It's a "Girlie"!

So here you have it...the results of our ultrasound!
My sweet friend, Beth, made these darling cookies for us while watching Davis and Kate and surprised us when we got back from the ultrasound...Thank you Beth!




If you know me well you can imagine that the hours before my ultrasound appointment were totally unproductive. I spent most of the morning with a nervous stomach. I always get this way before my ultrasound appointments. Really by this time I could care less what the gender is, I just want to be reassured that everything with the baby looks fine. Jed and I decided the night before that we wanted to include Owen in this appointment and I am so glad that we did. When we asked him if he wanted to go to the doctor with us to see the baby he got all excited. Then said, "I hope she is exercising in there." He was just sure this baby was a girl (although he did refer to her as "he" several times). Both Owen and Davis were betting "girl". Actually I would say 95% of our friends and family were voting for a girl. I think everyone just really wanted our little Kate to have a sister and I'll admit I did too...I love my sister! I was betting "boy" and I mentioned to Jed in the waiting room (the ultrasound tech was running almost an hour behind!) a name that I had thought of for a boy, but he quickly vetoed it. So then I say, "Okay, if this baby is a boy, I get to name him and if it's a girl, you can name her." "Sounds good, " he said, confident in his "girl" guess (the reality is, neither of us could ever name a child without the other. We have a hard enough time coming up with a name together!). Anyway, when the tech asked, "Now who is it who is guessing 'girl'?" Owen went crazy, "We were right and you were wrong Mom!" Then as we were leaving the office he told me, "I am not sure what I am going to name the baby. I am thinking something like 'Girlie'." This from the boy who named Davis "Car-Car" and Kate "Flower". This was the day before yesterday and according to him, her name is still going to be "Girlie". So funny. Anyway, above you will find some of the pictures that kept Jed, Owen and myself mesmerized during the office visit. We think she is an amazing girl already. Brace yourself for your crazy family little "Girlie". We love you already!

Owen and the nose plugging...

A few weeks ago Jed and some of his buddies spent a Saturday morning playing paintball. Of course us wives couldn't let the opportunity of a girls & kids day of our own pass us by. We met our friends Beth and Kayde with their kids first at the reptile store in town. They have so many amazing snakes, iguanas, turtles and even an alligator. Not bad for small town USA, eh? Well, we all had a good laugh because, while he loved it, Owen plugged his nose from the time we entered the store until we walked back out into the fresh air...SO FUNNY! The following video may be hard to understand, but in it Owen says that the store stinks like Wal Mart--cracked me up!


After the reptile store we headed to get some lunch at Wendy's...nothing like a stinky store of reptiles to increase your appetite, right? From there we headed to the library where Kate terrorized the other children (one three year old girl in particular she kept pushing around--ugh!), Davis found some fun new police car videos and Owen got his very first library card. We are so excited to have our library open once again (the library had been closed for over a year, due to a lack of funding...it was HORRIBLE!). It was a fun Saturday.

Special note to those friends reading this who live in our area...next time send your husbands paintballing too! They aren't the only ones who have fun!

Capturing Davis at this moment in time...

There have been a few things on my mind lately that I want to capture for each of my kids. We'll start with Davis because he has been cracking us up lately.

First off, please note the shirt that he is wearing in this picture. That's right the one that says "Awesome" on it with an arrow pointing up. This shirt belonged to our buddy Eli before it came our way and is now Davis' all-time favorite thing to wear. In fact he has probably worn it 15 out of the last 19 days! The second day he wore it he woke up and said, "Mom, where's that shirt that says I'm cool?" I have trained him to put the shirt on the washer at the end of each day and some days I wash it after he goes to bed. The few times that I have missed we have had HUGE crocodile tears the next day. Somebody please tell me that he will get sick of this shirt?!?

When Davis says "Buzz Lightyear" and he does refer to Buzz several times a day, it always sounds like he is saying "Budweiser". "Mom, have you seen my Budweiser gun?"..."I am going to wear my Budweiser underwear today"..."Where is my Budweiser?" He has been doing this for months and it still throws me off!

One day I was on a cleaning rampage (yep, this is me in my second trimester of pregnancy...my poor family) and I was targeting my boys' room...again. I got fed up with the mess and told them that anything they didn't clean up was going to go into the time out box. This is a situation that the boys have found themselves in plenty of times to know that I was serious, but for some reason they still weren't motivated to shovel their way out of the mess. When the time was up I grabbed the box and quietly went to work taking the toys from the floor and adding them to my "time-out" collection. Upon realizing what I was doing Davis started begging me to stop....pleading...and finally, pulling out all the stops he yelled, "MOM! You are going to be on Santa's BAD LIST!"

When Grandma Nila was here last month Davis fell backwards off one of the bar stools in our kitchen. We all kind of frooze in our places, waiting for the wailing to begin, but hoping not to add to it by gasping or doing any of those natural parent reactions. Before we could even ask, "Are you alright?" we heard this happy voice announce, "THAT WAS TOTALLY ACTION!" What a funny, happy boy!

Davis continues to make up jokes (as does Owen). Owen used to tell a joke that he learned from a Popsicle stick, "What animal do you never want to play cards with?" Answer: a Cheetah! Well, now Davis thinks any joke with a cheetah in it is hilarious. "Why did the Cheetah eat the car?...Because he wanted to turn into a car!" "Why did the cheetah go to school?...Because he wanted to see his friend!" HA, HA, HA!

Christmas 2008

These pictures are a bit out of order. I can't seem to remember to download the most recent first and go backward in order to get them in the right order. Oh well, you will get the idea. We were lucky enough to have our Grandma Nila come and spend the Christmas Holiday with us. What a treat. Unfortunately for her I procrastinated most of my holiday preparations (baking, holiday cards, letters, gift wrapping, etc.) until she got here. Since I had been very sick for the months leading up to Christmas (oh, have I never mentioned that I am expecting our 4th baby?--Surprise!) I kept putting things off saying, "Oh, I'll do that once Nila gets here". Somewhere along the way it never really registered that she was only coming two days before Christmas, until she was actually here that is. Lucky for me, she is a great help with the kids and just pitched right in on all of my projects. Really she is the one who kept me on track. Thank you Nila! I am not sure how many books she read to the kids while she was here, but they LOVED it.
Nila and the kids also started a book where they drew pictures of some of their favorite things. Owen could draw for hours, so he particularly loved this project.

Thanks to tips from our friends Jeff and Shelby and Jenny and Scott, we put Kate's pack and play in our closet for the week (our guest bed is in Kate's room). It worked like a charm! We only had one night where she woke up during the night, otherwise she slept during nap time and at night just perfectly in her cozy new "room" The only trick was every day I would find more and more of my clothes in the crib with her, until the last day when she completely emptied that bottom shelf and was swimming in the clothes. We will definitely do this again! Thanks for the tip...we owe you one!
Kate loves this dress-up from Nana and Papa. She asks me to put it on her daily and I am thrilled to see her girlie side!
Happy Davis with his Transformer Jet!
The kids and Grandma were blocked off from the family room and the LOOT Christmas morning.
We spent Christmas Eve with our dear friend Miss Loretta, her mom (Miss Carol) and dad (Mr. Pete). Once again they spoiled our kids with their generosity and their love.
Owen is still talking about how he and Grandma got Daddy with snowballs on Christmas Eve morning. Thank goodness they went out when they did, that snow melted fast!

We had a wonderful Christmas. Thank you all for the cards and gifts you sent and the goodies you delivered. And of course, thank you Grandma for spending the week with us. We miss you already!

Light War Up-Date

As many of you know, our dear friends, the Page's, experienced a tragedy in their family not long after this year's light war began. Their second son and daughter-in-law lost their young son at only 3 months of age. This little baby had already overcome some serious medical challenges and was doing well, so his passing came as a huge shock. Of course, being respectful of their devastation we sat our boys down and told them that our plans would have to be placed on hold until next year. For this year, the Pages win and then...lo and behold a few days later another sign appeared, this time on our roof line. The sign read "Tooth Fairy" in reference to Jed of course. Again, it was a fabulous job. Still not really feeling that some of our ideas were appropriate any longer (and because we couldn't get close to the house with the loads of people now staying there), we waited until after the funeral. I bought a small white Christmas tree and tied toothbrushes all over it. Owen then went crazy covering it with any ribbon he could while declaring, "This tree is so TACKY!" We are sure he doesn't know what that means, but he did know that he didn't want it to be "cute" or "beautiful". Then he and Jed went out (in dark clothes, of course) and secured it to the stone column at the head of their driveway. Twice they had to hide as Jodi left and then came back again. It was a great adventure for Owen. He felt triumphant that they didn't get caught. What are we teaching these kids!?!?!

Christmas is a time for Peace and WAR!

Visit with me for a minute a few Christmas' from our past...Three years ago we put up Christmas lights for the first time. We had all red lights because that is what the previous owner left in the garage. One day we noticed that we now had a blue light in the middle of the strand. Then slowly, day by day more and more different lights began appearing, until our house looked really ghetto. We knew this could only mean one thing...the Pages had been here. Well, we stole lights off of their house and decorated our porch. They stole our lighted Christmas trees and put them in their upstairs windows, we moved more of their lights to the insides of our windows. It was so much fun!

Then last year, if you will recall we took this lovely old couch (left in our out building by the same previous owner) and made it festive for the holidays, before dropping it off in the Page's Driveway of course. You may recall where it ended up...

Yep, that's our roof!

Well, this year we went to CA for Thanksgiving...gone a week. We were ready for what we might find, but we found nothing. Weeks past and we were beginning to think that the Page's had lost their touch, until last night...We went to the ward Christmas party at church (the Page's were late) and came home to this....

HILLARIOUS! From the road you can't see the wood or anything that they mounted the lights on. It really is an A+ job, so now of course the war has begun. Please feel free to post any ideas here as we are taking suggestions. :) Oh, and check back for updates. You gotta love the holidays!

Catching up...Again!

Here you have it...another post where I say, "sorry I haven't posted in so long, so let's let the pictures do the talking for me." I just realized that I downloaded my pictures in reverse order, so bear with me, I'm not doing it over. :)

For Thanksgiving this year we went to my parent's home. After a few days there Jed and I left the kids with Nana and Papa for two nights and headed to the Bay Area. It was the first time that we had been together over night, without our children, in THREE years. I know, shocking, isn't it? We thank Kelli and Cory for inspiring us to do this. It was fabulous! We visited the LDS temple where we married, had lunch in China Town, did some shopping, watched movies. We are already planning our next adventure. Hope Nana and Papa had as much fun as we did!


You gotta love how these pictures make you look when you take them yourself!

China Town
Jed said China Town was giving him flashbacks to his missionary days in Korea.

Before we left for the Bay Area, we spent an afternoon out at my Grandpa's place. The kids love going out there. They look for rabbits, throw rocks, shoot guns (I am grouping Jed in with the kids here), you know all of the good stuff you can do when your Great Grandpa lives on acreage.

For Thanksgiving this year our dear friends, the Wiltbanks joined us. We loved having them. They were as low maintenance guests as you could ask for. In fact, I don't think any of us viewed them as guests. Sorry guys. The kids fit right in with the cousins and I think that I speak for everyone when I say that you are welcome back anytime. Oh, and Kelli, bring more rolls...YUM!
Claire and Alex eating smores!
Hannah is a pro at the smore thing...she doesn't let a little sticky marshmello bother her!
The old roomies together again! Yea, E. Richards Hall!
Emma and Kate playing on Nana and Papa's motorcycle. Kate LOVES that thing.

Finally, I am throwing in this picture of Kate to show you that she can now climb up into the boys Clubhouse (aka the top bunk of their bed). She is so proud. I told her for this photo to also show you that she is chewing gum (she took it out of my purse when I wasn't looking). 18 months old and she loves gum....Heaven Help Me!