Christmas Eve

Opening PJs Christmas Eve.

Early Christmas in St. Louis

We like to be home for Christmas, so we went to B's parents' in St. Louis the weekend before Christmas and drove back home Christmas Eve day. It was fun spending an early Christmas with grandparents, aunts, uncles and lots of cousins.


Princess Sparkley with some cousins and a giant pile of presents from Grandma and Grandpa.


Buddy cuddling on Daddy's lap.


Grandma and Grandpa got all the boys John Deere hats. Buddy LOVES his.


Princess Sparkley got a Jasmine costume.


This is our family picture with our traditionally opened, Christmas Eve Eve ornaments. You'd think this picture was taken after two of the ornaments broke (thanks Hallmark) by the looks on our faces, but this is actually moments before. (Thank you superglue.)

Laundry Basket Sledding

We did this last year as well. There's a little hill in front of our house so we took advantage of a snowstorm and used our laundry baskets as sleds.

Gingerbread Houses

Each year before Christmas our church music classes makes gingerbread houses. Or I guess, more accurately, tiny graham cracker cottages. The kids love it. Here are pictures from this year:

Ice Storm

These are pictures I took of the ice storm a few weeks ago. B ran off to New Mexico for work and took the camera, so I haven't been able to post the pictures until now. It's pretty cool looking. Everything was so sparkley and beautiful with a thick coating of ice, way more so than when it's just snow covered. The pictures don't do it justice.

Where's the camera when you need it?

My son is obsessed with Santa. Sort of. Not the "real" Santa. He doesn't want to go near anyone dressed in a jolly red suit. He's obsessed with being Santa. The other day he took his shirt of and got it stuck on his head and it was his Santa hat. Today he was wearing a red shirt, so he talked me into turning it backwards so there was no writing on the front. Then he and Princess Sparkley decided the only red pants they own are her corduroy, girlie red pants. So he's wearing his red shirt, tucked into red corduroy pants that make him sort of look like pictures I imagine exist of my brother in the 70s. And he has a belt, with a yellow rubberband wrapped around it to be the big golden buckle. And he's wearing red Lightening McQueen slippers. All of this, and the camera is out of town with my husband. Ahhh... but I've just remembered we have a webcam that may just be able to capture this hilarious picture.

And as soon as I mentioned the webcam, Princess Sparkley went and got herself dressed as Santa's wife.

Comparing our two boys

Baby X's 3D Ultrasound

Buddy at 2 days old

Buddy's Name Picks

These are the top boy names Buddy has picked for his baby brother:

his own name
Thomas the Tank Engine
(as well as all other names from the Thomas Railway - James, Percy, Edward, Diesel 10, etc.)
Iggy (because for awhile B was pushing for Ignatius as a middle name)
Esee (pronounced like the letters S-E)
Zero
Hadey/Hatey

It's a Boy!

We finally had an ultrasound today. It's a boy. Princess Sparkley took the news pretty well. She was a little sad and wanted to hide her head for awhile at the doctor's office, but has warmed up to the idea. Daddy had us all pick a consolation prize the other day if the baby wasn't what we wanted it to be. She picked that she got to go shopping with Mommy for an outfit for the baby if it was a boy. And on the way home from the doctor's she also said she wanted to help me buy a blessing outfit for him. Buddy was really cute, after Princess Sparkley said an outfit, he picked that if it was a girl he wanted to buy her a shirt with flowers on it like Princess Sparkley's has.

Here are some images from the ultrasound:

Profile of the baby.

A foot.

3D of the baby's face. After the ultrasound the technician turned the lights on and looked at Buddy and said, "Oh, this baby looks just like him."

32 weeks and a little bit, I think

I knew how many weeks and days pregnant I was with Princess Sparkley. I'm pretty sure I was 32 weeks this Monday, but without looking at my calendar where I've written each week down, it's mainly just a pretty good guess.

B says I look drunk. It's because he was cracking me up trying to take this picture. First my sweater wasn't tight enough to show the actual size of my belly. So I was pulling it back with one hand. Then he was complaining that he could see the hand. This was already after having me move forward, backwards, sideways, etc. so that his bike, the tv, and a picture frame wouldn't be in the picture. Which I guess he succeeded at. So, don't mind the cracking up weird face.

Trains

*I will from now on refer to Boy as Buddy since we call him that 70% of the time anyway, and Boy isn't the best online nickname for him.

Have I mentioned that Buddy loves trains? I mean LOVES TRAINS. We always have to check out from the library the I Love Toy Trains dvds. Jeff, from said videos is Buddy's favorite actor. He has the song memorized, etc. There was a period of time where I had to rearrange his train tracks twice a day because the track was "weird" the old way. We used to watch the Thomas videos everyday, but they started to scare him (thank goodness). And every night he and daddy read a Thomas story from our giant Thomas story collection book I got at a garage sale for $4.

So Thanksgiving was like heaven for him, aside from being sick. Grandma and Grandpa M took him to a train show/expo in St. Louis.

This "train" you could ride was fun for Buddy to watch, but to scary for him to try. Princess Sparkley wanted desperately to ride it, got in line, chickened out and then decided she really did want to do it. Daddy had to go along for the ride since it was powered by a little wheel you had to turn with your hands and we were pretty sure she'd barely move if it was all her powering it.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to show it, but according to Dad, this is what Princess Sparkley told him. "Do you know why I was like this [sticks her tongue out the side of her mouth]?" "No, I didn't see you. Why were you like that?" She said, "So I could go faster than you." Because you know, when you are going faster, your tongue hangs out of your mouth.



Then, Grandpa M, knowing how much we love trains, had his Christmas trains already set up when we showed up for Thanksgiving. Buddy spent most of his time in the living room, laying on the floor, watching the trains. Even when they weren't moving.

Princess Sparkley: Dancer

For her 5th birthday, Grandma and Grandpa L sent money for Princess Sparkley to take a dance class. This one was called Developing Dancers and was supposed to be a mix of ballet, tumbling and something else... tap? It turned out to be ballet, tumbling and cheerleading. So we now have a five year old who wants to be a cheer leader. Yea. On the last day of class the parents get to come watch. Here are our pictures.

Stretching. Princess Sparkley is four girls up from the bottom. Notice her knees are bent, and thus she isn't really stretching at all.

First position. ?? I really have no idea about dance terms and positions. She knows. I don't.

They break out the pom poms.

D-D-D-Defense.

Some tumbling.

Her flamingo pose at the end.

Free pumpkins

On Halloween I had to run up to Hyvee to pay a bill at their information desk. While there we were given two free pumpkins. Why'd we go buy pumpkins when they just give them away on Halloween? Anyways, this was great because my mom had sent us this pumpkin face in a box kit that we'd forgotten to use. And she'd also sent a book with pumpkin designs in it. Princess Sparkley immediately came home and turned to the page in the book with the cat pumpkin. It had a drawn on face and ears with whiskers poking out. We used toothpicks. Boy used the pumpkin face in a box kit. I think it sort of resembles a kid in our ward. :)

Here they are:

Pregnant with food

Princess Sparkley said this tonight to B:

"My tummy's so full it feels like I'm pregnant with food."

This is after she ate a billion pieces of pizza at Pizza Street (a Pizza Buffet place she picked that we go to after her final dance class/dance recital).