Where could you find a box of Nerds candy this huge?!

 Southpoint in Durham...we met the Morgans on Sunday afternoon on our way back to Virginia and found this treasure of a store, called "It'Sugar"  Ha!

 This was the window display that caught our attention. It was every kid's dream store (and Aaron's). Aaron told them that after lunch they could pick out one thing to get. Joy and I joked that it was a candy store, American style...everything in exaggerated portions.

We love our friends and were thankful that we had a chance to meet up with them!

I am pondering this prayer that I read earlier this week from Valley of Vision. Praying for a God-exalting Thanksgiving for my family and yours.

Here he is, folks, for your baby fix for the night! :)

I took this picture with my phone a week ago when he turned 3 months.

More about Hank:

He laughed on Friday night...a real one! For Aaron! It was a sweet, sweet sound.

He is becoming a drool-box, as my mom calls it. 

For the last three nights, he has only eaten once during the night (7 to 7). He wakes at other times, but I'm able to pacify him so that he is getting used to having less ounces.

He really enjoys bathtime...kicks like crazy.

He has found his hand, but only one of them it seems. He always has his left hand (in a fist) in his mouth for chewing.

This is only interesting to me because I'm his mom: his body is so regular with BMs. It's so crazy to me...it's always once a day, always during the first feeding of the day. Bizarre, right!? 

 I think they've done this exercise before at church or preschool, because they named the standard things quickly and easily. So now for this week we'll concentrate on talking about to whom we give thanks.

We are excited about Thanksgiving this week! Can't believe it's here already!

 They adore him. I think he was blessed by the date, too. 

 They went to Kabuki, a Japanese steakhouse in Roanoke. Aaron said they were fascinated by all of it, as you can imagine!

On Saturday, the kids played outside from 10 am to 4 pm, only coming in to eat a quick lunch during that time. They got soooo dirty. And then we had spaghetti for dinner. Here is the combined result! This doesn't even begin to show it all...dirty hands, filthy feet (V was barefoot all day outside). So thankful for bathtime!

Hank weighs about 14 lbs. He's getting rolls on his legs already. It's my first time with a chunky baby and I love it!

He could definitely cut out one of his feedings in the night and be fine...we'll work on it when he gets rid of the cold he's had for a week or so. 

His schedule is about the same as it was a month ago...to bed around 6:45 or 7, wake twice to eat (his first stretch is getting longer...can go about 7 hours), wake for the day around 7 a.m., and for the rest of the day he follows the eat-wake-sleep pattern that results in 4 naps. He is getting so good at falling asleep on his own for naps. He wakes at the 45 minute mark for almost every nap, but can get back to sleep with some fussing and a pacifier.

He has a mild case of cradle cap. It's not bad, but it's something new for me, so I'm finding ways to help it.

His favorite hobby is grabbing my hair and seeing how much he can pull out and get stuck in his tight grip. :) I've learned to have my hair pulled back when I'm holding him.

He likes his playmat, and is starting to reach for the hanging toys. That's so exciting to me!

He is becoming less jerky with his limbs, and is finding his hands. He can get them to his mouth to suck on.

He smiles a lot...when he's awake, I make it my goal to see how much I can get him to smile and play. He is pretty smiley with Vivian because she pays a lot of attention to him, doing the baby talk thing with him, and getting in his face. In fact, in the second picture here, she is the one that got him to smile (you can tell he was looking at her, she was off to the side). And Aaron can get him to smile every.single.time he talks to him. 

Here's an interesting thing about his smiles that we don't want to forget: since he was about 8 weeks old, he smiles and gets excited almost every time he gets on the changing table, without fail. We can count on it. There is something that he is looking at that makes him smile and we can't figure out what it is! But he loves it! My guess is the brown and white stripes on the wall, but I'm not sure. It's so peculiar but fun!

I think he has let out a tiny laugh for me once or twice. I can't wait for more of this! I love that he is becoming playful.

He is a really laid-back baby and so sweet! We love having him in our family!

A lot going on here lately, including a big ordeal at the battery shop regarding some thieves. It all started a few weeks ago, and they are still looking for the guys. The local news stations have picked up on the story and one came to interview Aaron yesterday. 

Very proud of my handsome hubby for his stellar interview :)

We hesitated somewhat on telling the girls about the issue, especially Vivian because she's sensitive to evil and scary things. But when Aaron told them about the bad guys, she said, "Hey Dad, you can catch those bad guys and we'll cut them up and have them for lunch!"  ?!?!? What?! Ha!

 Here is a picture of the set for the Pinkalicious musical.

 Mrs. Nollie cuts our hair at her house! We are so thankful for her and glad to be getting know her better recently.

 Sent to my friends while still in the hospital.

 Sent to Mrs. Ashely to show her how awesome and helpful her gift of paper dress-up dolls was to the girls right after Hank was born.

 Sent to V and K on Gramme's phone while they were at the beach the week after H was born and we were home alone. "Good morning, sisters!"

 This was at their 3 and 4 year check ups. Memorable moment from that appointment: it was the first time they've ever been asked to put on the gowns. When V was taking off her shirt, it was just us in the room, but she giggled and said, "this is embarrassing!" haha

 We took H over to see our neighbors the Duncans soon after we came home.

 This was taken to show Seth and Joel our excitement on the way to the beach at the end of August.

 At the beach with the Morgans! H was 3 weeks old.

 One day Kate fell asleep during her rest time. So sweet to me.

 Helping sisters!

 One day after church we spontaneously went over to my parent's house to watch a NASCAR race together. I sent this picture to Aaron, who was sitting right beside me on the couch :) Hank and I snuggled that whole afternoon while the girls colored Tinker Bell pictures on the floor.

 We sent this to Uncle Michael one morning to say good morning!

 Dressed up for church one Sunday more recently.

 Don't worry, the car was stopped, in park, when I took this. Crazy story goes with it: at the last minute for our trip to NC a few weeks ago, Aaron decided he needed to drive separately in his truck, but he wasn't ready to leave when we were. I left right when the kids were ready to go to sleep for bedtime so that they would sleep the whole way since I was by myself. It almost worked. They did fall asleep right outside of Roanoke and slept for a few hours. But when we were almost in Raleigh, Kate woke up. That was the day I found out she had an ear infection. Her ear was aching, and when she woke up, she let everyone know it. She screamed to the top of her lungs for a good 30 minutes. I couldn't get her to calm down, and I was on a country road that had NO place for me to pull over and stop. I had to wait until I found somewhere to stop. Meanwhile, she woke the other two up. V was completely disoriented. H started to cry, too. K cried so hard she started coughing and threw up all over herself and her carseat. It was chaos. Looking back, I was pretty calm about it all, but only because I was stunned that it was happening :) Finally, Kate fell back sleep, and V fed H a bottle while I continued to make headway on our trip. This is a picture of her falling asleep while she was feeding him. She's such a good helper. :)

This is another picture taken during that weekend, but when things were very calm and under control :)

Maybe soon I can post some random pictures that Aaron has on his phone.

I'm sure many of you have already seen these videos, but Aaron and I think they're hilarious and wanted to share them in case you haven't.

Be sure to watch to the end of the 2nd one because a few of the clips will melt your heart :)

"I told my kids I ate all their Halloween candy"

 Jonathan

 Bryan

 Clay

 This picture shows how much trouble they had on Sunday trying to get off the island. Aaron got up really early because he knew we had a long day trip back to Va. But after packing up all his stuff and hiking to where they docked the boat, he discovered that the water was too shallow to get back to the mainland. He was stuck for an extra 3 or so hours. I just waited for him in Spring Hope. We didn't get back to Salem until 11 that night!

Thankfully a couple of the guys had boats for them to use so they could carry all their camping gear to the island...otherwise they would have had to make several trips with the ferry boat I think.

He was able to meet some new guys and catch a lot of great fish. Very cool.

While we were at Mike and Peggy's a few weekends ago, it was so nice to have some extra time to do things like: paint our fingernails and toenails!

 Meet Cinderella Vivian and Cowgirl Kate. 

 Then that evening, we headed over to Uncle Joey's to trick-or-treat. We started really early because we needed to be at church at 6:30 for the Reformation Celebration, but it all worked out okay. Joey and Tasha were able to walk with us. Some houses weren't ready for us, but we found plenty that were. It was definitely enough for V and K...I think if we had gone to just a couple of houses they would have been thrilled. It's the experience of it that matters to them at this point, not the amount of candy. 

 This was the first year that we were able to stand at the street and watch, instead of going up to the doors with them. So much easier for the adults! They did pretty well with their thank-yous this year.

 One couple had these M&Ms on their porch to make for a good pose.

These handsome men dressed up as battery men. :)

I was thankful that they made the effort to get off work in time to go with us. Thanks to Papa for covering for them at the shop so that they could make it. I think it's the first year Aaron was able to go with us.

I didn't get any pictures at church because there was so much going on and so many people! But all the kids had very cool costumes, and some adults, too! There was a chili recipe contest, so we enjoyed dinner from tons of crock pots. After eating, in honor of the Reformation, Pastor Nick theatrically read the book, The Barber Who Wanted to Pray, while others acted it out on each side of him. It was very creative, and especially interesting for V and K because we have the book at home and they were already familiar with it. 

One more shout-out: my mom kept little Hank at home so he could stay out of the cold and wind!! 

Awesome Halloween and Reformation Night with our family and church family!