Old Friends!

I just ran into some old friends from high school at Babies R Us today! It was very exciting to see both of them since they are currently living in Washington DC and there is no way that I would have found out about them otherwise. Apparently they are expecting there first little one and are back home for the holidays. It always is strange to see people that you knew from high school but with Kelly and Jason it just seemed like they were the same people that I knew over 10 years ago (YIKES!). A very nice surprise! You just never know who you are going to meet at the store. I guess that makes it an adventure everytime you leave the house.

I finally got the few things I felt I needed to have before this new little one comes along. I went and got a new changing table pad (mine is ripped and nasty) and cover, a baby book (little girl themed of course) and a foam tub insert. I think that I have absolutely everything else that I could possibly need (with the exception of girl clothes) so this baby can come any time. Actually this baby could come today and I would be more than thrilled. Then the little one would be a tax deduction too. Nothing wrong with that in my opinion!

Eric showed a whole lot of wisdom at the store today. He just let me pick out the things that I wanted and felt that we needed and didn't say a thing over the price of them at all. I think all in all I spent $70 and several times I picked the least expensive of all the options. I got a hug, a kiss and an "I love you" for several of those things because I know that it hurts his heart to spend money where he doesn't think we need to but I also know that he would have let me get whatever I wanted because I have been so insane lately that letting me have my way is the easiest way to keep the peace! Poor guy, he will be so grateful to have this baby be born. Then he should get his mostly sane wife back, not the crazy lady that is living in her body currently!

Crystal's Cooking

Yesterday Crystal went with her aunt, uncle and cousin to Seattle for a visit. (Her family was in town to see her cousin who goes to Western for his Christmas break) Eric and I took the opportunity to encourage her to go with her aunt to some of the shops in the International District of Seattle to find some of the supplies and sauces that she needed to cook for us. Well let me tell you she came home with everything she needed to wow us with her cooking skills. From now on Crystal is in charge of the Chinese food cooking. She made us fried rice (very tasty!) and her family had helped her get some meat sides to go with it. I can't wait until Chinese New Year (she is cooking that night!) maybe I will try to get her to cook before that too! Eric thinks that I need to learn how to cook Chinese food from her and I will, but I think I might wait until closer to June and then let her show me. Until then, she is in charge when I get a craving for fried rice!

Snow Shoes for Two!

Both my big boys got snow shoes for Christmas this year and they were both so excited that it decided to snow yesterday to give them a chance to try them out!

Andrew breaking a trail in his little bear snow shoes!

Eric getting ready to try his out!

Andrew thought that the snow shoes were lots of fun and I think Eric is just excited to be ready to go up and use them on some real powder. The funniest thing about the snow yesterday was how isolated it was. I called my parents to see if they had a lot of snow in Everett (I had a appointment there in the afternoon) and my dad was very confused and asked me what snow was I talking about. Very strange. By the time you reached Hwy 204 the snow was gone but Frontier Village was a mess. Bizarre!

We'll just count our blessings that they got to try out thier new shoes at home and conveniently close to Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to everyone! We have had a great one this year. It was crazy and exhausting but a whole lot of fun. I found that I could only take a few pictures at the beginning because if I tried to take any in the middle I was missing out on everything. There is no slow and dignified opening of presents at our house it is a mad free for all (once all the presents have been passed out!) The only misshap was when Alice opened my mom's present by mistake and she didn't know she had until I asked my mom if she liked what I got her. We got it all squared away though, so no harm was done!
The boys did really well on Christmas morning. They are pretty unpredictable as to their wake up time so I knew that it could be anywhere from right at 6:00 to 7:30 that they would wake up! Fortunately, they started stirring around 7:00 and then we all got up. Zane was the first one up and I am sure he didn't get the idea of Christmas because he just went downstairs to watch cartoons like he normally does. Who cares that there are presents under the tree to open. Shows were on. Once Andrew woke up though everything changed. He knew what was going to happen and he definitely wanted to get on with it! We let the boys wake up Crystal and then onto presents.

All in all, everyone made out like a bandit and Eric and I got a big surprise from my brother Reece who gave us his old TV (27" which is huge in comparison to the 19" that we had) and his old Playstation 2. Neither Eric nor I have any idea how to play any of the games that he gave us but we were excited to get a hand-me-down either way!

I think the sweetest part of the day for me though was that Andrew prayed for dinner (he had been planning for it for about a week) and he said thank you to Jesus for having a birthday. It was super cute and it made me think that maybe he got it just a little bit this year.

I hope that everyone else's Christmas was wonderful as well!

Elmo's Christmas Insanity

Tonight ABC showed "Elmo's Christmas Countdown" and never before has a show been more aptly named! You see, when the kids and I first started watching Christmas specials this year it was still November. We first watched Charlie Brown Christmas the week right after Thanksgiving and during that special show we saw an ad for all the Christmas specials that ABC planned to show this year. One glimpse of Elmo in a Christmas costume was enough to send my two guys over the moon with excitement. Then what does ABC decide to do to all of us but make us wait until 2 days before Christmas to air the blasted thing. For almost a month it has been "When is Elmo Christmas going to be on mommy?" until I thought I was going to lose my mind. There was a Christmas Countdownat our house alright but it had nothing to do with Santa. It has everything to do with Elmo and I have never been so glad for a show to air in my life! We have been having a countdown for weeks over when the show would be on. The worst part was that when the commercials came out I didn't know when it would air so I had to keep putting Andrew off until my TV Guide finally came and I could give him an actual date. Andrew does not deal well in the world of abstracts, he like the true facts and firm dates so a countdown is possible! Andrew finally got to the point with the Christmas specials that he informed me I needed to not tell him when they were going to be on until the night of because it gets him too wound up. He was dead right and the times that we didn't give him any warning were much smoother for everyone! I can only imagine how much fun this will be next year when Zane is super excited too. This year he just fed off Andrew's enthusiasm, next year he will have some of his own I am sure!

All My Officers

Eric got selected to work a special DUI emphasis for this Christmas season. The best part of this is that he gets to take a car home from work with him. The bad part is that he only has one day off between now and January 5th. And no, it is not Christmas! He is really excited about this and the boys think that him having his car at home is pretty cool. We got them all dressed up for pictures. I think they all look very handsome and professional.

Andrew at the wheel!

Zane- Ready for Action!

Zane Goes Potty

Last night we had our first success with Zane and the potty! I had just gotten him out of the tub and he looked at me and said Pee Pee. I asked him if he had to go and he said yeah! So up to the potty we flew and he made it! He was congratulated with a sticker (I had to make a chart very quickly) and we put it up on his bathroom door. It was very exciting for me even though I really do not want to do the potty training thing right now. I just don't feel like I have the energy but I guess I should go with his time table while it lasts. What is funny though is that I was sure he would take longer to train than Andrew did just because he is not quite as coordinated (and he is younger than Andrew was too!) with the whole getting dressed bit but he definitely knows what to do when he is put in the position. The only troublesome thing is that he insists on standing which can be problematic in public bathrooms. They just do not make toilets short enough for little boys and taking a stool with us is simply too much work if you ask me.

Belly Update #2

WARNING!!!!! This post will be full of information that may be offensive to any male readers. Consider yourself warned!

I had my 36 week check up today for new baby and they took a little peek to see if any of these crazy contractions I have been having were doing anything other than irritating me. It seems that they have been doing some good because I am officially 1 1/2 centimeters dilated, about 60% effaced and baby is at a -2 station (still pretty high) with the head pushing against the membrane. (Sorry, but I did warn you!) Wonderful news if you ask me! Not that anyone should be racing for the hospital yet but things are definitely starting to happen. According to my wonderful OB in a couple of more days if I go into labor they will not stop me. Hooray!

Christmas Cookies

Tonight we finally made Christmas cookies. I have been baking different things but this is the one that Andrew has been driving me crazy about! He really enjoys the sprinkles part and this time Zane even got into the action. I put Eric in charge of two boys and the sprinkles (the job that I knew was going to be super messy, HE HE!) and Crystal and I focused on the frosting. We could hardly keep up with two boys they were slapping sprinkles on at such a furious rate! We all had a great time and Crystal declared frosting cookies a whole lot more fun than carving pumpkins! (I have to agree)


The only downfall of the whole project was that we didn't really think about Zane not keeping the sprinkles on the cookies and before we came up with a solution there were half a bottle of sprinkles on the floor. We finally came up with the idea of a plate under the cookies and only a few sprinkles in a bowl for each cookie. You would never think Eric uptight until you see him try to do a project with the boys that potentially is messy. He just flips out. Not that I really wanted sprinkles all over my floor, but I think I took it in stride a little bit more than he did. Let me tell you there was some deep Lamaze type breathing happening and it wasn't from me!


As you can probably tell, Zane injested a few sprinkles during the process. Any guess what color he was using?

A very happy Andrew, now maybe he will back off about making cookies. I think that I am going to go crazy before Christmas gets here if he doesn't calm down. Four year old's and Christmas just go together but it can almost be too much for a mommy to handle!

A GRAM Christmas Party

Today we went to the GRAM Christmas party (it is for Eric's work) we got to have a whole bunch of fun and the kids got to do fishing and face painting plus they got to see Santa. We had a great time but we couldn't convince Crystal to sit on Santa's lap. For some reason she seemed to think that she was too old.

Fisherman Andrew (he caught some growing dino's))

Fisherman Zane (he caught a bouncy ball)

Frosty the Snowman

A Cute Christmas Stocking

Surprisingly this year Zane was not scared to sit on Santa's lap. I think doing it with brother helped. It made it a whole lot less scary and definitely more fun!

So Sleepy!

Zane and I just finished a rough night. It all started at 12:23 this morning when he woke up. I think that maybe the sound of Crystal taking a shower might have woken him from his sleep (she had a report to finish and I had gone to bed long before she was done) so when he woke up he saw lights in the halls and someone awake. That was not a good thing. I put him back in bed and went back to sleep. I next heard him at 1:03 and we repeated the process. Then again at 1:34, 2:06, 2:43 and finally at 3:03 when I ripped the night lights out of the wall in a flash of brilliance that a darker room might help him sleep. That was the last I saw of him until this morning at 7:30. Fortunately, Eric did not wake him up when he got home at 4:15 (although he did wake me up) and Crystal didn't wake him up when she got up at 6:00 for school (ditto for me waking though). I am absolutely positive that a nap is in not only my future but Zane's as well. God give me the patience to make it through the morning though because I am so tired and annoyed with my boy right now I am biting everyones head off. Sleep is not a easy state to attain currently with my big belly and achy hips but a up and down child makes it even worse.

New York! New York!

Crystal just got home from a whirlwind trip to NYC and she brought back these super cute glasses for Zane. He thinks he is pretty special in them and I think that he is not far off!

House Lights!

Eric put up our house lights this week and now it officially feels like Christmas at our house! I really wanted icicle lights this year so last year we bought some on after Christmas sale. Who knew they were such a pain in the butt to straighten out. Eric claims that our house looks like it is on crack but I think it is beautiful! Hooray for a hubby that puts up house lights!

Gingerbread House Fun

Last night the boys put together a gingerbread house. This is an activity that we do every year and the boys love it! We had a bit of trouble with putting the house together (I didn't let it sit and harden before they started putting stuff of the sides) so Eric had to hold it while it was drying but now it looks really cute and the boys can't wait to eat the candy from the sides!

This is Zane's side of the our gingerbread house.

This is Andrew's side!

We have cut the time they spend on the project considerably. For one thing, Zane doesn't quite have the patience that Andrew did at his age and he could have cared less about how it looked in comparison to the picture on the box. Andrew this time was just excited to do the project and he knew that he was going to be able to watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer after he was done. Andrew has spent up to 2 hours working on one of these things! A little incentive speeds the project right along!

In a interesting side note, we did watch Rudolph last night and I don't remember the last time Eric laughed so hard at a kids show. He claims that he had never seen it before. I don't know how that is even possible since they show it every year but it was a kick to see him giggling with the boys!

The Family Tree

We put up our Christmas Tree this weekend! This was the first year for this tree since in the past we have gotten a fresh tree. Unfortunately, Eric and I fight every year about when, where and how much to pay for a real tree so it seemed like a good idea last year to finally break down and buy a fake one while they were on sale. (I mean, you couldn't expect Eric to pay full price now could you!?!) Anyway, after much searching for a tree with multi-colored lights, I am not into those trees with just the clear lights, we found one and got it. This was our first time with it out of the box since we bought it and we were very impressed with it. The tree is 9 feet and just fits in our house. As we were setting it up I got a little nervouse that the angel wouldn't fit with the ceiling but it worked out just fine! Three little elves helped Eric and I decorate and I think that Crystal had the most fun of all, I guess her family does not have a big tree every year.

The only problem with the tree was that since it was so tall decorating the top part was a little bit tough. I had to depend on Eric and Crystal (on a chair) for that. Eric didn't seem to think me on a chair was that great of an idea. I don't know why, I am the most graceful person who ever lived! (HA! HA!) We also have a huge clump of ornaments right at little boy height but that is part of the fun of little ones at Christmas. All in all the tree has been a success and the boys think it is quite pretty. They still want to touch the ornaments but we are trying to discourage that, at least until it is time to put it all away!

Sick, Sick, Sick!

The stomach flu has hit our home this week and boy was it not fun! First Zane came down with the plague on Tuesday and puked twice for me in the morning. All was well until Thursday night for the rest of us. Just as Andrew came into our room to let us know that he had just gotten sick (around 4 am) Eric was making a run for the bathroom himself. I decided to join the party about 2 hours later. Let me tell you all, that is the sickest I have been in a really, really long time! I was completely down and out all of Friday and half of Saturday as well. Eric fared no better but we did manage to put up our tree on Saturday. Then last night to top it all off, Zane decided to get sick and puke again! This time requiring a complete outfit change, bedding change and some sympathy puke from his daddy. I will post some pictures later of the tree. It turned out really nice. But we were unable to go out and really enjoy the first snow of the year. I didn't even have any energy to take a picture of it. Sad. In a completely seperate note, Crystal thought the snow was very cool! She had never seen it before and was very excited that it finally happened after being teased by the weatherman and hopeful students all week!