Spence Family Fall Pictures

Nate & Kelly

Matt & Mickie
Jordan & Michaela
Braden
Tanner kissing Dallin

Brothers

The great gift of family life is to be intimately acquainted with people you might never even introduce yourself to, had life not done it for you. ~Kendall Hailey,

Chewing on Dad

Dallin loves to chew on hands; his, dad's, anyone's really.

Poor Tanner. This was yesterday when I was making dinner. He just laid on the floor and looked miserable. He is getting 4 teeth too.

100th Percentile!

Dallin is 29 inches long now putting him in the 100th percentile. That is only 6 inches shorter than Tanner. At this rate Dallin could catch up to him in a couple months. :) Dallin is also 16 1/2 pounds (73rd).

Where has the week gone?

Time flies when you are sick in bed. I've accomplished nothing this week. I am hoping for a more productive weekend, but I am afraid Tanner is acting sick. :(

Nate is going to apply to another Physical Therapy school in Spokane, WA. So he is applying to ISU, U of U, Pacific University and now Eastern Washington. We're feeling good this time. Pretty sure he'll get into at least one. He'll know in December at the earliest.

Mr. Mom

I woke up sick yesterday. Throwing up every couple hours and feeling miserable, so I called Nate and asked him to come home from work. He was so wonderful. Took care of the kids as if I wasn't there, because I pretty much wasn't. I couldn't get up off the couch, unless I was running to the bathroom. He cleaned and took the boys out to play. I am not puking today, but I feel super weak and dizzy.
Here are a couple pictures of our weekend.

Croquet

We got a croquet set at the DI (a thrift store), so we tried it out. Fun game.



Tanner gets his lack of a butt (that's why his pants are practically under his diaper) from my side of the family. Oh, I have one, but all the boys don't.

New family picture

We took some fall pictures this evening. The rest of Nate's brothers did theirs last weekend, but it got too cold for our kids, so we waited to do ours until today. Michaela took them, here is just one. She is turning into quite the photographer. I'll post more when she finishes editing.

It's getting cold outside

We've had our first snow of the season already. The leaves are changing and half gone. Boo hoo. Alicia and I are tough and still walk outside. We went when it was 36 degrees earlier this week. Luckily we have tough kids too, or at least bundled up kids.

Horrible, yet kind of funny reality

If you had purchased $1,000 of Lehman Bros. stock one year ago, you would have $49 left.

With Wachovia, you would have $16.50 left.

With AIG, you would have less than $5 left.

But if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all of the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling REFUND, you would have had $214.

Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle.

It's called the 401-Keg plan.

I'm not saying you should do this, I just thought it was interesting, and funny.

Utah

We went to Utah this weekend to see Nate's grandparents. We did a lot of visiting. Didn't do too much. Saw my friend Annalisa, went to dinner, watched some DVDs, did family pictures. I will post some when I get copies. I got mastitis again while I was there, so I didn't feel great.
Bobbie and Pop gave Tanner & Dallin cowboy hats.
Pop and the boys.
Tanner with Uncles and Dad.
Bobbie feeding Dallin
When we got home our back door was open. I guess the wind blew it open. So our house was about 35 degrees. It took about 4 hours to heat up. Our fish died too, froze to death. So sad. (sorry Aubrey)

This is Tanner lately

He usually loves baths, sometimes wants more than one a day, but his evening baths are stressful these days.

More camera fun

Michaela and I took out the cameras to play around. Jordan, Nate and Tanner were our models. But don't worry Steve, I was sure to get a shot of Michaela (sorry, her face was always behind the camera), and Nate got a picture of me. :)




And a few more artistic ones.

Nemo

Is it ok for a kid to watch the same movie 5 times a week? Tanner loves Nemo and would watch it every day, twice a day, if I let him. Sometimes he cries at a few parts. It's so sweet. He doesn't get that from his dad. I've NEVER seen Nate cry. EVER.

Nate& Dallin

Michaela, my sister-in-law let me play around with her camera. I love it! And I like extreme close ups too.

"Don't be scared, they just do."

A man walked by me with the boys and told me how cute they are, and said, "I'll just warn you, they grow up fast."

I said, "Yeah, that is what scares me."

He chuckled and said, "Don't be scared. They just do."

I've been thinking about what he said all week, and I realized that my fear is just my faith wavering. I often think about the boys' future, and I worry so much! We had a discussion at church about our responsibilities as parents and many faithful women still have rebellious kids. I appreciated this mans thought provoking words that reminded me I need to have faith and do my best, and God will do the rest.

It's official

We took Tanner to an allergist today to be tested for 56 common allergies. He is severely allergic to peanuts. And get this, moderately allergic to tobacco. Lucky us, our boy won't be a smoker. And we can use him as an excuse to have people not smoke around us. Poor kid though. He had to get stuck in the back 56 times and then deal with the itching and welts. He did really well though. It was a 3 hour appointment. We watched 2 movies. We came home with prescriptions for antihistamines and EpiPens. Hope we won't have to use them. We'll probably get him one of those bracelets that tells about his allergy. He's been fed peanut butter at a babysitters and at nursery, well, they tried to feed it to him. When he gets a whiff of the stuff he looks like he wants to vomit. So, everyone remember not to give Tanner peanuts, okay?