Temple lights and Breakfast with Santa...

I enjoyed a trip to the Washington DC temple with our church youth yesterday evening to see the lights and visit the temple visitor's center. It was a long (3.5 hour drive each way) but fun trip and the 16 youth we had go all seemed to have an enjoyable experience.

This morning after a short night's sleep I took the girls to the base for Breakfast with Santa. They enjoyed meeting Santa and Mrs. Claus, eating breakfast, and getting to do some crafts. Maybe we'll get around to putting up a few decorations today. I haven't wanted to get decorations out until we got the house back together which I can officially say is done now with the completion of the office this week!

Whitney decided to dress all fancy this week with her fluffy scarf. This is her on her way to preschool one afternoon:

Lastly, here is a picture of what happens when Mom goes to book club:

It's a....

BABY!
Okay so that is obvious but I'll give you a chance to try and figure it out first. We'll see if you can make anything out of the grainy snowstorm! I'll give you a hint the head is cut-off from the image but you can make out the arms, heart, and legs.

If you guessed that we are having the first Dahle male heir you are correct! If not, well we won't hold it against you. We are all ecstatic about adding a little boy to our home. Maren is celebrating the upcoming arrival of the 2nd anniversary of her "birthday" by frequently being found running around in her birthday suit. The problem is she has also recently figured out how to get her diaper off in addition to all articles of clothing. No, big accidents yet. But I'm sure she's just waiting until the new carpet is installed!

First snow!

We don't get a lot of snow where we live so it's a big deal when it actually snows. When I walked out of the gym this morning at 6:30 it had just started to snow so I went home and got Whitney up because I was afraid it wouldn't last very long and she would be very disappointed to have missed it. Luckily for the girls it snowed for another almost two hours! Although it did all melt when it hit the ground much to Whitney's dismay. She was really hoping to be able to make a snowman. Nonetheless, they had a blast dancing around outside in the falling snow in their PJ's, hats, and mittens. Afterwards, they came in to warm up with some hot chocolate. It made for a fun adventure this morning though I may have some tired girls later!

Girly girls...

Whitney has been bugging me for the past few days to paint her toenails so we finally get around to doing it tonight. As she is sitting there getting her nails painted, Maren decides she wants in on the action and sits down right next to Whitney so she can be next. We're in for trouble now with two little girly girls here in our house (though they still like to wrestle with Daddy!)

Fall fun...

First of all I have to say that it is a lovely evening here at home. Jim is at work until midnight and the girls were in bed asleep by 7 tonight. An hour earlier than usual but they had a busy day and were getting to be mighty cranky. The peace and quiet is heavenly!

I love this season of the year as the leaves change color and a chill enters the air, there is something about autumn that just speaks to my soul. I don't know what it is but this has always been my favorite season of the year. Maybe it has something to do with the beautiful colors, the comfort foods we eat at this time of year, or the first chance to get cozy with our sweaters and hot cocoa. I feel as though I haven't really had a chance to enjoy this year with all that we've had going on. Maybe the girls and I will have to go for a little hike this week to see more of the beauty than what we see from the windows of the car. Speaking of the car, we seem to spend a lot more time in it now making the 20-30 minute roundtrip twice a day taking Whitney to and from school.

Here's a short rundown of some of our recent fall activities (besides the continuing remodeling which hopefully will be complete the 26th when the carpet is installed). Whitney finished up soccer just before Halloween. She quickly picked up on how to play the game with this being her first season and loved every minute of it. I think her most favorite things were scoring 2 goals, playing goalie, and getting a trophy at the end of the season. One night we sent Whitney to get dressed for her game and when it is almost time to leave we find her dressed only in undies and shinguards and Maren has her soccer jersey on so between the two of them they were close to being ready! Soccer season was quickly followed by the Halloween festivities. My YW at church were in charge of putting on the trunk or treat activity the Wednesday prior and then we joined some friends to trick or treat and go to a party on Halloween night. The girls also enjoyed cleaning and carving the jack-o-lantern. Whitney designed the face this year and carved it with a bit of help.

And lastly proof that they do get along every once in awhile!

Toddler antics...

It's amazing how Maren can so quickly go from this...

to this...

The joys of having a toddler!

Construction zone..

After a week or two of tearing out linoleum, carpet, tack strips, baseboards, and scraping up old adhesive, I finally got the floors all prepped and began laying tile two weeks ago. It's taken awhile to get all 340 ft. laid but it is FINALLY done. My parents flew in to spend five days with us during this time and we all enjoyed being spoiled during their visit and the great help they were with our house projects, taking care of the girls, and keeping up on the house. Unfortunately they had to endure our construction zone. Jim has been a big help when he is off in taking care of the girls and running Whitney to and from school so I can have some uninterrupted time to work. Unfortunately I'm not super speedy partly because I want it to be done well and it takes a bit to get the motivation to get going each day. Here's a few before/after shots (not the best but gives you an idea of how it looks):

The lack of motivation may have something to do with the additional fatigue and occasional nausea I feel from this:

We're excited for the little one that is due to arrive April 21st. Whitney is hoping for a brother but we'll have to wait and see! Maren just walks around and says "baby" all day.

We still have plenty to do with some painting, installing baseboards, kitchen cabinet staining, and getting somebody to install tcarpet. However the largest project by far is now complete! But for now I need to tackle the mess that this house has become after being neglected for past two weeks.

Disney on Ice....

A few weeks ago I took Whitney and we joined some friends for an evening at Disney on Ice. The show included segments on Cars, Lion King, Little Mermaid, and Tinkerbell with Mickey, Minnie, Donald, and Goofy serving as hosts. The kids seemed to really enjoy the show though none of us were real familiar with the Tinkerbell story. We'll have to read up on that one! They put on a great show with some pretty amazing costumes and scenery. It was fun night out!

Speaking of ice, Jim has been spending a some time on the ice each week. He started to play in a adult ice hockey league with games a few times a week. The girls and I have only been able to go to two of them so far as they start at 9 or 10:15 at night. He's scored a few goals in the games he's played in so far but is mostly excited about being back playing after 9 years off.

Here's a funny picture I got of Maren the other day chilling in the recliner and eating some chocolate she had snuck out of the pantry. What an easy life she leads!

North Carolina, Part 2...

The following day was Sunday so we headed to church in the morning after dropping Jim at his class. Afterwards, I wasn't real keen on spending all afternoon in the hotel room with the girls so we had some lunch and then headed along the windy mountain roads to the Blue Ridge Parkway. Upon reaching the parkway, we followed it south to Mt. Mitchell State Park. The drive along the parkway and up the mountain were beautiful with excellent vistas of the mountains and the beginning of the fall colors.

We arrived near the top of Mt. Mitchell hoping to make the short hike up the last 100 or so feet to the summit but they were constructing a new observation deck at the summit so it was off-limits. So we almost reached the summit of the tallest US mountain east of the Mississippi but not quite.

That evening we enjoyed a great dinner outside along the banks of the Catawba River with the rest of Jim's classmates. The following morning we headed up the mountains to Linville Gorge to do some rock climbing before heading home. We spent a lot of time hiking trying to find specific climbs as the guidebook wasn't great but finally found some good routes just not what Jim was looking for. Whitney had a blast climbing but had difficulty coming down so instead hitched a ride down clipped in with Jim which she thought was great. The girls were both flithy from all their scrambling but had fun and we enjoyed getting some climbing in.

North Carolina Part 1...

Last weekend Jim had a wilderness medicine course out in western North Carolina. We were excited to head out there to the mountains as we hadn't visited that area yet. While Jim went to class each day the girls and I played. Unfortunately the first day it poured all day long and I began to seriously doubt my decision about coming along for the trip after being stuck in a hotel room all day with the girls. We did find a nearby ChicFilA with an indoor playground for lunch but were unable to find any other fun indoor activities in the area for kids. Luckily by the next day the rain had cleared and we had a great rest of the weekend. The next morning we headed out to a local apple orchard for a tractor tour of the orchard and then headed out to pick our own apples.

The girls had a blast running up and down the rows of apple trees. I think I've found my new favorite kind of apple: Honeycrisp. It is a relatively new type of apple, try one if you can find one.

After the apple orchard we met up with my buddy Tiffany that had driven up from Charlotte and headed out to Chimney Rock Park. It was a cool park with lots of fun rock formations to hike around using numerous sets of stairs with the highlight being going to the top of Chimney Rock. The girls both loved scrambling around on the rock.

The park is built up the side of the mountain so it provided great views of the mountains and nearby lake and river.

We also hiked out to a beautiful waterfall before heading home.

House repairs, preschool, and sisterly love...

Well I'm finally getting caught up on the blog. It's been a busy summer with all the traveling and then the house repairs in between. Jim got the A/C drain fixed and a pump installed so now we can begin replacing the flooring. We've opted to do it ourselves since we have a hard time justifying paying somebody else to do something we can do ourselves. However it is a somewhat daunting project to put in over 320 square feet of tile and Jim has been super busy at work so it's been left to me to begin. Now if I could only find the motivation to get started! We also have a few other projects on the list to get the downstairs back in order so hopefully in the next month it will all be completed.

Whitney started preschool last week after missing the first few days while we were in Alaska. She goes 5 days a week for a few hours in the afternoon and has been loving it. Maren had a hard time the first few days we dropped Whitney off. However, since the day I took her to Chic-Fil-A for a play date after we dropped Whitney off she's been fine and seems to enjoy the time alone with Mom. Whitney also has started playing soccer in the last few weeks. Each game she gets a lot better but it is pretty comical to watch at times.

Lastly here is a cute picture of the two girls. Maren has started to insist on sleeping in Whitney's bed with her each night after scriptures and prayers. A few nights she's had to be put in her room after getting out of bed to play with toys. The other night I went to check on them and found them both asleep holding hands. Some good sisterly bonding!