north carolina

Surprise! My sister Cami knew my mom was coming, but didn't know that my sister Erika and I were coming too. It was the best to see the expression on her face when she pulled up at the airport.

Breakfast at Toast in Davidson, North Carolina.

Just a little bit of shopping...

Cami's house and two of her three cute kids.

My niece Imogen {she looks just like Cami!}.

I love this shadowbox Cami has in her house...the needlework "klokkestreng" was done by my great-grandmother from Norway, and there she is in the picture with Cami in 1978. The other photo is of my other Norwegian great-grandmother with my dad on her lap, 1952.

Some snippets of our day at the Biltmore Mansion in Asheville, North Carolina. Photos weren't allowed inside, but check out that balcony!

Craziness at the airport! Just me and Erika with our babies. Help!

This was the second week of November, such a fun trip! I'd never been to my sister Cami's house in North Carolina before, and it was so beautiful there with all the tall trees dressed in fall colors. And any trip with my mom is hilarious...my favorite quote this trip was when she and I had to squeeze into the front seat of the minivan. As she slammed the door she said, "Sorry I'm big butted!" Mom had reserved a rental car at the wrong airport, and since Cami wasn't expecting me and William and Erika and Casch, she had her three kids with her. So we all had to pretend we were clowns in a car! It was a real squish but we made it. Poor Erika sat on the floor in the back and got carsick.

I started a little Christmas shopping on the trip, picked up some Lego Star Wars magnets for Ben at the Lego store, some cute clothes at killer deals at The Children's Place outlet, and a handmade flower pin for Hailey in one of the artsy shops in Davidson.

We were so sad Mom went home after the first day. Not only did we miss laughing about everything with her, but we were sad that Grandpa Stanley was going through such a hard time at the hospital. Mom was so worried about losing him she couldn't stand it, she just had to go home. She was so sweet, she paid for our tickets to go to the Biltmore Mansion without her. That's her favorite place to go when she visits Cami, especially when it's decorated for Christmas and she didn't want us to miss it.

It really was amazing and worth the 2-hours-sharing-the-front-seat drive. Part of it is open for touring, and there were Christmas trees in every room. We were laughing about how all the rooms had buttons at the doorways, one that said "MAID" and one that said "BUTLER."

"How lazy were these people?" Erika giggled.

{The Vanderbilt family that lived there had only one kid!}

But here's the kicker:

They had an indoor pool {pretty crazy for 1895} complete with lights in the bottom of it, and of course...TA-DA! A button at the door that said "VALET" so that Mr. Valet Person could come and help you change out of your bathingsuit...ha!

Will kept screaming through the tour {SUCH a screamer on this trip}, so Cami took him outside since she'd been there a few times before. She had her three kids out there too. Everyone there was looking at us like we were totally insane for bringing so many kids with us. Yeah, we got some dirty looks for sure, haha! It's not exactly a fun place for kids anyway. Zach was so upset he had to spend his day off of school there, but Tate {always the optimist} was saying stuff like, "This place is beautiful! It's beautiful, huh, Mom?"

We ate lunch in the stable house restaurant and later had hot chocolate and ice cream there in the courtyard. The Christmas lights around the mansion sparkled while we loaded 5 cranky kids into the minivan and an old lady gave us the evil eye. It was great. And then I told Erika, "Sorry I'm big butted" since we had to share the front seat for 2 hours on the ride back! We had some really good laughs that night about crazy old grandmas and stuff.

Other than that, Cami and Colby treated us to some of the best Mexican food I've had in my life, and we watched movies, played the Wii and slept in. Ate some more. Went for walks around the neighborhood and in foresty parks and around lakes. Ahhh...so nice. Except for Will screaming.

The time came for Erika and I to go home. Cami dropped us off at the airport, lots of hugs and then "BYE!" We thought it was a little weird that the Delta terminal was so deserted when we went inside. "You won't be going home tonight," the lady at the desk informed us. Huh? Apparently an ice storm in Minneapolis meant that our connecting flight had been cancelled.

Yahoo! Another night of vacation for us!

So we called Cami to come back for us, but no answer. No answer. No answer.

So we called Colby, who answered, but was on his way to the Jazz/Bobcats game in downtown Charlotte with the boys. Luckily he was caravanning with a friend and was near the airport, so he stopped by the airport and gave us his car. He and Zach and Tate jumped into their friends car and Colby tried to give us simple directions back to their house and said, "Get thee to a gas station!"

Haha, no kidding! The fuel light was on and we had no clue how to get to Cami's, and of course Will was screaming! So we pulled out the trusty Google Map and found a gas station, and then surprised the heck out of Cami at her house! She was about to dive into a triple chocolate cheesecake on her own...darn! She ended up having to share it with us, haha! And when the boys all got home from the game, Zach cried because he had to sleep on the floor AGAIN! He couldn't wait for his pesky aunts to leave and get the heck out of his bedroom.

Flying home without Mom's help made us nervous with the babies. If one of us had to go to the bathroom, the other had to juggle the two. Will screamed for a while on the first flight and I'm sure I was beet red and sweating before we landed. BUT, the benefit of getting your flight cancelled is that sometimes the only available seats on the next flight are in FIRST CLASS. Oh yes. It was great. On the connecting flight Erika and I had seats together, room to stretch, the babies slept almost the whole way, and the food was actually pretty good.

I love girl trips, thank you Mom! And thanks Cami and Colby for letting us stay {and especially to Zach for giving up his bedroom}.

william's blessing day

Oh, look at this little guy. Three months old.

His blessing day was today, November 7, 2010...a beautiful blessing given by his dad, followed by a few cozy hours spent with family packed into our little house, and plenty of food. I love days like that.

P.S. This was Ben's blessing outfit too!

the quiet book

A new little treasure I found at the library. Sweet and simple, it shows all kinds of ways that "quiet" can be. Perfect for settling little ones down before a trip to Sleepyland. Find it here.

halloween 2010

We spent Halloween weekend eating lots of white chicken chili and sipping hot cider {which made the house smell so cozy}. And of course it wouldn't be Halloween at our house without a Harry Potter movie marathon in full swing for a day or two.

Olivia was the cutest White Rabbit ever {thanks Julie!} to go along with Nina, the cutest Alice in Wonderland. Hannah loved her mime costume so much that she wants to do it again next year. Thanks to Aunt Hailey for sponsoring that one! Ben was the best looking little G.I. Joe, complete with camoflauge make-up and plastic binoculars.

My brother Trevor and my sis-in-law Tatum hosted the 6th Annual Haugen Halloween Party, a good time as always. Last year he started a tradition of making a short film to show at the party, and here's this year's film. Haha!

The icing on the cake was that Clay and I won the costume contest this year! I was so excited because I put so much time and thought into it, and I was pretty happy with how it turned out. It was fun being Mary Poppins for a night, and Clayton was the cutest Burt The Chimney Sweep ever. He came in saying in his best chimney sweep accent, "Good evening, governor!" Too bad he couldn't show off his sidewalk chalk drawing abilities, it would've been so perfect!

I made his broom using snippets of Christmas garland which I duct taped around a pipe, then spray painted it black. I found my hat at TJMaxx, then hot-glued the daisies onto it. I already had the scarf, and Hailey let me borrow her coat and lacy-collared blouse {which she was embarassed to admit she owned}, and I picked up my skirt and Clayton's jacket at the D.I. A little black hair spray for me and some charcoal for Clay finished it off just right, dontcha think?

So yeah, we won an awesome gold plastic skeleton statue {yes! haha!}, movie tickets, and the cash that people put into the witch cauldron.

{I already can't wait for next year's party...we've got a pretty good idea for it.}

Nina drew this a couple days ago on a giant piece of paper. It's about as wide as she is tall. When she was done coloring it, she asked me how to spell "I'm not giving this to anybody." I think it's because she usually gives all her drawings away and writes who it's to and "from Nina" on each one. But this one is obviously a keeper.

simple ghosties

Here are a couple of our Halloween traditions...white chocolate ghosts, and these ghosts I made years ago out of white tissue paper and cheesecloth. I have a few of them floating around the house, and a group of them hanging over the front steps to welcome trick-or-treaters. Two super easy and inexpensive projects!

p.s. I can't wait to show you our costumes this year!

look who's two months old already

How is it that the last two months with this little guy have flown by, yet the two months of pregnancy before that seemed to have dragged on forever?

Will smiles and laughs now and it is the cutest thing ever. He weighed in yesterday at 11 lbs. 4 oz. so he is putting on at least a little chub now! Still up every 3 or 4 hours at night. I'm a tired scatterbrain but I've survived this before {I keep telling myself that!}.