welcome our newest blessing...

...Carsten Thomas!

8 lbs, 5 oz, 21.5 inches long, 13.25 in head circumference, and born 1/1/09 @ 12:58 am on our front couch delivered by wonderful Auntie C! Yeah, you read that right! The short version of the story is that my labor progressed way too quickly, and we realized we were not going to make it to the hospital in time, much less even the car to try. The Lord was watching over us all and with our midwife on the phone, S helping me, and my mom watching on and praying, Baby C was born into the waiting hands of Auntie C, who had recently arrived to help watch G and W. Everything was great and the ambulance arrived shortly to take the 3 of us to the hospital. Now we are all happy to be home and excited to start the adventure of life with the 5 of us.

Our computer is still kaput, so here are a few pictures from Auntie C (thanks C...for everything!)

PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS FLOW!!!

there's just something about kids singing at christmas...

I know you all haven't seen many pictures on our blog lately due to our computer problems, and it may be a while yet! But being it is Christmas this week, I have to share these wonderful photos I stole from sil C's blog (hope you don't mind, C!) of the girls singing at their Christmas program. Yeah, it wasn't our idea to put the 2 G's together, because that could have spelled trouble or at least distraction, but they did great and aren't they just too cute?!

Away in the Manger
Angels from the Realms of Glory (they are doing "wing your flight", while the boys are trying to play it cool next to them =)
And don't forget cute big cousin K singing too!
I love watching and listening to kids sing at Christmas, and it makes it even more special when it is your own children or nieces! (Oh, and W may not have been up there, but he can do all the actions to the girl's songs too!)

umm...are we still here?

Yes, we are still here. No baby news yet - I am at 36+ weeks and past the scary don't go into labor yet stage which is wonderful. Feeling good yet, having good appointments with our wonderful midwife K, actually thankful for the cold and dry air outside as I am not nearly as hot and swollen as I was at the end of W's pregnancy, and slightly freaking out each day about things we would like to get done before Baby B3 comes and also the realization that this itty bitty could come at any moment or wait to make his/her appearance for another couple of weeks!

I was completely planning on doing a big post about G's birth when I reached "G day" which was Fri Dec 5. On that day I was 34 weeks, 5 days which was how far along when G was born. But that was also the day that our computer died. Like dead died - motherboard is fried. Makes us crabby as this computer is less than 3 years old and had the motherboard replaced 2 years ago while still under warranty. Also made me sick to my stomach as we had not backed up for a number of months and there were so many pictures on the computer that I don't have hard copies of! Luckily computer savvy bil J was able to get all of our data off the computer once Mom B brought us their old computer to use in the meantime. Yay J! =) But boy, 4 days without internet access much less a computer at all is really tough! Shows how the times have changed as 10 years ago it wouldn't have been nearly as big a deal for us. So we had slower (am sure that is why Mom and Dad B just upgraded!) access to the internet and all our files again which also made trying to post something frustrating, so I just left it. Then I was going to at least post a new baby belly shot or some sort of we are still here post last weekend, but then borrowed computer also died. Sorry Mom and Dad B - hope you didn't have plans for this one! Once again bil J to the rescue sending over the magic Ubuntu disk which at least lets us get to the internet which was helpful as we had 3 internet orders to place for Christmas and needed to make the shipping deadline! (He also sent over another disk in case ubuntu didn't work called "Kill Hard Drive!" - happy it didn't have to come to that. =) Once again still running slow, which is frustrating when you are used to faster speeds and/or need to look something up REAL QUICK before children attack you or have a meltdown. Then S installed more ram from our old computer (which is what seemed to kill Mom and Dad's computer the first time he tried it - "DEATH RAM!!!" =), and it worked this time with Ubuntu and we are running at a little bit better speed now so I feel like we can at least function normally on the internet. But no access to printer or pictures so my rambling is all you get for today.

In other events that have happened since last post, right after Thanksgiving we put up our small tree which had fun additions this year of childhood ornaments of S's that his mom found, and a new quilted tree skirt from my Gma K! She also made us stockings which are also beautiful that are hanging up and really make us feel Christmasy! I would love to post pics of them, but yeah... Thanks so much Gma!! We love them. Then we had B Christmas the first weekend in December. It was a lovely time with everyone coming up to A/CR. We spent Saturday afternoon at our place with just the girls making Christmas cookies while the boys volunteered with our church at Operation Christmas Child. Then Saturday evening we went downtown for a pizza supper at one of our favorite pizza places, Pizza Luce, and then to see the Holidazzle parade, a Christmas tradition we have been doing with J&C and family since moving here to the cities. Then Sunday after church we spent a lovely afternoon and evening at J&C's with a soup, bread and salad meal, gifts for kids (adults gave their gift $$ to charities this year), plenty of munchies and yummy cheesecake, and good fellowship with all. Check out dear sil C's post here to see a few pictures and read more about it! Then last Sunday evening we had our Christmas program at church. Oh so fun with G singing "Who made Ocean Earth and Sky," "Away in the Manger," and this years favorite "Angels from the REALMS of Glory" (extra enthusiasm on the REALMS! =). S & I also were singing with the adult choir, but poor W got sick with the crud the night before and we weren't quite sure what to do with sick W while we sang 3 numbers at the end of the service. Who do you pick to give a hacky snotty unhappy boy to? Then we thought maybe one of us just shouldn't sing and stay down with him. But we both love to sing and we only have church choir 1 or 2 times a year so neither of us really wanted to say "Oh go ahead, you sing, I will hold W!" Solution? Just take W up there with us! I was standing on the end of the front row, so I just held W with the plans to make a quick exit if he fussed or made a scene. He was wonderful, fascinated with J, our choir director, as she waved our hands, and luckily I still had enough breath support even while holding him and Baby B3 in belly to still squeak out a few notes. =)

The crud. So not worth writing about. No sleep (literally! One night at 3 when up for the 15th time with W I commented to S that if I went into labor they might as well wheel me in hook me up to the drugs adn give me a c-section cuz there would be no go left in me!), nothing accomplished besides holding and comforting sick babies, and then getting it ourselves. W is getting over it though so hopefully we will all be feeling better by the time all our company comes!

Yes, we are having the whole R crew here for Christmas (or the weekend after Christmas) including Nanna, Boppa, Aahma, L, J, M & A! And S and I are taking this Christmas very low key, realizing I don't need to stress about anything so we are not uber cleaning, uber planning, or trying to be uber-hosts, we are just going to let people come, have space for them to crash, have food in the house, and just enjoy being together. S said that if I stress, he is going to throw everyone out! =) Many hands make light work of everything and we have a wonderful family who always wants to lend a hand so it should be a great time. And if Baby B3 comes while everyone is here that will just be a bonus! Christmas Day is "W day" as he was born at 37 weeks 5 days!

Well, I should be paying bills, doing more baby stuff or baby lists or figuring out what we are going to name this little one yet, or doing housework, but I wanted to get an update out for all of you that we emailed the blog address out to a month ago and then haven't posted a word! (plus, W is sleeping and G is playing so nicely with play dough so I feel like I can sit for a little bit =) Don't know when we will post again - maybe with baby news? maybe with Christmas fun? maybe just randomly, but we will for sure talk with you all later. In case we don't post again before next week, may you all have a blessed blessed Christmas and enjoy time with family and friends reflecting on the wonderful gift that God gave us through Jesus and all the other blessings that He has given us. I know we surely will be!

33 weeks

I have been asked to give a new belly shot update, and I realized we hadn't taken one in a while! I will reiterate, I hate these shots when I look at them, but I know they are fun for others and good pictures to have for itty bitty B3 to look at when he or she is older. And I thought it might be fun to see the progression so far, so here is a collage of shots (23 weeks - 26 weeks - 28 weeks - 33 weeks)!

i love it when this happens....

Sometimes G & W can play so nicely together! This morning, while I was trying to finish up a few computer things, G helped W up on the loveseat, they asked me for books, and they sat and read together. G even "reads" outloud to W! (now of course, this only lasted for about 3-5 minutes and then they were screaming at each other because W grabbed G's book, but that's how sibling life goes...=)

Hope you all have a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving tomorrow. We are staying home! We are on our own self-imposed ban to the cities (within driving distance of hospital!) since the arrival of B3 is getting closer and closer. S's family is all coming next weekend to celebrate an early Christmas, and my mom's siblings will all be in Sioux Falls by my Gma K so they aren't coming either. J&C&girls are going out for their Thanksgiving meal, although I think they might come and hang out and play games in the evening. And though we would love to be with family, that leaves us home by ourselves for a quiet holiday, and for that I am very thankful for.

getting ready...

We made a big purchase last week and furthered our getting ready for Baby B3 to arrive - a 2005 silver Honda Odyssey! (sorry for the poor garage pic, but it is too cold out to get a nice picture outside!)
Those of you who know us know that this was a long long process involving:

• us figuring out what vehicles we could fit 3 car seats in
• test driving and narrowing down our list
• us getting over our complete aversion to mini-vans (not that we have any problem with them, but just couldn't see us driving one - they are so big!)
  
• figuring out our budget and what year/mileage vehicles fit into that
  
• looking at what is available (much time spent every day online looking at Car Soup, cars.com, craigslist, etc.)
• finding a good Mazda MPV only to have it sold before we got there due to us being on vacation
• filling out spreadsheets (oh yes, spreadsheets - we are official math nerds) and crunching numbers on $$ per year it would cost us for each vehicle, or which one was better fit for the criteria that we were looking at
• finding an almost scary cheap 2005 Honda Odyssey with 38,000 miles on it on Car Soup from a small dealer that we didn't recognize (a year newer and at least 10-20,000 miles less than we had been looking at)
• deciding to take a look at it anyway on a Friday evening that we were in the dealer's area anyway
• being pleasantly surprised that it was a very decent car, with a clean CarFax and maintenance record
• also being pleasantly surprised when the dealer told us how he does business - makes $300-$500 on each car they buy at auction, no more (they sell 150+ cars a month too!).
• agonizing for an evening over the van and whether we really wanted it and wanted to go for it and if it was the best car and price and value for us
• going to look at it the next day(Saturday) in the light without kids (thanks, J&C!!!) being fairly serious about it if we could get an inspection on it on Monday
  
• having the car battery die on us on our test drive (red flag?????)
• having the dealer tell us he had another couple coming to look at it for the 2nd time right after us, and a wholesaler coming Monday morning, so if it made it past both of them (yeah right) we could take it for an inspection.
• having to agonize over lunch on whether or not we should just go for it - that is an unB thing to do!
  
• deciding yes we would take it!!!!! (5 minutes before the other couple came in ready to buy it - they were not happy =)
• not being able to drive it off the lot as we did not have financing ready and also they would put a new car battery in for us.
• going back the next Tuesday and getting to take it...to the Honda dealer for the inspection we still wanted to have
• and finally bringing it home on Wednesday after a stop at Midas because the Honda inspection was great except for the rear brakes (Honda dealer said they would certify it otherwise, which made us feel good)
• now still getting used to driving a bigger vehicle and a mini-van and never remembering where I have parked in parking lots and forgetting which car I am looking for!
• being very happy with our purchase and extremely blessed that it all went well (had a Bible study the next day on how the Lord is sovereign over everything in our lives, even the everyday buy a car things!)

And now the van needs a name too! Please put in your suggestions! (BTW, we are going to sell our green '98 Honda Accord, and keep our '02 Mazda Protege named Wilson.)

bunnies =)

I had mentioned in our post about vacation that we all, but especially the kids, loved getting to know Uncle M's and Auntie A's french lop bunnies, Rufus and Charlie. (Who by the way are the cutest and smartest bunnies ever - who knew bunnies listened to commands or did tricks???) G & W were just fascinated with them and still talk about them a lot whenever we see pictures of bunnies. W at the time of vacation could only do the sign for bunnies, he couldn't say it, but now he can say "Roofutz," "Cha-eey," and even "Buu-eeeeees." Auntie A just posted a very cute and funny video of Rufus chasing W around their basement on her blog that you have to check out for a smile. There are also 2 very cute pictures of the bunnies themselves. Rufus is the brown and white one, and Charlie is the gray and white one. Thanks Auntie A for posting that video as the kids enjoyed watching it (over and over and over and over) and it brought back a lot of smiles from vacation and seeing you all too. =)W signing "bunnies" at Rufus in his cage.

G relaxing like Rufus - when the bunnies would lay and relax they would stretch out their front and back legs and G thought this was funny.

mostly random...

...so this post won't be too exciting, but I do have a bunch of little things and pictures that I thought I would throw all together here today.

Collage of kids playing in the beautiful leaves that dropped from the tree in our driveway all on one day a few weeks ago.

New fall dress from Nanna (my Gma K)!! G loves this dress and especially the twirlyness of it. (we made her take off the sunglasses before leaving for church =)

Now about dear W. He is a boy through and through and there are so many differences between boys and girls even at his young age that you really don't realize fully until you have one of each. But being that he has an older sister and older sister things to play with...well, you'll see.

Early morning tea party with Dadda - W does love his tea parties!

Dressing up like sissy - he loves his purses too! That's my boy!

This was taken at our last Ladies' Night Out with the church ladies, Nov 11, I believe. There are 3 of us pregnant at church now and we lined up for a belly picture! I am due January 11 and am at 31 weeks here, J in the green is due mid March, and B in blue is due end of May! Funny thing is that while our church is located centrally in the cities and has people that drive there from an hour south and an hour north and all inbetween, the three that are pregnant all live up here in our area within 5 miles of each other!


This was what G played while W took a nap this morning. She brought me a baby and asked me to wrap it up in a blanket for her, and when I gave it back to her, she said "It looks like baby Moses in the bathtub!" (long explanation from cousins and vacation in Oct), and proceeded to find a basket for baby Moses, build a river out of books, and then hide herself behind the chair to watch for the princess like Miriam did.

Stay tuned for a more exciting post later this week...

happy 30th birthday s!

Last Friday was S's 30th birthday. Big milestone? yes. Did it really feel like that for him? not so much. I think we both still think we are college age sometimes. A small realization of oldness occured this summer when we realized we were older than most of the athletes competing at the summer Olympics. The last time we watched the summer Olympics we felt like we were in about the same age group. Oh well, aging is inevitable and for that we are thankful.

Anyway, here are the highlights from the festivities from the weekend!

• birthday hugs from G&W to wake up to as well as many many renditions of "Happy Birthday"
  
• ice cream cake and a couple of bags of S's favorite candy from his co-workers
• J&C babysat the kids Friday night so we could go out to eat for supper! (Yay! Thank you!)
• wonderful meal (start to finish) at local Canyon Grille
• birthday cherry pie and ice cream at J&C's with our crazy gang afterwards
• present - tickets to Wild hockey game for S and his brother J (Nov 20 against the Canuks!)!
• game night with friends from church on Saturday night - Trivial Pursuit, Balderdash, pizza, munchies, kids having fun, and the above pictured sour cream pound cake made by friend B with more ice cream for S's and B's birthday (B's was on Saturday)

Happy Birthday dear hubby - I am very thankful for the 30 years God has blessed you with and I look forward to sharing many more with you!

do not adjust the color on your monitors...

...the applesauce is really that pink! Mom B came up for a few days this week bringing 3 bushels of beacon apples that S and I purchased from their church's youth group, and willing hands to help make it into applesauce. We didn't get started Tuesday night like we wanted to so we weren't sure if we were going to get everything processed, but Auntie C and the girls also came over on Wednesday to help and between all of us we had the 3 bushels made into applesauce by 4:30! Yay! So here's what we did:

Wash apples (dry off kids)
Cut and core and put on stove to cook
The lovely pinkness that results from leaving the skins on!
Feed cooked and smushy apples into magic attachments on Kitchen Aid mixer (thanks Auntie C for helping and letting us borrow them!)
All kids take turns smushing the apples through (then clean up kids)!
Beautiful hot pink applesauce comes out
Put into quart freezer containers to be frozen (kids sneak bites)
And here is what dear W did most of the time - mowed down his first whole apples. He pretty much had an apple in hand all day! Did really well with them too - no choking (these apples were pretty soft by now), and it probably felt good on his teeth that he is working on getting in.Big thanks to Mom B and Auntie C and kids that played well together all afternoon! This is a homemade treat that we will enjoy all year! Storebought applesauce is easy and can be good, but nothing really compares...