Fall fun: Halloween, fort-building and bike riding!

Life is full and rich! Its amazing how the family is growing. Millie is loving 1st grade and is now our night-time reader to the kids, Tristan is learning how to sound out some words and loves pre-school, and Hallie is a little jewel, sweet and loving to all. There are thousands of amazing moments, although small, every day that make us smile. From Hallie pointing "puppy!" to every puppy we see and giving consoling hugs to anyone sad (friend or stranger), to Millie making in-depth plans for her birthday, Christmas, St. Patrick's day, Labor day, Boxing day (you get the idea ... the last one was a joke :)) months or even one year in advance, to Tristan singing himself "I am a Child of God" in the morning to help calm his fears of the dark (as it is 5:00 AM when he is waking up :)), we do have a full and fun life. We recently carved pumpkins, each kid chose a design from some things we saw on the internet and then we winged it. Millie wanted to experience a "scare," Tristan wanted a happy face and Hallie ... a puppy of course!

Pumpkins got us in the spirit for halloween, which was a hit for our little witch, Peter Pan, and pink poodle (making its 3rd appearance).

While winter is well on its way here we've been enjoying the fall weather and the fun activities that come with it. On a rare 70 degree day we enjoyed building some forts in the woods. Tristan and Millie especially enjoyed building a "home" that was complete with "hangers" as Millie called them for her clothes and "anchors" as Tristan called them ... to keep the fort grounded I suppose. Hallie just loved the leaves and is looking so cute:

Tristan explored and insisted on a short-sleeve shirt :)

And Millie loved directing the building of the fort and was very diligent in her efforts.

Millie loves having a little sister, they're so fun.

If you didn't guess yet, this is Trent and I've temporarily hijacked the blog.:) Finally, the kids just loved bike riding. We were amazed to see them go from falling down constantly (see example below) to up and riding within a day. This was a neat example of "letting the kids fall" so they could learn to ride. No serious injuries happened and now they are officially two-wheel bike riders! One of Tristan's (many) falls:

They performed synchronized turning:

And here are a few more pictures of the fun time.

Its amazing how much the kids are growing, developing, and learning. Bloomington is a wonderful place to be and we look forward to all the fun we'll have here as the holidays approach!

Best of Friends.....

Where does time go? So much to catch up on but I couldn't help documenting these precious pictures of these two siblings, truly best of friends. They are as different as salt and pepper yet both add so much joy to our life. Millie is full of ideas and wakes up mid-sentence, ready to fire off the first thing she has planned for them and us to do. Tristan wakes up, runs to Millie and gives her a big hug. Eagerly waiting for her entertaining plans so he can follow along. Throughout the day you'll find Millie racing around the house going from one idea to the next. Not far behind you see her toddling brother, who absolutely adores her and is there to laugh at all her jokes and share his toys to have her stay happy. His last words before he takes his nap are ...Night night Millie... I wuv you.... and some of his first words when he wakes up from a nap are....Millie where are you?.... He struggles with separation anxiety and has yet to stay a full day in Nursery at church. Yet if Millie is there when I drop them off at a friends for a playdate he is okay to go and happy to stay and play. Millie has become Tristan's official translator as well. Tristan will say two words and Millie will translate his meaning into a paragraph. Anything Millie says she wants or is going to do Tristan will repeat it back and say I want to do that too. At night we'll often lay in bed and we can hear them talking to each other, Millie will tell Tristan what they are going to do the next day and Tristan will gleefully try to repeat it. We'll often hear Tristan just before he falls asleep in his crib go through all the names in the family and say ........Night, Night Millie...Night Night Daddy......Night Night Mommy, ....... I wuv you. What a joy it is to be a family....... and I can't believe that in one week we get to welcome another member........destined to join and become one of these best friends.

Lots Of Good News!

Our first bit of exciting news and we are so excited to welcome a baby Girl in August!!

Our second bit of exciting news is we Close on our house on in one week!! So we are very busy packing and trying to figure out where to live next. Yet so Happy for all the Good News!!

They are the Champions!!

Over Christmas Break the Palfreyman's cute 3 year old son Elijah saved up his money to take Millie bowling. So of course we decided to make it a family event The Palfreyman's vs The Williams. The Palfreyman's graciously payed for us so as you can see we graciously let them win. j/k I wish that was the case :) after two games of bowling it was clear who won this rivalry :) Yet Not only are they great bowlers (is that a word :), They are wonderful people! Thanks for the fun time!

Halloween Fun....

We started a new tradition this year where each of us carved a pumpkin. The two pumpkins closest to Millie are ones we had fun carving at a company party. The small pumpkins are Millie and Tristan's. Millie asked for a Rocket so Trent carved a little Rocket in one of the small white ones. After putting the pumpkin seeds in the oven, I chose a design and started to carve..... first I tried the saw from the kit, then a steak knife, finally I went out to the garage to look for a hammer.... at this point Trent looked over (from carving his pumpkin with a butter knife) smiling and came to the rescue. He tried every thing too and finally headed to the garage for the hammer. Who knew pumpkins shells could be like rocks? :)



Here's our cute little Buzz. He only went trick or treating to 4 houses because he was so busy eating his candy. So Cute!



Minnie and Sleeping Beauty held hands going to every house. :)



Here is the adorable trick or treating group. It was fun to see how much everyone had grown up this year.



Millie insisted on being Minnie Mouse this year, One of the first things she said when she put on her costume was "I can laugh like Minnie" She then held both hands to her mouth and out came the cutest most dainty laugh.

Catch up...

I really need to change the name of my blog because it's not even close to weekly posts :-) . I hope to catch up this week with summer fun. Here are some family pictures we took at Bear Lake at my family reunion.

Disney on Ice.....

I found my camera cord! So now I can start posting again. Yesterday we went to Disney on Ice which was so much fun.



Here are how high up our tickets were, Millie asked when we got to our seats "When are we going to go down there to watch the show?" We made it through the show with out any nose bleeds.:)



They ended the show with Peter Pan and Wendy. My favorite!




Here we are in front of the American Airlines Center.



On our way out Millie was sad she didn't get a Mickey snow cone because she loves Mickey. We were trying to explain to her that Minnie was better because she was a girl like her. Millie paused and said " Oh..... So I'm Minnie. Daddy's Mickey. And Mommy's....(long pause).... Mommy's Goofy."
Gotta love of all the princesses at Disney...... Goofy.:-)