Where does the time go?

As you can see by the date of my last blog post, things have been a little busy around our house! Miss Annabelle Joy Biggers joined our family on November 13th at 6:39 a.m. She weighed 6 pounds 6.7 oz and was 19 and 3/4 inches long. After 14 hours of labor she was born via c-section. The boys are absolutely crazy about her and could not understand why she and I had to stay in the hospital for 4 days. Here are a few pictures of our earliest days with her... and I hope to update more often. (Although with three kids now... time is more precious than ever!)

The classic c-section picture... upside down mom. :)

Proud brothers meet her for the first time!

Going home outfit... Carter wasn't a huge fan of the bow.

Right after her first bath at home

October is going by so fast!

A few pictures of our October...

1. A pregnant shot of me at 32 weeks (3 weeks ago)

2. The boys enjoying our first snow (no accumulation... but still exciting!)

3. The boys with Gran & Big Daddy at the homecoming football game... We beat Michigan!

4. Notice Palmer is asleep in Big Daddy's lap... sitting right in front of the band -- he can sleep through ANYTHING!

5. Mario and Luigi costumes... too funny. Palmer can't wait to wear it with the "mushtaf"

We have five weeks to go until the big due date! I'm hoping to make it that far. I can't believe that we're so close... or that we'll be a family of five soon!

Catch-up #6

Installment #6 (this now officially qualifies as procrastination of statistics homework!!!)

1. Hugging our new stuffed Herkys from Mimi

2. There are Herkys all over town called "Herky on Parade". Each one is different. This is my personal favorite, we have named him "Disco Herky".

3. Here is one of the crazy squirrels from our yard hanging off of the bird feeder... we like this one because he is a black squirrel. I'd never seen one before we moved here.

4. The leaves are starting to turn!

5. At the last football game, Palmer slept through almost the entire first half in my lap (can anyone say uncomfortable???)

6. Our newest obsession is the drum major. Harrison goes around twirling his "mace" just like Joe! At the last game they wanted to see Joe more than they wanted to see Herky! Here is a video of his mad drum major skills at the pre-game concert the band does each home game. The sound quality is pitiful again, partly because of the acoustics of the rec building and partly because my camera isn't meant for great sound quality. :)

Catch-up #5

Installment #5... Mimi and Papa came to visit! We were so excited to have them here for Labor Day weekend.

1. Helping me put the baby's crib together... it was a team effort. :) We only had to start over twice!

2. Mimi brought these cool books for practicing cutting skills. The boys loved it!

3. Mimi and I found these toy lawnmowers for less than $3 each at K-Mart... the boys LOVE mowing along side Daddy (especially Harrison!). Mim also bought us a birdfeeder (or as Harrison said a Beed Firder!!) but I didn't have enough room to post pictures of the squirrels and chipmunks who have feasted on our seeds... not a single bird.

4. One of the many parks in town has an "amusement park" for little kids. This was the boys riding the train with Papa. There is also a small ferris wheel, a little airplane ride, and a few others. Mom said the boys rode everything twice :)

5. On Labor Day we packed a picnic and went to the park. We threw the frisbee (and got it stuck in a tree!), played on a playground, and had many spiders try to join our meal!

Video... this is the band marching in the parade.

Catch-up #4

Installment #4... Our first Iowa football game!

1. Carter's game uniform and two very proud Hawkeyes!

2. Mimi and Papa holding the boys... more on their visit in the next post

3. Carter's first time on the ladder... love this picture!

4. Mimi took a super-close-up shot with Herky... he doesn't stick around for long so she did the best she could!

5. Super cute picture of Harrison with Papa

At the stadium rehearsal mentioned in the last post, I took a few videos of the band. This one is of the Iowa Victory Polka which they play at the end of a winning game. The drum major conducting (Joe) has become a favorite of the boys... more on him later. I know the sound quality is pitiful, but the boys can sing all the words to this song so I had to include it. Here are the words you'll hear them singing...

In Heaven there is no beer

That's why we drink it here!

And when we're gone from here,

Our friends will be drinking all the beer!

Catch-up #3

Installment #3... before school starts!

1. Our first trip to Kinnick stadium was to watch the band practice before the first game. It is a huge place... reminds me a lot of Kyle Field. The boys loved seeing Herky the Hawkeye (even though it was several people dressed as Herky practicing their field stuff while we were there).

2. Our first glimpse of Herky... he's only half dressed. :)

3. Herky at a parade we watched in honor of Haden Fry... former coach of the Hawkeyes

4. Carter's first public appearance with the Hawkeye Marching Band was at this parade... this isn't a very exciting picture, but it was amazing to see him out there for the first time! I think it is safe for me to say he is LOVING being back around college bands!

5. A silly picture for me to include... but we FINALLY got the garage cleaned out enough to get both cars in! This felt like a huge milestone and I'm so glad we got it finished before school started because we have barely had time to do anything but school since the middle of August.

Catch-up #2

Installment #2...

On the boys' actual birthday (August 14th) we drove to Des Moines (almost 2 hours) to meet our friends, Mark and Sarah, along with their kids at the Iowa State Fair! We were told this was a "don't miss" opportunity. I've never even been to the Texas State Fair! We had a blast. There were lots of activities for kiddos which made things fun for the boys. Here are the picture headings...

1. Harrison riding the gondola (this was the first thing Palmer saw and asked about every 5 minutes if we could ride it... we finally gave in to the $6 tickets and Carter took them. They frown on pregnant mommas riding rides :) so I sat this one out.)

2. They had an exhibit called "Little Hands on the Farm" where the kids went from station to station doing different farming activities (planting seeds, harvesting, milking cows, gathering eggs, driving tractors, etc.) At the end they traded in their "goods" for "money" and got to shop at a grocery store. It was fun! The line was long and it was hot, but probably one of the best things we did all day. This is a picture of Palmer putting gas (pretend ethanol!!!) in his tractor before driving it... did I mention we are in corn/John Deere country up here???

3. The boys with Katie as we started the stations. I thought it was cute that they each got an apron and a basket to collect their goods.

4&5. Blowing out cupcake birthday candles as soon as they woke up (these should have come first, I guess!)

Sorry, Blog friends!

How have 2 months passed since I last blogged???? Can you tell life is crazy for me these days? Since our last post we have moved to Iowa, started graduate school, and are less than 9 weeks from the birth of baby girl Biggers. (Still no name yet... anybody have suggestions?)

I'll try to update in a few installments rather than flood you with too many pictures on one post. We absolutely LOVE Iowa City! It is the most family friendly town we've ever lived in by FAR. (For example, the last Friday night of every month at the mall the kids ride the carousel for free, every food vendor has discounted or free kids meals, and the Children's Museum has free admission!) We miss all of our friends and family terribly, but really haven't

had much time to be homesick.

I'm having trouble with blogger when I try to comment below each photo, so all of my commentary is here and you'll have to match it to the pictures below. Anyone know a remedy for that?

1. Harrison helping Daddy mow the yard. Note the shades... he's too cool. We have a nice size yard with the kind of grass you can run barefoot through. We are trying to enjoy being outside as much as we can before the cold settles in...

2. The boys beds... a mix of old and new... Texas Tech and Hawkeyes. :)

3. Here we are unloading the moving truck... I was obviously no help at all. Three amazing guys from the school of music came and helped Carter. I directed traffic. :)

4. On the boys' actual birthday we had already moved so we made cupcakes. I'll have another post about what we did that day.

5. One thing we all love is the sweet corn! We have been buying extra while it is still in season and freezing it to have during the winter (especially when people come to visit!) The boys have had fun learning how to shuck corn.

Swimming Lessons

This was our first week of swimming lessons at the new Tech leisure pool... it is a pretty cool place! The boys are in the Aqua Tots class with my cousin McKinley (fun that I have a cousin the age of my kids!!!) and one other little boy. Great individual attention! They are having so much fun! I'll try to post pictures again the last day or two. They go for another week.

Vacation Wrap-Up

On our way home from Destin we stopped in Houston to stay with family. Uncle Jay happened to be working in Houston so we got to see him for a little while, too! The boys were too funny telling my mom and dad "I bet you are jealous we got to see Uncle Jay" as soon as we got home! The day we got home we had an ultrasound (pictures coming soon) and attended the Westwinds Brass Band concert at the courthouse gazebo. There is a video of Harrison "conducting" to the music which makes me laugh. :) He kept turning around to see if we were taking his picture, so Carter sneakily held the camera down low to get this video.

Destin Day Six

Our last day at the beach was fabulous! The boys had so much fun fishing with their new Sponge Bob fishing poles and being buried in the sand. We also took our family pictures like we do each time we're here. This time we took them in our Iowa shirts!