It’s a Baby…

BOY!!

We are thrilled that we are having another boy!  I had strong feelings that another boy needed to come to our family before I even got pregnant and Nat predicted boy a few weeks ago.  He’s now 3 for 3 in correctly guessing!

Adam can’t wait to play with his brother and little Abby has no idea what’s going on, but she will be a great little Mommy, I’m sure!

Now begins the name debate.  We are deadlocked.  With Adam we had a few names we liked and I was completely indecisive even though I knew our favorite was Adam.  He wasn’t named until after he was born.  With Abby, Nat was dead set on Abigail and although there were a few other names I really liked, none of them topped Abigail, so I agreed pretty early on.  She was “Baby Abby” as soon as we found out she was a girl.  Hopefully we can decide!

Sunday Christmas Outfits

The kids wore their Christmas outfits to church this past week, (and will wear them again on Christmas!).

When I pulled Abby’s dress out of the bag, she went, “Ooooh!  Wow!  Cute!”, which sounded like, “Ooooh, owww, too!”.  She is such a girl! :)

I made Adam’s tie using a pattern from my friend Michelle’s Etsy shop, The Little Gentleman’s Closet.  It only took a couple of hours and was fairly easy.  When I showed it to him he said, “Cool!”  He’s very much against being called cute. :)

This picture was taken post-church…hence the un-tucked shirt and disheveledness.  And my children have yet to learn how to smile nicely for the camera.  Someday….

Here’s a close-up of the tie.  I have fabric for 2 others that I’ll eventually get around to making.  If this baby is a boy (which we find out in 3 hours!) I can’t wait to make matching ties/bowties!

Back to Bethlehem Night

For our ward’s Christmas party this year, we had a Back to Bethlehem night.  It was really neat!  We had to pay our taxes (a can of food), sign the census, and pay coins for our meal.  The church was decorated like a market in Bethlehem with middle-eastern music playing and we ate our dinner on the floor.

Adam learned how to play Dreidel and we had a nativity skit and sang carols together.  We dressed up in bathrobes (yes, very authentic I know), and Abby briefly wore a cute headress.

Admiring the Baby Jesus.

It was a great way to begin the Christmas season and I’m so thankful for all the work that went into the night!

Getting Ready for Christmas

The kids have really enjoyed decorating the house for Christmas.

They love the Little People Nativity….although it’s never used as it’s intended purpose.  Gotta love the imagination of a 4-year old boy!

We put up some lights outside and Adam has the important job of plugging them in every evening.
While Dad was hanging the lights, Adam got to try out his new scooter!  He did pretty well!

I made a felt Christmas tree with felt ornaments so the kids can decorate and redecorate to their hearts content…thank you Pinterest! 
I made A-D-A-M and A-B-B-Y ornaments in an effort to help Adam learn to spell their names.  As you can see, it’s working beautifully. :) 
It’s a great idea in theory….the felt just doesn’t stick as well as I thought it would.  I might attach some velcro to the ornaments to help them stay up better.

I don’t have pictures, but a fun tradition we started this year is opening a wrapped Christmas book each night and reading it.  Some are board books about Santa and snowmen, some are classics like The Polar Express, and some are focused on the Savior.  Adam is keeping close track of whose turn it is to choose a “present” to unwrap!

Adam’s Birthday Weekend

Adam’s 4th birthday fell on the Monday after Thanksgiving this year so we celebrated 3 1/2 different times!

On Thanksgiving we were with the Gardners so he had candles in a pumpkin pie and presents from Grandma Lesa and his cousins.  Not sure where the hat came from…

On Friday while we were visiting Nana and Papa’s house, Grandma Great brought over a present from her and Grandpa Great.  This is the “1/2 celebration”.

On Sunday, the Shurtleffs came up for dinner and an Angry Birds themed party.

His big present from us was a scooter.

Adam really wanted the game Hungry Hungry Hippos and Aunt Danielle gave it to him!
Everyone had fun playing it!

I made Angry Birds cupcakes.

The final celebration was on Monday the 28th, his actual birthday.  We surprised the kids and went to Chuck E. Cheese, which they loved!

Followed by a Cold Stone ice cream cake at Dad’s insistence.

My sweet baby boy is now a big 4 year old!  Life keeps getting more and more fun with each year.  Happy Birthday Adam!

1st Annual North Pole Breakfast

Last year, my Mom gave us the book “Christopher Pop-in-Kins” that comes with a cute, poseable elf.  It’s the same concept as the original Elf on the Shelf but cuter!  Christopher watches to make sure the kids are being good and reports back to Santa on whether or not they should be on the nice list or the naughty list.  He “pops” into different places every night.  Adam loved looking for Christopher every morning last December. 

I came across the idea for a North Pole Breakfast on Pinterest (love that site!), and thought it would be a fun way to welcome in the Christmas season.  So, here is our family’s North Pole Breakfast.

I set everything up the night before…it was like it was Christmas Eve!

Christopher left a card, a stuffed animal (to play with because nobody can touch him or he’ll lose his magic), and a pair of Christmas socks for the kids.

For breakfast, he brought us “snow-covered donuts” and “glacier hot cocoa”.  He even turned on some Christmas music!

Here are the notes he left the kids.

While Mommy made the hot cocoa, Daddy read them the book.
They sure loved the powdered donuts!

We had a great time talking and laughing together over breakfast.  I think this will become a yearly tradition for us!

It’s Official…I’ve Joined the Minivan Mom Club!

With baby #3 on the way, it was inevitable that we would need to upgrade our small SUV to be able to fit another person inside.  I didn’t want to deal with having to fold over a seat to get a 4 year old into the back of an SUV, so we decided long ago that we would buy a minivan.  We’d been talking about features and models and decided to look on KSL “just for fun”.  Well, we found the perfect van on paper and decided to check it out yesterday.  It IS perfect!  It’s a 2011 Dodge Grand Caravan.  It’s the color I like, has a DVD player, a touch-screen stereo/navigation system, back-up camera, power sliding doors and hatchback (you know, because we’re lazy and would rather push a button than have to pull a handle), and it’s got the 2 bucket seats in the middle row which is exactly what we wanted.  Oh, and those seats fold up and stow-away inside the car.  Cool.

Nat is happy that it’s boxier and more SUV-looking than other minivans.  I’m just happy to have room for my new baby!  And the bells and whistles are pretty sweet too.  I feel so mom-ish.

Baby #3 Update

14 Weeks

A little update on our Baby #3….I am 14 weeks along and finally starting to feel better.  I don’t know why the morning sickness lasted so much longer than my 2 other pregnancies, but I generally feel ok unless I need to eat.  My gag-reflex is out of control so that’s a constant issue.  I think I’m starting to feel the baby move, even though I know it’s really early.  I feel a little “pop” or “blip” every once in a while so even if it’s not baby….I pretend it is!

At my ultrasound yesterday, baby was all curled up on itself.  The above picture is of the baby’s back, the head is on the left and the body on the right.  He/she is all snuggled up and facing in to my body.  You can see a little arm on the bottom of the body.  So cute!

December 21st is the big day when we get to find out the gender!  I’ll be 18 weeks and as long as baby cooperates, my doctor will try and get a good “potty shot”.  With Abby, my doctor told me she thought it was a girl at my 19 week appointment and we confirmed it at my Level 2 ultrasound at 21 weeks.  I’m praying we get a definite answer on the 21st….what a fun Christmas present!!

Adam is so excited for the baby to get here.  It’s so hard to wait 6 more months!  Abby likes to point to the ultrasound picture on the fridge and say, “baby!” and I can get her to rub and kiss my belly.  I’m sure she’s clueless, but it’s still fun!

A Little Solo Quiet Time

I was busy organizing things in my bedroom and realized it had been quiet for a while.  I peaked into the kids’ bedrooms and found this:

Adam looking at the new books I pulled out of rotation.
(I get seriously bored reading the same ones all the time, so I only have about 1/3 of his books out at a time)

Abby playing Mommy with her baby doll.

They had been playing with each other all morning pretending to be Mommy and Daddy birds (or at least Adam was pretending….I’m not sure Abby even knows what she’s doing) so it was fun to see them quietly doing their own thing for a few minutes.  I sure love these kids!

Halloween 2011

I just realized how bad my pictures turned out this year!  I wonder if my camera was on some funky setting by accident.  Sad!

This year for Halloween we had a pirate and a bumblebee!  Adam is really into pirates right now, so this was a great costume for him.  He loved saying “argh!” and “trick or treasure!” and other piratey things.

We had our church Trunk-or-Treat on Saturday night and the kids had a blast seeing their church friends dressed up.  Abby kept putting her pumpkin bucket down and trying to get the candy out.  I finally wound up carrying it for her and so we could keep moving.

Abby stealing candy from our candy bowl.

On Halloween night we had yummy chili in bread bowls with my Mom and sister Danielle (who surprised us by coming with my Mom…my Dad was out of town).

Getting ready to go Trick-or-Treating.  Adam is waving his hook around like a crazy pirate.

We just did our little neighborhood and it was perfect.  This is the first year we’ve stayed home for Halloween since Adam was born.  My parents’ neighborhood is the classic fun neighborhood where every house is decked out and there are kids running around and laughing.  It was a change for us, but it was also good to see our neighbors.

It’s fun to think that next year we will have a little 5 month old trick-or-treater along for the ride too!  :)

Our Pumpkin Family

Baby #3 is due May 20, 2012!