water, water everywhere...literally!

It has been raining all day and we have well over an inch in the rain gauge.

S left a window open this afternoon in the Honda by accident (which we are trying to sell at the moment - but that is a story to be left for another time) and there was water all over the inside of the car.

I got something caught in the drain to the sink where the washer drains out this evening and there was water all over (like out the utility room into the main room) our basement floor.

Then just to top things off, W tipped a glass of water over on one of our end tables all over books, 2 remotes, and a baby monitor.

Luckily, water cleans up pretty easily and there was no damage done to anything involved.

I need a shower. And a giant bowl of ice cream as soon as S gets home from borrowing a dehumidifier from J&C.

On a sunnier note, here are a few pics from our park outing with some gals from church and their kids (1 has a boy G's age, 1 has a boy W's age) last Saturday when the weather was just gorgeous.

playin' around

Here are some pictures of the kids playing around in the past week or so:

G is singing lullabies to her stuffed animals to put them to sleep - can you find her?

Playing around with cousins! We watched K&G last week so J&C could go see a movie. The kids had so much fun together! It was really neat to watch them interact and play unassisted more as they get older.

We have been playing at parks A LOT this week since it has been so nice. We have been meeting Auntie C and cousins in the afternoon most days and the girls have been having a blast. Here G&G are "climbing" a tree (the ground is less than a foot from their feet). My G exclaims "LOOK MOM! I never climbed a tree before! Maybe when I am thirty-six I will be able to climb tall into trees."

Reading together - G has been really into reading books to W lately. W has been more and more interested in books and brings them to S & I to read all the time. One day when I needed to get something else done, I asked G to "read" him the book. G thought that was a great idea and she did a great job too because it was one of the ones that we read to her all the time. After that, I find them looking at and reading books together quite often which I just love to see!

Playing around in the fridge?!! Both kids have been fascinated with the fridge from the time they could crawl anywhere near it. When packing S's lunch in the morning I often leave the door open and they "beep" the condiment bottles, or pat the cold shelves, or now G helps me get out the things for S's lunch too. Well, I was finished with his lunch this morning and the fridge wasn't even open, and I had to run and grab something else for S. I handed the kids a cracker since they were hungry, and when I stepped back in the kitchen a few seconds later, this is how I found them. Yeah, G can open the fridge on her own now. =)

(addition to post - I forgot this picture earlier!)
Playing with bugs and stuff - When S was mowing the lawn last night, he found a toad and an actual frog jumping around our yard! Toads we have seen, but this is the first frog we have come across. G and W both loved it! We played with them in the cooler for a while, and then released them into the neighbor's pond. G is absolutely fascinated with bugs and toads and lizards and snakes. Yeah Uncle M, I said snakes. Gives me the creeps too, but I am glad that she has not inherited my fear of snakes or other creepy crawly things. We have to give some credit to cousin K as she has introduced G to this love. And I will say G does learn a lot watching bugs and things and we have had some neat toddler conversations about how God made the bugs and everything else in creation including her! (that is memory work for Sunday school this week too, Q&A 1&2 of the Heidelberg Catechism for kids. "Who made you? God did. What else did God make? All things." Good stuff!)

baby b3

I am now 23 weeks pregnant with Baby B3. Over halfway! Where did the time fly? This pregnancy has been so different from G's and W's, that sometimes S and I wonder, are we really having a baby? Is it going to be an owl or puppy instead? =) Nope. We ARE having a baby (just one!) and now have the pictures to prove it. We had an ultrasound done a week or so ago and everything looks just great. We had a great technician who went through everything that she was looking at and measuring which was so neat to see. She was also good and turned the screen when she was looking at the lower abdomen so that we wouldn't be able to tell gender. And she told us that she didn't find out either because the little pumpkin's legs were tightly together the whole time. That actually made me feel better because it would have drove me nuts if she knew and said she knew! We were surprised with both G and W and it was so wonderful, and we are doing the same with B3 (especially since we have all the girl and boy stuff already), but there is always a little part of me that wants to know too! It was just so amazing to see this little person - fuzzy and grainy as it was - we saw them moving, waving around, the heart beating, tiny toes and fingers, and all sorts of other little baby things. Just puts you in awe of how God knits us together!

face shot - these can be a little creepy, but you can see the great cheeks that all our kids have! =) You can also see the heart (it is the dark spot in the chest and we could see it beating!)

shot looking down at the top of the head - you can see the fingers curled up by the mouth (sucking his/her thumb!)

here's the foot - "TINY TOES!" G exclaimed. G was most excited to see the tiny toes. She was actually really interested the whole time and could see and point out things which surprised me. W on the other hand couldn't care less, but luckily didn't fuss too much so that S could concentrate on the ultrasound as well.

And the profile shot - this is an active baby so it isn't quite as clear as G's and W's profiles that we had, but it is definitely our child! The head is on the left, and he/she is on their back with their legs pointing straight above their head! Looks like they are doing an olympic dive or something - great form! (this pose made both S and I laugh because s.i.l. C had a dream where our baby had a serious life threatening condition that would make them look like Michael Phelps when they grew up! And I thought I had weird dreams! =) Oh, and for all of you that are looking hard in that certain area, the little dot you see (lower than where it would be) is not boy parts - it is the umbilical cord!

I was actually hoping that if this pregnancy was similar to either G's or W's I would be able to have a good guess as to whether it was a boy or a girl, but no! As far as the pregnancy has been going, I have been feeling good. Tired, especially in the evenings, but not sick or nauseous at all, which is quite a wonderful change from G's and W's pregnancies, where I was sick for 6 months. I also am achy in different places, have different craving and turnoffs, and it just feels different. I think all of my pregnancy hormones have gone to my head rather than my stomach as I am super sensitive about everything! TV shows, news, commercials, newspaper articles, looking at me funny, anything will either make me squeemish (blood or violence - even the mention of it) or cry (uber empathy!). We had an appointment with our wonderful midwife K last week too, and Baby B3 has had a growing month! I gained 10 lbs (after only gaining 1 pound the whole rest of the time!), and also my belly grew 8 cm (normally it grows 1cm for each week)! No wonder I have been so tired!

I also thought I would include one of those awful side belly shots for you to see too. I cringe looking at the rest of me, but we did these when I was pregnant with W and it is so fun to see the belly grow in the last half of the pregnancy! And I always love looking at pictures like this of other people so I won't deprive any of you of that. =)


We are still trying to come up with names. For those of you that know us you know that this is the hardest part for us, and that both G and W were born without having a name picked out (don't get my mom started on G's birth and naming her and when we let everyone know...). So here is your chance to throw your suggestions at us!

projects and organized bliss

I have been meaning to post more all week, but it took a while to recover from Labor Day weekend! So back to Labor Day. Well, maybe I will start with our project list. We have a project list for the house of things that we want to get done, and now that Baby B3 is coming, we sat down and prioritized the list of what we wanted to get done before his/her arrival. This list has been on our brains a lot, and unfortunately is not easily accomplished with a 1 yr old and 3 yr old around all the time. Also, there were a lot of things linked together too - for example, we want a play area downstairs for the kids but to do that we needed to organize rest of toys to figure out what could go where and also we needed to clear out my craft boxes from that corner downstairs which will go in the closet downstairs after it is cleared out and painted and shelves put up. Each of these separate tasks in and of themselves would take us at least a weekend if not more for us to accomplish with the kids. Yikes, it just made our tired heads hurt.

Well, Mom and Dad B gave us an anniversary gift this year of paint labor (awesome gift that we really appreciated!) and asked if they could do that over Labor Day. OF COURSE! Our upstairs hallway needed to be painted as well as my craft closet downstairs. I didn't know if we could accomplish this all in one day, but S was going to be home to help too so I had high hopes. Then auntie C offered to come help me organize my craft stuff to put in the closet (and have K play with G), and when it turned out to be 90 degrees and 105% humidity outside, uncle J came over too with cousin G to escape the heat. Well, put 6 adult B's together and it is amazing what can get accomplished in a day! I am still flabbergasted about all the things that got done and crossed off our list:

The upstairs hallway got painted. I didn't realize how unfinished and bad (just white walls after stripping wallpaper a while back) it looked until it was painted the right color! It looks so nice now.


The downstairs craft closet got painted, my craft stuff organized, shelves from IKEA put together (very easy to assemble), a new light installed and stuff moved in - yay!!!!! You don't know how excited I am about this area. We are going to install a drop down table on the wall so I have a space to work as well, it just is back-ordered right now. (btw, C was very excited in this first picture because it is the first time she has got to roller - otherwise she always gets stuck with trim duty! =)



We still watched kids throughout the day too. Here is Pappa (or Grandpa) B playing games with the girls:


And here is W trying to escape from being barricaded into the kitchen with me as I got lunch together for everyone:


S also took the opportunity of Mom and Dad B having their pick-up to run to IKEA and get the Expedit shelf that we wanted for toy storage in our sunroom. J & C have this shelving on their front porch and have put it together before so they offered to stay after supper and J would help S put it together. This was not as easy as it sounded and although we ended the evening with shelves put together and attached tightly to the wall, there was a lot of shaking of fists at IKEA, a trip to Lowes made, J&S making a lot of parts to make this shelf go together, and J not leaving until 10:45 pm (big thanks to C who let us keep J and who brought their kids home and put them to bed by herself). If we lived closer to IKEA, we so would have brought it back. Now we love IKEA and have a number of shelves and things that we have had to put together from them (for example the shelves for my craft closet!). So we are not novices nor idiots (J is an engineer for goodness sake!) - there was something wrong with the holes pre-drilled in the cross pieces - they were not the same size as the holes in the frame or the small wooden dowel pegs that were provided. But luckily, the boys are smart and were able to figure out a way to put the shelves together and here is the finished project:


This week I worked on organizing the toys up here in the new shelf and I was able to get the downstairs area set up too:


So I am in a state of organized bliss right now! A state that I didn't think we would get to before B3 got here, and it happened mostly in one day! Between having spots to put all the toys and all my craft stuff, life is a little bit easier. BIG THANKS to all the B's that helped us out!!! We love you all.

happy 3rd birthday G!

Ah, what a weekend. That's right. This year, G didn't just have a birthday day, she had a birthday weekend! Luckily, at age 3, things don't go to your head yet - at least not much! It was a very good, very busy weekend with lots of family and friends helping to celebrate G's birthday and also helping S & I out with some projects (separate post on that later!).

Friday was G's actual birthday. Since her party wasn't going to be until Sunday, S and I still wanted to make her birthday special, so we all woke up a little early and opened a few presents with dadda before he went to work. Then came birthday breakfast - G's request? "Chocolate oatmeal!" (or CoCo Wheats) This was a favorite of my brothers and I when we were growing up and G loves it too. I try to save it for special occasions so that it stays special. =)


Auntie C and G's favorite cousins, K&G also came over to play in the morning. They were going to stay as long as the girls lasted, which ended up being all day! The girls had so much fun and played really well with each other. They also brought G her present to open up before the big party as so she might be able to use it...

...yep, it was a beautiful twirly skirt made by dear auntie C. G tells me, "I LOVE Auntie C!" C also made her button hair elastics to match and a church bag to put books and crayons and snacks and pennies and whatever else G wants to take to church on Sunday.


Aahma and Boppa R arrived in the afternoon, Dadda was off of work early, and Uncle J also came to join us after work, so we went with the whole gang (10 of us!) to G's favorite restaurant, noodles & company. Much fun and noodles were had by all!

Saturday we hung out with Aahma and Boppa R during the day and finished getting ready for the party to be held on Sunday after church. G was very excited to have Boppa and Aahma to play with and she was also very excited to dress "match-match!" just like Aahma (white shirt and jeans).


Saturday night good friends of ours, Mer & Av (I have to break from using initials here because there are just too many people after this to keep track of!) drove up from Brookings, SD to visit and help celebrate G's birthday. They are like parents to us, especially when we were living in Brookings, and we are so glad that we have been able to keep a close relationship with them. G calls them Auntie Av and Uncle Mer (to keep using initial here would get me really confused when I talk about Uncle M and Auntie A later =). (I was talking with someone last week and said that I had to clean because all 3 of my moms were coming - mine, S's and Av!) We had pizza for supper with them, and then they also let G open their gift early, a giant coloring book and crayons and a book called Gracie Noodle. Neither one of the kids wanted to sleep that night, but we had a good visit with Mer & Av none-the-less.

Sunday we all headed for church in the morning, and afterwards stopped by Byerly's to pick up 6 pounds of mac'n'cheese. When we were just having J&C&girls over, I was going to make G's favorite meal, mac'n'cheese and hotdogs. When we found out everyone (us 4, Uncle J & Auntie C, cousins K & G, Aahma and Boppa R, Uncle Mer & Auntie Av, Aahma and Pappa B, Auntie Mel & Uncle Col) were going to be able to join us, I thought we could keep the same menu only making brats for the adults instead. But I was NOT going to make mac'n'cheese to feed 16 people! So we ordered it from Byerly's instead. Add a fruit salad and you have got a girl's favorite meal.

We also invited our very nice neighbors from both sides of us to come and eat cake with us at 3. They are always so good and remember the kids' birthdays with little gifts so we thought we could have them join the celebration too (this added 4 more making the total in the house 20!). When they got here, we opened presents first. G actually got a little shy with 19 other people watching her.


But cousins K & G kept the ball rolling and she opened a lot of wonderful presents (games, books, play dough, new sheets for her bed, and stuffed puppy she named "snuggles") including some from people who live far away! Here she is opening a book from Uncle M and Auntie A - Sheep in a Jeep. She is a big fan of this one!


Then came time for cake. All G wanted and has been asking for for the past couple of weeks has been a chocolate birthday cake with white ice cream (she has some of my Gpa K in her - he had a passion for chocolate cake =). I was going to make one, but as the guest list grew bigger, we decided to get the giant chocolate cake that I just love from Costco. Oh, this is no ordinary sheet cake, ladies and gentlemen, it is full out 3 layers of chocolaty goodness drenched in gooey chocolate frosting and huge chocolate shavings. Oh yeah. And for the non-chocolate lovers (you may be asking, are there such people? if so, you have not met my husband's family), Aahma B made her famous apple crisp to go with too. G blew out her candles as you can see by the cousins' faces, everyone loved it.




The big party was a success, but just a bit too much for W and Pappa B to handle.


Ok, now more than one person asked me the week before - "are you nuts?!" when telling them about all the people coming (shoot, and we only had family come! And not all the family that could come did!), assuming they meant doing all of that with 2 wiggly kids and being pregnant, and I was a little overwhelmed by the end of the weekend, but it was worth it to get together with family and friends and be able to fellowship and laugh and eat together. I do have to put out a big thanks to everyone who pitched in and helped over the weekend with everything though! Especially my dear s.i.l and friend, C. Seriously love this woman - she pitched in with housework and kept me sane and laughing on Friday before everyone got here, and the house looked great largely due to her. =) Although S & I are of the same opinion that we would have done it anyway whether the house was a disaster or not since it is about relationships, not how everything looks, but I probably would have cried a lot!

Oh, and there was one final thing to do for G's birthday festivities - measure her on the wall! Growing up, my parents measured my brothers and I every year on our birthday and marked it on the big wide molding around their bedroom door. This piece of molding moved to the new house when it was built and the tradition continued until we all reached a plateau in height. I wanted to do that with our kids too, but the trim in our house is smaller and bumpier. So my dad brought his tools along and on Saturday he went out and bought a board, routered the edges, and mounted it upstairs by our bedrooms. He did G's first measuring.


G says, "Look momma! I am this tall!" (37.5 inches)


Happy birthday our sweet G! We love you so much! We thank God for you every day and you can't believe the joy you have brought us in these past 3 years!