Fall

This fall was a pretty fun one for the Ainges. We were excited to finally hit some cooler temperatures, but it has still been warm enough for us to go outside and play. Even though it's almost December, we are still in the 70's here. Woot woot!

We got a zoo membership this year and Will loves it. We try to go whenever we're in Houston or just have a weekend with nothing to do, but we're still not sick of the zoo yet!

Lately, Will loves to be naked. He tries his best to get away from me whenever his clothes are off so he can just hang out in the nude.

And here are some random pictures I took when we found out we were having two more boys.

Anyway... Adam's work had an activity a couple weeks ago at the Dow reservoir so we got to take Will out to try and catch some fish. He wasn't really that excited about the fishing part, but he loved going out on the boat.

To continue our fall festivities, we had to get geared up for Halloween! There's not a real pumpkin patch around here, but one of the local churches sells pumpkins on their front lawn, so we took Will and let him pick out his own pumpkin.

It was a little difficult for him because he wanted to take home ALL the pumpkins and didn't want anybody else to buy any, but eventually he found the right one.

He also had a pretty good time playing on all the cute decorations they had set up. The little tractor and bench were just his size!

We weren't sure what to do with the pumpkin once we got home because we've never been very festive Halloweeners. We figured he was too little to carve, so we decided to let him paint it and it worked out great.

On Halloween our ward had a trunk-or-treat, so we took Will over there. He caught on to it really fast, and still says "trick or treat" to us whenever he wants candy. Also, he loves pirates so we dressed him up as Jake (of the Neverland pirates) and he thought that was pretty great. 

The next day we got a Halloween package from Grandma Deena with sugar cookies and stuff to decorate them, so we let Will do one.

He mostly put tons of candy on it, and then ate all the candy off, licked the frosting off, and then ate the cookie. It was a pretty good weekend for him. All except for the haircut of course...


















We had trimmed Will's hair before, but never cut his curls in the back. We were getting really sick of combing out his rat's nest though, so we finally just pulled out the trimmer and cut it all off.

Will doesn't really miss his hair, but he does not enjoy getting his hair cut. Hopefully he learns to cooperate a little better for future cuts. *fingers crossed*

The weather was really nice after Halloween, so we decided to take advantage of it and get this kid out of the house. Sometimes he gets a little stir-crazy in our apartment, and we didn't go outside much in the summer because it was so hot.

Will really loves being outside and picking up every stick, rock, and leaf he can find. Even when we take him to the park, he has very little interest in playing on the playground. He would rather just collect sticks.

Right before Halloween we found out there was an opening for a three-bedroom apartment in our complex, so two weeks ago we moved. Of course it was a lot of fun (moving always is) and it has been kind of crazy, but we are mostly settled now and we enjoy our new, bigger apartment.

 

Grandpa Markie came out to help us move, and he and Will had a blast together. He bought Will this cowboy hat while he was here and now Will wants to wear it everywhere. He puts it on and says "I'm a cowboy!" lol.

And then this week we got to celebrate Thanksgiving! One of the families in our ward was nice enough to invite us over for dinner, so Will and I made a pie to bring over.

I forgot to take a picture of it, but it was caramel apple crumble and it turned out great. Even though we missed our families, we had a lot of fun with our friends here.

 

As a side note, here is a 20-week bump and a 25-week bump.

The babies are looking great. This is the best picture we've gotten of the two of them. They are growing really well and not showing any signs of TTTS but they're still monitoring me pretty closely. I still get full ultrasounds every three weeks and I see my OB every two weeks (every week soon). It's kind of a pain, but it's nice to know that they're watching our babies and it's really nice to be able to see them so often!

In Other News...

Well, I promised a catch-up blog so here goes. Adam graduated in April, but he didn't walk so we have no pictures :(. However, that gave us a couple weeks to pack and play with our families before it was time for Adam to start his new job with Dow.

So we took a long weekend with my family to go hiking at Arches, and spent some time playing at the splash pad and the zoo. Will had a lot of fun hanging with his cousin Ellie and Aunt JoJo.

June came around fast though, and it was time for us to head to Texas. Adam's dad and sisters were nice enough to make the long drive and help us move out, which was super helpful. We had to make sure to take a couple trips to the beach before they left, but Will didn't mind.

He doesn't really mind Texas much at all. He loves the beach and living at an apartment with a pool.

And, we even made it in time for crawfish season! Yum! We bought our crawfish pre-cooked this year, but I think next year we'll be brave enough to buy some live ones and cook them ourselves.

We got Will a big boy bed when we moved out, and he loves it. He's finally in his own room and it has been great.

 He's learning to be a cowboy already!

We haven't been to the beach as much as we would like, but every time we go Will has a ball. His favorite thing to do is shovel sand into his bucket, or onto himself. Though I suspect he had a little help from his dad with the second one.

In August my sister and her family went to Louisiana to visit some family, so we drove over to meet them. It's only about a 6 hour drive to New Orleans from our house, so it's not too bad.

The kids had a great time playing together and exploring a kiddie playland Jayme found.

We also did some adult adventuring. We took a tour of a historic home with some beautiful gardens, went gator hunting on a nature preserve, and went on a swamp tour.

My brother was also in Louisiana doing sales for the summer, so he was able to come out and meet us for the swamp tour, which was excellent by the way.

Our boat had a little platform on the side for the tour guide to go out and feed the alligators, which was really cool.

There were about six alligators that he called by name and got to follow our boat until he had them all gathered up, and then he got them to jump out of the water for some raw chicken. Yum.

The guide also brought some creatures on the boat with us. He had a couple of little turtles (that Will LOVED), a snake, and a baby gator. He just passed them all around the boat and we all got to hold them. The alligator was surprisingly soft and nice to hold.

A couple weeks later we flew home to Utah to see my brother Ammon off on his mission.

Will loved being at the airport and watching the airplanes. He actually started crying and sat down on the ground when we tried to leave because he wanted to see more airplanes. Such a goof. 

Adam was only able to stay a few days before he had to head back to work, but Will and I were able to stay for the week and see the missionary off. We had a lot of fun staying and playing with family. Some of us even had a little too much fun...

We had one last meal with Ammon at the Cheesecake Factory, and then off he went! These two kids never cooperate that well for pictures, but at least Ammy got a kiss goodbye!

We just found out we were having twins about a week before we went to Utah, so the next thing on our list when we got back was purchasing a minivan. We've got to fit a lot of carseats in that thing.

September brought us a visit from our friend Jared, who came out to visit and watch BYU play Texas. While he was here we went to Galveston, Austin, and San Antonio so he could see the fun parts of Texas.

We're probably still not officially Texans, but we made it through the summer! And we're excited to see what the rest of the year has in store for us!