Jonah is 2!!!

For some reason when my kids turn 2 I have a hard time with it.  Something about turning 2 makes them no longer have any inkling of being a baby and its just a bit emotional for me.  Peter and I always sneak into the boys' room before we head to bed to check on them and give them a kiss.  And so the day before Jonah's birthday we tiptoed into his room and I had to take a picture of his last night of being one.  And then I stared at him, stroked his back, smelled his sweet remaining moments of babyness, and cried a tear or two (or fifty).

Oh, Jonah, why oh why must you grow up????

The morning came despite my attempts to freeze time, and it was January 25th, the day my little guy turned 2.  We had a full day planned with friends and family and he was excited.  We actually had our best friends little ones over on Friday night to stay the night.  We had wanted to have them over for forever but with sicknesses it'd always been delayed.  Jonah looooved having his little friends over.  We had pizza on Friday night, played with all sorts of toys, watched 3 Ninjas (what a glorious flashback to my childhood!).  Then on Saturday we had a big breakfast, ran a few errands, played, went to the park and got ready for his party in the afternoon.  Jonah's cousins were heading over for the party too...they happened to be in town while their parents were on a trip.  I usually keep their birthday parties pretty simple, just a few decorations with a theme of their choice.  And I let them choose what kind of cake they want Mommy to make (or attempt to make!)

This year Jonah wanted a woo woo cake.  Translated that means he wanted a fire engine cake....woooo wooo....get it?  So when I realized that a fire truck cake pan was $13, the cheapskate in me decided I could just attempt to freehand one on a sheet cake.  So I found an imagine that looked simple enough and I just duplicated it.  It was far from perfect, but it looked like a fire truck!  And when I was making it Jonah kept saying "whoah Mom.  Whoah!!  That cool.  That cool.  No way Mom.  No way."  It was hilarious.

Jonah was really shy when we sang "Happy Birthday" to him at his party, but he finally smiled when he was eating his cake and ice cream.  After all the kids ate their weight in sugar, they went outside to play for awhile.  Then we headed to McDonalds to let the kids play some more and get some dinner.  It was the greatest idea ever to take that many kids there for dinner.  All the kids played together well and had a blast.  We finally left around 7pm so we could head home for baths and bedtime.  My boys were SO tired that night, but they had had such a great day.

Jonah Caleb, we are so smitten with you and so grateful you are in our family.  I can't believe 2 years has flown by but we have loved every day.  Happy Birthday sweet guy, love you forever.

The good kind of sick!

I have spent the past 10ish weeks feeling pretty sick.  I'm finally to the point where I don't feel awful all day long, but even on the longest days it was still manageable.  Because it was the good kind of sick.....

The I'mgonnahaveababy kind of sick.

Yep, we're expecting our third little one and we're pretty excited!  I found out the day before Thanksgiving so it was an extra reason to give thanks this year.  Yes, I have been feeling much more sick than with my other two pregnancies but I know it's all worth it.  I'm about 14 or so weeks along now and starting to feel a bit better.  An early ultrasound confirmed only one and we are due in the first week of August.  We had an appointment yesterday and baby's heartbeat was nice and strong in the 160's.  People ask if I prefer to have a boy or a girl, but really and truly, I'm okay with either.  A girl would be so fun, but I love, love having boys too.  So a healthy baby is what I'd like.  We should find out sometime in middle or end of March.  I'm way too much of a control freak to not find out what we're having :-)

Here's a picture from Christmas morning with some pickles (for my cravings I guess!) that Peter put in my stocking.  I printed the picture and we wrapped it up to share the good news with his side of the family.

Some days 3 kids seems overwhelming, other days I can hardly wait until he or she is here.  Either way, we're beyond blessed for our family together!

Christmas 2013

I realize I'm super late in posting this, but I have to put up the pictures for our memory's sake.

We had a fabulous Christmas.  We spent Christmas at our own home this year, so it was really fun to wake up in our own beds on Christmas morning.  We didn't let the boys get up until 7:30 (thank goodness for Ben's OK to Wake clock!) then they raced downstairs, excited to finally open all those presents under the tree!

They were beyond delighted to rip into their stockings and see their presents.  This age is so fun with Christmas because they both get so excited about the little things.  We had a blast picking out presents for them and finding lots of little gifts we knew they'd love.  Their enthusiasm on Christmas morning is contagious, I have fond memories of our morning together.  We ate my family's traditional monkey bread for breakfast after opening gifts, ate leftover meat/cheese/crackers for lunch, then I made a big ham dinner with all the trimmings for dinner.  Makes me hungry just thinking about it!

The boys happily played with their toys all day and we just relaxed and watched a few Christmas movies.  My sister and mom were here with us too, so it was nice to have some family with us.

The next week we took off to spend 5 days with Peter's family in Spokane.  We arrived in the afternoon on New Years Eve and had a nice, relaxing visit.  I didn't take a single picture, but I'll have to steal some from my sister in law.  We took my nieces and nephew to see Frozen and had a great time.  We went on a double date with Anita and Nate to see the new Hobbit movie and we ate a lot of yummy food that his mom made.  We had to take off Sunday after church and it was sad to say goodbye.  The boys were great on the drive home as usual, but poor Jonah had a fever of 103 when we got home.  Jonah and Ben had been taking turns getting over a cough since Christmas, and then they had a weird virus with a fever but no other symptoms.  Both boys had the fever for the next couple days so it took a little longer than normal to recover from all the Christmas festivities, but after 4 or 5 days we were all finally better and settled back into our home.

It's hard to believe it's been almost a month and a half since Christmas, but it's fun to look at the pictures again and remember those fun times as a family.  A Merry Christmas it was!

Christmas Eve 2013

This was going to be the first actual Christmas Eve we were going to spend in our own house.  We had actually never been to the Christmas Eve service at our church so we were excited to be able to share that with our church family.

Peter worked during the day so the boys and I went with Nana and Auntie Amanda to the mall for a little browsing and last minute shopping.  It was a nice low key day, then we came home so the boys could nap and I prepped a few things for the dinner that night.

Peter came home and we all went to the Christmas Eve service.  Our church has a candlelight service and it was a nice evening reflecting on the wonder of Jesus' birth.

After we arrived home that evening we pulled out the dinner that had been prepped earlier.  Growing up our tradition was always to have meats, cheeses, crackers, veggies & dip, and clam chowder.  So I served all that along with some fruit and fruit dip.  It was all pretty yummy.  And we ate the leftovers of all that for several days too which is always nice.

I had already wrapped nearly all of the gifts for the tree and the stockings so there wasn't any last minute things to do.  Peter snuck upstairs and had built the boys a little tent in their room where we could all cuddle in, eat a Christmas goodie and listen to Daddy read the Christmas story.  Of course their attention span is kind of short, but Benjamin especially really understood the real meaning of Christmas and why it is we celebrate on this day.

The boys were in their Christmas jammies and were super excited to go to bed that night knowing that it was finally going to be Christmas morning in the morning........time for presents :-)

Sunday morning picture

I think every mom always has great ambitions of having an adorable picture taken of her sweet family when they're all dressed up.  So sometimes I get brave, or stupid, and attempt one.

Most times it ends up with someone crying or hitting someone.  No really, it usually does.

But since Amanda is staying with us I had her try to take a picture of all of us.  Somehow we all survived and we got a picture where we're all smiling and looking at the camera.

But it's blurry.

Go figure right?

But you know what?  It's so rare that we're all behind the camera and somewhat looking and smiling, so I decided to post it anyway.

So here's our we're all smiling no one hit anyone but it's blurry Sunday morning picture.

And a few cute shots of my growing boys....

And okay, okay.....maybe there was some hitting involved :-)