beds!

I've been feeling the nesting urge lately. I wanted to get the kids bed situation settled before the baby comes, so I encouraged Terry along those lines (since he wasn't feeling the nesting bug).

Last week he went and picked up Evie's new mattress! Brand new through the door.

We'll be leaving Evie's crib in her room for the new baby but she will sleep on her new mattress in there until the baby needs a crib.

I busted out her new sheets and the bedspread a friend gave us. Woo who!

A few days later, after we got Noah's room settled, we took his box and frame and put it under her mattress so she's not on the floor anymore. Yay!

Saturday we took a trip to Kearney to pick up the kid's new bunk bed from Slumberland. We found it at home and paid for it there but were able to get it from Kearney! It didn't take Terry very long to put it together either.

Noah is all ready for his first night on the top

And here it is! Once the baby goes into Evie's old crib, she'll move into Noah's room on the bottom bunk. Noah is a little concerned that she'll talk and wake him up. It might be an adjustment for us all... But I'm so excited to have everything all settled. I even set up the bassinet in our room ;)

32 weeks

Here is me on Sunday after church for my 32 week picture. I thought I'd better take one so my mom could see her Christmas present to me - the boots =)

I don't know if I've said here on the blog, for archiving purposes, that I think there's a boy in my belly. I've gained a lot of weight just like I did with Noah. So there it is. I'd be very, very surprised if it turned out to be a girl.

swimming again

What is there to do when it's cold outside on vacation? Swim inside! We always go to the Y when we're home. This time Steph took pics for me and though she included some of my tankini baby belly, I won't be including them here. No one needs to see that!

Daddy was a shark attempting to get his kids so I was able to have lots of nice cuddles with my girl since I would keep her safe.

Kids hiding with their mama from the approaching threat

But I couldn't save them all the time... What fun would that be?

The boy

Pool break. And this is so typical - Evie smiles and Noah just stares. He's stared like that ever since he was the smallest baby =)

The girl

sparkly storybook island

My family and I hit opening night of "Christmas Lighting of Storybook Island" after Thanksgiving was all over.

This was our second time going together and although it was "warmer" than previous, it was still pretty cold. Funny enough, I was pregnant with Evie the last time we went!

It was difficult for this amateur to get good photos in the dark but here is one: the pumpkin. Everything was really beautiful. The only thing that marred the experience was Noah's incessant whining about the cold.

Father/daughter

We were admiring these trees, though you can hardly tell that's what they are.

My family! Us, Gramma, Grampa and Stephers

Just us

Just Steph and Steve. They are engaged!

And one shot of me leading Noah through the park

2010 Thanksgiving

Terry's dad is one of 8 siblings. Therefore, they have very large Thanksgivings. Actually, I think we only had around 40 this year, where in the past it's been up to like 60. At any rate, we ate too much and my face and baby gained weight.

Here is Terry's grandfather Elmer and great aunt Lucille. I'm in the back visiting with Shari, Jesse and Brett.

Here is Terry's grandmother Dorothy and his cousin Travis.

Every Thanksgiving I've been to has been held at a senior citizen center. But we were banned after last year... So we congregated at a hotel convention center with a pool! Evie was a little shy of the water at first.

Terry was in the water for nearly two hours I think!

Our kids love their daddy

The pool wasn't that big but the kids all loved it. Everyone in the pool here is part of the family.

atta boy

Noah got his hair cut today by his professional mother. Not one whine or cry. He's a big boy now.

I need to further edify my son. Last night we had some friends over for dinner and we amused them with a story about a youth group student.

I came home from bible study several weeks ago to a most unusual comment from this student (Terry had them over for a bible study of their own). As I walked by the staircase to say hello, said student exclaims, "Wow Eva, you're getting fat!"

Gasp.

Terry and the rest of us instantly berated the student and they began to explain that they only meant that I was getting bigger b/c of the baby, not that I was actually fat. I thought it was quite hilarious and enjoyed telling the student's mother about it. HA!

So as we're re-telling this story last night, Noah is listening even though I didn't realize he was tuned in. After we got done laughing he broke in and said that No, mommy is not fat, she has a baby growing inside of her!

What a sweet boy I have =)

boring saturday

It's gotten cold here. And we don't have much to do it seems. So I busted out the Honey-Do list and Terry and I got to work.

Here are the dungeon shelves "before." I can't hardly believe that Shelli and Rick had them full. You could sleep on those shelves, they're so secure. But I didn't like having so many of them.

So we removed two shelves and spaced out the remaining four. No big deal I know, but as I said before, we were bored. And it's pretty pathetic how few books we have on the shelves... Oh well.

Terry did this one on his own - he installed an indoor clothesline for me! And he's a genius b/c it was his idea to put it in the storage room where it's already warm due to the furnace and that's a place that we obviously don't care what it looks like. Perfect! Noah is quite excited about it...

Showing off his dumbo ears amongst the towels and things

30 weeks

Here is us today at 30 weeks which is also known as 8 months! You might not know that pregnancy is actually closer to 9.5 or 10 months long. So we have about 2 more months to go - the end of January is the goal. Babycenter says the baby is about 15.7 inches long and weighs about 3 pounds, about the size of a head of cabbage or a squash.

The weight is still coming on, but I've never been more thankful. A friend's daughter went into premature labor and delivered her 28 week old daughter on Wednesday. They have a long road before them for sure and have been in our prayers constantly. So every time our little baby kicks, rolls, jabs, hiccups, causes heartburn, you name it - I'm thankful he/she is still in there. Babies are amazing. Just think, that kid is just chillin inside of me, but if it were to come out, it would take a whole team of smart medical people to keep it growing and thriving. Inside me, it happens so naturally, effortlessly.

So no complaints this week.

definition of a good dog

You might not be able to tell, but Snap is under that blanket. Noah covered him during lunch and was laughing so hard about it.

Then the kids walked away to get a couple popsicles and Snap just continued to stand there, alone, patiently waiting for who knows what. More punishment?

Snap is a very good dog. He puts up with a lot. But we don't ever have to worry about him hurting the kids, unless they really deserve it (a good nip is all). Sometimes, they really do deserve it! Perhaps his rabies shot from this morning deadened his demeanor or dejected him, but he's still a great dog for this family of wild kids.

Noah is learning

We are doing preschool at home with Noah and it's going pretty good. I wouldn't say I'm stressing about it by any means. Just really laid back. We work on the calendar, a memory verse, coloring, writing, reading and I read a few stories.

Here are a couple shots of his writing. I think Evie will have a much easier time with it, but like I said, I'm not stressed. We're just getting into the basics. He's learning. Usually we have a sheet of words or a sentence that we read first and then he writes over the words. Today we just did his name.

The first line is what the curriculum has me do with him - there are exercises to go along with these words as well. We've done his name for two days and have been working on the letter E.

He has been learning to read from these "Fun Tales" books that are very short with little words that build upon each other. At first he was very frustrated with it. So I backed off and just sounded out the words to him and gradually had him start sounding sounds out. I've been surprised at how well he remembers the sounds. I mean, of course he gets them a little messed up, but he's doing pretty well for it being so laid back. I think so anyway.

So here is a video of him reading his little book. I had Noah read it to Terry last night and daddy was way proud and took him out for ice cream today. It was the sixth day we've read it so I'm sure most of it is just memorized, but still, he's doing pretty good =) He's remembering to sound words out.

rakin leaves

Terry is gone all day today for his junior and senior high 30 Hour Famine and me and the kids were getting kinda bored! The leaves in the backyard have been really bugging me since we got back from SD so I thought I'd rake some of them into a pile for the kiddies to play in. We read a book last week about Clifford jumping into crunchy leaves so I thought the time was right.

She didn't mind the leaves in her hair, but if any went down her coat, she freaked. It was nap time after this.

Noah imitates his mommy

Monkey see, monkey do

These aren't that great of photos since they're off my cell phone, but you can see the size of the pile, which grew after the kids went inside... Plus, you may be able to see the line of leaves in the yard where I stopped raking.

The lines of leaves in the lawn irritated me so I raked up the rest of them and shoveled them into the big pile. Pretty impressive for an almost 8 month pregnant lady, right?

thanks steph

My sister is pretty cool. She got rid of a ton of clothes (like 7 garbage bags!) and let me have my choice of them. She recently lost a lot of weight and so had the surplus. This is to my advantage b/c I have recently gained a lot of weight. You know, pregnancy does that... So even though her clothes weren't maternity, a lot of them were long enough or stretchy enough to work. Plus, she has great taste!

You might not be able to tell, but there are two kids rolling around in this huge pile of clothes. It took two days to wash everything! I was joking with Steph that we'll have to have another baby to make more use of all these clothes!

Here is everything all organized, plus a Noah as a size reference. Haha =)

You can barely see him over the pile

Look at all those hangers!

And all those pants. Thank goodness for my belly band.