We’ve been busy little bees working on t-shirts and vinyl, getting ready for the holidays and prepping for baby #3. (That’s still surreal sounding to me… 3 kids is a legitimate family. It seems so much more official and BIG than 2. Am I right?) All this “nesting” I’ve been doing has me itching for Christmas to be here! Jake keeps giving me a hard time, he says I’m giving Thanksgiving the shaft. Mostly I just don’t see the harm in having pretty Christmas decorations out for an extra week. Or blaring Christmas music throughout the house. Or reading Christmas stories to the kids. Or watching Christmas movies. You get the point…

Anyway, we went to Arkansas to visit Jake’s sis Hillary and her family and to have the first (of three…no joke) of our  Thanksgiving festivities for this year. It’s so beautiful where she lives and we had such a great time. She planned an awesome Relief Society Super Saturday that was going on while we were there, too! It was SO great to get out with the girls and be crafty. Jake and I did the vinyl for the projects so it was fun to see all our hard work pay off. I made a FHE board, only I have this weird issue with having the same thing as everyone else, so I didn’t put the vinyl on it…. I designed my own version yesterday and I’ll post a picture once I finally get around to sticking it on. I also made a bunch of magnets and tiles necklaces, ate the most amazing caramel apples of my life, and learned how to make cake pops… which is a skill I may never actually use. It was great fun! Anyways, back to Thanksgiving… Hillary’s turkey is amazing. It goes something along the lines of honey brined, butter injected poultry perfection. Some day when I grow up and make a turkey of my own… I want her recipe! Natalie and I got Hill to give in and let us “make” the rolls (Thank you Rhodes!) and pumpkin pie (again…Wal-Mart bakery) and somehow the world didn’t come to an end. We had such a great time, thanks for having us Sperry clan!

What else?
-I cut Ashelyn’s hair. Almost two inches!
-Jake has already started perfecting his Christmas candies… which is equally awesome and AWFUL. This “baby weight” is gonna take ages to get off…
-After the Christmas party we’ll no longer have callings since Activities Committee is being phased out. I think it makes sense for the calling to go since there are plenty of people in ward council to make activities happen, but it’s still sad. Or scary might be more accurate…. Primary terrifies me. Is that bad?
-For those of you who ask often, still no name for little guy, but we did get some GREAT suggestions. Here are a few of my faves…

• Slayer
• “He Who Must Not Be Named”
• Ignacio
• Waldo

Maren, you’re loads of help! Keep ‘em coming pal! In all seriousness, we do in fact have a list of names that we like, unfortunately none of them are jumping out as the right one yet. Probably this little guy will be like Ashelyn and just let us know his name as soon as he arrives. Hopefully.

Now, on to pictures…. Some of these are phone pics, so they’re not great.
Hillary’s Chocolate-Pecan Pie.

Bustlin’ in the Kitchen.

Gideon chowing down.

Sunday walk with Gramma and Grampa.

Nat putting the vinyl on her FHE board.

Ashelyn smooching Jake. She’s got Daddy right where she wants him….

Ashelyn’s new haircut. She looks so big!

Oh, I love my boys. Jake’s facial hair antics never get old. Haha, although this year he’s agreed to put off the lumberjack beard until after we take a family picture for the Christmas cards. Thank HEAVENS!

See… I really did put the tree up already. It makes me happy, and the kids had a blast.

Jade… these two blurry ones that Jake took while we were decorating are the only belly shots I’ve got, so they’ll have to do. But see, it’s there… the bump is real. AND, only 6 weeks left until little man arrives.