Quinn Thanksgiving 2011

We spent Thanksgiving in Utah with my family, next time we go out to visit we will not  only have a new baby in tow, but will have to start paying for a plane ticket for Ira.

As always with my family there was a lot going on with everyone together in one place. We never had a dull moment.

Besides a wonderful feast, a major highlight was a one day blitz to Southern Utah to get a canyon hike in. It was the first time all the siblings had been out on an adventure in quite awhile. We did Slideanide just south of Hanksville, UT in the poison spring area.

 McKay Quinn Planking. I'm going to start a counter cultural reverse plank one of these days.

A canyon adventure would never be complete without some water.

  Group photos at the end of the hike:

 My brother Nate and his wife Lauren

 My sister Camille and her husband, Gregg

 My sister Tiff and her husband, Araon

 Sharon couldn't come because of the pregnancy. As the only married sibling without my spouse to pose with I forced to improvise.

It was wonderful to be with family during the Thanksgiving holiday. You can see more pictures on my Brother and Sister's Blogs.

Happy Happy Birthday

Happy December!  Christmas Eve is a week from today, and we just realized that we haven't updated the blog for about 5 weeks.  We'll give you updates in small portions, to prevent any overdosing.

Anthony usually doesn't let me throw a party for him, but since this year he turned 28 on 11/11/11, we decided to throw an 11 party.  My goal was to have 11 guests, but we ended up squeezing 14 in our tiny apartment.  We played In the Manner of the Adverb, 11 Pointing Peep Peep (yes, a game I sort of altered/invented), and What If.  The only requirement to come, was to bring a food that looks like an 11, or has 11 ingredients.  

 We had, carrot sticks, 11 layer bars, 11 layer dip, 11 juice...

 and doughnuts.  Although it seems boxes of them, 

only come in 10 or 12, so our friends got a little creative. 

We've been bowling with Anthony's coworkers, so I made a pin cake, which turned out pretty decently...

and a bowling ball cake, which turned out tasty and really ugly.  I don't understand how people get those spherical cake pans to cooperate!  Apparently not using fondant.  People's responses were pretty funny.  "Oh, nice.  You made that?!?"  I'd like to think if it wasn't totally ugly, it had my trademark "sloppy charm."  You know, like last years Christmas card, or my hair.  "That's so bad, you must have done it yourself.  Cute!"

Halloween

Happy November Everyone!

I have about a million pictures below, so I'll try and let them give you the update on our life.

 We've tried jump starting this pumpkin meal tradition a couple times, but I think this time I actually like what we put inside, enough to not have to wrack my brain next year. 

 It's a sort of chicken casserole inspired by the Quinn Tatertot Casserole, with a few changes....like no tatertots.

 Last weekend we drove a couple hours North to visit Frankenmuth, "Michigan's little Bavaria."

 Not that I've ever been to real Germany, but I got the feeling that it was a very Americanized, plasticy version of Europe, and yet so much fun in a kitschy way.  There are lots of fudge and gift shops, and german restaurants. 

Bronner's: the world's largest Christmas store, in the middle of no-where Michigan.  Who knew?  This place is actually pretty insane.  If you need an ornament for a foot surgeon, this is probably where you could find it. 

 We were to lazy to walk over to Santa, but he's pretty gigantic.

 Time's a ticken'.  Only two months left to spend all your money at Bronner's before the big day. 

 You have to read the sign, to think that this is even remotely funny.

Halloween was lots of fun!  Here we've got the ward party.  I don't know if I've ever seen so many awesome homemade costumes.

 Ira's friend, Mr. T. 

 Ira's other friend, especially when in costume.  As of this party, Ira now calls anything that resembles a robot a "zshww zshwww."  You know, the wheat grinder, the blender, basically anything with buttons.

 The Shepherds.

 The DeYoungs.

 Ira stared at these car costumes for about 15 minutes strait.

 Ira won a prize for his costume.  Yep, that was about the peak of his enthusiasm level for the night.  We kept thinking he'd get exhausted during the trunk or treating since it was past his bed time.  But every time we asked if he wanted to stop, he'd respond with "More?"  He was determined to get to every car.

 Here's the night before, when he was actually smiling.  If I didn't put the hat away, he'd probably still be wearing it around the house.  He likes the "ball" on top.  He especially liked to wear it outside to play in the "fish"....which is what he's been calling the leaves for some reason.

The actual event of trick or treating.

 We've watched a friend's baby a couple of times, which has been good practice for Ira.  He really loves babies and carries his doll around when he's not fixated on one of his toys with wheels.

     In other news, the pregnancy is still going well.  My lower back hurt several times this week, and I was a little worried it was a kidney infection or something.  But I think since it's so inconsistent, it's more likely that I'm picking up Ira wrong.
     Our friends whose cute kid we watch every once in a while, gave us free tickets to a great Halloween Symphony performance at the University of Michigan.  All the performers were costumed, and the conducting grad students put on fun skits in between, which was enough to keep Ira interested.
     Anthony and I were called as ward missionaries, which is fun.  We have two sets of missionaries here and baptisms regularly, so there's lots of work to do.
     Thinking of each of you.  Love you lots!
Sharon

Pumpkins, Parties, and Pudding

Happy October!  

We've been having fun, and as you'll see below, eating a lot of sugar.  

Ira has been obsessed with cars for months now, so I've been looking forward to making a car cake for his birthday in January.  That is, until he's broadened his horizons to include trains and trucks, both of which would also make really fun cakes.  So, I wanted to clear the car cake space in my brain so I could move on with other January plans.  Below is Ira's non-birthday cake: my second attempt at using fondant.

Ira was especially thrilled with the eyes.  When he ate the headlights he started calling the tires eyes and just sat at his high chair talking about them, not really eating anything. 

Ira helping Dad fix his bike.  Ant's bike has had a couple of run ins with the insane pot holes around here.

Dirt pudding!

We had lots of fun with our pumpkin carving party.  Unfortunately I forgot to take pics of our friends that came, but a couple from the ward and a friend from work showed up.

Jello Brain.  Maybe it's all those psychology classes in college, but I really look forward to making this thing every year.  When Ira's old enough I'll use it to lecture him about the difference between the prefrontal cortex and the occipital lobe. 

Cookies:  Ira seems to young to be spooked out by anything that's supposed to be spooky...fortunately.  He's recently kind of grasped the idea of monsters, loves the scary giant in Obiyoyo, and when strangers try to get him to smile and say hello, he usually responds with a little roar.  

Back to the party.  Here are three of the final products.  Left to Right: Anthony's, mine, then Maurice's.  My owl turned out kind of lame in comparison.  I even forgot the beak.  But in my defense I was putting Ira to bed and making sure everyone had enough cider.

Anthony's pumpkin not lit up.  I know, looks kind of crazy.  So cool when lit up though!  He found a way to take a photo on the computer and morph it into a pumpkin stencil.  He picked a kind of piggish picture of Ira and worked from there.  

Ira playing in the leaves after church.

In other news:

* We've been bowling every Tuesday night with Anthony's co-workers.  One of his teem-mates has never showed up, so I'm the sub.  Everyone's really nice despite my low average.  But this week I broke my record with 116!  Woohoo!  I think my average is 75, and somehow our team is in first place right now...out of maybe 15 teams?

*  Ant's project is moving along.  He has a big project that seems to be progressing.

* The pregnancy is going well.  I feel pretty great, just sleepy still.  We babysat a friend's 3 month old this week and Ira was really cute with him.  He spent most of his time bringing toys to him, blowing him kisses, and talking about his eyes.  Hopefully he'll be as excited when our baby comes.

*  Ira's cute as ever.  Not as excited about the potty lately, but saying a bunch of new words.  I'm worried I won't be able to get his Halloween Costume on.  Every time I whip it out, he runs away with an assertive "NOOOOOOO!"  Oh well.  Have a good week everyone!

Sharon

Fall Festival

Every place we move we try to get a feel for the community. Belleville had a family Fall Festival event yesterday and we decided to check it out. They had closed off the block where the Belleville history museum and library sit and people had set up a few little tables with activities and arts and crafts. They had a miniature old steam engine that looked like a tractor/train that was hooked up to a little corn husker or some sort of harvester. Ira really liked that. There was also a good showing from the local art community, which is amateur at best, but very expressive of the personality of the community.

Sharon and Ira at the Belleville Museum.

 They had some old chores for everyone to try out. I tried out the corn husker.

 Sharon took a stab at hand washing and ringing the clothes. It helped her appreciate our little and often less than stellar, but automatic washing and dryer.

 We even found a job Ira could do.

 The main street was lined with scarecrows that local businesses had created.

 The tin man - a little bit of irony in that one

 A weird moose thing

It was a classic small town America event, that made us want to go jump in a pile of leaves and go ask strangers for candy.  Ah, autumn.