Christmas recap!

Our Christmas holiday started on Wednesday December 23, when we traveled up the road to Ryan's parent's house to start the festivities! We opened presents with them on Christmas Eve, joining Ryan's out-of-town brother and family via web cam. Christmas morning we woke up early to drive home, open presents at our house, attend mass, come home for lunch and naps, then go to my uncle and aunt's house for a feast of a Christmas dinner. We opened presents and ate dessert at my grandmother's house, and came home late to all collapse in bed!

playing with daddy on the morning of christmas eve. so many cool toys at grandma and grandpa's house!

just too silly and cute

uncle josh and aunt mona, i think baby chris is there too! we opened presents with them via web cam!



presents galore! beth and luke got a whole bunch of little people sets, ryan has a new armada of tools, and i received a beautiful new diaper bag!

beth and i made birthday cupcakes for jesus, and sang happy birthday to him on christmas morning. then she ate a cupcake for breakfast- a great start to her morning!

what greeted us as we arrived home on christmas morning!

in front of the tree as we got home

beth, finally getting the hang of "presents," didn't want to wait until after mass to open gifts!






cow and tiger flashlights!

before mass

after mass

merry christmas!

Officially listed!

Ryan and I have been working on our home non-stop since Friday. As Ryan said, my years of watching Home and Garden Television television will hopefully finally pay off! We decided to make a few changes to our home in an effort to get it to sell quickly, including fixing up the front bathroom with new paint, a new light fixture, new decor and a nice mirror. The kid's rooms were drastically decluttered, as was the kitchen and hall closet. Our bedroom finally got a coverlet for our bed, which really makes it come together! Our bathroom got new paint and a deep clean- I stripped and recaulked part of the shower stall! We would have installed a new light fixture in there too but the people who installed the initial fixture left several holes in the wall, and it would have been a big deal for us (and expensive!) to change it. We cleaned up the exterior of the house by mowing/mulching, blowing off the roof, adding mulch, and a few flowers in the garden bed. I am really impressed with our listing on HAR.com, feel free to take a look (but I'm not posting a link here!). We're working with the same Realtor who helped us find this house, and we're hoping to find something new and pretty and big soon! We know it's the slow season right now but we feel really confident that the house looks great, I hope the people who walk through agree with us!

somebody "helped" daddy paint her bathroom!

Carrots and Helicoptors

This shirt goes out to Uncle Dan!

Bugs Bunny

Here's a carrot from our garden, our first fall harvest. The broccoli isn't ready yet, the arugula has been ready for quite awhile but I haven't actually used any yet! We have one head of lettuce that came in and looks delicious, but it needs to grow a little more first. Hopefully it won't get eaten by the catepillars that have devoured the broccoli leaves!

Moving on

Since we're adding #3 to the clan sooner than we know it, Ryan and I are getting very serious about moving. We're currently in a 1600 square foot home with 3 bedrooms, and just starting to bust at the seams! I try very hard to keep a "minimalist" ideal, but it's so hard when the kids just keep getting so many toys (and the man of the house likes to keep lots of "mementos" and "souvenirs"). So we're prepping our house to be put on the market sometime in January, after we take our Christmas decorations down around the Epiphany. Luckily our home is in pretty good shape; a few small jobs and a couple of bigger jobs and lots of clearing out and we should be ready to go. While our house is like many others in our neighborhood, we have the benefit of a few awesome upgrades and a huge cul-de-sac lot, so our Realtor is very sure it will go quickly. Ryan and I want to look at this next house as our "forever" house, so we're letting ourselves be really picky! We're actually worried we'll sell faster than we'll find something! I keep hearing that buying while selling is very tricky, so we can only pray that things work out perfectly and that our dream house doesn't slip away!

first task: painting the kid's bathroom to a more neutral beige/sand color!

Beautiful

I love noticing the house is too quiet, then tip-toeing into the hallway to see where they are. I love peeking around the corner to find them sitting next to each other, both quietly reading. I love it when things fall into place. I love the blessing that it is to realize this is how it should be.

The Scoop

So...Yup. I'm preggers!

It seems this pregnancy has been a big shocker to more people than when we announced our pregnancies with Beth or Luke. And while this pregnancy with not a surprise to us, many people have deemed it their business to ask whether or not this baby was planned. I'll be straight with you: usually I know people who ask this question have the best intentions, but really... Do you want to know what goes on in our bedroom??? I'll just assume it's because we're so open with the fact that we use Natural Family Planning instead of artificial birth control, so I think what people are really asking is if NFP "failed" us. I'll tell you right now that no, it didn't "fail" us, and that we knew exactly what we were doing when we were doing it!

We have been blessed with abundant fertility, something that I know many men and women pray for daily! For our three children we are so grateful, and so blessed by God!

As blessed as we are, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared! Having three children ages three and under? Eek! But, from what I hear from more experienced friends, having children so close together is difficult at first but so rewarding as they grow older. Luke will be 20 months from this baby (Beth and Luke are 22 months apart). They will all be so close together in age, so close in school, I can only pray that they grow up loving each other as wonderful friends!

Technically, I'm doing fine. I can't believe I'm closing out my first trimester already; for the record, that photo of me and Ryan was taken several weeks ago and my belly is extremely misleading. Yes, I have a belly- there's no denying it now. It seems my body is ready for this and knows exactly what to do because it's wasted no time in presenting itself as pregnant! I haven't been sick at all and I haven't had crazy food aversions either. Food is only recently becoming appetizing again, though I still tend to prefer bland foods over spiced ones. Every night I have a bowl of rice krispies before bed because there's something about them that's just so appetizing right now! I've been lethargic but come on- I'm always tired so that's really nothing new! I feel like I'm having minor swelling issues in my legs this time, so that's my biggest concern at this point. I know I will have vein issues (I'm actually already having them in my leg) so I forsee compression hose in my future. My midwife appointments have gone well- I've had two and an ultrasound- and I plan on doing it naturally again this time.

Beth is very excited that there's another baby in mommy's tummy- she's holding out for a baby sister. She has nicknamed the baby "Frisbee" for some reason, and it seemed pretty gender-neutral so it's stuck. We've got a few baby names in mind but... We won't be finding out the gender this time! I'm so excited but I'm also worried we won't have the patience to hold out! I just think I'd like to have the experience of delivering the baby and having Ryan announce to me, "It's a boy!" or "It's a girl!" I just get goosebumps thinking about it- all sweaty and bloody in the tub, cradling my new baby. Ok sorry that's probably a rough mental image for some of you but it's really beautiful- it's new life. And that's how it happens!

Ryan is the proudest papa around town right now, he is constantly boasting of his three children. I am sure I'm the luckiest woman alive to have such a wonderful man taking care of me! We hope you'll join us in our excitement as we anticipate the arrival of "Frisbee" in June!

12 weeks 2 days

Guess what?! Baby N. number 3 will make his or her debut near June 19, 2010!

Tree day

Today we went to the tree farm- same place we've gone for 3 years now- and cut down our tree. Beth had a good time this year, Luke not so much. Beth "helped" cut the tree down and "helped" pull it to the tractor. It was deceptively cold but we bundled everyone up; I forgot my gloves and my hands were icicles! We came home and decorated our pretty tree, Beth was again a big "help." ;-)

taking the tractor ride out to the field. the lady who took this photo for us didn't even realize luke was on my back until after she'd snapped the photo!

beth carried the measuring stick. for a few minutes anyhow.

the one!

helping daddy cut it down; she was hacking at it with a stick.
decorating the tree

treasures galore!

playing quietly with the children's nativity. beth is really into it this year.

the finished product

the mantle with my willowtree nativity. i only wish i could take out baby jesus so that we could put him in on christmas morning. the wise men stay on the end then slowly travel closer after christmas day. ;-)

I can already tell Christmas is going to be a very big deal for Beth this year. While we plan on "doing" Santa, we haven't talked at all about what she wants or what she's getting for Christmas. Instead, the focus has been all about it being Jesus' birthday, and we plan on making him a cake this year. We've been reading the nativity story and I think I'd like to find a few good children's books explaining Christmas, pretty picture books so I can let her tell the story. Anyone have good ideas?

Snow Day

I just heard that we got snow before our family up in DC did. ;-)

Today is started snowing around 9 am- tiny little flurries. It was off and on all day, but nothing stuck at our house. It was slightly disappointing since last year it actually stuck to the ground and we could make piles of it. At one point I bundled up both kids and brought them outside to be outside while it was actually snowing, Luke probably wasn't sure what was going on and Beth just wanted to play on her backyard toys! The pictures I took don't look like anything special, but I'll put them up later anyways.

Hopefully we'll get some more snow this year, though it's not anticipated we'll get any more anytime soon. Tomorrow it's supposed to be up to 50, and we're going to cut down our Christmas tree and decorate our house. I'm excited and I hope the kids have a blast!

there, just to prove there was snow. there's a little on his head!