Trunk or Treat

Last weekend our church had its annual Trunk or Treat party. There were bounce houses, carnival games, and several church members decorated the trunks/backs of their cars and handed out candy to the kids. We had gone last year, but this year Will was way more in to it. A lot of our friends were there, too, which made it even more fun.

Will in his costume before we left the house:


Trunk-or-Treating




Getting candy from our friend JoEllen:


Playing in the bounce house with his friends:

Happy Anniversary!!

Today is mine and John's fifth anniversary. I can't believe it's been five years already. We aren't really doing anything to celebrate. We had originally talked about going on a big trip--possibly back to where we went on our honeymoon--but then I went and got pregnant. ;) We did go out to dinner last Saturday night to celebrate, and tonight we'll have a nice dinner after Will goes to bed and then watch our wedding video.

Frankly our wedding was the best one I've ever been to, but I imagine most people say that. :) We got married at Red Mountain Ranch Country Club in Mesa on the golf course at sunset. It was beautiful. The reception was so much fun, too. At one point there were about 15 people at the bar doing vodka shots. :) Would you expect anything different at OUR wedding? ;)

I thought I had a bunch of our wedding pictures scanned, but I can't find them on the computer anywhere, so these will have to do:

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

I uploaded these pictures last week but never got around to posting them here. One of the vegetables we picked on our trip to the pumpkin patch was zucchini. I hate zucchini. My mom always got an abundance of it in the summer when I was growing up and put it in EVERYTHIING. I have never liked it except in zucchini bread. My sister-in-law, Lori, lives in Modesto, CA, and she gets chocolate zucchini bread from the farmers market there. It's fantastic stuff. So, I had this zucchini to use and figured I'd see if I could find a chocolate zucchini bread recipe. Allrecipes.com once again came through for me! I found a recipe that sounded good, and I had everything on hand for it. So one day last week after Will's nap, we made chocolate zucchini bread!

Will and the zucchini


Helping mommy stir (please excuse the messy counter)



"I not eating, mommy, I just smelling."

Baby Update

Just thought I'd give a quick baby update. As of yesterday I was 35 weeks which means roughly five weeks until Lando will be here! It's gone by amazingly fast. I'm frantically trying to get everything done and ready for his arrival. Will's excited for his baby brother and loves to hang out in baby's room. Every time we're at a store he asks if he can buy something for baby brother...but somehow the things all end up being for him, either going in his room or the toy room. :)

Baby's room is almost done, I just need to hang some stuff up on the walls and then I'll post pictures of it. I'm pretty pleased with how it's turned out. It's been fun going through Will's old clothes and sorting out what we can use and what won't work this time. I can't believe how tiny the clothes are! Tomorrow morning is my baby shower, which I'm really looking forward to. I have fantastic friends that offered to host it for me, and I can't wait to see what they've planned.

My friend Joanne--one of my many pregnant friends--found a website that equates fetal size to fruits or vegetables. I checked what Lando's equivalent to and laughed. Joanne's little baby girl (Jo, Lando's future wife, perhaps????? At least we know they wouldn't have crazy inlaws!) is the size of a mango, and she's 19 weeks. Here's what the website had to say about Baby Knightly:



Month 8
Average Fetus: 17.2 to 18.7 inches long, 4.2 to 5.8 pounds
Baby’s senses are continuing to improve -- when light peeks in through your (extremely) stretched belly, those tiny eyelids and irises blink and dilate. And, baby can now recognize and react to simple songs… time to start practicing your lullabies! Growth (at least inside your womb) is starting to slow, and you may notice baby descend into your pelvis at the end of this month.

Pretty interesting! I had an OB visit today, and the doctor said baby's measuring right on track and his heartbeat sounded good. He's already head down, so that's great news.

I took some more side view belly shots a couple days ago. I feel bad that I haven't done that as often this time as I did when I was pregnant with Will. Second child syndrome starts in the womb I guess. :)



By the way, we have decided on a name!! A first name anyway...John's still insisting that Danger be his middle name since he's not getting Lando as the first name, but I refuse to cave!!

Pumpkin Patch

On Monday we went to Tolmachoff Farms with MOMS Club for some pre-Halloween festivities. The kids got to ride a train, pick vegetables from a vegetable patch, go in a corn maze, and pick out pumpkins. Oh yeah...and we got ice cream. It was a really fun day and most of Will's friends were there too. Will was really excited to pick his pumpkin.

Waiting to ride the train


Ready for a train ride!


Will and the cucumber he picked


Looking at the turkeys...gobble gobble!


Enjoying his ice cream


Will playing in the corn


Grinding corn to feed the chickens

Guesses for Baby #2

I found a cool website today where friends and family can enter guesses for when babies will make their grand entrance, as well as how big they'll be. Too bad there's no field to guess what his name will be. ;)

Feel free to take a guess as to when Lando will be here!

http://www.expectnet.com/games/johnandclairebaby2

For the record, Will was three days early, 9 lbs 2 oz, 21.5" long.

Will's new favorite playroom

Will's discovered the joys of playing in the bathroom unsupervised. You can imagine this doesn't make for a very happy mommy for numerous reasons. A few days ago I found him in there rubbing hand soap and lotion all over the counter, and I think he ate some soap. Nice. The next day he came up to me complaining he couldn't reach the soap. Glad we moved it back further!

Last night I was getting stuff together to go scrapbook with my friend Cindy, and when I got downstairs it was too quiet for a house with a crazed toddler. I asked John where Will was and he said the toy room. Nope. I called for Will and he said he was in the bathroom. Utter chaos met my eyes when I opened the door. He had gotten two tubes of sunscreen out from under the sink and had squirted it either in the sink or on himself. The plunger was standing up in the toilet, and I don't remember what else was awry. I had to start laughing to keep from ringing my kid's neck (just kidding there...I wouldn't really ever do that), and then I went and grabbed the camera. I was in too much of a hurry to change the settings on my camera, so the pictures are a little blurry. Needless to say, Will could have safely hung out in the sun for quite awhile. ;)





I warned John as I left that if he didn't hear Will make noise for five minutes, go check on him.

Bubbles!

It's still ridiculously hot here in AZ (fall...fall...where are you?), but Will and I braved the heat one afternoon to go play outside. It breaks my heart that he wants to play outside so badly but it's just too darn hot to sit out there unless we go out early in the morning or after dinner. He spotted his bubble tiger on top of the fridge when we were getting ready to go out, so we took that out with us. This kid sure loves bubbles!!

Walking With Dinosaurs

We went and saw the "Walking With Dinosaurs" show today with some friends from MOMS Club. It was amazing!! The dinosaurs were life-sized and animatronic, so they walked around, interacted with the other dinosaurs, etc. If it comes to where you live, it's totally worth seeing! I hope these pictures come through okay, Picasa changed its format and I can't find how to make a nice link to the album. So a slideshow it is. Actually here's the link to the album if you want it:

http://picasaweb.google.com/claireknightly/WalkingWithDinos#

And here's the slideshow:

Thanks, Doo!!

When we were at Babies R Us registering last week, we went to one that also has a Toys R Us in it. My friend Jen was buying some new toys for her son Connor, so we went and checked out the Thomas the Train toys for Will. We started a sleeping chart for him when he got his big boy bed, and he's almost done with it which means he gets a toy of his choice. The one thing he pointed out he wanted was a $50 suspension bridge. A similar one that was $15 wasn't good enough...he obvioulsy inherited my "I think I'll choose the most expensive item" mentality. Great. (Note heavy sarcasm.)

Anyway, I told him we'd wait until we finished his chart, then later I told my mom about it. She in turn told my brother who decided he'd get it for Will since he recently gave up his pacifier (Will, not Ryan). He found it for cheaper online and ordered it. It arrived today, and Will was so excited to have a package to open! John had told him it was something for me, so when I told him it was actually for him he said, "It's for me?! Not you, mommy?" :)

I took a video of him playing with it after he opened it. Once he got it out of the shipping box he shouted, "THANK YOU, DOO!!" (Doo is what he calls my bro, in case you couldn't piece that together on your own.)