Ch..Ch..Ch..Changes (and a little Halloween)

We've had a lot of things going on around here lately...most of which seem to involve buying things and moving furniture. We started with getting rid of our "newlywed" table that only seated 4 people. With the 6th arriving in about 2 months, it just wasn't going to work out anymore.

Soooo...here's to the old...

Let's bring on the new...

I love it. It seats several more and is a good use of wasted space. Thanks to Brian Clark at BC Creative for building this!

We're also in the process of transforming the "office" into a baby room. It still has some transforming to go, but it's on its way.

Before...(this is the best pic I could find...which is of the desk and a cute little boy)...

and after... (this baby had better be a girl)

I've been changing a bit. I was hoping that this baby might come out a little smaller than the others (since she's a girl and all), but I seem to be growing just as fast.

And Halloween was great this year, as always. The older boys are really into Star Wars...and Luke, although he wanted to be Yoda, was happy to wear his brother's hand-me-down Indian costume.

My parents came to visit for a week during Halloween and we were able to do lots of fun things (one of them being when my mom made the cushions for the new benches in my kitchen...well, maybe that was just fun for me...thanks so much, mom!)

One. More. Baby.

I briefly mentioned in the last post (which was too long ago) that we are pregnant with our 4th (and final) child. (I always say "we" because I am a bear to live with while I'm pregnant. Ephraim experiences almost as much grief as I do).

We recently had our mid-pregnancy ultrasound...and...we found out we are having a girl!

I am very excited in so many ways. And scared in so many others. But mostly excited. I have always wanted a girl. And I love the fact that she is coming at the end of my wild, energetic, and fun-loving boys. But I'm also nervous about all of the worries, stress and drama that come with raising a little girl. Any suggestions to raising a girl would be greatly appreciated.

I look at these ultrasound pics every day. I love them. And I love her so much already.


I am mostly grateful that our baby looks healthy and is growing like she should. I can't wait to hold her in my arms and see what (and who) she looks like. It almost makes the last 4 months of this pregnancy seem bearable.

And for fun... I found this picture in our archives. Seriously, Andy, what are you thinking? And who took this picture? Oh wait, that was me.

10 years

So we celebrated our 10 year anniversary this week. It was fun to look back and see how far we have come in the last 10 years. We started out so young, although we weren't even THAT young...we were 24 and 27. But we looked young.


Don't you just love the cheese oozing from this next picture... (and why do I look so much happier than Ephraim?)

It was just Eph and I in the beginning but now we have been blessed with 3 amazing boys. And one on the way (one baby, not one boy. Well, maybe one boy...we don't know yet).




How lucky am I?
Thank you, sweetheart, for an amazing 10 years. We've been a lot of places and have experienced many things. And I'm so glad I've been able to do it with you. I can't wait to see what the next 10 years hold (we just commented last night that on our 20th anniversary, we will have 3 teenage boys...oh my)

Ohhhhhh, Andy

Maybe the defect is with his bike. (and before you ask.....yes, he was wearing a helmet)

This kid is the reason for my gray hairs

What we did

Sooooo...this is what we did with all of our fabulous weather last week....











Never mind the fuzzy spot on most of the pictures. Ephraim has now taken over camera duty

Weather

This is really our weather for the next week. I need to be planning some outdoor activities with the kids.

Today
May 21

Partly Cloudy

83°
55°

Sun
May 22

Partly Cloudy

83°
56°

Mon
May 23

Partly Cloudy

78°
55°

Tue
May 24

Mostly Sunny

78°
54°

Wed
May 25

Sunny

83°
60°

Thu
May 26

Mostly Sunny

88°
61°

Fri
May 27

Sunny

88°
62°

Sat
May 28

Mostly Sunny

91°
62°

The tooth

So I've always had this fear of having to pull out a child's tooth when it becomes loose. I don't like to watch it being done and I certainly don't ever want to do it myself. Thank you, Noah, for making the process of losing a tooth a lot easier on all of us.

We took the kids over to a fun babysitting night at the Community Center last night. We sent 3 kids, each with a full set of teeth, and came home with all 3 kids and one less tooth. We didn't even know that Noah's tooth was loose, but it must have been, because it only took an animal cracker to knock it free.

The tooth is still somewhere at the Community Center, which is the only sad part of this whole experience. We hadn't even talked to Noah in detail about the Tooth Fairy (since he's not even in Kindergarten and we didn't know the tooth was loose), so he didn't bring the tooth home with him (nor did he tell anyone that it fell out).

The funniest part is that when we got home, Noah said "Dad, my tooth feels weird. Will you look at it?" Dad's response after looking at the tooth: "Noah, your tooth feels weird because you don't have one."

But, luckily, the Tooth Fairy comes whether you have the evidence or not.



Noah, you are so dang cute with a missing tooth! I can't get enough of seeing you smile!

Dear Andy, (not for the faint of heart)

My Dear, Sweet, Loving, Adventurous Andy,

I've now documented several of the injuries you have acquired in your short life span of four years. I don't do this for my own amusement (I'm actually concerned CPS might start calling). But rather I document these injuries so that someday, when your dad and I are old and gray and you're choosing our nursing home, you might remember the craziness we endured during the early years of your little life (I don't even want to think about the teenage years). And I hope you will have some idea of how much money (and worry) we spent hauling you to Instacare for stitches. And armed with this information, we hope you will choose well.

Love,

Your Devoted, Caring, and Tired Mother



(there is a stitch through the fingernail, as the cut descended into the nailbed)

More Cruise Pictures...

...just in case you haven't seen enough...

More pictures from the ship...



Treats from the chocolate buffet... (don't be embarrassed mom...we all went up to the buffet at least twice :-)

Shopping, shopping, and more shopping...





Me, nervous about Pancho's glass bottom boat...

Not so nervous anymore...


My dad, in all his craziness...

And...what we saw when we got home... (thank you Allison)