Happy Birthday Ethan!

November is a month full of family birthdays, so we celebrated another birthday two weeks ago - cousin Ethan's 6th birthday! The kids played and everyone ate their fair share of pizza. We then had the usual celebration with a chocolate cake and lots of presents for the birthday boy. Happy Birthday Ethan!

"Like Father, Like Son"

School Day Pictures 2009

Following are the boys pictures from school...they always turn out so well! What a difference a year makes when you go back and look at last year's pictures...growing up way too fast!

Let the spoiling begin...

Chris and I had our anxiously-awaited ultrasound today that would reveal whether we would be preparing for a girl or a boy. I didn't care either way as long as I would be able to prepare as I think a boy would be fun since I already have two fun boys or a girl would be nice to round out the family (and even the playing field slightly). The boys changed their minds several times over the last couple months on what they wanted. Chris was hoping for a girl when the boys were at their wild peak. I was starting to believe it was a girl based on the differences in this pregnancy.

The results were...IT'S A GIRL! I made sure the ultrasound technician felt very confident and she said to let the shopping begin. Everything else about the baby was perfect....beautiful heart & spine, good weight, etc. Baby girl of the family....I predict some major spoiling from grandparents (and parents, who are we kidding). I also predict that she will rule the nest when it comes to the boys. The question will be whether she is a girlie girl or a tomboy??

We told the boys that we had a dr. appt today and learned something about the baby. Connor immediately guessed that we found out she was a girl. He then started up with the stories about how he is going to show off his little sister. At one point, he asked what 2 boys and a girl mean. Huh - it means 3 kids. I think he was looking for triplets, which thank goodness they are not. We then asked them to give us their favorite girl name to make sure it was on the list to be considered. They came up with two very pretty names to add that is going to make the decision that much more difficult.

Parent-Teacher Conferences

Last week, we met with each of the boy's teachers for the fall Parent-Teacher conference. We went in with expectations that Connor and Brady act like they do at home and were surprised when we received reports that were quite the opposite. They were still good reports nonetheless.

We really enjoyed meeting with Connor's teacher who will have him all three years that he spends at Montessori. She was able to report on his developments since the last time we met last May. She reported that Connor has shown a great deal of maturity and taking his school work seriously. Last year, he did more watching and this year he is doing more work independently. He is currently enjoying focusing on his letters and sounds and analyzing books. He is close to word-building, which is the first step towards reading. She also wants him to do more with numbers, so that will be a focus between now and the end of the school year. She said he is very orderly with his work, is very polite to others, and is always in a good mood and enthusiastic about school. For those of you that get to experience the constant animal role-playing with full details about what "he" looks like, Ms. Beth gets to experience it also. She is usually quick to tell him that animals aren't allowed in school (good thinking). We were very happy to hear about Connor's progress and the maturity that he shows at school.

We then met with Brady's teacher. We were expecting to hear about his calm and mature behavior that he exhibits at home. NO...she said he is a typical 3 year old that is easily distracted, wiggly, and chatty. She did say that he takes great interest in his work, is very independent, and is especially interested in geography. She has been impressed with his coloring skills - knowing the colors and staying in the lines (for the most part). He adjusted very well to a classroom of older kids and likes to hang out with the older kids the most. He graduated (got kicked out actually) from the nap room within 2 weeks of school, which she said is a big accomplishment also. However, he doesn't do well sitting through the 30 minutes of story-telling at that time. The rest of the school year will be working with him on focusing on his work and completing the task at hand before moving on. We are very interested in hearing about Brady's progress next time we meet.

Keep up the good work boys! We have been very pleased with what we hear and see.

Baby Bump Update - 4 month mark

Below are pictures of the baby bump...hard to believe how little I am showing at the 4 month mark. I am still wearing regular pants and shirts, but I have started venturing over to the maternity wear some days. The first picture below is one I had Chris take. The bottom two I had done when we were getting our holiday pictures done. I freaked the photographer out when I suggested getting a picture with the baby - he started looking around to see if he had missed a family member for the pictures. Apparently, I must not be showing enough to be obvious to strangers yet.

Happy Birthday to Us!

This weekend we had our annual birthday celebration for my birthday, Papa Ross's, and Julie's. To start the celebrations, we met everyone for a nice family style dinner at Log Inn. We then went back to Mimi and Papa's house for cake and ice cream. They didn't have all the right candles, so somehow what ended up on the cake was none of our actual ages. That's quite okay with us!

I think Papa gave himself the best birthday present of all - he announced his retirement. Congratulations Papa...looking forward to hearing about your next endeavors (projects, that is).

Age...it's not always fair!

As many of you know, Brady wants to be a big boy! He gets very frustrated when anyone, especially Connor, refers to him as little even if he is being called the little brother or being told he is too little for something. He wants to be considered big in every way! The latest obsession is age and when he will "catch up" with Connor. Yesterday, I heard the following conversation in the car between Connor and Brady. Connor was trying to drive a point home to Brady....

"Brady, I will ALWAYS be older than you. When you turn 4, I will be 5. When you turn 5, I will be 6. When you turn 6, I will be 7. When you turn 7, I will be 8. (this continued until about the age of 12). I will always be the big brother and be older than you because I was born first. Mommy had me first. I will always be your big brother."

Brady responded with "BUT, you are 4 and I will be 4 on my next birthday".

Connor was then quick to say "BUT when you turn 4, I will already be 5. I turn 5, then Carac, then Brody, then Jackson, then Jesse....and then you turn 4."

Brady apparently doesn't think it is fair that he will never be able to catch up to Connor in age. However, once Connor started saying he would always be bigger I had to correct him that one day Brady could catch up to him and be bigger in size.

Today, Brady has been pointing out that he will turn 4 on his next birthday and then turn 5 (like there isn't going to be a year in between there). He has also been very excited to point out that he will be older than the baby and that he will be 4 before the baby is even 1 years old. I think he may be catching on now....

As you can see from the picture, this desire to be 5 goes back several months - the picture was from February!

Happy Birthday to me!

For my actual birthday (which was a fun-filled day of work meetings), my boys decided to surprise me with a small birthday celebration at home. They were hiding when I got home and yelled surprise! After dinner, they had a Coldstone Creamery cake for me that they had specially picked out (Daddy said that was a fun process trying to get the boys to decide on a cake). The boys both sang Happy Birthday to me, I think 3 times. After cake, I got to open my present which was some maternity outfits and a necklace. I got lots of hugs and kisses from my boys. We had a nice quiet evening at home...a nice end to an exhausting day. For some reason, it was also a very emotional day which I will blame on pregnancy and not the birthday blues.

I got my own cake this year!

For several years now, we have celebrated my birthday and my nephew's birthday together since they are only a couple days apart. There has been some interesting cake creations from my sister in an effort to show a theme appropriate for each of us. This year, she made two cakes so I got my own cake! We did however still share the birthday celebrations. We went to my parents for a Sunday afternoon visit and all the kids played outside in the leaves for awhile. We then had pizza, cake, and ice cream. It was a nice end to Sunday and I got to open a few presents. My favorite was the bag of Reese's cups to take to work for me and only me!

Rise and Shine!

The boys must have had an exhausting week last week because when Chris picked them up from school on Friday night they were done for the week and knew it was time to rest! They fell asleep on the way home in the car, stayed asleep when carried in the house, and slept through dinner. We tried waking them a couple times, but could tell that it was a lost cause. We finally carried them to their bed around 8:30. They woke up long enough to assist with their PJs and tell us they were tired. They slept 13 hours! When they woke the next morning, they were full of energy and ready for a big breakfast.

Sunday morning, Brady took it all back by waking up at 5:45 AM. He was ready to pick out his clothes for the day and wanted to know why everyone was still sleeping. He then asked why I hadn't opened the blinds yet to let the sun start shining in. He sounded just like Papa - "Let's get moving, the day is wasting away". I finally convinced him to sit on the couch and watch some cartoons. He then proceeded to talk NON-STOP (about what, I am not sure) - so much for going back to sleep!

Connor, on the other hand, slept until 7 and was told by Brady that it was a good thing because he was grumpy the night before. Connor responded that he needed to get all the grumpy out of him before he could get up.

Zoo Outing

With the beautiful weather we had on Saturday, we decided to venture out to the Mesker Park Zoo for the afternoon. As an extra surprise for the boys, we picked up cousin Ethan who was assisting his daddy with a yard work job and of course he was thrilled to join us.

It turned out to be an interesting afternoon....three wild boys ages 5, 4, and 3! As if we needed a preview of what chaos looks like - we have a few more months before we have to deal with that. Even with all the threatening that we would leave if they didn't stop picking on each other, they managed to have a lot of fun. We didn't leave, but we did end up bumping up against closing time...thank goodness

Dinnertime Antics

The boys were in rare form today! I assume it was a sugar-high carryover from Halloween and the Cinnamon Rolls they had for breakfast. When I left this morning for Yoga, they were bouncing off the walls (lucky Chris). It continued most of the day and well into the evening. Here are a couple snapshots of their playtime tonight at dinner...there was singing going along with it and A LOT of laughter!