New Clothes!

The secretary at Mark's work has a little boy a year older than Elijah and she went through her sons clothes and gave us all the ones he had outgrown. Elijah was so excited! We know lots of people with girls so we are often given girl clothes. Hardly ever are we given boy clothes, and clothes for Elijah is even more rare. He had a great time trying on all his "new" clothes. :-) Oh, and for those of you who are wondering, no...no baby yet, I'm still very pregnant. 11 days overdue now and counting ...

About to pop...

Just an update... no baby yet! I feel huge and look it too! My first baby was almost 3 weeks early, the second was 2 weeks early, the third was 6 days early and the fourth was on his due date. It seems I'm still following this pattern as I'm 4 days overdue, but hopefully any day now this baby will decide to be born! We'll keep you posted when the big event happens!

Mark's Birthday

Last week we celebrated Mark's birthday. He took the day off so it was very special. We were able to sleep in a bit (7:30) and then I made him his favorite breakfast, french toast. He opened gifts and then we pretty much spent the day relaxing. Mark worked on his model airplane that he started shortly after Christmas, the kids played outside and I just puttered around doing laundry, surfing the internet and generally having a nice easy day.

The end is in sight!

We are finally all ready for the baby's birth! We are having a home birth and are hoping for a water birth. We got the pool all aired up last night and picked up a faucet adapter so we can hook up a garden hose to the kitchen faucet. We got out the basinet and got that set up. I put together the box of birth supplies (towels, washcloths, large plastic sheets, etc.) so now all we have to do is wait for this little one to be born! :-) The due date is January 30 and we are all starting to get a little anxious. The kids keep asking when the baby will be born...

Christmas three times over!

This past week has been busy for us as we celebrated Christmas with my family, Mark's parents, and had our own family Christmas too! On Sunday, December 20, we went out to my parents house and celebrated with my parents and two brothers. It was a great day! Each of the kids got one gift from Grandma and Grandpa that they loved! Mark took out his model airplane and flew it around my parents property (120 acres). On his second flight we had a major mishap, he was flying the plane upside down too low and when he went to turn it back right side up he couldn't climb fast enough and ran the plane full speed into the barbed wire fence. :-( It was a very impressive wreck, the whole plane blew up into a bunch of little splinters of wood. Needless to say, the plane was beyond fixing. It was great to spend time as a family, even with the plane crash. On Monday Elijah and Emmaline went out to Mark's parents house to spend a couple of nights. Then on Wednesday Mark's parents brought the kids back, had dinner with us and opened gifts for our Christmas celebration with them. I made the dinner and they brought dessert, a fabulous French Silk pie. Yum! Again, the kids had a great time! The weather was beautiful and snowy with icy roads so it was very festive! On Christmas day we stayed home and celebrated with just us, it was sooo nice. This is the first year that we have been home and alone for Christmas since we got married. We slept in a bit (as much as you can with little ones), then opened our stockings. I wrapped the stocking gifts as well this year and the kids had a blast opening all the little things. :-) Then we had a special breakfast and after cleaning up the kitchen and dishes started our present opening. We take turns opening gifts one at a time, going from youngest to oldest, so our gift time lasts for quite awhile. The kids had so much fun! We spent the rest of the day relaxing and playing with all the new gifts. It has been a great holiday season!

Christmas Tea

For the past several years my mom has put together a ladies christmas tea at her church. Last Saturday was the big day and Emmaline and I were able to attend! It was a very nice tea, we were served savories and sweets with two choices for tea as well. Their were lots of little girls to play with so Emmaline had a good time as well. I was able to sit with my mom and sister-in-law, Kayla. That was nice, it gave me a chance to get to talk to them a little bit and catch up on all the news. It was a very nice day and lots of fun!

Wedding!

My sister got married this past weekend, Saturday, November 28. She lives in San Diego so the day after Thanksgiving we left at 6 a.m. and drove out for the wedding. It was a 19 hour drive for us with all the stops we had to make for the kids. We stayed at Mark's grandma's house Friday night then drove down to San Diego for my sister's wedding on Saturday evening. She choose to have a small, informal wedding on the beach and the Navy chaplain married her and Ty. (She is in the Navy). It was very pretty and very cold. :-) On Sunday we relaxed and spent time with Mark's Grandma and her husband. On Monday morning we left California and drove straight through back home, arriving back in Colorado on Tuesday morning at 6:30 a.m. It was a long trip but I'm glad we could be there for the wedding.

Emmaline's 4th Birthday!

Emmaline's 4th Birthday was on November 23 and we had a party to celebrate on Sunday, November 22. We did a princess theme, her choice. She had a great time! It was a little difficult to get everything ready since I was still sick but everything went together without a hitch. :-)

Sickness in the house...

Last week I got really sick with a fever, headache, backache and sideache. I figured I had picked up a bug of some sort. I was really bad Tuesday (couldn't even get off the couch!) but was better Wednesday and Thursday so I figured I was in the clear. Then, Friday morning I woke up with such a high fever, bad backache and sideache that I literally could not move. I called my midwife and she said it sounded like a kidney infection and that I should go to the doctor as soon as possible. Fortunately for me I had taken the kids to my mom's house to spend the weekend on Thursday so I didn't have to worry about what to do with them. And Mark is off on Friday's so he was able to drive me to the doctor's office, which is good because I never would have gotten there by myself. When I got to the doctor's they took my temperature and it was almost 103! It only took them about 2 minutes to determine that I did indeed have a kidney infection. They prescribed some antibiotics which I have been taking faithfully and am finally starting to feel better, except for one thing...the kids and I are all sick with some sort of cold or flu bug! We all have runny noses, dry coughs and gunky eyes (and I lost my voice completely)! Yuck! The only one in our house who is well is Mark. So, he is doing everything around here for now. He has a good attitude and is a great help, I'm so glad he is able to take care of things for me. I have been living on the couch for a week now and probably will continue to be there for a few more days!

Kids Day/ Halloween

Here at our house we don't celebrate halloween but rather celebrate what we call "kid's day". We take the day of halloween and spend it doing things that the kids love, eating foods that they love, etc. This is a tradition that was started by my family when I was a little girl. I think I was about 7 when my parents decided that we would no longer celebrate and they wanted to make it easier for their kids to adjust so they instituted the concept of kid's day. I always loved it when I was growing up, and most of the kids that I knew were jealous of the fact that we spent the day doing things as a family and having a great time together. :-)

So, for our kid's day on Saturday, we started the day by sleeping in a bit, then having a big breakfast of bacon, cinnamon rolls, scrambled eggs and juice. The kids loved it, it is one of their all time favorites, and such a special treat because I bought canned cinnamon rolls which we almost never have. After breakfast the kids picked a movie to watch, bug's life, while I got everything ready for the day. Then we carved pumpkins, got our donut batter started and made apple cider. We played a few games, Elijah is finally old enough to be able to play and enjoy more games so that makes it more fun for us! :-) The kids had a short quiet time while I cooked the donuts. Then we had lunch/dinner of mac n' cheese, apples and donuts (again, stuff we don'thardly ever have and therefore very special) and then went to the airport to watch the planes landing and taking off. (This is one of Mark's favorite things to do and he managed to talk the kids into it for their special day :-) ) We came home and lit our pumpkins and sat in the living room enjoying them and reading books. Then it was bedtime for all the kids. It was a really fun day and the kids had a blast!