Update

So this is what's going on around here. It's a good thing the holidays involve a lot of food. I'm already getting the, "So when are you due?" Followed by a brief moment of silence while the realization sinks in of what three more months of me being pregnant is going to look like.

Aunt Kellee

At dinner tonight, Nikki said Aunt Kellee was her favorite aunt because "she's fun. She actually does things with her kids."

Well, she's right, you are fun, Kellee. I guess I'll have to start trying to do things with my kids a little more. :)

Hannah's Family Portrait

Umm... Is she hinting something to me?

Cold legs!

These are the pajama pants that I made for Hannah last Christmas. I can't believe how much she has grown! I hope she can wait another month for some new ones. (She just might have some new socks on her list, too!)

#1

Nikki had a gymnastics meet last Saturday and did such a great job. Robin and Mike were able to come, which was so nice. Her Sunday School teachers even came to watch her. Mike took some videos for me, so I'll post those when he gets them to me. She ended up taking 1st place in two of the four events as well as 1st overall. We are so proud of you, Nikki! Great job!

As we were walking out of the gym, everyone was looking at her medals and her trophy. This meet was called the Thanksgiving Invite, so her trophy is a turkey! We got a good laugh out of that.

Funnies

A couple of weeks ago Ryan was watching Mary Poppins, and Hannah mentioned at dinnertime that she didn't understand one of the jokes on the movie. It goes something like this: A friend of mine ran over his neighbor's cat the other day. He knocked on her door and said, "I'm really sorry about your cat. I would like to replace it." "That's fine," she said, "but how are you at catching mice?"
As I was explaining it to Hannah, all of a sudden the lights came on in Nate's eyes. He had never gotten it before, either!

One night Nate and I got home to find a note on the counter from the girls with a lollipop wrapped in aluminum foil beside it. It read: For Mom or Dad, We thought since we didn't like this succor that you might. Caution: it has already been sucked on but only by us, don't worry. Love, Hannah and Nikki P.S. It's banana flavored. Rotten banana!

Finishing October

Okay, so I'm finally posting the last of our October pictures.

 Pasta skeletons

 Window paint

 Orange jack-o-lanterns

 Spooky glowing eyes to place in the bushes at night

 Ryan and Hannah with some of his super-hero friends at the church trunk-or-treat party. Hannah was a mermaid this night.

 Painting pumpkins at the local grocery store

 Miracles do happen! Hannah was excited to go play in our backyard! She is always afraid of spiders and ticks, so she doesn't even like going on our back porch. But when I told her it was too cold for ticks anymore, the idea of raking a maze through the leaves in the backyard was too much for her to resist. Here they are posing at the finish line. 

 Carving pumpkins -- I wasn't home when Nate initiated this activity and looking at this picture of my girls with those huge knives makes me kind of glad I wasn't there.

 Halloween dinner -- Ghost Shepherd's pie with Apple/marshmallow teeth

And finally, getting ready for trick-or-treating on Halloween. Nikki missed the church party a few days earlier because she and I went to Charlotte to see the US Olympic gymnastics teams perform -- amazing! But here she is as Dorothy, Ryan opted for Superman this time, and Hannah decided to go back to her tried and true witch costume. The mermaid scales were hard to walk in, but I think this is funny because the witch's dress would probably fit a 4-year-old and she just uses it as a shirt now.

So, we ended up with tons of candy and lots of activities accomplished through October. Whew!

A baby picture

I'll spare you the ultrasound pictures and post this picture of our baby fully clothed instead.

I had an ultrasound yesterday, and our little girl was looking completely healthy. I'll have to trust the ultrasound tech when she said it was a girl because I couldn't tell in the least. But it was great to see her heart beating beautifully and find that everything appears to be developing as it should. Nikki couldn't be more excited, but she wasn't too keen on the idea of giving up her room for the new little one. At least she has a little time to get used to that idea before it happens.

More October

It's taken me a while to get the next installment of pictures uploaded, but here we go. I'm not even sure what today is, so I have no idea which days these were taken, I just know it was in October.

 Witches' broomsticks -- quite the hit

 Spooky thumbprints, these were fun and Ryan loved watching what creatures Nate could make out of Ryan's fingerprints.

 Mummies!

 I made Ryan a reversible Batman/Superman cape to go along with the pajamas he was recently given. I have no problem sending my son trick-or-treating in pajamas this year!

 Halloween sugar cookies

 Kate and Sam spent an afternoon with us one day, which was great. The kids loved playing with them. I think they realized that some things are going to have to change around here when our baby comes. Hannah and Nikki were pretty vigilant about watching what Sam was finding on the floor. This spider web game was a toddler activity, so it was fun to have Kate around to play it. I ran out of white duct tape, so we had to move on to blue painter's tape!

 Ghost spinners

 Our little ghost. This wasn't an activity I planned as it's not very safe, but Hannah and Nikki got a kick out of watching Ryan dance around and chase them and bump into things as a ghost.

 Haunted gingerbread houses -- please close the pantry door before you take a picture next time!

 Caramel apples. Just as I finished cooking the caramel, my neighbor called and asked me to come right over. So I told Hannah and Nikki to stir in the vanilla and dip the apples as I ran out the door. They were a little slow in getting the apples dipped and it mostly dried out before they got too far into it, but it was delicious anyway. As a side note, my neighbor ended up being taken to the hospital by parametics because she was having chest pains, but she came home later that afternoon with everything okay. Kind of a crazy morning.

 Jello worms -- more trouble than they were worth

 spider web fingernail polish -- next time I think Nikki will ask Hannah instead of me to paint her nails!

And today I got the stuff to make Hannah and Nikki's costumes. Nikki decided she wants to be Dorothy, and Hannah is going to be a mermaid. I'm afraid that even though I told Nikki she can't wear these shoes in the house there is going to be red glitter around for months. But she's excited about her shoes, so I guess that's what's important. (By the way, notice the road construction in the picture in the newspaper. That's the intersection right by my neighborhood, and I can't tell you how inconvenient it is to have that road closed! While it probably doesn't really take me as long to get places as I think, it's a huge headache to have to go so far around to get anywhere. One more month and it'll be done and my life will be so much smoother!)

I didn't get a picture of our leaf rubbings, and I was gone this afternoon when the kids raked up leaves and jumped in them. Maybe they will do it again and I can get a picture then. So, we're staying busy and loving the fall weather!

October 1-4

October is here again, so we are in full holiday mode around here. We have a calendar with Halloween/fall activities planned each day. So far, we're doing a pretty good job staying on schedule. Of course, it's only day 4!

 Day 1 -- Spider cake (I thought we had pipe cleaners, but we didn't. Then, I went to the grocery store looking for chocolate licorice, but they didn't have any. So, our spider ended up with blue squiggly legs. At least they tasted good!) When we cut into him, green jello guts oozed out at us, and Ryan loved it.

 Day 2 -- Halloween play-doh. Nikki raised her eyebrows a bit when I said pink play dough was all we were going to have to work with, but I think she forgave me by the end.

 Day 3 -- Halloween origami. Yeah, I don't know how the purple flower and Ryan's Easter basket fit the theme, but they spent hours having fun with this activity.

Day 4 -- Today we went to a nearby park where they were having a spider learning activity. It was good to get out of the house, and we met some friends there. So it was a success even if it was creepy to read that North Carolina has between 400-500 native species of spiders. I was interested to learn what this spider is called. It's a humpback orbweaver spider, and a couple of weeks ago a huge one made a home in our garage. Julie is going to laugh at this story, but it's all true! I noticed him when I almost walked into his web going around the side of the van. They sit scrunched up in the middle of the web, and when I surprised him he spread his legs out and surprised me by looking like he was about to jump on my face, which I completely believe he would have if I hadn't jumped back. He ran up his web into one of my Christmas wreaths (Nate will be hanging those this year), and I forgot to tell Nate about him that night. The next day he had expanded his web to encompass my van. I crawled through the passenger side door to get in and called Nate to kill this spider when he got home. Of course, since his web had been destroyed when I moved the van, he had disappeared by the time Nate got home that evening. He didn't believe me when I told him it was the size of my head, but I told him when he saw this spider he would know it was the one. A couple of days later I noticed a big ugly web on the corner of the door going into the house. Sure enough, there he was sitting up in the corner of the ceiling. I know he was trying to catch me. But I keep reassuring my children (and okay, myself) that Dad killed him. He is dead! Just click on the picture, make it full-screen, and then you will have a life-size image of my spider. :) I'm not kidding.

Laundry & School

Nate played in a church basketball game earlier this week. He went to the game straight from work, and he said as he was at the church changing he found that the pair of white socks he had grabbed weren't actually a match. One was his and one was mine. So he had to play with one of his socks barely making it to his heel! He said that was the last time he was going to pay the kids to fold our laundry.

On Monday and Tuesday of this week I was seriously contemplating enrolling the kids back in "regular school" as Hannah called it. Yesterday and today were much better. I'm so tired of doing everything halfway. Well, I'm just plain tired, too. My kids are really good kids, but they are just kids. They are messy. They would rather play than fulfill responsibilities. They argue if things don't go their way. They whine. Oh, wait -- that sounds like me! :) So I guess if you keep all four of us together long enough, anybody would get tired of that. I was talking to my friend at gymnastics on Monday, and she was talking about how she spent a couple of hours cleaning her house that morning before she took her 3-year-old (her only child not in school) to playgroup. I almost didn't know what to say to her. When was the last time I had a morning with a couple of hours free to clean my house? With no one to create a tornado in the room I wasn't in? Her son was helping her clean even! I thought about what I was doing that morning -- teaching a cooking class to about 30 kids. And the chicken juice had spilled in my van on the way there, and when I got home it took me until that afternoon to get all of the dishes from the basket I had carried them in to the sink. A couple of them didn't get washed until the next day. And I still haven't had a chance to clean out the van. I remembered it today when Nikki got in and asked What is that smell? Then later I remembered again when I tried to open the passenger side door and it was stuck. I hope I remember again tomorrow if I have a chance to clean it. It will be even better if I remember to mention it to Nate so he can clean it on Saturday, because he somehow remembers to take care of everything. Except checking to see if his socks match.

Announcing...

Okay, I wasn't trying to slight this new baby with a hidden announcement. I just haven't felt like blogging much and didn't know when I'd get back to it. But let me do a little better job with this post.

We are having another BABY!!

I am due on March 20th, and we do not know if it's a boy or girl yet. I think we've decided that we will find out which it will be, but I don't know yet if I want to tell anybody. I wonder if I can make it 5 or 6 months knowing and not let it out. I need to think about it a little more.

A couple of people have said, "Are you just so excited?!" I'll be honest and admit that my first thought was that I feel sick and fat more than anything else. But, yes, it is exciting. I look at all of my children and the incredible amount of love they each have brought into my life, and I am very excited for more of that. It's a bit overwhelming when I think of the honor and privilege it is to be a mother.

Disney

I'll try not to post too many pictures. We started at Animal Kingdom. We had signed the girls up for an educational class that was really neat. There were about 8 or 9 kids in the group, and we had a couple of guides walk us through the park and teach the kids about some of the different animals. We played a few educational games and also went on the Safari with no waiting in line. It was a really great experience, and I recommend looking into the YES (Youth Education Series) program if you're planning a trip to Disney. They fill up pretty quickly, so you have to plan ahead for it.

 We saw some cool things on the Safari. This dominant male giraffe didn't feel like getting out of the road even when one of the park employees tried slowly driving right up to it. He eventually moved when he wanted to, and then we turned the corner and saw three giraffes stampeding towards us. I didn't get a picture of that, but it was neat. Do you know why a giraffe's tongue is purple? It's because they spend so much of their day in the hot sun sticking their tongues out to eat leaves. The purple color allows their tongue to not get sunburned. They also only sleep for about 2-3 minutes at a time, getting a total of about 30 minutes of sleep a day. I'd hate to be a giraffe!

 I rode this twirly triceratops ride with Ryan and decided spinning things aren't for me. I'm expecting and the rides just weren't the hit for me at Disney. I guess I haven't mentioned that on my blog yet, so I should probably go ahead and explain that I'm almost 13 weeks along. I actually felt the best on our trip than I have in several weeks, but I just got tired so quickly!

 We also learned in our class that there are 325 animals carved into the Tree of Life and there are 106,000 leaves -- although after a few hurricanes there are probably less now.

 Animal Kingdom had the coolest parade. I loved all the different animals they created, and I think it would be so cool to be able to walk on stilts.

The day after Labor Day is definitely a great time to hit the theme parks. We only had about 10 minute waits in just about all of the lines, and some things we walked right on and could even ride a second time without getting off if we wanted. The 100-degree weather was a bit of a drawback, but we were expecting that and found as much shade as we could. The water rides helped a lot, too.

 Nikki loved meeting Ariel and Eric. I think Eric needs a better wig.

 This was neat. We got to go through a new attraction that isn't completely open yet. It's in Maurice's house and moves you into the Beast's castle. They picked several people from the audience to participate in a play with Belle, and Nikki, Ryan, Hannah, and Nate were all chosen. Nikki was Mrs. Potts and Ryan was Chip.

 Hannah was the wardrobe, which I don't think she was too thrilled about.

 Nate got to be one of the knights. I guess being tall has a few perks.

 

This was when the ride first started.

And this is what Nate thought of the teacups a little ways into it. I knew better than to get on this one!

The castle was so pretty lit up at night, but I had a hard time getting a picture of it with our dinosaur of a camera. Ryan got just about as worn out as I did.

At Hollywood Studios we got a picture with Mickey.

And when Ryan got to take a picture with Lightning and Mater his trip was complete. This was pretty much the reason we chose to go to Hollywood Studios.

We also saw a really cool stunt show that had a life-sized Lightning come out and drive around for a bit. Ryan was in heaven. Nate and I really enjoyed that show, too. It was cool seeing all the stunts the cars and motorcycles did. That was probably my favorite along with the Lion King show at Animal Kingdom. Of course I didn't get pictures of some of the best parts.

It was a great trip. Thanks, Nate, for planning it, and I'm sorry I was upset with you about it. You were right. Just don't plan another trip to an amusement park while I'm pregnant!