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!  :)