently both children are asleep.  And so I will be joining them shortly.  We spent the morning out and about shopping for Halloween/Fall decorations and Halloween costumes.  Last night as I was up nursing Leigh I was brainstorming ideas to keep me awake.  Hopefully they will turn out the way I imagined.  Here are a few pictures from a few weeks ago when we were staying at my parents while Patrick was in Utah for work.  It was beautiful weather so we spent our afternoons outside playing.  Hopefully I'll get more pictures up here soon.  This weekend we have Oma and Opa and Tyler coming to play with us.  We are so excited!  I hope I remember to bust out my camera a little more.

This is Alden's favorite place to be at Grammie and Poppy's house

 Leigh is soaking up the sun and watching Alden play

After nap snuggle time

A few weeks ago after Alden woke up from his nap he came in to find Leigh.  He always likes to know where she is and who is with her.  I love how much he loves her.  Here are some pictures of them laying around on the big bed.

Fun Afternoon

Look how big my boy looks in these pictures!!  Thanks Oma and Opa for the fun package yesterday.  Alden loves the play-doh and it kept us entertained yesterday afternoon.

A quick update

I'm still working on typing up Leigh's birth story for my own record, but I don't seem to have much time :)  We are all doing well and adjusting to our new schedule.  Alden loves on Leigh all the time, sometimes it a little much and done with a lot of energy but I'm happy he wants her around.  Today I was holding Leigh and Alden was getting into my lap as well when her head flopped and hit his arm.  He said "owie" and then proceeded to wind up his arm to pop her on the head.  I caught him in time, but I can't believe it's starting already.  Leigh is a great baby.  She is content by herself in her chair for long stretches of time and she nurses and naps well.  We're still working on a schedule because right now she just wants to snack all day.  I end up nursing for a few minutes every hour and a half unless she is sleeping then she can go three to four hours in between feedings.  Here's a few pictures from this past week.

Alden's first hair cut

 While I cut his hair, my mom held him and he got to use the squirt bottle

 Feeding the ducks/geese

 Building forts for all our animals

 Leigh arrives

 Alden and Grammie meet Leigh - Alden comes running in the room shouting "my baby"

 Getting ready to leave the hospital

 Leigh's first bath - she loves the water nice and warm, she just sat there very content

 Sleeping babe

Ladies and Gentlemen, introducing Leigh Jean Moss!

Hello everyone, this is Patrick subbing for Whitney. We realize it has been quite a while since we last posted and that we have lots to catch up on, but we figured no one would complain if we posted a few pictures of little Leigh before we filled in the rest of the summer. Here we go, all 7 lb 12 oz and 19 inches of her:

Update

Alden and I arrived home safe and sound about a week ago.  We spent the past few weeks down in Alabama at my grandparents.  Since then we've been busy trying to get back into the swing of things.  I'll update more on our trip later this week.  My mom is here now for a couple of days to help me put up some peaches.  We also invited her because Sawyer is gone this week, and wanted her to come spend some time at our house. 

I had a doctor's appointment a few days ago and all is going well with the baby.  She is definitely an active one.  My first appointment about a month ago, the doctor called her a "wild one" because she was moving so much when he tried to listen to her heart beat.  And this visit we learn that she's measuring a little big.  He said it's not too much to worry about and could be the way I'm carrying her, but all in all she's getting in her exercises.  Patrick likes to tease, that we were worried about Alden being too rough with her, but apparently she can hold her own.  We're getting more and more excited as the days go by.  I'm officially 30 weeks today.  I can't believe we are that close.  I haven't been very good about taking pictures of myself to document this pregnancy, but this is one from our trip.

So one time we went to Germany

Well it's about time I got around to posting these pictures.  I can't believe we've been home for almost a month and I still haven't put these up.  We've been busy swimming around here that Alden and I both come in and take really long naps during the middle of the day, so not much else gets done.  I'll have to post on that later, but since our pool has opened up, I think we go about twice a day and Alden loves it more and more.  At first it was me dragging him in and now he's dragging me in :)

Germany recap:
We got to spend 12 amazing days with our good friends Johannes, Jenn, and Sophie.  Sadly, I don't think any of us got a group picture, but we had so much fun and saw so many wonderful things.  It is definitely a trip that we will not forget.

We started off with a trip to Springfest.  It's just a big carnival and looked like a lot of fun, but we were hungry and our kiddos weren't really old enough to do anything, so we opted for getting waffles with powered sugar instead of doing the rides. And then went of a walk to find a real restaurant to eat at.  By the way, we loved all the food.  Every place we ate was amazing.

On Monday, we went to the zoo.  Munich has an amazing zoo with so many animals and it feels like you're right up near the animals.  It's just tucked away right in the city and it was so much fun.  Alden is in love with animals right now, so this was perfect for him.

The polar bears were one of his favorites.  They were playing in the water which was right up by the glass.  They were swimming and playing with toys in the water, so definitely the most entertaining.

On Tuesday we went to the BMW museum.  Patrick loved it.  I found it very interesting and enjoyed learning more, but Patrick is a car lover and thought it was really cool.

Wednesday we took the train for a few hours and headed out to see some castles.  We walked by a really green river.  It was almost teal it was so pretty.  This is on the hike up.

 Once we got to the little village/tourist town at the base of the mountain that has the castle on it, we took a carriage ride up the the castle.  We got to sit on the front seat and Alden and Sophie loved being so close to the horses.  However, the horse that was in front of Johannes, had a little too many beans to eat and made for some fun laughs.

I can't remember the name of the castle at this moment and don't want to get up to find out, but it's the castle that supposedly the Disney castle is patterned after.  We didn't take the tour inside but loved seeing the sights and walking around it.  It was little cold being so high up in the mountains, but it made so some amazing views.  We even got to see a Cloister.  Which we had a good laugh about because we played games every night and one game involves a Cloister.

We checked out a toy museum on Thursday.  It was not all we thought it was going to be.  It was four or five little rooms with older toys and the history of toys in glass cases.  It was educational to read all the plaques, but it sure didn't hold Alden's attention, so therefore we didn't last long.  We were expecting a different type of toy museum for the kids to enjoy.

Even though the museum was a bust, we found our way over to the English gardens and thoroughly enjoyed walking around and getting away from the busy city.  It's interesting though, because they are right in the middle of the city.  And the park was huge.  We barely covered a portion of it.  Alden loved chasing the pigeons around.  Everywhere we went he would wave his little arm off and say "hi" to the pigeons.  They kept him entertained at the train stations waiting for trains.

Friday we took to the train over to Salzburg, Austria to spend the weekend.  Friday afternoon was spent walking the city, eating good food, and playing at a park we found.  We absolutely loved Salzburg and had a fabulous time in the city.  It seems like a smaller city and was just so fun to explore and wander around.  

 We tried to take a tour of a castle that overlooked the city Saturday morning, but it didn't work out.  We happened to go on a day when admission was free, so it was packed and the tour was only being given in German because of the special occasion of the free day.  After hanging out in the courtyard area for a little over an hour waiting for our tour time, the kids had had enough, so we left.  But it still had some amazing views and Alden enjoyed playing with the toys during the wait.

 And what trip is complete without a soccer game when Patrick and Johannes are together!  We spent Saturday evening watching a Red Bulls game.  I can't remember who we played, but the Red Bulls won.  And Alden even did surprisingly well at the game.  He loved all the treats :)

 Sunday when we got back to Munich we visited Dachau concentration camp.  It was a very sombering experience to walk through a place with such sad history.  We learned a lot.  The museum was set up on the actual site and many of the actual buildings of the concentration camp were turned into the museum, so the stories we read became very real as we walked through the rooms.

 Monday we went back downtown and visited Olympic park.  It was huge and beautiful.  Alden loved all the ducks in the lake.  Next time I want to rent a paddle boat and go out on the lake!

I know there are a lot of pictures, but I wanted to capture the memories.  It was so much fun and we loved just hanging out with friends 24/7.  After Alden and Sophie went to bed each night we would play games for a few hours.  And if you know me, I love to play games.  It was so fun to catch up and just enjoy our vacation.  This is the way to visit Europe.  Thanks Jenn and Johannes for the fun memories!