I found it

(Following up to my halloween post, see below)

Same outfit, same couch.  Different kid, different house.  Hey, that kind of rhymes! :)






















          Eli - 6 months, Oct. 2009                                                         Connor - 7 months, Oct. 2011

Happy Halloween!

I've probably said this on here on a past Halloween, but I'm really not a fan of this holiday.  Anyone else feel the same?  I know a lot of people get really into it, but I'm just a party pooper I guess.  Oh well.  However, we did got to our ward's Halloween Party/Chili Cook-off on Saturday.  It was so packed!  Holy cow there were people everywhere.  They ran out of everything and I think there were at least a dozen giant crockpots of chili.  Pretty crazy.

We also woke up to SNOW on Saturday!  This wasn't too crazy, since we're used to it often snowing the end of October, but it was a little weird.  It actually snowed most of the day, but it's all gone now.  Our trunk-or-treat ended up going inside the church since it was quite cold outside.

Getting bundled to go to the store on Saturday:

 Eli dressed up as a soccer player (thank you to Grammy for the hand-me-down soccer outfit) and Connor was a pumpkin (same costume Eli wore 2 years ago! I need to find those pictures to compare).  These boys are pretty cute!

 Best shot I could get of both of them.

We may or may not go trick-or-treating tonight.  The boys have both been sick, so we may just stay in from the cold and make caramel apples instead.  Sounds good to me!

1 Mini down, 7 to go!

Jeremy had finals last week and finished his first "mini"!  Tepper has mini semesters that are only about 8 weeks long.  Crazy!  So he finished his first 5 classes of his MBA and started a new mini yesterday.  We decided to celebrate by taking a trip down to Columbus!  We'd been wanting to take a trip there since that is our temple and it just so happens that Jeremy's cousin lives there so we had a place to stay!

So Jeremy finished his last final on Friday about 4:30 and I picked him up and we started the drive.  Connor spent pretty much all of the first half of the drive crying, but finally he settled down and slept for quite awhile.  We pulled in around 9:00 (we hit really bad traffic leaving Pittsburgh) and had a fun time visiting with his cousin Marie and her family.  Marie and Fletcher have eight (!!) children - 7 boys and then a girl. :)  Let's see if I can remember - Bradford, Donovan, Spencer, Connor, Ellery, Owen, Patrick, and Lillian (goes by Rosie).  Whew! Two of her boys are on missions, or at least they were last week.  Her oldest son just came home yesterday!  We had no idea he was coming home so soon - she was so nice to let us come anyway.

So we met the other 5 boys and her little girl.  Marie was amazing and watched our boys Saturday morning so we could go to the temple together.  Neither of us could remember the last time we actually went together!  It was so nice.  Eli had a great time playing with Patrick, Owen, and Rosie.  Connor was happy some of the time, but the poor kid has been really sick this week so I think he just wasn't feeling well.

Pictures in front of Maries' house:

 Eli, Patrick, Rosie, Owen, and Connor.  Poor Connor was not very happy. :(

 Patrick (almost 5 year-old) took this picture. :)

 They had fun!

After we returned, she fixed us a great lunch and then we decided to hit the road.  Both kids were very tired, so we decided to take advantage of nap time in the car.  And boy, was that a good idea!  Connor fell asleep the second we drove off, then we stopped by the temple on our way out (Eli wanted to see it) and then within 2 minutes of getting back in the car Eli was asleep - and he slept for THREE HOURS!  Ah!  He woke up about 20 minutes before we got home.  It was amazing.  Connor woke up after about an hour, quietly played for an hour, and then slept another hour and a half too, so it was pretty much perfect.  I guess that was a blessing from going to the temple.  Hooray!

Yea for the Columbus temple!

We also enjoyed having Jeremy around on Monday before he had school stuff start up again on Tuesday.  Now he's back to it and we're hanging in there until the next break - Thanksgiving!  This cooler weather is getting me excited for the holidays.  We're going to spend Thanksgiving with my sister Wendy in New Jersey and we're very excited!  She is a super cook and we've never been to visit them, so it will be fun.  Now that we're "east-coasters" we have to stick together. :)

So that was last week!  I have a lot to catch up on about the boys.  They are into so many fun things these days and I really want to document everything.  These are fun stages for both of them.  Oh, and my mom is coming to visit next week!  Woohoo!  She'll be here for a few days and then she flies on to NJ to see Wendy.  We're excited and hoping we have nice weather so we can show off Pittsburgh!

Fall Colors in the Park

It's crazy how much can change in a few weeks.  We had a beautiful clear day today, so we decided to head to the park for a little bit.  Jeremy was sick of studying for finals (this week!) so he took a break and came with us.  I was bummed I forgot my camera, but I snapped a few pictures with my phone.  It's fun to compare them to these pictures that were just taken 3.5 weeks ago!  Crazy.  The leaves are a-changin'...and a-fallin'.  Anyway, here are the pictures. :)

(Again, sorry about the low-quality phone pics)

Oh, and isn't this baby the cutest?!?  Ah!  I love him.  He's been enjoying the swings lately and it's really adorable.

And these are from a week or two ago...

Love these cuties!

Pats on the Back

Motherhood is hard.  Last week was one of those harder weeks.  Eli got sick and was up all night a couple of nights, then Connor - my already terrible sleeper - got even worse and was up 4-5 times a night instead of his usual 3...then Jeremy went out of town.  And then I got a 24-hr bug (grateful it wasn't longer!)

I don't like to dwell on those harder days, but trust me, I have them along with everyone else.  This week has been much better though.  I had a few shining star moments that remind me why I do what I do.  I think as mothers we live for those moments - those little pats on the back.  The reminders that hey - it's not all about cleaning up poop, breaking up fights, and answering the same questions 20 times a day (why?why?why???).  We are doing a good thing here and our children need us mothers more than anything.

My shining stars this week were...

Eli playing with his blocks and bringing these to me and telling me they are temples.

Connor waking up with the biggest grin on his face and coo in his voice like he'd had the best night of sleep ever even though he was screaming for hours and up several times. :)

Eli grabbing any non-kid book off the shelf and calling it his "Book of Mormon".  Then sitting on the couch, opening it up and telling me he was reading about the Lamanites.

Connor starting to say "da-da-da-da" in the cutest little voice you could imagine.

Eli arranging magnets while I make dinner - "Look mommy! It's Eli!"

I sure love those boys.  And I'm grateful I am their mother...even if I don't sleep. :)

6 Months Comparison

Connor turned 6 months a little over a week ago.  I took him to his checkup and then was curious to see how he compared to Eli at that age.  Turns out, they were almost exactly the same!  They both weighed 18.6 lbs., were less than a 1/2 inch apart in length and less than a centimeter apart in head size.

I decided to take this a step further and find a picture of Eli at this age and try to pose Connor in the same way.  It didn't work so well since Eli was trying to sabotage the picture, but at least they're in the same outfit and generally the same position.  Can you tell who's who?

 Okay - so it's obvious.  Apart from being the same size, the boys look pretty different.  Brown eyes - blue eyes; hair that sticks straight up - hair that lays flat; olive complexion - pasty face :); etc, etc.  But one thing they do have in common is that they're adorable!

Let's catch up, shall we?

We have been doing lots of things, taking plenty of pictures, and blogging hardly at all. So here we go.

Last weekend, we celebrated Jeremy being done with midterms by....

• going to a Bowling Night put on by the Tepper Partners Club...

Free pizza and bowling!

• going to the Natural History Museum...

• and having my first choir practice as the new Ward Choir Director! Yep, it's my eternal calling. But I'm really excited. We have some amazing talent in this ward and I'm looking forward to a great year.

Then this week as Jeremy hit the books hard again, the kids and I....

• went to Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens for their free day! (Eli's favorite part was the tractors outside doing construction - not really his thing, but I enjoyed it)
• went to the zoo again with friends
• went to the park
• posed for pictures :)

• had a Relief Society lunch potluck and got to know more friends
• went to the library - story time starts next week!
• endured lots of screaming as Connor cut his first tooth!
• and marveled at how big everyone is getting! (ok, so hopefully I'm not getting big, but these boys sure are!)

And this weekend we have been immensely enjoying General Conference. One more session to go! It's weird having it be so late over here on the East Coast, but it's still as true and as enriching as ever.