Our New Stuff

We finally got a fully functioning range. We've lived here for 6 months and have only been using 2 burners since the stove top has been cracked so we finally broke down and got a new range - YAY!

So here is our stove with my two adorable diaper cakes being displayed on top. The pink one is from Cheramie and the purple one from Heather Bergman. I love creative folks, because it is certainly not me!

Count down - 4 Days!

Birthday, Belly Button and Baby Blankets

I will start this long overdue post with a shout out to our wonderful state - Happy 100th Birthday Arizona. Today we're hoping to have an AZ afternoon out, weather permitting - possibly panning for gold at Fain Park since I'm not doing any sort of real outdoorsy stuff being I'm so stinking huge. Thanks for the "celebrate AZ" idea Dy.

Next, I suppose my belly button has now completely popped. I've been getting a lot of comments on how I have an outie. Hannah and Annie like to push it back in, or lift up my shirt thinking it is a direct tunnel to the baby and talk to her. I've become quite self conscious of it and have considered duct taping it down, but since I only have 14 days left, I think I'll just try to survive.

I have officially nested. That was a few weeks ago, now my house is getting so messy again and I'll have to continue to re-clean before this babe comes, but at least I've been able to declutter a lot. I have the car seat, crib and bassinet ready. I have a small stock of diapers, a new diaper bag and nursing pads. All the laundry is done and I'm just so ready to go!

This year I had 2 New Year's resolutions - learn how to sew and learn how to bake bread. The bread baking was a disaster, so I went on to the sewing. Cheramie and I worked together to make our little baby girl fetuses baby blankets. It was so time consuming and incredibly frustrating. I'm not quite careful enough to be a sewer. Nevertheless, I finished the quilt and from afar it's adorable. Up close, not so much. I was about to take all the seams out for the 10th time when Jeremy reminded me that if it becomes Claire's favorite blankie like Annie's yellow one, it won't matter what it looks like now, in a few years it will be so trashed no one will notice the original flaws. So it's complete, flaws and all. I feel quite domesticated.

Speaking of Annie's "lellow winkie", last night I had a dream about it. Now you should know that Annie is now about 4 1/2 years old and attached to that blanket more than ever. We've started calling her Linus. She coccoon's herself in it to get her through primary. She sleeps with it, she grocery shops with it, but she doesn't take it to the park she says. It has been stitched back together so many times it looks plain scarred. The new rips might have to stay because the fabric is so thin it would never hold. Anyway, back to the dream. I dreamed we were at my parent's house and it was in the middle of the Afgan war. Annie desperately needed her blanket so it was my mission to retrieve it from the basement. The only problem was, that Bin Laden was in the middle of a shootout with the American's and I had to go right through the crossfire to get the blanket. I made it out safely and was given an award for my bravery. Sometimes that's how important that blankie seems to Annie.

So that's what's been going on around here. Let's hope I can survive 14 more days, til little Claire joins our family.

Wrestling

I love my husband for many, many reasons. But one of the reasons I love him so much is that he's an amazing dad. Our Sunday activity today pre-nap has been a mean wrestling match. I mean Jeremy taught all the kids moves, has taken them all down and had them all pinned at once. They were absolutely hysterical. For sure the volume in our house was way above average, and our average is pretty loud. Did they learn a thing? No, they're still making the same critical mistakes over and over again. I think they're wanting to get pinned, but it's fun and, knock on wood, no one has gotten hurt. And I get to photograph it and blog about it since I'm so freakin' humongous!

Happy Birthday Hannah

Yesterday Hannah turned 6 years old. I have never in my whole life seen a child more appreciative of a birthday than Hannah was. The countdown started a month ago and she's been anxiously waiting the big day. It didn't disappoint either. She got watermelon and breakfast burritos for breakfast, her 2 favorite foods, then a trip to the park to play with "Annie my sister and Annie my friend" as she likes to differentiate her two Annies. She got more watermelon and then it was home to have a tea party with her new tea set, and to play with Rose her new Doodle Bear, all while rocking the new outfit from Grandma Goodman - sparkles and all.

She told everyone she saw that it was her birthday!

With every phone call she took or every birthday message I relayed to her, she lit up like the sun. Thanks to all that texted, or called. She loved it!

Like I said, I have never in my life seen a kid love a birthday as much as she did.

I love Hannah for her zest for life. She has no fear talking to any one. She makes friends with all the nurses, doctors, opticians, anyone. My favorite was when we were at the eye doctor and she asked both the optician and the Dr., "Whatcha eatin' under there?" Then to have them play along or tease her back, just made her that much merrier. She can be a little spazzy and spontaneous and we can regularly count on her to spill her drink each night at dinner, but she is definitely her own person and I love her for that.

Happy Birthday Hannah, our wonderful miracle baby who I couldn't believe I was pregnant with and devastated when I thought I had lost you, but couldn't imagine our family without you!

Oooh, caught stealing frosting from your giant birthday cupcake!

Hoop Shooting

Back in November, Jake came home and informed us he won a basketball contest at school and was to represent Granville Elementary at the town competition. We kinda blew him off not getting what he was talking about until his PE teacher called to let us know he made the most free throws in his class and qualified to represent his school at the Elks Lodge Hoop Shoot Competition for all of Prescott and Prescott Valley. She said he not only made the most free throws in his class, but in the whole school, 5th and 6th graders included.

He went to the PV Hoop Shoot and wouldn't you know it, he won that too.

So then it was prepping for the AZ North District competition in Chino Valley. That was yesterday. We recently got a basketball hoop so he has spent all his time shooting free throws.

We got there yesterday and it felt like I had walked into a funeral. I have never in my whole entire life been in a gym so quiet. There was absolutely no talking, drinking of water bottles, cheering, clapping or noise of any kind. Apparently the kids needed all the quiet in the world in order to concentrate.

The boys shot on half and the girls the other half. They were sat down in chairs to quietly, patiently wait their turn to shoot. Jake drew number one, so he was up first. He made 6 of 10 in the first round (tying him for first place) and then had to wait while the 10 other kids shot for him to have his turn in the second round. That one didn't go quite as well as he only made about 5 of 15 (though he insists he made 8 of 15). He ended the competition making 11/25, or 14/25 if you ask Jake.

I'm not making excuses for Jake, but I will say this, he was up against a bunch of kids of a certain ethnicity that is native to America that can shoot like no one's business. Once they get in the zone, they can throw up shots with their eyes closed all from right below their shoulder. I don't know how they do it, and I'm gonna get accused of being a racist, but really I'm quite amazed at the consistency. The winner made 17 out of 25 (making 14 of 15 in the second round and then 5 of 5 in the tie breaker, he was in the zone) and I'm thinking he was probably a 16 year old competing in the 10 and 11 year old group. He was quite large. Where do people breed kids so big? I certainly don't know the secret.

Anyway, it was a great opportunity for Jake and he was an amazing sport. He didn't get down on himself and I never once heard him say how bad "he sucks!" It's very aggravating as a parent to hear my child say that all the time - sorry Mom and Dad.

We'll see how he does next year. And if I know Jake, he'll probably start working on perfecting his free throws now.

Good work Jake!

These were our only pictures, as we weren't allowed any flash photography - Jeremy took these on his phone. Notice all the giants behind Jake. Jake is barely touching his feet to the ground, while the other boys were playing with their beards.

Sick

There's been a nasty virus going around our house. First our computer caught it. It really did a number on it. We took it to the computer gurus a couple of times and finally we think it's all better. There was a virus that had written itself to our hard drive and then partitioned itself off to keep itself hidden (or something like that - I'm not too computer savvy). I was a bit lost without a computer for a week. It was refreshing in a way, but it's good to have it back.

Then last night, Abby caught it. I'm not sure if it's the same strain of virus, but Abby has it in a bad way - fever, chills, puking, headache. It doesn't look like it's strep, possibly the flu, but it's nasty.

Hopefully the sickness ends with her. We're praying for a healthy home for the rest of the year, or at least until the baby comes which is now officially set for February 28th!

Our newest isms - Thanks Hannah and Annie

It's been a while since posting our isms. I swore when I first started blogging it would be a regular thing, but these this past week have been great.

Hannah

The other day we were driving down the road and saw two girls walking down the street. They were dressed very 1800's ish. Long full skirts, bonnets and such. Anyway, Hannah sees them and says, "Look mom, they're from the '90's." Now wait a minute, I was in the prime of my life in the nineties and I'm pretty sure I dressed way radder than that.

Annie

Hannah had a little bed wetting accident the other day. So Hannah and Annie were bringing their laundry basket upstairs for laundry that day with the yucky sheets in the basket. Now, a little history, when my kids want to sound sophisticated or cool, they add the suffix -ness to a word. Such as, "wow, that's goodness," or "I smell like cleanness". Anyway, Annie was less than happy with the smell in the laundry basket and announced, "It smells like pee-ness". Say that one out loud. It was pretty funny. We were all hysterical because I'm pretty sure she doesn't even know what that word is and she had no idea why we were all dying laughing.