The following Saturday, Brooke, Sydney, Joey, and Laney went to the Sugarplum Fairy benefit breakfast at the civic center (put on by the Children's Museum of Evansville). That Sunday was a fantastic day! Sargent Art Utley (Joey's step dad) arrived in Evansville for the first time since deploying with the Army National Guard 163rd last year. He was sorely missed when he was gone, so having him back has been amazing. People lined the highway all the way from the airport to the armory. It was a really cool experience, and was amazing to see him again. Thanksgiving was great. Blake's parents had Thanksgiving dinner at their house on Thanksgiving, and Joey's parents had it on Saturday. We ate too much both times, but the food and the company were both very very good. We have been getting all of our Christmas shopping done, and decided last night to get Hadley's ears pierced. She did really well. After only a few seconds, whe was back to her smiling little self again. She is so happy all the time. Laney can pretty much say anything. She still has some funny names for things (like drip drop for the hackey sack, and slip slip for bracelets). Although she has definitely had her two-year-old moments (fits), she is one of the goofiest, funny kids. We just went to a family movie day (the girls' first movie) with Mead Johnson, and she sat through almost the whole movie without barely even twitching. She just kept saying BIIIG MOOVIE!! After about a 10 minute break to play games in the lobby, she was back to finish the movie and dance for everyone leaving the theater during the closing credits.
We are all looking forward to Christmas. On December 26th, we will be driving up to have Christmas with the Chicago family, including the brand new Alsman baby (Grant & Jennie aren't going to find the sex out until the baby is born, so we don't know the name yet).
This year has been pretty intense...Mimi & Pops move into their new house right after mom got back from the hospital with a very bad infection, the night they move in (Mother's Day) Blake blows up the grill and gets burned and gets Randy badly burnt and sent to the ER in an ambulance, Grandpa spent some time in the hospital ICU, Art spends most of the year in Iraq and finally came home safe a few weeks ago, cousin Joey gets mononucleosis in his brain stem and is admitted to the hospital, uncle Bill gets Lyme disease, Hadley was born, Grant & Jennie's baby will be born, and a few jobs have changed.
Friday night, we celebrated Joey's 29th birthday at Turonis and had some delicious (awful) cake that Laney & Blake made. Laney loved frosting the cake and blowing out the candles. You can see how much she liked the chocolate icing in the pictures below. Blake almost lit the cake on fire because he lit two big boxes of candles (he exaggerated her age more than just a little).
Here are a bunch of pictures of lots of stuff that has happened since the last update:
