november

okay, i'm in hyper-blogging mode now because i'm pretty sure sara's going to take her first steps here in a few days and i want to be all caught up so i can blog about it!

november was an exciting month because that's when we went to the Fabulous Food Festival! One of James' favorite past times is watching the food network chanel which i love because he tries all the new recipes he learns about on me. :) 

there were all sorts of famous food guys there that i had seen on james' shows.  our tickets came with seats to see one of the shows so i went to guy fiery (i'm sure i botched his name) and james saw michael symons.

there were a million venders with food samples so we walked around all morning trying out the free food.  here are scott and james taking an apple tasting test.

and here's a picture of Guy.

November is also the month when we finally cut scott's hair.  it was growing a little out of control. 

our mall had a big familiy day for the opening of the food court so we went and they had this robot guy for kids to take pictures with.

my favorite part was when i originally told scott to go stand by the robot i looked up from my camera and saw this...

 he was so enamored by the robot that he walked up and gave him a big hug. how cute is that kid?

scott and sara's favorite past time is playing in sara's crib.  sara loves it because having her brother by her is her favorite time of life and i love it because scott entertains her for a while after she wakes up giving me more time to finish whatever i'm doing.

these kiddos are so fun and love each other so much.  i just love seeing them light up when they're together.

for thanksgiving we went to columbus and had dinner with bryan and annie.  sadly enough the turkey turned out not to be done all the way through when we were ready to eat so bryan cooked it on the grill outside.  it was seriously the best turkey i've ever had.  i know bryan thought i was just being nice every time i said that, but i promise bryan... it really was amazing.  and should be our new family tradition.

the kids waited very patiently for the turkey to be ready.

after dinner the kids played dress-up.  scott and audrey were doctors.  they had to make sure that none of us were going to die from the uncooked turkey.  (just kidding bryan.)

and i loved walking out on the back deck and seeing julia and scott in front of their fake fire pit.  i think scott was a little disappointed that there weren't any flames. 

here's cute annie with our newest member of the family... Lilly Palmer.

the day after thanksgiving was time to get ready for christmas.  we set up the tree and scott and james did a great job of straightening out the fake branches after they sat in a box all year.

then our sweet neighbor sharon came over for some left over thanksgiving dinner. 

we feel so lucky to be living here in cleveland by family and new friends and all the super famous food guys. it was a great month!

Happy Late Halloween

i'm not sure what happened over the past couple months but one day it was halloween and the next it was christmas and suddenly we're in 2012! Time is flying and i'm way behind on blogging. But here are the October pictures and more are to follow shortly.

scott was batman for halloween this year (and he's still batman today if anyone's asking).  he was very fierce.
p.s. yes, that is a duct tape bat belt made by yours truly.

we were out of town this year for halloween so scott couldn't actually go trick or treating.  but seeing this face during our ward trunk-or-treat party was enough for me.

and here's a shot of sara on the big night.  she was a fairy/butterfly/bat girl princess. 

the halloween festivites continued with our pumpkin carving night with mitchell jones and fam. 

mine (the one on the left) is winking in case you were wondering.

we also headed to our ymca halloween bash.  scott's batman costume was dirty so he was a (thrown together very quickly at the very last minute) super soccer player.  he took the roll very seriously.

scott and i tried to do a lot of non-halloween fall activities as well.  we've been trying to use sara's morning nap as a time that we do projects together.  for this particular project we collected sticks outside...

and pinecones too...

and made a very cool stick house with a milk carton and superglue.  (scott was very proud.)

and that was our very exciting october.  stay tuned for november!

Time Out For Women -- Cincinnati, OH

This past weekend was incredible!  Full of laughs, tears and spirtual upliftment.  I'm still recuperating from the late night girl-talk and the rollercoaster of emotions!  I went to Time Out for Women with these cute girls in my ward (R-L: Shanna Olmsted, Katie Kirkham, Laura Pettersen, Lisa Ybarra, Lindsay Weston).  Thanks to Laura I have all these great pics of our time there.

 

We were uplifted with amazing music.  Here we are with the girls of Mercy River.  I wanted a picture with Michael Mclean but i was too shy. :)

And outstanding speakers.  This is cute Mariama.  We all loved her and her heart wrentching stories.

But best of all I loved bonding with my fellow sisters.  We got to know each other so well and I truly grew to love these girls more and more with each passing hour.  It was such a great weekend!

I also wanted to post some pictures of our little sara with her new teeth.  they are finally big enough to capture in a photo so here you go.

scott wanted in on the picture action as well. 

When I came downstairs this morning from putting sara down for a nap I found these boys cooking together in the kitchen.

James has a slower rotation this week so he's been home a lot more. It has been so nice to have him around now that his board exams are over.  Now his residency interviews begin!  He has the first one this Friday and another fifteen (plus) over the next three months!

Scott's favorite part of cooking...

And another random pic of sara because I love this hat and i love her so much.  she's such a cuddly little bear.

Cedar Point!!!

this past weekend the palmer familiy finally made it to cedar point.  we have had a goal to go there since we found out we would be doing two years of rotations in cleveland and we finally made it!  for those who don't know, cedar point is a very large and very nice amusement park in sandusky, ohio (about an hour from us).  and since we are enjoying 75 degree weather in october we decided to go (and so did the rest of the people living in ohio.)

yes, it was very...very crowded but we still had lots of fun.  the park has a parent swap program where one parent can wait in line while the other one hangs with the kids.  then the other parent can go through the exit and get right on the ride once the first parent is done.  it was sad to not be with james while he waited in line but the kids and i found lots of ways to entertain ourselves.  here we are waiting for james to ride the "dragster".

and here is james waiting to go on the "dragster".  he was in line for almost two hours after the ride broke down half way through his wait!  the break-down only added to the thrill of the ride.

i tried to capture this craziness of this ride.  see that huge peek in the distance?  the rollercoaster shoots ExTrEmEly fast up and over that peak.  it is seriously freaky deeky.  i was still shaking ten minutes after riding it. i'm not joking.

my favorite thing about cedar point is that you can leave the park for a while and walk along the boardwalk and go out to the beach.  not many people were out here and it was so peaceful and beautiful and relieving to get away from the crowds for a while.

and this is just how sara was for 80 percent of the day.  she constantly amazes me by how chill she can be in potentially stressful situations.

we finally got to the point where we decided that splitting up and waiting in long lines wasn't worth being away from each other so we spent most of the evening together going on "family rides". 

the kids were so happy to have daddy back.

the whole reason we went to cedar point in the first place was to see our friends ryan callahan and b.j. jones.  ryan came and hung out with us in the evening and it was so good to catch up with him.  it was weird that he hadn't even met our little sara considering the fact that he was like a member of our family when we lived in iowa.

we kept saying that we'd leave the park when the kids got cranky but they never did!  they were so good and so we stayed into the night letting scott run around from ride to ride having the time of his life.  it was such a great day.

other things we've been up to...
scott had his first japanese "hibachi" experience.  he loved the big fire in the middle of the table.  we went there with some of our new ohio friends (katie and mark mcvey). 

sara just keeps getting older and older.  she is very much posed here and not at all big enough to actually sit at scott's table by herself but she is getting old enough for these two to entertain each other.  scott is so good at playing with her (especially when i bribe him with treats) and scott is now willing to play in his room by himself as long as sara is there with him.  i absolutely love hearing them play and laugh together.  they're such cute little gigglers.

we had our new friend, tyler weston, over the other day.  tyler and scott are such good buddies and here are some photos of them working with their jello jigglers. 

and this is my new favorite picture... maybe ever. (scott found this bike helmet in the closet and was convinced that it was a baseball helmet.)

james is in philadelphia TONIGHT getting ready to take the second portion of his board exams tomorrow.  these roses are what he brought home to me after the first section was over (last thursday).  i can't wait to see what he brings me when he gets home tomorrow! :)

and lastly, i just wanted to thank everyone who signed my petition to move victoria secret from the play place in the mall.  (this is a photo that i took to include in the letter that i wrote the mall management).  and here is some positive news... i heard back from the mall and they said they have received a lot of complaints about this very issue and they are moving the play place!!!  it will be in its new location by january of 2012! i'm so excited and so grateful to the many people who have opened their mouths so that this change could take place.  thanks again!