Catch up: October

October...the only real month of fall in Wisconsin. We made batch after batch of pumpkin cookies...

 made the annual visit to the pumpkin patch....

 made ebelskivers for breakfast....

 got ice cream after getting shots at the doctor...

 and enjoyed breakfast in bed from my sweet, thoughtful girls. Being in the 1st trimester in October, I often lazed about in bed for a while in the morning, procrastinating the start of feeling nauseous.  And my girls were great. Love them.

 We took a weekend trip out to Minneapolis to visit Paul's brother Aaron and family. Apple picking was awesome and beautiful.

 Niels loved being pulled by the tractor.

And Paul and Aaron enjoyed purchasing 48 bottles of root beer in preparation for Thanksgiving, when all Iversons would gather together at our house. I still don't know why we are such root beer fanatics, but we are.

 And what is fall without playing in the leaves?

 Of course there was Halloween...and how could Paul be anything but Wolverine? Hence I was Rogue and Niels was the Beast...at least for a few minutes till he wiped all the face paint off.

 Hattie as Nya, the Ninjago Ninja

 Anna, the fairy princess

Catch up: September

Paul started the month off with a thick set of Wolverine chops, and a Tough Mudder race. I was only slightly tempted to join him, but being 2 months pregnant and feeling lousy, I opted out.

He loved it, even though he pulled a muscle somewhere around mile #8. But he's gearing up for this fall and other bout of voluntary pain and misery. And the chops stuck around all fall and into winter...

The girls did soccer....they both liked it...neither of them is a natural, but nor do they hate it so we will keep them signed up as long as possible.

Hattie even scored three goals during the season.

 But this is how our Saturday's usually ended.

 Paul turned 33...

 And Hattie turned 6. Hard to believe she is growing up so fast.

Recap: November

Somehow, with all of December's busyness, November was forgotten. Here are some highlights:

Niels has mastered the art of his baby walker (which we got for free at a rummage). He cruises all around the house and loves his freedom - and chasing his sisters. After his first tumble down the stairs (!) we quickly installed a gate and he is now relatively safe...unless one of his sisters forgets to lock the gate. 

One of autumn's greatest pleasures...jumping in leaves. Especially since we can't throw them in the garbage bin here, the only purpose of raking them is to jump in them.

Thanksgiving with the Elder Beech, Elder Harmon, and Paul's parents and brother. It was wonderful just being at home and not travelling.

The kids opened Christmas presents from Paul's sister Erika right after Thanksgiving...Christmas pajamas and a bunch of Christmas book! A great way to start off the season.

 And Erika included some $1 post-Halloween costumes...dress-up is always a favorite at our house.

And my chubby little Niels. He is growing so fast. He is crawling everywhere and wants to grab everything. He knows exactly how to turn on the iPad and I think he truly understands the sign for "all done" at dinner time. I can't believe his birthday is next month already!

November

Right before Halloween I took on a task of motherhood that I had been dreading: potty training. I had put it off as long as possible. Most of her friends were potty trained and I still didn't feel like my little girl was ready. Then one day, she suddenly hated having a wet diaper on. She would lay down on the ground holding a clean diaper while yelling, "PEED!!!" at the top of her lungs. I guess I could finally take the hint that she was ready.

Gratefully, I have 5 older siblings, all with a lot more parenting experience than I. Sharee introduced us all to a method called "Potty Training in Less Than a Day," which Laura used last year to potty-trained her twins. Like her, I am a total believer. I love how Hattie instigates going to the bathroom...I don't have to ask her every 10 minutes if she has to use the potty, nor did I waste hours with her sitting on the toilet trying to force her to go when she didn't need to. It really only took a day for it to click. It was such a breeze (at least in comparison to what I expected - months of dealing with accidents). On the contrary, she had accidents randomly for about two weeks, and has now gone about two weeks accident free. Well, I guess she did have an accident the other day, but it was our fault - she was in time-out and we told her she couldn't leave her room...at least she was obedient!

The girls have been fun this month, besides battling a little sickness. At least they are snuggly when sick.
(For some reason this picture rotated and i can't get it to turn back, so just angle your head a bit) Anna only gets chubbier...around the belly. I pulled out the 18-24 month clothes (she's 16 months) and put this shirt on. See that I can't button the buttons by about 3 inches? And I thought Hattie had a belly...this shirt was loose on her!
They love the box that our turkey fryer came in (never baking a turkey again!)
And they love it when I grind wheat...I think they think it's a mini sand box.

We also got family pictures taken, but I'll post those tomorrow...

It's autumn time

While we were at Aunt Carma's, I raked some leaves for Hattie to play in. It took her a while to figure out what to do...she sat there for a while before she started to throw anything around. But she got the hang of it eventually. I love the fall!