THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT

I had my ultrasound this past Wednesday, and after I left to pee (thank you, ultrasound technician :), the baby decided to cooperate and display what was between its legs. Get ready for it...

That's right. A GIRL. Female. Pink! Dresses! Hair clips!! :D Here's a couple more ultrasound pics:

I thought for sure the tech was going to say it was a boy. I mean I kind of thought it had to be a girl because of the morning sickness (I did not get any with either boy), but it was just the way she said, "Are you sure you want to know?" that made me think, I'm destined to have three boys. "Is it a male?", I asked, turning towards the screen to accept my destiny. "Oh no it's not." "It's not?!" And then I just about crapped my pants. ;) And then I went out and bought a girly pink dress and those baby girl headband things just because I could. Who cares if she won't be here till May and it's only January? :) I still have to get all new baby clothes either way. I'm going to have to add a little to the name of this blog, too. Mommy2Boys just isn't going to cut it anymore. I'll have to come up with something...

I'm also already up to 126 pounds. Last month I was 119. I gained about 50 pounds with both boys so I guess I'm well on my way. :) Although, maybe I should cut back a little on the cookie dough ice cream and double size three musketeers bars... (but I did have those ten pounds to make up for... :)

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Our Christmas went went really well. This year was the first year that C wanted to ask Santa for specific things, so I think he really gets the whole Christmas thing now. He wanted three things: the Imaginext Adventures castle, "play-doh pick" (I have no idea why they call it that), and "the fishing game". Santa made sure those three things were underneath the tree. :) This was also the first year that we left milk and cookies for Santa. We made chocolate chip cookies and chocolate milk, because when C and IJ talked to Santa online (a great uncle that dressed up), he told them those were his favorite. C and IJ also got one Christmas present from Santa a little early. We had gone downstairs to nana's and papa's, and that day they had bought the play-doh creativity center for the boys for christmas, but papa forgot to sufficiently hide it (it was sitting in their darkened bedroom, but the boys like to go it there and jump on the bed). We were all in the living room when C comes running all excitedly into the room shouting, "Nana! Nana! I saw it! C'mon! I saw it!" The look on her face was just priceless, since she knew exactly what he was talking about. I'll never forget that. :) She just told C that since he was such a good boy that year, Santa dropped off a present early. :)

Here are my favorite pictures from Christmas:

Christmas card photo

The first time they've been brave enough to sit on Santa's lap (IJ's pants are wet because he fell in a puddle on the way in). I didn't think IJ would willingly do it, because a couple of weeks before we had seen Santa at Target, and Santa came over to talk to IJ in the cart. IJ just refused to look directly at Santa, giving him a sideways glance with his eyes that said "If that guy touches me I'm gonna scream." Maybe he liked this Santa better?

Play-doh pick!

IJ and the "fishing game"

IJ extremely pleased about his new truck book with buttons

Look C! 33% more power!

R into the tunes (that's hearing protection with a built in radio so he can listen to music while using his tools)

Look! He actually posed for a picture!

We have to teach him that hockey is different from baseball...

C playing with his castle

The rest of December's pictures are here.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We'll be pretty busy tomorrow, so I figured I would give you all a little Thanksgiving treat tonight. Here's two videos of C singing some Thanksgiving songs he learned at preschool (the sound and the video never match up, I don't know why, do any of you out there?) :

C's handprint turkey

IJ's handprint turkey

My little Indian

VETERAN'S DAY

R, at 24, is a veteran, and that always seems really weird to me. Whenever I thought of the word "veteran" before, I would think of old gray haired guys at the VFW. R even gets VFW magazines in the mail, and it seems that most of the advertisements are geared towards old men: ads for scooters and hearings aids and such. But I guess veterans aren't just old guys anymore.

The pictures above are from R's homecoming from Iraq in January. C was so happy that daddy was home that he took off running for him as soon as he saw R. I think C may have actually spied him before the rest of us. This of course made us all start bawling, but at least they were happy tears. :)

Happy Veteran's Day to all you veterans out there, young and old alike. And remember our troops who are over there fighting for freedom today.

HALLOWEEN 2006

(The pumpkins R and the boys carved)

Just wanted to share some of the pictures R took of the boys trick-or-treating. We recycled C's Spiderman costume from last year since it still fit and he's still way into Spiderman. I was going to make IJ this really neat airplane costume out of a box, but the whole hospital business messed that up. He would have been a cute little airplane, though. :) Thankfully we had backup: C's old doggie costume was exactly IJ's size. IJ was excited to be a doggie, though, and ran around the house barking. When C wore that costume, he wouldn't keep the dog face hood on his head, he didn't like it. IJ liked it on his head, but R said he had to pull it down because IJ couldn't see where he was going. :D

A teeny tiny Spiderman with matching Spiderman bucket

Trick-or-treat!

Doggie IJ and Spiderman C (that's even a Spiderman snowhat on his head)

This has to be my favorite shot-can you tell it was just a little chilly here?

A pumpkin IJ made in playgroup

Here's a blurry shot C took of the decorations in our house (our pumpkins, spider webs, and pumpkin window clings), but I think that just makes it a little more creepy :)

HARVEST PARADE

Here's the video I promised of C's preschool "Harvest Parade" (their version of a Halloween parade, I assume, since he goes to a church preschool). They dressed up as spiders and sang spider songs. R taped this since I had to miss it due to the hospital thing, but I think he did a pretty good job capturing the cuteness, don't you think? :) (C is the one in the blue camo)



C's been doing really well in preschool. When he first started going, he would cry every time I dropped him off. The first day I cried too after I left the room; it was hard leaving him in someone else's care for the first time ever. His tears didn't help at all, either. But over the past couple of months he's gotten more used to mommy leaving, and for the past few weeks there have been no tears at all. It's hug, kiss, I love you, and off he goes to play. It's great. C now says that all his friends are at preschool, and that he has fun.

C has learned so many new things, too. Yesterday he said, "Mommy, it's November!", and he always wants to know what day of the week it is (they do a calender time first thing in the morning where they talk about the month, the day of the week, and the weather). He's also learned a ton of new songs; I'm constantly catching him singing to himself (when I get around to taping him singing I'll post it here). They had a fire truck and firemen visit on the day C got to be the leader (he chose pretzels and watermelon Juicy Juice for the snack), and came home telling me all about smoke detectors and "stop, drop, and roll". He's even learned some new words. A couple of weeks ago we pulled into our driveway after a morning of school and he said, "That tree doesn't have any leaves. That's a predicament!" He said he learned that word at preschool that day.

I'd have to say the only bad thing so far about preschool is that it seems that C has been sick ever since he started, but that's pretty much to be expected with 16 three year olds running around.

IJ has even gotten in on this and I started him in a playgroup on Thursday mornings while C is in class (in the same church). But C is very adamant that only he goes to preschool: "Only I go to preschool. You're not old enough. You go to playgroup." But IJ loves his playgroup. He wanted a backpack like C had, so I found him a toddler sized Buzz Lightyear one that has wheels. He rolls it right into the school and into his room, and he'll put his art project in when it's time to leave and then he'll roll it right out. He never asks me to carry it for him. They even get to sit on little mats just like the preschoolers during song and story time, and I think he likes that. IJ doesn't quite sing the songs yet, but he gets all excited at the end, yelling yay! and clapping his hands. They also get to have gym time like the preschoolers; there's cars to ride in, bikes, a slide, balls, and a balance beam. But my favorite thing has to be during snack time. IJ always inhales his juice first, holds out his cup and says "More juice, pease!". Every time. It's so cute. He probably drinks the most juice out of all the kids there. :)

So, yeah, can you tell how much I love this whole preschool thing? :D

(I'll have our Halloween pics up as soon as I get them on Flickr. I'm a little behind in the picture uploading department, but, you know, I was gone for a week. :)

GRANDPARENT'S DAY

Happy Grandparent's Day to all you grandparents out there. Truthfully I didn't even remember it was Grandparent's Day until I looked at the calander today and it was listed. They don't seem to make as big a deal out of it as Mother's Day and Father's Day. So, since I didn't remember about it until today, the kids made nana and papa some nice handmade cards (and handmade gifts are always the best ones of course ;) .

Here's C's card. See the three little people on the front of the card? (Click the picture to enlarge it) He drew himself with nana and papa. Except this is the first time that I have ever seen him draw anything like that. Usually he just draws a bunch of scribbles. These people had heads and legs and arms that I could see. I'm pretty excited. I've been waiting for him to draw recognizeable things for soooooo long! On the inside of the card I helped him to spell out the words "Happy Grandparent's Day". It was his idea to write it on the inside; he actually started with the "H" and the "A" on his own before he asked me to help him. He's getting pretty good at the letters. C also wrote his name on the inside of his card.

Here's IJ's card for nana and papa. He did a really good job on the inside, using lots of different colors. The marks he made on the words on the cover of the card was him trying to write letters like C was. Soon, IJ, soon. :)

Coming soon: a post about the first day of preschool. There were tears, but it was good. :)

FATHER'S DAY A LITTLE EARLY

Tuesday at playgroup C and IJ made daddy and papa Father's Day presents. They made can insulaters with puffy sports stickers, letters and numbers. C put just about every number he could find on daddy's. He threw a huge tantrum though (yippee, a tantrum at playgroup:( ) because he wanted to put the letters for daddy's name on his way, while mommy was trying to show him how to make the word. After he calmed down, we got those letters on there. :)

presents for daddy: IJ's is the blue one, C's the red one

the back of daddy's; see all the numbers on C's?

presents for papa: C's on the left, IJ's on the right

the back of papa's

R and papa got their presents on tuesday instead of waiting until Sunday because Sunday we'll be on vacation! Woo hoo! :) Father's Day Sunday we'll be downstate in Brooklyn, MI at the nascar race! This is the first race that R and I have ever been to, and the first for the boys, too. Auntie's going too. That's going to be R's big Father's Day present. :) We leave early Friday morning, so if you don't hear from me, you'll know where I'll be. :)

MOTHER'S DAY WEEKEND

I had a pretty nice Mother’s Day weekend. I actually got my first present on Saturday. A few weeks before R and I had been talking about Mother’s Day gifts, and I told him I really didn’t need stuff. I would be very happy with him taking the kids out for a day so I could have a nice quiet day at home on my own. Usually it’s all of us going out together or just me taking the kids; R doesn’t take both kids out that often so that would really be a nice gift for me.

I didn’t have any idea that he was going to take the kids on Saturday, though. C and IJ ate breakfast and then R asked C if he wanted to go for a ride. I figured he was probably going to take C down to the hardware store to pick something up. But then R came back in the room and asked IJ if he wanted to go for a ride, too. I thought, okay, so he’s going to take them both to the hardware store. I was playing away on the computer, so I wasn’t really paying much attention. They left and I went to take the dogs out. Sitting at the bottom of the stairs next to the door was the diaper bag filled up with pull-ups for both kids and an extra pair of pants for C. I thought, uh-oh, if he’s taking them farther than just in town he’s going to be in trouble, since C was wearing underwear and he didn’t have anything extra with him (C is mostly potty trained but still has problems with wetting his pants, so he usually wears pull-ups when we go out). I called R and asked him if he meant to take that diaper bag, and where they were going. He said, “I’m giving you your day.” Ooooh, okay. But I was still worried about C wetting his pants and that he only had one extra pull-up for IJ with him. R just kept saying, “I can handle it!” Okay, I thought, we’ll just see… and I went about enjoying my kid-less day (with a nice loooooong shower…heavenly!! ;) ).

But I was wrong. They got back Saturday evening (in time for the NASCAR race that night of course) and C was still wearing the same pants and underwear, IJ was napping happily (without his bottle), and both kids had been good for him. And the best part: R finally got C to pee standing up! (Next up: working on aiming…) Damn, if I had taken the boys out and forgotten the diaper bag, C would have peed his pants, IJ would have pooped in his, and they both would have asked me for snacks and bottles (IJ) that I didn’t have with me. I’m still wondering how in the hell he managed that. But I’m thinking, if daddy’s that good, he needs to take the boys out more often…

On Sunday morning after breakfast R called both boys into the other room, and a few minutes later they came running in with my Mother’s Day gifts. They both had huge smiles on their faces as they came running towards me; IJ with his arms wrapped around a big frog figurine, C with a big lilac scented candle and waving a card yelling, “Mommy! I’ve got a letter for you!” It was so adorable, just watching them was a gift in itself. They handed me the gifts (yay! More frogs-I collect frogs, and lilacs are my fave flower, I love that smell!), and then I opened up The Most Adorable Card Ever (thank you for helping C pick that one out, R!):

C told me that the inside says: “I love you, mommy.” Awwww. :)

Auntie came over later and gave me a bunch more candles (you can never have too many candles) and a nice card. I was sure to rub my butt on her in appreciation. :D (Don’t ask, we’re strange.)

R grilled up some steaks for everybody that night, which were soooooooo delicious. We all happily engorged ourselves. ;) So all in all, it was a good weekend.

My Mother's Day Booty:

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Hope all you mommies out there are having a great day! These are some "flowers" C and IJ made for me at playgroup on Tuesday (made from tracing their hands). More on my Mother's Day weekend later! :)