Bon Voyage!

I'm still planning on blogging about all of the Thanksgiving cruise but I thought I'd give you a couple of teasers before the mega-post.

Besides, you know it's going to be a good cruise when your family looks this good getting on the boat!

And it's going to be a blast with all 23 of these family members on board!!!
Pretty awesome, too, that the good-looking couple on the left started it all 60 years ago! This cruise was a celebration of their 60th Wedding Anniversary and what a celebration it was!!!

National Geographic Kind of Stuff!

I'm finally working on the mega blog post about our recent vacation but I didn't want this video to get lost in the shuffle.

While in Panama, our tour guide took us into the "jungle" where we spied some howler monkeys, some giant mosquitos and these really cool ants!

The ants cut the leaves and take them back to their home but what's amazing is how many of them there are and how cool they look all carrying leaves! Plus, they carve out a distinct train, about 2-3 inches wide the whole way! It was such a cool phenomenon to watch!

Happy Birthday, GREAT Grandpa John!

We wanted to say a big Happy Birthday to my Grandpa and Quinton's GREAT Grandpa John!

This is my dad's dad and he's such a wonderful Grandpa!

This picture if of him camping and that purple stuff on his hands is huckleberry juice!

Grandpa John, we love you lots and hope you have a great birthday!

Love, Stacy, Matt and Quinton Jeppsen!

Cool Photographer!

Where we went trick-or-treating on Saturday had a cool photography studio who set up their studio to take fun pictures of all the trick-or-treaters.

They send out the digital images for free and I am so happy how cute this turned out!

"Why does Halloween have to be EVERYDAY?"

"Why does Halloween have to be EVERYDAY?"

That was Quinton's question/whine Saturday night when we were trying to get him to go trick-or-treating in the neighborhood.

You know.

When you're SUPPOSED to trick-or-treat?

By the time Saturday night rolled around, Quinton had had enough of Halloween!

I can't really blame him.

The festivities had begun the week before and throughout the week he'd already collected enough candy to feed a small country.

It first started back about the 23rd when I finished Quinton's costume and MADE him try it on to see if it fit. He really loved it once it was on, but happy to take it off because it was "too itchy".

Here he is modeling it:

The 24th was our church's Halloween party and it was a blast!

Too bad the only people to "get" Quinton's costume had to be between the ages of 31 to about 38 and have watched a lot of Saturday morning cartoons.

Quinton was Lion-O from the Thundercats.

An awesome 80s cartoon that I used to love as a kid so of course, I bought the DVDs for Quinton (okay for me) and he loves them, too!

So this was his request, to be Lion-O, Lord of the Thundercats, for Halloween!

Then, on Halloween morning, we went to the annual trick-or-treating extravaganza in the nearby village of Glencoe.

Once we arrived (plus a parking ticket), we had a GREAT time!
Here's Quinton in full trick-or-treat mode!
And who loves Halloween more than Quinton? Matt!
Just kidding!
Matt was a great sport and wore his Napoleon Dynamite wig, just to get in the spirit.

Q and his buddies had a great time running around.

As I mentioned before, by the time Halloween evening rolled around, when kids are supposed to do their trick-or-treating, Quinton said he didn't want to be Lion-O anymore and he didn't want to go outside.

I finally convinced him to go trick-or-treating to our neighbors by giving him a new costume. None of the costumes we already had in his closet would work...not the prince costume or his ninja outfit...he wanted to be a mummy!

So I grabbed an old sheet and Matt got to ripping while I started wrapping.

Doesn't Q look sooo excited?

The finished product:

A somewhat content little mummy ready to get more candy!

So my little mummy lasted 5 houses where he trick-or-treated into the house of all houses. One of our neighbors was giving out YARD STICK long GUM!

After that, what more is there for a trick-or-treater?

So we were done.

All in all, it was a great Halloween week, even if it did feel like Halloween everyday!

I Promise, I am Not a Lazy Blogger!

So maybe I might be a little busy these days and have fallen way behind blogging but I have a good reason...but I'll get to that soon.

In the past four weeks, we've had a couple of visitors. This is my friend Erin K. from Tulsa! We now have a tradition going that on LDS conference weekends, held twice a year, we get together. Erin came out last year and then in April of this year we met up halfway in St. Louis and then a couple of weeks ago, she came back to Chicago. We were lucky enough to score some cheap-o tickets to see Jersey Boys. It was a fun show to watch from the front row with our necks bend all the way back!

And while Erin was here, we went with some other friends, the Bryans, to Apple Holler in Wisconsin for some yummy apple picking. We went around the same time last year but this year, the apples were SO much better!

We ended up with so many apples! After we ate ourselves silly for about 2 weeks, I still had way too many apples and ended up making crockpot applesauce for the first time. It turned out very delicious and way better than the store bought stuff!
Quinton likes to mingle with the locals when we visit Wisconsin!

Here's a bunch of our apple party enjoying a sit down moment before we enjoyed some DELISH apple cider donuts!

AND

My BIG excuse for not blogging as much...

We're expecting!

Our little bundle of joy isn't scheduled to come until the middle of May so it's going to be a long winter but we are thrilled!

I have tried to tell Quinton that there is a baby in my tummy but he just responds, "No mom, you just ate too much for dinner." Nice.

Quinton does think it is a boy and he wants to name his "baby bruddah" Bolt. Even better!

Don't worry, I'll keep you posted to the point of boredom, I bet!

Birthday Wishes and Shopping Cart Dreams!

Last week was Quinton's last week as a 3 year old and the start of his life as a 4 year old.

How the time flies!

Here is Quinton, heading out for the first day of his new preschool on Monday.

He really enjoys his friends in preschool and his teacher, Miss Gabbi.

Matt wanted to do something special and memorable for Quinton's birthday. Matt woke Quinton and I up at about 6am to go and watch the sunrise over the beach.
You might ask yourself why, but why not?
How many sunrises do we get up early for in our lifetime?
Not too many that I can remember.

And Quinton loved it. I thought Quinton would have been a little grumpy about being woken up but he was really excited.

The awe in his expression when he saw the sun first peek over the horizon was priceless.
It was totally worth waking up early for and it made Quinton's birthday very special!
The three of us freezing our buns off on the windy shore of Lake Michigan.

How do you top off a morning sunrise?

A pink donut, of course!

And a sausage biscuit.

And hashbrowns.

And hot chocolate.

Suprisingly, Quinton can pack it away!

After preschool, I had balloons and one of Quinton's birthday presents waiting for him. Just like a kid, though, he was more excited by the balloons than the actual present (toys).

That evening, we took Quinton to his all-time favorite eatery....

You guessed it, Chuck E. Cheese's!

Matt and I really enjoyed watching Quinton play and goof off...Quinton seems to have become what we like most in each other.

So this is the day after:

Quinton had SO much fun on Wednesday, he fell asleep in the car and when I took him out to go shoppping at Costco, he wouldn't wake up. So I made him a little bed in the cart and walked through the aisles at a LEISURELY pace. I daresay I was the envy of every mom with kid(s) in the store!

Saturday, we whooped it up all over again!

Quinton has been talking about his "Shamu Birthday" for almost a year now. However, if you have ever put together any kids party, you may know that there is not a lot of shamu-themed birthday gear out there, so I had to be a little inventive...

Although bouncy houses are all the rage at birthday parties these days, we opted to let the kids play on our trampoline. With the net surrounding the trampoline, it's actually a great way to exercise crowd control.

I know Shamu eats a variation of sushi but we gave the kids hot dogs instead.

I doubt any of the kids would have wanted to feel like they were eating fresh Nemo in seaweed!

Ooh, Ooh!

See the Shamu hannging in the air???

Yep, I found that on the internet, pretty sweet, eh?

And what says "Shamu" more than tye die?

I braved eleven 3 to 5 year olds and chose tye dying as our activity du jour.

So we stripped the kids down and threw garbage bags on them to keep them from becoming too dyed. It had a funny effect, though, all of the kids ran around acting like ghosts so it almost felt like a HALLOWEEN party!

I have to say that as messy as it was, the kids loved making their tye die shirts.

I sure hope they enjoy wearing them, too!

Growing up, my mom was awesome at making cakes. Matt's mom is awesome at making cakes, too, but I, unfortunately, do not have the gift of cake making.

But I can follow instructions in a lovely cupcake book and make some adjustments to the original shark cupcakes to make them fit our theme...

VOILA!

The SHAMU cupcake!

(insert your applause here)

A closeup of the awesomeness...

I just think this is a cute present-opening picture of Q.

He received this book from his Great Grandmother Dorothy, who knew exactly what to give to Quinton. We have about warn out our library card borrowing this book alone.

I Stink! by Jim and Kate McMullan is a great book and one we would highly recommend.

Matt and I love to celebrate the birth of Quinton and how big he is now!

Thank you to all of our family and friends who shared with us our joy in celebrating his life!