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...

mi vacation 10/16/08 - 10/22/08

We had a wonderful vacation to MI. It was kind of split up into 3 parts. Part one was traveling by train from MSP to Holland, MI and staying a few days by my brother M and s.i.l. A. The train was definitely the best form of travel for us with 2 wiggly little kids! We got on at 8 in the morning on Thursday, and would have gotten to Holland by 9:30 that night, but there were some mechanical difficulties with our train and then another one that we came upon on the tracks along the way, so we didn't end up getting in until midnight. LONG DAY, but the kids did great and it was so nice to be able to just focus on them and not having to strap them in and try to drive. It was also neat to see the beautiful colors in the trees the whole way out!

M & A live about 5 blocks from the train station in Holland and came and picked up our luggage with their car and we walked with the kids to their house as to not have to mess with the car seats. Friday we hung out with Uncle M and Auntie A and their bunnies, R & C (more on them later!), and just recoop'd from the trip and had a great time catching up and playing together. We walked downtown Holland and ate at Froggy's (great hamburger and fries joint!) then spent the afternoon at a park and got some fun pictures.

Saturday morning was also just fun hanging out with M&A and also making a trip out to Holland's thrift stores looking for swimsuits for all of us since we left ours at home. (Found ones for all 4 of us for less than $10!) We then headed out on part 2 of the vacation for Hudsonville to S's Uncle D and Aunt S's house. S's whole immediate family had also made the trip out to MI and Uncle D and Aunt S hosted a big Aukeman gathering (S's mom's side of the family) since we were all there. We had Gpa A, all his children, all his grandchildren and great-grandchildren (26 of us) there which was a lot of fun! It was good to catch up with Gpa A, cousins, and aunts and uncles and we had a great time chatting and eating yummy homemade pizza. We of course took big family pictures too, but on someone else's camera so I don't have those to share right now. I did get a 4 generation picture for W (he is named after Gpa A) and a family shot of us though!

All of us B's stayed in our favorite Grand Rapids hotel Saturday night (good prices, pool - hence the need for swimsuits, insanely good hot breakfasts, nice rooms - although we did stay on the 2nd floor rather than the 3rd this time and had a lot more stomping above us...some suspiciously 6'9'' sounding =). We didn't get to enjoy as much time together at the hotel Saturday night as we all stayed longer at Uncle D and Aunt S's so had to get kids down right away. Sunday morning we all went to different churches. We attended Ideal Park CRC where parents of our good friend N K go. It was fun to surprise them and chat with them a little bit! Then off to Gma B's apartment for the B gathering (S's dad's side of the family) where we had a nice lunch and visit with all of us, Gma B, and Uncle S and Aunt B. Once again we took more family pictures on someone else's camera, but I did get another 4 generation shot for W. It was beautiful weather out both Saturday and Sunday so it was nice to be outside to take pictures and let the kids run around and play.

We then all headed back to the hotel and the kids fell asleep on the way back. Gpa A was kind enough to let us borrow his van while we were there so we didn't have to rent a car. Thanks Gpa A!

We swam in the pool back at the hotel. This was by far G's favorite part of the hotel stay! We then went out for supper with J&C and family and hung out the rest of the evening. Funny note, I brought my camera down to the pool and wanted to get a pic of the cousins playing together, which they were very nicely! But when I told them all to just look at me and smile, they proceeded to line themselves up on the top step first - do you think they had been in just a couple of organized pictures in the past 2 days?

The rest of the B's headed back towards MN on Monday, but we stayed a couple of extra days back with M&A for part 3 of our vacation. We took it pretty easy on Monday morning though, swimming in the pool one more time, packing up, then eating at noodles for lunch. We wanted to get one more visit in with Gpa A and Gma B, and also get both kids a nap. So to shorten the process, we went and picked up Gpa A and took him with us over to Gma B's for a visit. It was nice to visit with them without so much chaos of the big gatherings, and I think they had fun visiting with each other as well - they are friends from long back. S's parents actually played together as kids! Our kids had fun too - W wheeled Gma B's walker all over her apartment! Then we headed back to Holland to Uncle M and Auntie A's. We hadn't been there more than 5 minutes when G asked about the bunnies! Oh, the bunnies! I will have to get more pictures of the kids and the bunnies from M&A to share as the kids absolutely adored these 2 french lop fuzzballs. W knows the sign for bunnies and would do it excitedly while running after them. G had fun trying to help take care of the bunnies and get them to do tricks (yep, they know tricks!), although her favorite thing to tell us was that "bunnies don't listen to me very well!" The gray one is Charlie, and the brown one is Rufus.

Strangely enough, Uncle M was not there on Monday when we got there. He actually flew to Minneapolis over the weekend to attend a classis meeting. So Monday evening we had pizza with Auntie A and she introduced us to the best movie for our kids, hands down, The Adventures of Milo and Otis. It is all about a kitten and a puppy born on a farm and their adventures, and our kids just loved all the animals in it! And it wasn't too scary for G either (she is very sensitive about scary stuff in movies or on tv), although she did get nervous in a few parts. And it was so much fun watching W watch the movie - he would get so excited about all the animals and be signing what each one was and making the noises!

Tuesday was our last day of vacation in MI. We soaked up all the time with Uncle M and Auntie A that we could and also got packed and ready to go. Uncle M and Auntie A spent a lot of time reading books to G & W the whole time we were out there. The kids loved it, S & I loved it cuz it gave us a break from reading them (I actually read a real book over vacation!), and I think M & A loved it too. G also got to make Auntie A's favorite cookies with her Tuesday morning! Auntie A does not like chocolate, so these ready to bake sugar cookies are what she likes for a treat! And G thought it was so neat that there were pumpkin faces in them! G & W also had fun playing Auntie A's very nice electric piano and particularly liked the voice setting - they sung with as they played!


Tuesday afternoon Uncle M and Auntie A took us to the Critter Barn! Auntie A works here part time in the office. What a fun outing not only to see where Auntie A works, but to visit and pet all the animals. There is something about our kids and farms and farm animals...


Tuesday night, both kids went down easily and slept really really well as is always the case on vacation - they finally get used to a place and sleep well the night before you have to leave. But it was nice for S & I to be able to sit and have a good chat with M & A without being interrupted by waking kids every 15 minutes! Big big thanks to M & A for their wonderful hospitality while we were visiting. They both are so good with the kids and also make it so easy to stay with them - stocking up on favorite and kid-friendly food, letting us use their bedroom with the kids, and by just being plain fun to visit. We all love you very much! =) Wednesday morning we were up early to catch the train at 7:30 (when actually it left at 8:30) and on our way back home. We had a fairly good trip back - W was dealing with teeth and not happy most of the way, but nothing terribly disturbing to the other passengers. We had a fairly long layover at Union Station in Chicago which we spent most of the time in the Grand Hall letting the kids run around (I am at 28 weeks in the belly shot). Then we actually were home a little ahead of schedule and arrived at our house by 11:00 that night. Yay for vacation and fun, but a big yay for being home too. =)