A bit of fall 2012

Official baby bump picture: Me right after we found out we were having a boy! (at 18 1/2 wks) I've grown quite a bit since then :)

At the Pumpkin Patch "Corn Maze in the Plains"

On the hayride!

We got to go with our dear friends the Ayers....here is their cute Mayumi!

Carving Pumpkins!

We let the girls draw the faces on the pumpkins, and then we tried to carve out what they drew.  Here is Vienna's:

And Juliette's:

With her little tomboy streak, I was kind of expecting Jules to want to be Batman or something for Halloween....but nope....she wanted to be a ballerina.  And a very cute one she makes too! This was right before the church halloween party.

And at NO surprise to us...Vienna asked to be a princess :)

What Sandy brought us.  There wasn't enough to really play in, but the girls were dying to at least go outside to walk in it a little. 

Our preschool Halloween party!  I love all these kiddos!

Getting ready for a chilly night of trick or treating

Everybody knows....but I have to make an official blog post

In case any of you haven't heard...I'm pregnant.   Even though the word has been out for a few days and I've already posted on facebook, I felt like I had to do the obligatory blog post about it because that's fun.  I'm due March 3rd, and we (especially Jules and Vienna), are super excited.  Juliette says she wants a baby brother, and Vienna says she wants a baby sister, so someone is going to be disappointed, but what can ya do?    I have even been able to see the tiny thing already on a little ultrasound my OB did at my 9_1/2 week appointment.  I guess they have an ancient ultrasound machine at the office, so she brought it out and said we might not be able to see anything yet....but there was the blurry tiny bean, flopping around in all the room in there (enjoy that space while it lasts kiddo).   It's little heart was beating like crazy, and I once again felt that thrill at seeing your baby for the first time.  I am finally out of the 1st trimester, and am anxious to start feeling better (slowly I am, but not quite out of the woods yet).  I think we can't help but think of it as a girl, because that is what we know...but we would be thrilled to have a boy to pass on the Lisle name to.  Anyways...that's all....just wanted to say we are excited to become a family of 5 in a few months!

Aunt and Uncle visits

Last Saturday was my sister's birthday, and she and Chris drove over to Morgantown to celebrate with us!  We were so thrilled that they came, and we congregated at my parent's house and spent the day basically lounging around and eating delicious food.   She opened some presents, and I made a little cake for her: chocolate with orange buttercream frosting per her request.   We miss them, and were glad to see them even just for one day.  Hoping for another visit with them soon!

                                   

                                        I didn't get a good close up of the cake, but it was pretty basic so you're not  missing too much

  So I had gotten a little birthday present for Lindsey, but Juliette badly wanted to pick something out to be from her and Vienna.  So she and Vienna chose this Tinkerbell doll.  

Vienna got so messy after eating pizza, that we just stripped her down and she went shirtless for the rest of the evening.

On Monday, Mark's brother Matt flew in to spend a few days with us.  We haven't seen Matt since the Christmas before his mission (2_1/2 years ago!) so we were super excited he came.  Again, lots of eating and hanging out, but we also managed a little trip to Cooper's Rock to walk around a bit, play at the playground and have a campfire lunch.  

Juliette was pretty timid about the campfire, but eventually she got brave enough to roast a hot dog with daddy's help

And then she was brave enough to roast a marshmellow without daddy helping!  Although still standing pretty far away from the campfire.  I might have terrified my children with my safety talk before we built the fire.  

Vienna's very first taste of toasted marshmellow

She decided she liked unroasted ones better :)

Juliette took this picture of Matt....and it seemed like a good representation of what he's like :)  The girls had a great time giggling at silly Uncle Matt, and Mark and I were so glad to be able to catch up with him in person again.   Since we haven't seen him since he was 18, it was really cool to see "adult Matt" and hear about his plans for the future and all his general grown uppeyness.  Thanks for coming Matt!! 

Over the Hill

So yesterday I turned 29.  That's right....the last year of my twenties.  I feel like this is an important birthday.  It marks the last year of all things as I know them.  Because I'm pretty sure that when you turn 30 you die, right?  So I've only got one more year to do all the things on my bucket list before I am too old and decrepit to do them.  I thought I should jot down a few of my lifelong dreams so I can get organized and plan for the next year.  I recognize that some of these are not compatible with others, but I just put them all down anyway.  In no particular order:

-learn to sew (anything really, but clothes especially)
-have a vegetable and flower garden, and ideally a fruit tree or two
-get my Master's degree ( clinical therapy, or something in education...teaching, school counseling)
-run more half marathons..improving my time to an 8_1/2 minute per mile average
-leave the country at least once (I'd love to see Europe, but I'll take anything really)

-help run a free medical clinic (the social work aspect of it anyways)
-learn Spanish
-take my girls to Disneyland
-go backpacking (seriously, I have never gone, despite being married to Mark for 6 years)
-open a pie shop


So as you can see, it's going to be a busy year.  I'm rolling up my sleeves now.  in all seriousness, I am a tiny bit terrified of turning 30.  I'm not sure what it is....I guess it's just something about having a 3 as the first number of your age.  It is a place I have never gone before.  So yesterday as I pondered embarking on my last year of my 20's, I thought about everything the last 9 years have brought.   And it has been a time of lots of change and growth for me:

-I chose my major, and then graduated from college with a degree in Social Work
-I became engaged to my best friend, and then married him
-I had my first "real" jobs as a social worker
-I had 2 beautiful children
-I ran my first half marathon
-I learned how to make pie...and little did I know how this would become a lifelong passion

It has been a good 9 years.  So I guess when I think about it, I don't see why my 30's shouldn't be just as good.  But I'm going to live up 29 just in case :)

It's been a busy time for us with Mark working so many hours at the hospital (75 hours last week), so I wasn't expecting him to remember my birthday.  Heck, I barely remembered my birthday.  But somehow he managed to pick up a surprise cake at the store on his way home yesterday.  And since I have discussed with him my fears of getting old, he also managed to find a cake that gently mocked me.

Our new photographer

Juliette has recently taken an avid interest in taking pictures.  She gets hold of the camera sometimes when I'm unaware and gets shots of all kinds of things, and sometimes she has me pose for pictures.  I thought I would post a sampling of her work.  She gets a unique angle in a number of them, I think she's getting rather good :)

The view from her bedroom window

her picnic

To Morgantown we went!

So last Saturday we said goodbye to Northern Virginia, and headed for the West Virginia hills.  We loved so much living in Herndon, and will dearly miss our many friends there.  Fortunately, with Mark done with school and me taking a break from work, we were able to have some good visits with our friends before leaving.    We also enjoyed a wonderful visit from Mark's parents and sister at his graduation.  We had a truly fabulous time with them, and ran around doing all kinds of fun things all week (including but not limited to:  Mt. Vernon,  Dulles Air and Space museum, Smithsonian, and lots of going out for dinner).  Mark's mom treated me to a mani/pedi, a luxury I have enjoyed only one other time in my life.  We wish we didn't live so far away from them, but as Mark's mom said before they headed home, "we'll try not to be sad the visit is over, we'll just be grateful that it happened!"  We love them so much!   

         Now we are well settled here in Morgantown, and are feeling so far so good.  We like our apartment, and I included a couple pictures here so those interested can take a brief virtual tour :)  We've been to lots of parks and playgrounds, driven all over town, got a library card, and even started forming some running routes.  And running here is no small feat.....after 20 minutes on the Morgantown hills I'm completely beat.  I got some pictures at a state forest park that we went to on Thursday called Cooper's Rock, which is about 30 minutes from our doorstep, and roughly 10 miles east of Morgantown.  We will definitely be returning there...it was beautiful, the kids had a great time, and there are lots of places to hike, camp and picnic.   We went to church on Sunday, and everyone was friendly and excited about the massive influx of new families coming this month as people arrive for medical residency.  It's fun to be in a place where there are so many families in our exact situation.  We are excited about this new adventure!

The girls built a "fire" on the trail....their technique was not too bad actually, they started with small sticks in a pile and built up to bigger ones.

Vienna was proud of her fire.

As was Juliette....it was her idea to make one to begin with.

Of course the real highlight was the playground at the visitor's center.

The view from Cooper's Rock...gorgeous.

Another angle of the view from Cooper's Rock.

The girls decided to do some "rock climbing"

Setting up the girls' room

Pretty self explanatory

I am excited to have both a living room and family room in this apartment...so here is our "formal"living room

And the family room where we actually do most of our playing and hanging out.