Happy Halloween...

From our little pumpkin!!!

Fall Festivities!!!

Now that I have my life back, we have jumped into fall feet first! We had a Halloween extravaganza on Thursday night with some friends. We started with a trip to the Mountain Valley Ranch in Ramona. They have a corn maze, a pumpkin patch, a super cute red barn filled with all kinds of pumpkins, a corn shooter, and a goat run. It was such a nice day, and they even have little wagons that you can pull kids around the ranch in. We had a lot of plans for the evening, so we didn't stay too long. For dinner we had chili, cornbread and IBC Rootbeer. We carved pumpkins, baked pumpkin seeds, made apple cider, and made candy apples. It was all soo much fun, and everything turned out great.
Today Clara and I went up to Julian to pick apples with my sister's family. Her in-law's have all come from Boston to visit the new baby Ella, and we went today with my sister, her husband, and mother and father-in-law. The rest of the family have already gone back. While they were all here, I took some pictures for them to use on a Christmas Card, they don't have the entire family together very often, so it was a perfect opportunity. Jonathan has two sisters, and one brother, and they all made it out here with their significant others/spouses. It was very fun to have them all here. Jon's older sister has a baby the same age as Clara and it was funny to see them together, Clara isn't always the most polite with other kids, so it was good practice for her.

The Gauvins

We went to the Raven Hill Orchard, and although it is late in the season, we still found some good apples.

We made a stop at Menghini Winery for them to do some wine tasting, it was right next to the orchard.
It has been such a fun couple of days. I am so glad that I am finally starting to feel better, but I also can't believe that I am already looking pregnant. It is happening so much faster this time around, yikes!! Now I am ready for Halloween, Clara and I probably won't go trick-or-treating, but we'll have fun passing out candy to all the kids. Happy Halloween and Fall!!

Oh BOY, oh BOY...

Yes, that's right...baby #2 is a boy!!! We did the "gender package" at a 3-D ultrasound facility today. I know, I know...I am so impatient when it comes to gender. The funny thing was that I was more willing to wait this time until our 20 week formal ultrasound to find out, but Jordan actually kept bringing up, "so if we wanted to, we could find out at 15 weeks?" To which I would tell him, stop getting my hopes up, if you keep talking about it, then I'm going to book it. Anyways, he made the appointment as a surprise to me, and then told me about it a couple days before. I was soo excited, I have pretty much been going through 9 weeks of torture, that I was ready for some good news. The ultrasound tech said she was about 100% sure, and she said she doesn't say that very often. From my view it definitely looked like a boy! Jordan is of course very excited, and we keep telling Clara that she is getting a little brother. It was so nice to see the baby, I have been pretty convinced that my body is such a hostile environment it is impossible that something could be living inside me. So, we enjoyed ourselves and loved seeing the baby move and suck his thumb. There has been such a girl dominance lately with our friends, that maybe we will be starting the boy train now, who knows?

October

I have been terrible at blogging lately, pretty much because all I've felt like doing is crawling into a hole and not coming out 'til second trimester. I have been nauseous for 9 weeks now, and am finally starting to feel a teensy bit better...hallelujah. It was taking all my energy to keep Clara and myself fed. I had to constantly be snacking and my dilemma was always, "now what should I eat?" Nothing would sound good, and I wouldn't feel like making anything, but if I didn't manage to scrounge up something I would throw up, and undo all my hard work of eating up until then. Jordan had been very busy with work the first two weeks in October. He was also taking a class that was every day for 8 hours, in between his 24 hour shifts. Basically he was home every other night, and that was no fun. He is absolutely amazing though, he would come home, and in the couple hours he had before bed, he would clean the house and put it back in order, because it was always in shambles. But thankfully, we have all survived, and did manage to do a couple of fun things in the meantime.

I had a girls afternoon tea for Jeannine's birthday in the beginning of October. We went to the Aubrey Rose Tea Room in La Mesa. It was a lot of fun, and very relaxing, especially because I left Clara with my mom. I couldn't imagine trying to reign her in amongst all the fine china.
We also had planned a Disneyland trip for Jeannine's birthday, although it took until yesterday to actually go with all of our schedules. It was a wonderfully cold and cloudy day, and it POURED a couple of times. I didn't even know it rained that much in California, but I loved it, and I would take that any day over hot and sunny, especially in October.

We had soooo much fun, we hardly waited in any lines, and got to do everything we wanted. I don't know if I have ever expressed my love for Disneyland on this blog, but I think it is the most fantastic place on earth. Disneyland doesn't half-do anything, everything is done above and beyond. Every square inch of that place is accounted for, and plays the part perfectly. I love all the rides, but some of my favorites were the Toy Story 3-D ride which was my first time on it, and the Tower of Terror which we rode twice. I love that ride, you seriously go from screaming your head off, to laughing hysterically, and then back to screaming. We saw the new show "World of Color" at California, it was a great show, although I am not a fan of the seating arrangements. You have to get a fast pass in the morning to have a spot to watch the show, and there are barely any open viewing areas. We didn't know this, so we were left without a place to watch it, but we were determined to see it. Another thing about me though, is that I do not like breaking rules, I hate getting in trouble, and I don't have a rebellious bone in my body (hopefully our kids will take after me). There was plenty of room in the fast pass viewing areas, but the staff was adamant that they wouldn't let anybody in without a ticket. Jordan manages to sneak through somehow, and then of course, when I try to sneak through, I get caught! So embarrassing! "Excuse me ma'am, do you have a ticket?" Dang it! I had to leave the area, and now Matt & Jeannine had gone off to find a place, and I was not about to watch the show by myself. So after the lights dimmed, I zoomed past the guy again, my heart pounding, and found Jordan. The whole time I was just waiting for the guy to find me, tap me on the shoulder, and say, "are you kidding me lady, can't you follow directions?!" I liked the show, but I think I will go back to following the rules. We had the grandmas watch Clara for the day, which was a good move, I don't think she would have done so well in all the rain. The poor kids we saw looked kinda miserable.

I just realized that there are no pictures of Clara in this post! And looking through my pictures this month, I haven't really taken any of her! I only have one goofy picture of her from a trip we took up to Julian, but it's still cute, she is munching on some pie crust.
I promise that I will get better at taking pictures soon, and my next post will have her, because she seriously is the cutest thing ever, and I know she is the main reason you all read my blog!