Roth Randoms - Oct/Nov

Since October and November seemed to go by in a blur, I figured it was okay to combine the Roth Randoms for the months!

McKinley
- McKinley definitely had the most eventful two-month span of all of us!
- We moved her out of her toddler bed in her own room and into a bunk bed in Madison's room! Madison has been looking forward to having a bunk bed and sharing a room with McKinley for a long time! Both girls have adjusted fine and love being in the same room. The bunk bed has been everything from a castle to a pirate ship!
- In yet another step away from babyhood and toward being a big girl, our cute girl is now potty-trained! She's been showing interest for a few months but I just wasn't up to it honestly. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm strongly against potty-training ... I've been in pretty much every public restroom in Memphis with Madison and have no desire to repeat that here in Phoenix! I'll take changing diapers a couple times a day anytime! In my world, it will be totally acceptable for kids to wear diapers until they're 10 and can take themselves to the bathroom! But unfortunately, that's not acceptable so potty-training it is. I finally caved at the end of October and did the three-day method I used with Madison. Fail. We didn't have one success in three days. So I walked away. I'm perfectly fine waiting! However, the next week, McKinley did a 180 and basically potty-trained herself. Hooray. Done :)
- Finally, McKinley got a big-girl haircut! We shaved her head when she was 11 months old in an experiment to see if her hair would grow in thicker and more even, but since then we haven't done anything to it and it was getting pretty scraggly at the bottom. I mentioned to Jordan's Mom while we were there in November that I wanted to get it cut but didn't know where to take her or have the money to do it. I should know better than to give Teri ideas :) Jordan and I left the girls with her to go out to dinner with one of the docs and when we got out of the restaurant, I had a picture text of my cute girl with a lot less hair!! My sister-in-law helped with the cut, and when I didn't respond to the picture for a while (because we were at dinner and I didn't want to be rude!!) she thought I was mad! But I totally love it! It's so cute and totally McKinley!

Madison
- Madison has loved living here and has just continued to have fun, learn and grow
- She's gotten to spend lots of time with her cousin Mayli, who also lives down here and is just a month older than Madison. The girls have gotten to play at least a couple times a week and have lots of fun together!
- Madison has also enjoyed lots of Nana and Papa time! We've gone from seeing them about once a year to averaging every two weeks since we moved here. Madison especially has always been attached to them so she's seriously in heaven!
- She continues to bear her testimony in church every fast Sunday and got to have a part in her very first Primary program!
- Her reading also continues to improve, and she can now read simple stories to herself and McKinley and is an active participant in our family scripture study. She has also taken charge of Family Home Evening a couple times and loves to teach us about the gospel. I'm really so grateful for her example and strong testimony!

The Rest of Us
- Thanks to a new miracle drug, my throwing up decreased as October went on and pretty much dried up by the end of November. I still feel sick a lot of the time and haven't been able to stop taking the medicine, but I'm very grateful for the relief!
- We found out we're expecting our third girl! We're very excited about this as we have had a lot of fun with our cute girls and it will be a lot cheaper to have another girl :) However, everyone else's reactions have been a little different. Upon finding out, everyone immediately apologizes to us and assumes that we're disappointed and upset, which couldn't be further from the truth, especially since we waited so long for this baby! Oh well. We're happy and that's all that matters!
- Jordan has been enjoying his externship and has been keeping busy as the Sunday School President in our ward!

Madison and Mayli getting a dolly ride from Papa

Two happy girls in their bunk bed!

This was the look while we got the hang of this big girl potty thing!

Supposed to be taking a nap in her own bed!

Jordan's Aunt Marilyn planned a really fun Halloween carnival with lots of games. I loved this picture of Madison trying to eat the donut off the string while also daintily holding her Elsa dress

McKinley's favorite game was trying to douse the candles with a squirt bottle. She was all about squirting!

A sleepy doctor Sofia ballerina

This is the doctor Jordan worked with. He's SUPER into Halloween and wanted everyone to wear their costumes to the office. Of course, this was the one year I honored Jordan's wish and didn't go over the top with his costume so he looks a little underwhelming but oh well (he's supposed to be Sven from Frozen since the girls were Anna and Elsa and I was Olaf. Family costumes tend to work better with the whole family!)

Bedtime stories. I love these three!

Big girl hair. This shows how short it is, but it's seriously so cute when it's done!

Cute cousins

 I was trying to get a picture to show McKinley's hair, but of course she wasn't cooperative. Madison, however, gave me a fantastic smile, which is almost impossible to get on camera. She usually gives me a ridiculous fake one that looks like she's in pain.

 We decorated for Christmas the Sunday before Thanksgiving. The girls loved decorating the tree in their room!

I made this stocking board and the felt nativity set at our RS Super Saturday. I've wanted to do the nativity set for a while and the stocking board was perfect since we don't have a mantle for stockings in this house.

Our BEAUTIFUL tree! I always love our Christmas tree. Jordan does a fantastic job setting it up and is very meticulous about putting on the 11 strands of lights! We have a tradition of getting ornaments from all the various places we go as a family so decorating the tree always reminds us of a lot of great family memories! However, this year we had a little adventure with the tree ... a week after we set it up, as Jordan and I were admiring it one evening, all the lights suddenly went out! We've had some problems with some of the outlets in the house since it's pretty old and we think the outlet shorted everything out. Sad day :( We decided to live without the lights for the time being since we weren't going to be home for Christmas anyway, but I'm already looking forward to having them again next year!

We went to Jonni's house (Jordan's sister) for Thanksgiving and McKinley impressed us all with this getup.

There's a neighborhood in Cedar City that goes all out for Christmas so we all went and toured it the night after Thanksgiving. Here's eight of the soon-to-be-12 cousins!

Santa was waiting for us at the end of our walk. McKinley was pretty worn out by then, but we had fun!