Thanksgiving Pie Plan:

For the uninitiated, I believe there is a perfect ratio of people to pies for Thanksgiving. It's the point where there's enough pie for Thanksgiving, seconds that night, and leftovers Friday after, but no more. This is the "Perfect Pie Ratio", or PPR, for short.

That ratio is 1 person per pie.

Some (including my wife) believe this is excessive, and wildly out of touch, but she's not familiar with the Scoresby habit of eating pie whenever possible through the next days. It's important to get enough, because if you run out on Thursday, it's terrible. You'll have to make more sweets just the day after Thanksgiving, and really, who's going to cook the day after? If you have too much, though, it lasts until after everyone has gone home, and the pies just go bad because you can't finish them in time, and that's just a waste. Thus, a PPR of 1:1.

I have calculated the PPR for this Thanksgiving for my parents house and the number of attendees, so we will need 13 pies. Yes, 13. Yes, I know, there will be 14 people there, but I don't think Lauren is going to be having any pie, unless we can manage to make Milk (or formula) Pie. If we do, I don't want any.

I have also thoughtfully provided a possible distribution of pies for the event:

3 apple pies
3 pumpkin pies
2 pineapple pies
1 cherry pie
2 pecan pies
1 chocolate creme pie
1 banana creme pie

I know Tracy has volunteered to make the pineapple pie, since she has a special recipe for it.
I would also be willing to make the pumpkin pies, and possibly a coconut creme pie to replace the cherry pie.

Blah. Who likes cherry pies, anyway?

"Sharing" Afton

So Afton had a couple of friends over yesterday. She had a hard time sharing her toys. Afton was trying to take a toy from Aaron and I asked, "Afton, can you share your toy? " Instantly she responds, "Yeah!" and proceeds to take the toy from him and say "thank you" as she walks away with the much sought after toy.

Not quite what I had in mind....

G.I. Joe

Happy Joe...
















Mean Joe....















So about a month ago, I gave Joe a haircut, a first for me. I did ok until I had to trim around the ears. Lets just say the best way to fix it was to shave his whole head with a number 1. Luckily his hair grows back pretty fast and it doesn't look quite as bad now. Don't worry Margaret, I won't be the one cutting his hair before the family pics..or maybe I should so at least someone would look worse than me. :)

Afton the foodie

Afton's new bed:

Sunday night, we had to make a few changes to Afton's bed, and this should show you why:

Camping at Shenandoah

We had 8-10 families from our ward camp out this weekend up at Mathews Arm in the Shenandoah Park. It was a lot of fun. We just stayed one night; which was very restorative. It feels so long since we've been camping, although we went camping at the beach last month. Its different when your surrounded by tents and mountains and trees instead of the ocean. When we went to the beach, there were ton of RV's and such- it didn't make it feel like we were out in nature. The beach was a little warmer- but overall I think I like mountain camping more. It could be because that's what I'm used to. We saw lots of deer, but no bears which have been an issue this year. A couple of families saw bears and one heard one but that was all of the excitement.

Sleeping well and camping pregnant don't really go hand and hand, but overall it wasn't too bad. I definitely like camping non pregnant better! :) Good thing it was cold out! Anyways, Afton did not sleep well at all in her pack and play which was really surprising. She did sleep while we were able to play games and toilet paper Brother Hayward's truck, which was nice. Just to clarify, Imelda Done would have been fine getting toilet papered. I asked! (For those not in the ward, the Done's are in the ward and Brother Done is in the bishopric so by tradition standards he would have been the one toilet papered if we weren't so afraid Imelda would never want to come camping again. :) Anyways, Afton woke up around 11 pm, screaming and we couldn't get her back to sleep in the pack in play. She pretty much stayed up until 2:30 am, being cute between Joe and me. She would plop her head on my chest and say things like "hi" and "mom, mom mom" in her cute, high baby voice. She finally fell asleep and Joe put her back in the pack and play. She woke up again around 3:30 when I left to go to the bathroom. Oh, the joys of pregnancy. We got her to sleep between us until about 7am until she was ready to roll. Needless to say Joe and I didn't get a whole lot of sleep. We still had a great time, though.

Afton loves the Done kids. These are some of the pics with them. The pic on top is Afton with Timothy Done and the pic on the bottom is of Afton and Audrey.





The Haywards had a lot of leftover bacon and breakfast items from a past campout so breakfast of bacon, pancakes and juice were awesome. I think Afton enjoyed mountain camping a lot. She was able to run around more. She had a fun time leaving presents for everyone- when she would see an empty camp chair, she would leave a pile of rocks in the middle of the chair for someone to enjoy when they sat back down. On the way back, we did a short hike to some cliffs that overlook the mountain with a whole bunch of other little kids. Joe thought it was a lot like herding cats. It was pretty fun. We mostly carried Afton. She walked about 20 feet. She seemed to enjoy the scenery. At the top were some cliffs that overlooked the Shenandoah Valley. It was really pretty. Joe couldn't handle the cliffs and kids, pictures of falling kids kept running through his mind so we didn't stay on the top very long. Overall, we had a great time and can't wait to do it again next year. The two hour nap when we got back went a long way! :)

P.S. I stole the pics from Imelda from Facebook. Thanks Imelda!!

It's a boy!

So we had the ultra sound on Monday. We took Afton with us, which by the way is a big mistake. She screamed the entire time while I was getting the ultrasound done. She didn't like me laying on the table and just wanted me to hold her, which doesn't work very well. Plus, the technicians were taking forever. I then proceeded to pass out, which really freaked out the techs. I am fine, was just on my back to long I think. I do what I can to add adventure to the techs lives. I didn't even get any pics. Oh well! On a good note, Joe and I placed a bet on what the sex would be; the loser had to buy the other ice cream. I won, of course. The due date is January 6th. I'm, of course, hoping it comes a couple of weeks early, like Afton. I think Afton spoiled things for me. She was 2 weeks early and the labor was pretty easy. Watch this one be 1 week over due and 24 hours of labor. :)
Hopefully not, but I'm trying to lower the expectations. Figuring out names should be fun; Joe doesn't like any of the good ones. Maybe, we'll call him Bob for now.

It is nice to have a baby the normal way. For the first time in my life, I actually took a pregnancy test that came back positive. I even bought a couple extra packs just so I can get thrills of it coming back positive. Who knows if it will ever happen again! :)