Christmas pictures for the Grandparents

We had a nice quiet Christmas. The kids got way more toys than they needed but that was to be expected. Our Home Teacher invited us and some other people to his house to eat waffles with ice cream, a tradition that they started a few years ago. It was neat to be able to get to know some people in the ward a bit better. We suspect that the family that has been anonymously leaving parts to a nativity scene on our door step during the 12 days preceding Christmas was there also. they drive a dark blue mini van and we would frequently see one drive past when we went outside do get the next piece.

What is in the box?

Animals! Harry knew all the names of the animlas except for this one. I need to look it up so I can figure out what it is.

What is this?

A car carrier truck! This is one of Evan's favorite things, a vehicle that you can put other vehicles in.

One of the coloring books that I got the kids. We kept gifts very minimal on our part, but they really needed more fun pictures to color.

A pretend cookie making kit. I have been eating a lot of pretend cookies which are the best kind since they don't have any calories.

The winner of the Most Annoying Gift of Christmas goes to this one. It was a gift from good old Auntie H (who should she even get married and have kids will be open for massive retribution on my part). Not only was it excessively loud (what is up with the high volume on kid's toys?) but my husband had to go to the garage several times to even find the right screwdriver to get the stupid thing out of it's packaging. The only thing that saved it from a emergency batteryectomy was a mute switch that turned off the music and talking part. It can still drive much to Evan's delight.. Those batteries are a goner if the kids ever figure out that switch.

Merry Christmas!

I hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas!

Big surprise

Today I had another ultrasound to check the development of the baby's heart but they also looked at the whole body to make sure everything was developing as it should. I found out that we were having........






a........









boy. Big shock huh???

The ultrasound tech asked me if I was ok with that and I told her yeah since I already had all the clothing ect. It is not like I can exactly exchange the baby at the baby store any way, so either way I would have to deal with what I had.

Now the hard works starts since we will have to come up with a name for this kiddo.

My harrowing snow adventure

Yesterday it snowed all day and we got several inches of snow. We were supposed to head to the mall for playgroup but in the process of cleaning the snow off my car I dropped my keys and lost them. I think that was Heavenly Father's way of warning me that I should not go out driving in the snow especially with kids in the car.

Later that evening was a cookie exchange that I had been looking forward to. Boy Scouts was canceled for my husband so I got to take the minivan to the activity. I thought it was heavy enough to handled the still unplowed roads. Apparently it was not since it could not make it back up the hill that was near the house where the activity was being held. I was not the only one that was having trouble and the host's husband ended up helping several of us by towing our cars up the hill.

I am still nervous about driving but have a ton of things to do all week. I just wish the city was better about keeping the roads clean and ice free. In Utah there really was no such thing as driving in snow, the roads were very promptly plowed and sanded. Growing up I never understood why my parents dreaded snow but now I know exactly why they hated it.

Easy

I have a crazy fun filled week ahead of me. There are a lot of activities and appointments packed into a short period of time. I think that I have managed to get a handle on things but I may be white knuckling it. Added to this is the fun icy cold that is Kansas at winter time. We went grocery shopping this morning and it was 7 degrees F outside and that was not accounting for the wind chill which temperature at below 0. Evan had the nerve to ask if he could stay outside and play when earlier he had been whining about the cold. I had half a mind to let him stay out there for a short time all by himself.

Something that has saved my tenuous sanity and made me seem a whole lot more together than I really am is the discovery that fudge is a seriously easy treat to make. All you need is a bag of chocolate chips, a can of sweetened condensed milk and a small amount of butter. You melt them all together, spread the goo onto wax paper and throw it into the fridge. Two hours later you have a yummy treat to share. I bought some mint and orange extract to add some different flavors to it and have also been digging around in my pantry for leftover things that go well in it. Marshmallows have been the most popular additive so far, but I like the orange walnut batch that I made.

Snow!

Tuesday we had our first significant snowfall of the winter. The boys were pretty excited about the whole thing since this is their first chance to experience the wet and bitter cold that is snow. It was fun seeing them so excited but that fun wore off quickly as the cold penetrated my body. Luckily most of the snow has already melted away and the rest will soon follow after.

Evan's not too sure about the whole snow thing.

Harry jumps right in.

Harry's attempts to make a snowball. It was a rather dry snow, so it was not very good for making things like snowmen.

Evan throwing a snowball that daddy made.

Our back patio turned into a bit of an ice slick. I told my husband that we should make it into an ice rink, but he was not going for it. Harry had fun sliding on it and even laughed when he fell on his bum.

Sunday Cuteness

Evan has this new phrase that he likes to use. Instead of being happy he is cute. It all started one day when I was questioning him about his behavior prior to allowing him out of his room where he was being punished. "I am not sad, I am cute now" was his reply to me asking if he was done whining and crying about some imagined slight. This phrase has made it into his regular vocabulary and I find it rather.. well... cute.

Yesterday my husband's work had a kid's holiday party. It was mind numbingly boring for the adults, but the kids had a fun time. Santa even came and brought books (secretly supplied by the parents) for the kids. They even had some people doing balloon animals for the kids. With the amount of popping that was going on I could tell there was a balloon animal slaughter going on.

They got to "decorate" their own cookies which was basically spreading frosting on the cookie and then adding sprinkles.

Evan with his green lips after eating his green cookie.

The big guy himself. He stopped and talked to many of the kids Evan included but some guy got in the way of my shot of him talking to Evan. Santa was played by a guy that my husband works with and according to him that belly is not padding. Also that other kid standing next to Harry was quite the.. um how shall I say it?.. "active" little boy. My husband sometimes moans about the kids misbehaving but they were perfect angles compared to that kid.

I will have more pictures of the boys and Santa but not right away. There was a photographer at the event so I have to wait to get the close up pictures. Harry surprised me and actually sat on Santa's lap this year instead of freaking out like he did last year.

Grr!

Putting up the Christmas decorations was fun and exciting. I thought that I had properly impressed upon the children that they should leave the ornaments on the tree and that the lights were off limits. Yeah I know, funny huh?

Yesterday while I was doing something else I heard "Lights are broken, owie!" which of course set off my mommy danger alarm. I got Evan to show me what was wrong. He had broken one of the bulbs of the lights on our Christmas tree. I was steaming at that point but also searching his hand for any cuts. Thankfully there were none and he earned a trip to his bedroom until dinner time. I unplugged the lights and picked up all the glass that I could find.

Not too much later I hear "Lights working" which also set off my mommy danger radar. Harry, who had witnessed all that had happned to Evan, had plugged the lights back in. Steaming again Harry earned himself a trip to the bedroom until dinner time (which with all the giggling I kept hearing was probably not much of a punnishment).

I had reached my limit of frustaration and promptly after dinner removed the lights from the tree. We now have a light less tree which removes a lot of the prettiness from the tree. Sigh. I know that the kids are very sad about not being able to see the lights on the tree too, so maybe the lesson that we do not touch things that mommy and daddy tell us not to will sink in. I am not holding my breath though.

Brrr!

I am in a bit of a blah mood. Life is chugging along with it's little twists and turns. I am over the majority of the whole morning sickness although there are certain things that send my stomach into flip flops, often rather suddenly. Mostly it is exhaustion that I am fighting. I wish I had the energy to do more with the kids, but mostly I want to sleep. It is not like I can take them to the park or anything with out freezing (not that they mind).

Speaking of the cold, it is kicking my bum in a huge way. We made a half hearted attempt to keep our lovely winter gear that we owned when we lived in Utah, but with all the moves we ended up getting rid of a lot of it. I still have my warm coat, but the icy wind of Kansas cuts through it like I was not wearing much of anything at all. I think the boys are decently outfitted but they don't really complain about the cold, so it is hard to tell. I know about cold, but I have really grown soft after six years of not having much of a real winter.

I am trying to save energy by keeping the house at 68 degrees. I did it fine in California. I could even wear short sleeved shirts in the house at that temprature. Here in Kansas my thrifty ways are not working out so well. I am freezing my bum off. I have to pile on the clothing to even feel a tiny bit thawed out. I don't get it, it is the same temprature but some how it feels so much colder.

I also am rather low on maternity long sleeved shirts which is only adding to my frustrations with the cold. When I was pregnant with Evan a nice friend of mine lent me her collection of maternity clothing, so coming into this pregnancy I had a grand total of one long sleeved shirt and one sweater that I found last summer at a thrift store (it is horribly frumpy but very warm). I am also lacking the shopping resources I had when it came to maternity wear, so I have resorted to wearing large men's shirts. They may not be shapely or trendy but they cover my body and keep me warmish.

Sometimes I really wish I was a bear so that I could snuggle up in my cave and sleep the winter away. When I woke up the baby would be out of the tiring newborn stage and into the toddler age.

Thanksgiving day report

We had a fun thanksgiving. My husband's cousin and her family came over for a visit and helped entertain us. We also had the missionaries over, so we had a very full table.

There were a few spots of trouble. My husband sliced off the tip of one of his fingers so his cooking abilities were rather compromised. Luckily he found the bit of skin before it accidentally got mixed in with our stuffing. I was able to hold my nausea in check long enough to put the herbed butter rub under the turkey skin. I forgot to make the mashed potatoes but as was discovered later all but 4 of them had become rotten, so there would not have been enough for everyone any way. I also forgot to put out my homemade cranberry sauce.

Despite all that there was plenty of food to eat and leftovers galore. One of my ulterior motives in inviting the missionaries was so that I could send them home with as much of our leftover food as I could. I hate having piles of turkey left over. I am not all that fond of it in the first place so being forced to eat it months later is torture. We had enough that my husband could have turkey sandwiches for a few days and we could have a meal of turkey noodle soup. That was enough for me.

Poor Evan had a rather tough day today. He tore one of his fingernails in church so we had to scare up a bandage to keep the blood from dripping on everything. Later on in the evening he was goofing off and tripped into the laundry bag holder. It was not until I saw blood seeping though the bottom of his blanket sleeper that I realized why he was making such a fuss about his toe. He had cut the bottom of it somehow. Another band aid soothed him.

We put up our Christmas tree today. It has really been fun watching the kids change from infants who could care less about holidays to kids that are excited about the whole thing. I am having a hard time with this Christmas simply because I have no idea what to get them for presents. They already have so much stuff that I feel like I don't want to get them anything because it will just add to our burden of stuff. I am thinking that I may get them each something small and then donate something bigger to charity so that those with out will be able to share in our good fortune.

Thankful!

I hope that everyone is having a great Thanksgiving. My husband's cousin and her family are over for a visit, so we are going to be busy all weekend.

I thought I would share something that I am super thankful for.

On Tuesday we went to see Evan's pacemaker doc for a followup to check on his battery life. Apparently she was already planning on him having it replaced very soon and had already presented his case to the surgery folks. I was quite taken aback as last time we talked I did not get that there was any sense of urgency when it came to the need for a new battery and possible lead change. Maybe I just had my head in the sand or something.

Leaving the office we thought that it was going to happen December 16th which was already a very full week for me and a bad week for my husband to have to take off of work. I was feeling rather grumpy mostly because of all the rescheduling of appointments that I would have to do to free up enough just in case he has to stay a few days in the hospital time.

The next morning I got a call from the surgery office to schedule his surgery. The lady on the phone presented me with a number of days in January and gave no explanation as to why the later dates were suddenly opened up. I did not probe further into it because I was thrilled that a better time was offered to me when it had seemed so firm earlier.

So, January 20th Evan will be getting a new pacemaker generator and hopefully a new lead. Putting in the new lead will be a much more invasive procedure, but this lead has been giving us headaches for a while now. This is the same one that was acting up after his surgery and drained that battery. Really he should not be needing new batteries so soon, they are supposed to last 3-5 years instead the paltry 2 that this one has lasted.

Three!

It is hard for me to believe, but Harry is now three years old. Time sure flies! It is amazing the things he can do now and how much comprehension he has gained. On Friday I bought him an Elmo balloon for his birthday. It rather rapidly deflated much to his dismay so I promised that as soon as daddy got home and we had dinner I would go to the store and get him a new one (I returned the old one as it was obviously defective). He was so very calm an mature about the whole ordeal. He was thrilled with his new balloon and calmly accepted that he could not take it to bed with him until he realized that I meant what I had said and then he sobbed like the two year old he still was. That sure beats the almost instant temper tantrum of a toddler, that is for sure.

Harry's birthday cake made by yours truly. It is based on one that I had when I was about his age. Harry had been strongly campaigning for some Elmo cupcakes that they have at Sam's Club, but I did not see the need for 24 icky cupcakes with gross frosting since it was only going to be family. I thought that this would be a fun and much tastier alternative.

My husband had to help with the candle, Harry is still not a very good candle blower outer.

Cookie seems a bit worried about something, I am not sure what though.

Mmmmm.... eyes.

Evan chowing down. He is quite excited for his birthday to come even though it is still months away. He wants an Elmo balloon too.

This is how I often feel, poor momma bear.

Wow!

Picture # 1 was pretty easy to guess. Those are the wee little feet. Picture #2 is the femur. Teh technician tried to get hands and arms but the baby was keeping them tightly crossed and they were hard to get pictures of. Picture #3 is supposedly the baby's face. The technician seemed pretty confident of that, but to me it looks like there is an alien inside me.

I just read this article and all I can say is wow!!!

Baby pictures

Today was rather a crappy day and it was topped off by my destroying dinner thanks to my addled pregnant brain. I forgot to make sure we had the right cheese for the lasagna, I totally forgot to get ricotta cheese and it was too late to ask my husband to pick some up at the store as he was already at the store getting me the mozzarella cheese that I needed (we only have one cell phone and he never remembers to bring it with him) and finally I barely avoided burning the top of the dinner thanks to me forgetting to put the aluminum foil over it. The odd thing is that my lasagna hating kids actually ate it and my husband loved it. I didn't, but I guess I will just be happy that others did.

A part of my grumpiness was that my ultrasound showed that I was actually not as far along as my last menstrual period would suggest. My new due date is May 11th. Sigh! I guess that midwife must have been imagining things when she thought I was measuring bigger. At least the dream that I had that I was having twins was debunked as only one baby showed up in the ultrasound. And before you ask, it was waaay to early to tell what sex the baby is. It was hard enough to even get a very good peek at the baby thanks to the earliness of my pregnancy.

I now present to you the amazing gray blob pictures. See if you can guess what each picture is a picture of. The people that get them all right will get an imaginary prize which will be determined later.

Stop repeating me!

Back in the day a great way to drive your sibling insane was to repeat everything that they said. It was delicious fun that was only ruined when the sibling finally stopped talking altogether. Now I am not laughing. Evan is in one of his phases and this phase is him repeating me. Sometimes it is just the last word I say and sometimes it is the entire sentence.

My patience has been getting quite the workout. I find it quite ironic that part of our job as a parent is to teach our children patience and to do that we have to develop an even greater amount of patience than we had previously. If you had an adult at work following you around repeating everything that you said you would go insane and might even have murderous thoughts. You would have the option of talking to someone with higher authority or even quitting your job if the annoyance was great enough. With your kids a higher level of behavior is needed. You can't just quit on your kids or shut them in the room so that you don't have to hear them. It is a good thing that Evan is so cute and lovable.

My mom hates me

Harry got an early birthday package from my parents today. Of course it had to be ripped open right away. Inside were two Sesame Street DVDs and a musical card. Harry was immediately taken by the card, he laughed so hard that I was worried that he would collapse. At first I was amused and thought the card was kind of cute. After a long afternoon of Harry playing that song over and over again I was convinced that my mother was out to get me. My husband became the mean parent and took the card away after being home only an hour. Apparently he does not have the noise tolerance that I have developed.

This card is not the only noisy thing that has been gifted to my kids by my parents. There have been numerous toys that have earned battery removals. I think the most notable was the Tickle Me Elmo that they gave Harry last Christmas. Elmo is quiet most of the time now, but every so often he gets rediscovered and my day is shot. I think that next time we visit I am going to give each of the boys a musical card to play with at grandma's house. I wonder how long they would last.

Oops

In my flutter over our new computer I forgot to post about my oh so delightful (I am being sarcastic here) OB appointment. It same on top of an already crappy day so I kind of wanted to just avoid the whole thing but went any as I had already blown of the previous appointment thanks to my pregnancy brain.

One of the Midwives in the practice did my exam. It was horribly uncomfortable and the Pap smear part was actually quite painful, which has never happened to me before. Yeah it has been very uncomfortable but never painful. Oddly enough before this one I had only had male doctors doing them on me. You would think that a woman would be more aware of discomfort issues.

The best part of the visit was when I got to hear the heartbeat of the baby. Until the baby is big enough to really make it's presence known it really is hard to internalize that there is a living being existing inside of you. It was nice to be able to hear the proof. I will be getting an ultrasound next week to confirm my dates (my cycles are super wonky and I was feeling big for gestational age) so I may have some blurry gray baby pictures to post. Hopefully it will cooperate and be photogenic. Most of Evan's are of his spine and Harry's are not much better.

Nerd girl

One of the things that both my husband and I have in common is our love for computer games. It is probably the only hobby that we both share which is why my husband wants to set up our old computer so that we have two that are working. Any way the point I am trying to make that is we have both been playing with out new toy and it has been wonderful.

Part of the reason he was so motivated to get the new computer built is so that he could play World of Warcraft like the guys at work are doing (a lot of his hobbies seem to be things that guys in his shop are doing). We have both played and beaten the original Warcraft games and were aware of the existence of WoW, but had not wanted to get sucked in. We recently decided to cave in, after all the monthly subscription cost was probably less than what I have spent on yarn and he did just get a raise.

I must say that it is an amazing game and everything that everyone said it would be. Blizzard is one of the top computer game companies out there and they keep on making winners. The user interface it very intuitive so that you can pick up a lot as you go along playing the games. They do a great job of making the games challenging but not so hard that you give up in frustration.

Don't worry I have not forgotten that I have kids, but it hard to remember that I do have a blog. I think that the fact that the game will only run well on the new computer will be a saving grace. I will be forced to share now and then.

Speedy

We got the computer case yesterday and my husband assembled the whole thing in a few hours. I was surprised at how quickly it went together. He just has to download a few updates and we will have a speedy new computer to blog from.

Yipee!

Today did not start out well. The kids thought it would be fun to wake us up at 5 in the morning. My husband shooed them back into their rooms, but I am pretty sure that no more sleeping was done. I was mean and made them stay contained until 7:30 which is their normal waking time.

The day did get better when my husband unexpectedly got some time off work. We went out to lunch to celebrate his promotion which was made official today. When we got back we found a large package on our doorstep. Evan thought that it had cars in it, he seems to expect cars in every package that we get. What it contained was this:



This is our new computer, neat huh? My husband being the super cool computer guy that he is will be building out new computer himself. We are going to get a much nicer and faster computer than we could hav afforded to buy premade. I can't wait to see what it can do.

Sigh

Well the first cold of the cold and flu season is upon us. My husband seems to be hit the hardest with it but no one has escaped entirely. Evan is especially sensitive to snot dripping down the back of his throat and ended up throwing up this afternoon. My morning sickness (that is really evening sickness for me) is getting better, but the smell was almost more than I could handle and it was all I could do to keep it together. Luckily I only had to deal with Evan and his gross clothing. The bulk of it was on the couch which my husband cleaned up. I am really hoping that this kind of thing does not happen when I am home alone, it might end up being more than my poor stomach can handle.

Awww!

I hope that everyone had a safe and fun Halloween. They boys had a blast and the night was positively balmy. I was walking around the neighborhood in a short sleeved shirt and did not feel the least bit chilly.

We did three streets in our neighborhood which took two hours thanks to short little legs. At one house we got there just as the kids and mom were getting back from their trick or treating. Evan saw them going into the house and thought that from then on that he could go into the different houses too.

The boys got a lot of extra candy due to the cuteness factor of little kids. There were not a lot of kids that went around our neighborhood so we have a ton of candy left over thanks to me over buying. Anyone want some Smarties? I will mail them to you!

The boys all decked out in their finery. See those pumpkins down there? They were a nightmare to carve. The warty ones were so tough that we had to get out my husband's power drill to carve them. We are so not getting those kinds of pumpkins again.

Evan and Harry trying to put on their own costumes. They were very eager to get out and get some candy.


Here are the boys at the ward Trunk Or Treat that we attended Wednesday. Evan was ready to go home once we hit all the cars and was miffed when I told him we had to stay until every one had a chance to get some candy.

Neuro

Evan had his first visit with a Neurologist in years. His primary car doctor wanted one so I went along with it even though I did not really thing that it would be helpful.

The doctor made us wait a long time but he did spend a lot of time with us when it was our turn. In the end he did not really have anything to add that I was not already aware of. He was a lot more realistic about Evan's long term prognosis than the Neurologist was that initially saw Evan after the stroke. The first neurologist said that with in a year all signs of stroke would be gone. The new one was clear that there would be likely some effect for the rest of his life. We have to watch out for learning issues which is something that is pretty common for any kid that has gone through as much as Evan has. There is a mild vision deficit on his left side so when he goes to school he should sit in the center of the class room or to the right of the teacher so that he does not loose interest in what is going on because he is not seeing everything that is going on. Sometimes kids with left hemiparesis have troubles with interpersonal relationships but Evan seems to be very adept at flirting his way into getting what he wants, so I am not too worried about that.

I think the best part was that the neurologist did not really see a reason to keep following up with Evan unless something new popped up. There is not much that he could really do since Evan has been neurotically stable for some time now. That is one less specialist on our rather long list.

As far as doctor's appointments for me go, I have officially come down with a bad case of pregnancy brain. My sister is in town for a visit and that threw me so off kilter that I spaced my womanly parts exam (not that I was really all that eager in the first place). I was so mad and frustrated but managed to reschedule it. I am a bit annoyed with the lack of ease in scheduling appointments with this practice. My previous OB seemed a lot more flexible in that regards.

Sunday Cuteness: Church

Today was the Primary program. For those not in the know once a year the children aged 3-11 take over the sermon portion of church and do a special program. It was always a Sunday of torture for me since generally the program runs way longer than the allotted time and the program was never all that exciting in the first place. Every child has a part even the youngest and this year was Evan's first time up there.

It was not quite the disaster that I had feared. Evan did not stay in his seat very well but he also did not make a break for it and try and leave the stage. He was heard to loudly ask when his turn would be and tried to go up a couple of time with another class. He was not the only Sunbeam goofing off though. One little girl kept standing up and waving to her mother and the others were quite restless. When it finally came time for Evan to say his line he spoke loudly (but not too loudly) but mumbled his line. He was supposed to say that one thing he was thankful for was his toys (they let the kids write the lines).

Harry was a bit bereft with out his brother. He kept wanting to stand on the pew so that he could see where Evan was sitting. He would then loudly exclaim "Dere is Eban, I see him!" I can hardly believe that next year Harry will be in Evan's spot.

All in all they made the time rather amusing and the program did not seem quite so long.

Boo At The Zoo

Our local zoo held a Halloween event today and we thought it would be fun to take the boys. They had a lot of fun and got quite a bit of candy. It was strange seeing our normally quiet zoo packed with visitors. I think that someone coughHarrycough touched my lens so the pictures are a bit smeary.

Here are the boys all gussied up standing with our beautiful and warty pumpkins.

The boys in front of the elephant exhibit. I am not sure what the elephant was doing in the background, it looks like she is making out with the rocks.

I tried to get a picture of both the boys with Darth Vader but Harry heard his creepy breathing and was having none of that. He would not even let my husband hold him even remotely close to Darth Vader. Evan was very obviously fascinated.

Evan was in heaven when he saw this display. His loves PT Cruisers and these cars were from a car club that likes to trick out their PT cruisers. There was one there that had a cat face painted on it and it meowed. There was a Hummer further down and Evan did not even look at it twice, but it was hard to pull him away from the PT Cruisers.

"Look there is a spider on this PT Cruiser."

Adding one more picture in: This one was taken by a photographer from the local newspaper. There is a whole gallery of pictures from the event. Evan was very obviously fascinated by the camera. Harry was kind of like "yeah whatever".

Why?

Why do spammers think that I need a new job? Why do they think I need male enhancement or ED drugs? Do they know something that I don't?

Pregnancy update

Today I had my first appointment at my OB's office. I saw a nurse and it was a basic risk assessment history gathering session. I did get to pee in a cup and have my blood drawn. I think the person that drew my blood hit a nerve or something because my arm is sore when I move it.

I love the massive pile of literature that you get every time you have a kid. It seriously doubled the weight of the diaper bad I was carrying. Another amusing thing is that I got my very own urine sample cup to bring with me every time I have an appointment. I am supposed to bring it with me filled, fun huh? You really learn to not be embarrassed by things when you get pregnant. Hopefully I will be able to learn to be casual about carrying around a cup with my own pee in it.

Next week I get my really fun and very personal examination with a NP who will be scrutinizing my womanly parts. Luckily my sister will be in town so I have babysitting already lined up and won't have to drop them off anywhere.

A Very Sincere Pumpkin Patch

We made our annual pumpkin patch trip today. I love going to these kinds of places with the kids because everything is so darn exciting to them. The weather has been rather wet all week so it was a rather muddy trip but we managed to make it through with out loosing any shoes. The weather started out foggy and chilly but once the sun came out it got very nice.

Checking out some carved pumpkins.

"Wook kikens!" said Harry

We were not supposed to take the wheel barrows into the patch. *blushes* We did not notice the signs about that until we were leaving. Harry had a lot of fun pushing it though.

The boys with their spoils. We actually got three pumpkins (my husband wanted one too) but the third one is too short to see.

Evan is this tall.

Harry is this tall.

What happens when you give a kid a camera

I was feeling silly this afternoon and I let Evan play a bit with my camera. Don't worry I made sure he stayed in sight and made sure that he understood to be careful with it. He took some very amusing and random pictures.

A flower pen and a jug of vinegar.

Our salt shaker and Harry's hand.

The not very clean carpet with some little toes peeking into the frame.

A close up of Harry's hand with the refrigerator in the background.

Evan's bum.

A blurry shot of some of our chairs and the dining room table.

A shot of two silly boys.

An Awesome night out

The famed (among knitters any way) author Stephanie Pearl-McPhee came to Kansas City on Monday night and I was able to go see her speak. It was a very fun evening out! I went with some gals from my knitting group, it was nice to be able to chat with them after being MIA from meetings for so long (they meet on the same night that my husband has Scouts so I get to stay home with the kiddos). My queasy body even behaved for the day and I was able to get some knitting in. It was kind of cool being at an event where knitting in pubic was accepted and encouraged.

She mentioned that she was nervous that we might see a water stain on her pants since there were so many knitting bloggers out there. For the record I really truly could not see any water on her pants at all. She did a great job with her speech and was a very amusing speaker. She is also very nice in person and was very good about making sure that everyone got some time with her while they were getting the books signed. All in all it was great to get out with out kids and get some adult conversation in.

Sunday Cuteness- Evan edition

This is Zipper butt Evan. He insists on putting on his pants backwards even though he knows how to put them on correctly.

All the cool kids wear their pants this way.

I have a new name. Evan started out by calling me mommy which recently changed to mom. He delighted in yelling "Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom!" when ever he needed (or thought he needed) my help. Now I have a new name. Evan has started calling me Mom Ourlastname. It is rather amusing even though I am not sure what caused the change.

Nemesis

Being a relatively newly pregnant woman food has become my nemesis. I am lucky that I am not a puking pregnant woman but being constantly queasy also wears on you. There are times when I just want to stick my finger down my throat and get it over with already. The thing that stops me is that I know the feeling would not be any better after throwing up and I also really hate throwing up.

Eating food regularly is really great for controlling my queasy symptoms. the thing that makes this solution hard to keep up with is that I am also a busy mom. Before I know it I realize that I should have eaten something hours ago because I am feeling really yucky. At that point I have to force myself to eat something. Snacking in front of kids is problematic any way. They can hear the rustle of a food package opening from miles around and when they hear it they are suddenly starving and must have some of what you are having. A lot of times mom is the one that hardly eats any of the snack because any time I try and take a bit my kids act like I am robbing them of precious food.

Dinner and the evening are the hardest for me. My queasiness always goes up a notch or two and I have to prepare a dinner while feeling that way. A lot of times I feel so gross by the time I am done that I sneak other food while the kids are not looking and I end up having a separate dinner. The biggest tragedy of the evening being the worst for me (so much for morning sickness) is that I have not been able to do much knitting. I will pick up a project and knit a few rows only to start feeling queasy so I stop. I am trying hard to not associate knitting with the sick feeling. I learned that lesson after I was playing Bejewled online when I was pregnant with Harry. I got so sick that I ended up throwing up and now I can't even look that game with out getting queasy. I am so looking forward to the end of the queasies even if it means that I am merely transitioning to really bad heart burn.

Knocked up

This time it is for real! No April Fool's Joke.

I am feeling queasy but no puking (knock on wood). I run to the bathroom every five seconds and my girls are very tender (which when you have two boys that love to crawl on you means that you get to feel a lot of pain). I am due at the end of April, only a few weeks after my 30th birthday.

By the way I stole this picture from Karen's blog. It really captured me and I am excited that I found an excuse to use it.

Ahh that's better

This weekend is Conference weekend. Every six months we get a chance to hear from the General Authorities, The 12 Apostles and from the First Presidency. There are tons of timely messages and I always end up feeling refreshed.

One of the most exciting things about this weekend was that a temple was announced in my area. I am so excited!!! I hope that we get to stick around long enough to see it being built. I would love to take the boys to the open house and for my husband and I to attend the dedication. Some of my favorite memories from when I was a kid was watching the Portland Temple being built. One of my uncles lived only a few blocks from the building site. Even though we were not super fond of my uncle we would frequently visit him so we could take a look at how things were progressing. I was thrilled that I was just barely old enough to attend the dedication. There are many good memories and feelings that I would love to share with my kids.

Such is life

Sorry I have been so silent. Life has just been crazy of late. We still have no idea if we will be moving yet again this summer or not. We keep hearing conflicting reports on whether we will or not and of course since he has not officially been promoted just yet we are "safe" for now, but it is just a matter of time.

National politics is also frustrating me greatly. I am having a hard time making myself register to vote. I am not fond of either candidate and hate that it will probably be yet another case of the slightly lesser of two evils.

I am also frustrated over the whole credit crisis. People got greedy plain and simple and now that they are in trouble they run to the government with hands out expecting to be saved. People like me who are careful with their money and don't get into excessive debt are the ones that will end up paying for everyone's excess.

My final blah moment for the morning is that my mom left yesterday. Poor Harry did not realize that she was gone until we got back home from the air port. I guess he was too into the Cars movie he was watching in the car to notice that she was gone. He was quite upset when he saw that she was not getting out of the car too. We all miss grandma!