Happy Thanksgiving!!

I know, you're thinking, "Thanksgiving isn't for another two weeks, what is this crazy girl talking about?" Well, every year that we've been married we've done a big family dinner on Thanksgiving with Jeremy's family. It's always a great time with tons of food, family, football and black Friday ads. Each year, in an effort to create our own family traditions, we have also had our own Thanksgiving meal. I'm not sure how successful we are in making our own traditions so far, because each year is different in some ways, but it's great fun (for the most part) for us. This year, our Thanksgiving meal was this past Sunday. It was all very last minute. We had originally planned on doing it the Sunday before Thanksgiving, but we found out John and Amy will be coming into town that day and Jeremy made plans to get together with another family that day as well. So last Friday, we realized the only day that we could do our family dinner was on Sunday and we mad a mad dash to Walmart to get what we needed. Here are some pics from our first "family-of-four" Thanksgiving!

I wish I would have gotten a picture of the finished turkey. I love how they look when they come out of the oven. Plus, we had a 14lb. turkey for the 2 and 1/2 of us to eat! It was the smallest one we could find!

It is not often that we are able to capture a picture of all of us. This one didn't come out well, I had to adjust the lighting... so if we look a little green, it's not because of my cooking.

This wreath is my absolute favorite fall decoration!! I made it the first year Jer and I were married. I've only used it as a wreath once, it can usually be found right where it is in this picture, laying on my table with a candle in the middle.

Kyle enjoying his meal.

Bryce even got in on the action. He ate some potatoes and played with some corn.

I wanted to thank all of you that have been praying for Bryce this week. For those of you that hadn't heard, he has been sick with a high fever (at least 103 or 104 if it goes unchecked) since just after our meal on Sunday. We spent a fair amount of time at the Dr. office the last two days trying to make sure there isn't something serious that is behind it all. Praise the Lord that today he woke up without a fever and seems to be on the mend.

Some lost pictures... and potty training progress!!

I took some pictures with our smaller camera today and when I downloaded the photos, I realized that there were pictures from the last two and half months that I had forgotten! So here are some of our lost pictures...

When Kyle and Bryce first started sharing a room I moved most of the toys into that room. It was too much for Kyle to handle at times. Here is a picture of what his room looked like one night after he fell asleep... (his room had been clean and his bed made when he went down for the night....)

Kyle went through a really strange smiling stage. Does he look like anyone else in the Polson family??

Kyle in his fun conductor outfit.

I did his hair for him after a bath. Jeremy said he looks like the "bird-man" that plays for the Nuggets. I think he looks like a rock star!

Before John and Amy moved out to Cali, we went to one of our favorite restaurants, The Melting Pot. It is a fabulous fondue restaurant, here we are about to enjoy our last and favorite course... dessert!

The excitement at Jeremy's birthday dinner was too much for Bryce to handle. He crashed on Aunt Amy.

Bryce playing with his "Jamaican" monkey, man. Thanks, Ahmie and Grampy!!

Bryce in his winter outfit from Ahmie. He reminded me of the little kid from A Christmas Story. (In a little kid, whiny voice, "I can't put my arms down!")

His smile just melts my heart.

This was my project today. This unit was on sale at Target and was probably still too much to pay, but I love organization and my husband likes to see me happy, so we got it. I'm also thinking I can turn the tubs around to face the wall when other kids are around so there are only so many toys available. I will admit that I'm OCD and don't like toys to be without their parts, so I'm hoping this will help keep everything together.

Jeremy is great at finding deals and here is his most recent one. He found a Thomas the Train set on Ebay for one-third of the price!! I'm not sure which of the boys was more excited. Jeremy took advantage of the room I had cleaned up to set up both of Kyle's train tracks. When I came home I could hear Kyle saying, "OK, my turn!?" They were having a ton of fun together.

Kyle is doing well potty training... as long as he isn't wearing anything!! He hasn't had an accident in a while and will even run to the potty on his own to do his business (including one poo!!), but as soon as I try to put big-boy underwear on... it is wet within 30 mins. I just keep reminding myself... we're making some progress.

Here's a video of Kyle saying hi to Ahmie and Grampy!!

So Busy!

We've been pretty busy these past few weeks. I've been so good at taking pictures lately (I downloaded over 1GB of pictures from just the last two weeks) but not as good at updating the blog... so get ready!! I'm making up for lost time...

Collin has been coming over about once a week to play with Kyle while Kristina goes to her prenatal appointments. Kyle just loves these times! There was one morning where I had told Kyle that Collin was coming, but he didn't actually come. When I broke the news that Collin wasn't coming, Kyle broke down and cried, he was so bummed!! (Notice he is looking a toy catalogue, it came with his Thomas the Train set and it is his new favorite "book." He asks me to read it at least four times a day!)

I've been working on potty training Kyle. I've actually been working on it for about six months now! He really enjoyed it when the potty was new, but eventually would cry if we asked him if he needed to go or sit on his potty. My latest trick is this potty chart I made for him. When he fills up a whole row with stickers, he gets a toy. Our original prize toy was a matchbox car, but the excitement for that lasted about a day. Then I found a "cheap" Thomas the Train piece at TJ Maxx that we started bribing him with. Boy, did that work!! He's doing better, but we still have a long road ahead....

Just after we went to the pumpkin patch I decided to take some fall pictures with the boys and our new pumpkins. Here's one of the better ones. I thought it was hard to get a picture of one mobile child, it was much easier than trying to get a picture of two mobile children!

Belleview (the school Jeremy works at) did a school-wide fundraiser a couple weeks ago. It was a walk-a-thon where the goal was 500 miles. They had each secondary class set up some kind of refreshment to sell and a different activity for the younger kids to have fun with. Apparently all the riding in the stroller made Bryce thirsty, here he is trying to get his brother's juice cup. (Notice his little LL Bean shoes that I got on clearance... they are so adorable!)

Jeremy's class was selling pizza, so of course he bought a piece for his boy. Kyle ate most of it before running off to play. (While he was gone, Bryce crawled over and tried to eat what was left.)

One of our new favorite outings is the bookstore. At our local Barnes & Noble, they have a great Thomas the Train set that Kyle loves to play with. It's nice because Kyle gets to play with other kids and learn to share. Plus, as long as I have a Starbucks gift card and I don't buy any books, it's a free outing!

It has now been two weeks since John and Amy packed up their house and moved to Visalia, CA. We miss them and will continue to, but we know the people they are serving in Visalia will be blessed by them. We love you guys!

Kyle waving goodbye to the truck as they start out.

This is the last bunch of pictures that I took this morning. Our maple tree out front dropped almost all of it's leaves this past week and the wind hasn't blown them away yet. So the boys and I went out for some fall fun!

I raked up three big piles of leaves for Kyle to jump in. He wasn't too sure what to do at first and actually just went and sat in the piles. Soon he got the idea and was running around, jumping in all of the piles. Jer said that when he took his diaper off later, it was full of leaf bits!

Kyle likes to push his brother over and even announces it just before he does it. I actually got a picture of him in action today. I heard, "I push Bryce over" and turned around in time to capture this incriminating photo. Bryce usually doesn't mind too much and just crawls off to his next adventure. Kyle also doesn't seem to mind the discipline he gets after each time he does it, because he obviously keeps doing it.

Here is one of the first pictures I captured this morning and it is one of my favorites. I'm so blessed with these two adorable boys who just love to play with one another. Kyle was throwing leaves all over himself and his brother and they were both cracking up with laughter. It just makes my heart melt to see them interact like this and I'm so thankful to the Lord for such great kids.