LET-IT-SNOW!

The first snowfall of the season arrived last Friday night. Perfect timing because that meant no crazy rush hour commute!!

The past two years I waited until after it snowed to look for a sled. The stores had nothing! But this year I was smarter. I picked one up Friday night and Saturday a.m. we had lots of snow to play in!

It was so cute to see Ryan do a double take when he looked out the window that morning. "Mom, look outside!" I pulled him down the alley to the front of our house and he "helped" me shovel the front sidewalk.

When the walk was clean, we brought Brandon out for a quick picture with his very first snow.

Roly-Poly Baby

Brandon is now 4 months old! At his check-up, he weighed 16 lbs. And just in time for Thanksgiving, he started munching on some baby cereal. He was not a fan of the rice cereal, but seems to like oatmeal better. He is consistently sleeping 8-10 hours at night (whew!) He likes to watch TV -- seems to be interested in almost anything we watch, even the Blackhawks. And he's still my little snuggler. Last Saturday I was home to see him roll over for the first time. Yippee! Here's some recent shots of the "B Man."

Welcome Home Uncle Chris!

We're very excited that Uncle Chris is back in Illinois! Although we really enjoyed our visits to Pure Michigan, it'll be nice to have him at a much closer proximity.
He's living in East Peoria and has a position at Caterpillar working on before-market testing and analysis for a big bulldozer. Pretty cool!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our Black Wednesday family activity was to "make turkeys out of food," at least that's what Ryan called it. My Mom made something similiar for the very first Springborn Thankgiving that my family attended (at least 10 years ago). They were very cute, and Ryan's at the perfect age to make them. Although, typical 3-year-old just wanted to eat the supplies!

Here's a finished one.....Oreos, candy corn, Reeses peanut butter cup, Whopper, white & orange icing. Notice the small red piece of twizzler that's the gobbler! Definitely a new Thanksgiving tradition!

Thank you so much to Uncle Jerry & Aunt Gail for hosting Thanksgiving. Aunt Gail loved our Oreo turkeys, so she wanted a picture of Ryan with them. Here's RC being goofy.

And here's Brandon on his first Thanksgiving. He;s definitely a very cute little turkey!

Shaken or Stirred?

At the last minute, Doug & Angie organized a martini party! So, the moms & dads went for a night out. Everyone brought a bottle of liquor to pass and we had enough supplies to make 5 or 6 different kinds of martinis.

Angie's friend, Jen, and Angie sporting their martini shirts. Jen was one of our bartenders. Great job....the drinks were good!


Angie's sister Ashley also poured some drinks for us. She too did a great job. You can see all the bottles on the right side of the picture.....good grief, you'd think we were alcoholics!


The cousins with their drinks Mike, Jason, Angie, Aynn, Katie, Kim, Doug & Dave.


This one was my favorite....blue curaco with pineapple juice and some other stuff. Yum!

Thanksgiving Feast at Preschool

Ryan's Preschool celebrated Thanksgiving with a big feast. Jason was off work and I was able to take a loong lunch so we both celebrated with the kids. It was lots of fun and I was glad I could go.

They prepared the week before by making their decorations....
*Place cards made from an upside down cup with feathers looked like a turkey
*Table runners painted by rolling corn cobs back 'n forth, back 'n forth. Ryan's demonstration of this is soo cute!
*Headbands with a big feather. Also painted by rolling corn cobs.

For their feast, they made Friendship Mix (teddy grahms, marshmellows, pretzels & raisins)! All the kids brought an ingredient to contribute and they mixed it up during class. Here's Ryan getting seconds from Mrs. Cecola. He ate all the marshmellows first, of course!

Looking back on the last 40 years

Here are some of the great pictures that we compiled for a slideshow at John & Cathy's anniversary party last weekend. Thanks to everyone who went to their photo albums in search of some great Murr shots! In no particular order.....

40 Years of Bliss

John & Cathy were expecting to meet us for dinner last Friday night but what they found were 80 people waiting to have dinner with them! On November 14 they will celebrate their 40th anniversary, so Jason & I teamed up with Jeff & Steph to throw a surprise celebration.

The party had a Chicago sports team theme and we asked everyone to wear their favorite team's colors. It was a fun party!....and we're pretty sure that John & Cathy were truly surprised.

Thanks to.....
Jeff & Steph for helping to host the party with us.
Doug & Angie for creating a slideshow with lots of vintage photos.
The Drafke & Andersons for the #40 jerseys which were a great addition to the party.
Amber & Chris for bringing in an extra DVD player at the last minute.

Happy Halloween!

There were only TREATS with us over Halloween weekend!
Gram's favorite "holiday" is Halloween, so she & Poppy came to celebrate the weekend with us.

On Saturday, we went to Blackberry Farm for Pumpkin Days. We rode the train, visited the animals, painted pumpkins and enjoyed beautiful weather. Here's Ryan & Gram on the train!

Ryan loves to SWING!!

Here's Jason's Blackhawks pumpkin that he painted at Blackberry Farm. Not bad!

And here's Ryan with the pumpkin he painted.

On Halloween, Grandma Murr and Grandma & Grandpa came to our house. Jason grilled dinner and the Grandmas took Ryan trick or treating. It was a fun day!

Here's the pumpkins we carved on Saturday night...Poppy's, Jason's Thomas pumpkin, Jason's "B" pumpkin for Brandon and my silly face pumpkin. They scared away all those ghouls and goblins!


Trick or treating at Jerry & Lynn's house. Jerry & Lynn put up a great Halloween display every year with tombstones, crazy lights, fog machines and a cemetary fence.

Here's our trick-or-treaters!!...Buzz Lightyear (Ryan) & Peas in a Pod (Brandon)


Ryan chose his own costume for the first time this year. For those of you who haven't seen Toy Story, Buzz Lightyear is one of the main characters. He's one of Andy's toys. In TS3, the little girl Bonnie has a collection of toys and 'Peas in a Pod' are one of them. When Andy grows up and goes to college he gives all of his toys to Bonnie. It's a cute movie.


Brandon says, "What's this Halloween thing all about and why am I wearing these silly peas?"


Our house on Halloween night. Boo!!


And the kiddos ended the night by putting on their Halloween 'jamas they got from Gram & Poppy!

Good night! Happy Halloween!

Three Months Old!

It's hard to believe that our little guy is already 3 months old! We've settled into life as 4 and Brandon is a perfect fit. He's recognizing voices and is making those cute coo'ing sounds. He has lots of stories to tell us. Brandon is a good sleeper like his Mom and has been sleeping 6-9 hours at night (good job, Buddy!). Right now he has a stuffy nose, which he's not happy about, but the humidifier helps him at night. He still loves to snuggle and I think he just might be a mama's boy :)

I went back to work on Oct 26th and Ryan and Brandon are getting to spend time with Dad, Grandma and Jill. The boys have fun everywhere they go! Sometimes it's hard to keep track of our schedule, but we're soo lucky to have the "daycare" providers that we do. I say they have the best of both worlds...time with Grandma & Grandpa and time to play with the kids at Jill's house.

Here's "B" practicing his slump in the Bumbo chair. This was taken a couple of weeks ago and he's already getting better at sitting up.

Love those cheeks!

Mesmerized by the cute baby (in the mirror)!

Still mesmirized by the cute baby and those silly bugs and butterflies....

Taking a snooze.....so peaceful.

Mom practiced a photo shoot with some help from Angie. Here's a cute shot.