#3

I think that's the name we're going to go with: #3. For awhile, I thought about going with Number Six, but I wasn't sure too many people would catch the reference, and I didn't want to have to explain it half a million times. Although I do think it would have been fun (for those of us who do get it anyways) when #3 is old enough to go the playground and I call out to him that it's time to go home, have lunch, and take a nap, and (s)he yells back, "I am not a number, I am a free man!" Ah well, we all have dreams I guess.

(And for those who still have no idea what I'm talking about, here's a little trailer for you. You can hear the famous "I'm not a number" quote around the 54 second mark.)

But we're not going with Number Six, so it's time to move on.

The other day (week?) Linda and I were joking about naming #3 Number Six and other silly things, which lead to a discussion on crazy things people name their kids, which lead to me deciding on the name OhMiGuh (which is how OMG is pronounced phonetically in our house). That's right. Until another name strikes me, we're referring to #3 as Omi right now. I know, I'm silly.

All of this nonsense does have a point though. On Tuesday, I had my 20 week ultrasound. It went well enough. The tech was a little annoyed that I didn't have a full bladder when I arrived and made me chug 4 cups of water on the spot, but otherwise it went off without a hitch. See?

Up until the very last possible second I had no idea whether or not I wanted to find out little Omi's gender. I really have no preference this time around, boy or girl, and so I figured why find out? But, if we did find out, and Omi turned out to be a girl, there's a lot of stuff in our house I could go through and get rid of now, allowing me to make some much needed space around here. So I've been going back and forth for quite awhile now, figuring we probably would find out since Josh really wanted to know.

So, back to the ultrasound, she (the tech) put off checking out Omi's "private parts" until the end so I could have a few more minutes to decide. When it was time she said she had to check and did I want to know or did I want to turn my head for a few minutes? I took the plunge and decided to find out. So, the tech starts to scan that area and says, "Okay, checking the genitalia...and...look familiar?" That's right, sweet little Omi is a boy! Oh boy, another boy. I guess this means the blog title is safe. And for those wondering, we're both thrilled. Like I said, I would have been happy either way, but I'm almost a little relieved, if you can understand that. I know boys, I can handle boys, boys are what we're really set up for, so this is a fantastic thing. (Sorry, though, to all the grandmothers who really wanted a little granddaughter. I guess it's up to your other children now. Fa-la-la-la-lols.)

The tech tried to get a good shot of Omi's face so she could give us one of those 4D ultrasound pictures, but the little bugger kept putting his hands/the umbilical cord in front of his face so she couldn't get a good enough shot. I'm okay with that though because those pictures kind of creep me out. Sorry to whomever I might insult right now, but I don't find them cute at all. I'll look at your picture of your kid and say, "Oh, how nice" but that's about it. However, at one point, she had taken this one shot and had pulled it up on the screen. She was moving the picture around trying to see if it looked any better from a different angle (I had no idea the technology behind the creepy pictures was so cool), and at one point she paused the picture and I gasped. From that one angle, he looked just like Deacon. Eerie.

BUT, like I said, no good shots of his face, so we were sent home without a 4D of his head. We did, however get a 4D shot of his sweet little feet, which makes me happy since their little feet are my favorite parts. I'm not sure why, but something about seeing the feet on the ultrasound is what makes my heart melt most.

That's one serious ankle bone, huh?

So there you have it. We're having a boy, we don't have a name so I'm using OhMiGuh (Omi) for now, and I'm still due in the beginning of May sometime (the 13th is the due date, but we all know how accurate that is). Yay.

Our Crazy Christmas in a Couple of Nutshells

Okay, it wasn't really crazy. Our Christmas was lovely. Christmas Eve we went to the 5:00 "Build a Pageant" service, where they had tons of costumes for all the kids in the lobby, and the kids were all invited to participate in the Christmas story. Zeke was not interested at all, but Deacon was willing to let us dress him as a shepherd, and I carried him through the program. He was by far the littlest shepherd up there, but also the cutest.
(Josh said that everyone puts out bowls of Chex Mix on Christmas Eve, so we partook in that "tradition" as well this year.)

After the pageant we went to McDonald's for dinner (I know, we're such classy people). Our original intention was to go out to eat, then go back to church for the 7:00 traditional candlelight service, but the boys were getting tired, and we pretty much sang all the songs Josh and I would want to sing at the kid's service anyway.

The boys were pretty excited when they woke up Christmas morning. After greeting Daddy with hugs, Zeke went right for the presents, very excited to get opening. Much different from last year, but much more entertaining.





Deacon still needed a little bit of help opening his gifts, but he had a good time of it. Until about half way through. Then he decided he had had enough, grabbed one of his new books and sat on the chair reading while the rest of us finished opening our gifts.

Peavey got some Christmas love too, lots of petting and attention from Daddy.

After their naps, Josh made a fire in the fireplace, we turned on the football game, and we had a delicious dinner of turkey, ham, stuffing, green beans, cranberry sauce and biscuits. We ended the night by watching one the new movies the boys got, "Cars." Then it was off to bed for the boys, with Mommy following not too far behind.






And just for fun, this morning Josh vacuumed. Okay, he didn't vacuum for fun, he vacuumed because the floor really needed it. The fun part is the video I took and put at the end here. One of the gifts the boys got were homemade superhero capes from Josh's sister, Linda. As Josh vacuums, the boys (Zeke mostly) like to run laps around the living room, jumping over the vacuum cord and what have you as the vacuums goes.

Today, as they were running laps, they requested that their capes be put on so they could run around like a couple of "supers" (what superheroes are more commonly refered to in "The Incredibles", and so now that's what they're called in out house too). You might want to turn the volume down before you start because I had to be quick with the camera and so I'm pretty much standing right next to the vacuum.

And there you have it. Lots of fun, lots of cool gifts, lots of food. What else could you really ask for?

Mmm...Christmas Cookies!

This weekend, Sunday to be exact, we made Christmas cookies here in Walterland. This is the first year we really let the boys help too. As you can see in the picture below, Zeke was just beside himself with excitment.

I kid. Zeke was thrilled to be baking. He loves helping out and being in the kitchen as things are going on since it's usually an "off limits" zone. However, I think the one who was the most excited about the afternoon's activity was Deacon. I shouldn't really be surprised. I mean, the kid loves to eat, so why shouldn't he love to help prepare the food he's going to consume later on?


Deacon enjoyed every single aspect of the cookie making. From cutting up the butter with Daddy, to stirring the dough with Mommy, it was all fun. Of course, it took me more than a few minutes to realize that he was a little on the short side and couldn't really see what he was doing. So we moved him onto the counter and things went much smoother from then on.

Zeke, on the other hand, was happy to bake up until the egg went in. Once the egg part of the cookie making was done, so was he. Plus, bittball was on, so he had a game to go watch.

So, we let the dough chill during dinner, then it was time to cut and decorate the cookies. This was fun, if not a little out of control. The kids just kept grabbing the cookie cutters and pressing them into the dough. We had more than a few overlapping cookies this year. But the sprinkles and mini M&Ms were distraction enough to get them to stop with the cookie cutters.



The final steps were to bake them, let them cool a little, then enjoy the tastiness. As you can see, the boys were more than happy to try out the product of all their "hard" work. Oh, and there's the cookie worm that Josh made with the little bit of leftover dough in honor of his dad. We only let the boys help with the one round. I finished up the rest of the dough and made a bunch more cookies while they watched the bittball game and went to bed.

And because it's too good not to share, I was trying to get a cute picture of the boys eating their cookies and smiling at me, but they were so engrossed in the TV that they wouldn't look. At least not both of them at the same time. Josh suggested I stand in front of the TV and take a picture of them. I told him that wouldn't work, but I tried anyway and got this:

Lovely.

And now I'm off. In case I don't make it back here before Friday (which, let's face it, I probably won't) I pray you all have a happy and safe Christmas, as we celebrate the coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus.

I Had No Idea It Was Even Possible

It's been snowing for a little over 48hours now. It's dropped a lot of snow. I'd give you a number but I've lost track. Around 5am today they were saying 18inches had dropped. I'm fairly certain it's falling about an inch an hour still. I have never seen it snow like this. The plow just came by and it was like watching waves of snow rolling over and blocking every one's driveways with a good 3feet of plowed snow. Yes! One time they plowed and a second plow came through afterwards just clearing all the driveway ends. It's only been the one time though.

Anyhoo. Here are a few pictures to help you visualize what's going on out here (now, I am aware that this may be no big deal to many of you, but I am really surprised at all the snow coming down at once so you'll have to bear with me).

Okay, this is a picture from Saturday of a hole (or "castle" as Zeke calls it) that Josh made for Zeke while they were out playing in the snow:

This is what that same hole looks like today. You can't even make it out can you?:

Josh went out and shovelled the back deck last night around 6pm. Here's what it looks like 18hours later:

Yeah. That's about 18inches of accumulation. See? An inch an hour.

But it's not all gloomy. It really is beautiful snow. I took this picture yesterday as I was eating lunch next to Zeke. I looked up at the trees in the backyard and was awed at how cool they looked from that angle with the snow on them. The picture doesn't really do it justice, but it should give you a glimpse:

And I will say this for Alaska snow as well: I don't know if it's the air quality here (is that even a thing? air quality?) or what, but boy does this snow sparkle. At night, while it's falling, it looks like God is just throwing down handfuls of glitter. And it glistens still on the ground. It's so cool.

Of course, I haven't finished my Christmas shopping yet (only because someone asked for something that didn't come out in stores until yesterday, and two things I ordered online a week or so ago have mysteriously NOT shown up yet, even though everything else I ordered that same day has been here since Friday, at least), and so I haven't mailed out any of my Christmas packages yet. So, to our family back in New Jersey (and Delaware), you might be getting your Christmas gifts a wee bit late this year.

To everyone else, I promise I do have other posts bouncing around in my head that have nothing to do with the weather and the snow. I'll try getting to them over the next couple of days or so.

Makes You Cold Just Looking At It

Wednesday evening a fog rolled in. Kind of crazy considering how cold it is here, but in it rolled all the same. When the fog lifted yesterday morning, there was an inch of frost all over everything.

Now, these pictures were not taken with the black and white option. This is how it looks out here these days - pretty grey. I was telling Josh's parents last night how getting so few hours of sunlight doesn't really bother me, it was pretty much the same in Germany, but how the lack of color outside is what gets me some days.

Now, that's not to say things still aren't gorgeous here, because they are. I think frost is pretty cool. Hehehe. Frost just adds a certain something that I just can't describe to the scenery here. It makes it look more like a winter wonderland. I guess. I don't know, it's hard to put into words. Like, driving to MOPS this morning, there's this one little stretch of road where the trees clear away and you can see out for hundreds of miles (I'm not exaggerating, hundreds of miles). To see the view all white and peaceful was really something else. It was literally breathtaking.

Sadly, I couldn't take a picture of it. Trying to take pictures while driving is not exactly a safe thing to do, especially here with slippery roads. You'll just have to trust me that it was pretty sweet.

Also pretty sweet, is how God knows when I've had just about enough of the white and He sends some color my to make me happy again. He's so good to me.

Twice a Day. Every Day.

We call him "Dee Dee the Bare-chested Barbarian" now. Every time his shirt comes off, Deacon takes off:

Oh yeah. You'll notice how he calls for encouragement as he goes, "Come on, Mom! Go! Go! Go!" And, because he's just the cutest thing ever, I cheer him on. Every time.

This Year's Tree

So, this year we were trying to figure out what to do about a tree, when Josh found a fake one in the shed! He brought it in, we set it up and decided that it was the way to go, even though a bunch of the lights didn't work. While, I am a much bigger fan of real trees than fake ones, I am happy we went with the fake one this year since the boys just cannot keep their hands off of the tree. Plus, it fits nicely against the wall there.

Here's a picture of Josh setting the tree up. This is mostly for a size comparison so you can see just how tall this thing is:

Here, Josh is trying to figure out the light situation with Deacon's help (notice the tape measure in Deacon's hand):

Can you guess who put the candy canes on the tree this year? Those candy canes, by the way, are no longer on our tree because for almost a full 45 minutes, Zeke would take off all the candy canes, then put them all back on the tree. Then he would take them all off again, and then put them all back on the tree. Yet, every so often, Deacon would would want a turn, and inevitably a fight would ensue and a candy would suffer the consequences. Poor things.

Christmas Came Early

With Josh's boss deployed and Josh taking his place, it has become apparent that Josh needs a local phone number for work. So yesterday we went out and bought ourselves our Christmas presents:





Isn't it pretty? I am actually writing this post on my couch with my iPhone. My world is never going to be the same.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone <--yeah it was!

I Sure Showed Him!

Okay. So Monday evening, Josh gets home from work and starts a conversation about how our driveway is one big sheet of ice. He was saying how when he went out that morning, he took one step on the driveway and slid straight down to the bottom. Knowing that I had to go out the next morning, and knowing my limited snow/ice driving experience, I asked if he would salt the driveway or something.

He said, and I quote, "I could, but that would wind up causing more problems in the spring than it would fix now." Can you see where I'm going with this?

Yep. As I ever so slowly worked my way out of the garage Tuesday morning on our way to PWOC, the car started sliding on the ice, and refused to stop until it landed in one of the snow banks Josh had made at the end of the driveway. Sigh. And of course, no matter how hard I tried, I just could not get the car out of the bank. Maybe if I wasn't so stressed out and frustrated (man those kids really turn it on when we're trying to get out of the house!) I could have set the car free. Instead, I got out, got Deacon out and into the garage (with much slipping), got Zeke out and into the garage (again with much slipping).

I got us all in the house, with much protesting from Zeke. Poor kid just wanted to go out and do something that didn't involve being in the house, and here he was, back in the house just five minutes after finally leaving it. Deacon, on the other hand, found his blankie and immediately curled up in the middle of the living room floor. I guess he needed a nap more than he needed to go play with other kids. But I got us in, called Josh at work, and with quite a bit of um, attitude, let's say, informed him of what had just happened. I did apologize for the attitude when I was done venting, but I couldn't help but feel like it all could have been avoided if he had just done what I asked the night before.

Anyhoo...after I got off the phone with Josh I put Deacon in bed. As I came out of his room, Zeke was standing there all ready to go to bed as well. Sweet! So I put him down too, and called Linda to tell her all about it. She laughed. Thanks, Lin. As I was on the phone with Linda, Josh got home (in record time I might add). He came in saying, "My baby's in a ditch! I gotta get home!" And, of course, he was able to get the car out in about 30 seconds. Sigh. I say it's because the car was so much lighter without the boys and all our stuff in there that the car was able to just sail over the bank. Josh says less weight would have the opposite effect, but what does he know?

After saving the day Josh headed back to work, Linda and I got off the phone and the kids got up from their rest times. I decided the boys and I needed something to cheer us up a little to make up for not actually going anywhere that morning, so I broke out the Christmas decorations. And really, how could this not cheer anyone up?

Ah, sweet Dee Dee. Of course, this proved to be a little more stressful for me than I originally thought as the one manger set was NOT enough to keep them busy for more than two minutes, and so everything I was opening and taking care of suddenly became the most interesting thing EVER. Luckily, we don't have all that much stuff since we tossed a bunch after the last two Christmases. Just enough to last us until lunch and our "real" naptime.

When Josh got home from work that night, he said, "Do you like our house?" After assuring him that I do like our house he said, "Good. Because you're not allowed to leave it ever again. I don't like having to worry about you being on the roads." He's so sweet and caring...in his own sarcastic way.

I Made It!

Wahooie! I made it through the 30 days of NaBloPoMo. Thank you all for taking this journey with me. I had fun, but I don't think I'll be able to keep up the flow. I do plan on blogging more frequently, at least twice a week or so, but this every day thing is wearing me out. I have no idea how Sara is doing Blog 365. I have a whole new level of respect for her. But, just so this post isn't just me congratulating myself on making through this month of blogging, allow me to tell you about Zeke's new "love".

Well, let me start by filling you all in on the fact that we got cable last week. Whaaat?! I know! Now, the TV isn't necessarily Zeke's new love, although he does enjoy it very much. No, his new love is bittball. Or, as it's more commonly known as, football.

After I took this picture I asked him to stand next to the tv and smile. He just looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Huh?" So, this is the best I could do. Anyhoo...

After getting cable on Monday, we decided to celebrate by watching some football on Thanksgiving. Zeke was so into it. He sat there and he cheered, and he yelled "Go! Go! Go!" at mostly appropriate times, and he would announce that we were watching bittball every time I switched back to it from the parade.

As we were getting ready that day to go to dinner, I was filling in Zeke on what would be happening, going to Mr. Matt and Miss Nikki's, eating turkey, watching movies, etc, and he goes, "And bittball?" So I said, "I'm sure Mr. Matt won't mind putting on some bittball if you want." And Zeke cheered, saying "Yeah! I LOVE bittball!" Now, he wakes up in the morning and asks to watch bittball as soon as he's located his juice. It might be a very sad day when bittball season is over.

A New Game!

The boys have made up a new game this week. I'm not sure what their official name for it is, but I like to call it "clean up!" How the game works is the boys dump out either their tub of Thomas tracks, or their box of toys, then they put it all back into the box. Doesn't that sound like fun?

They play this game over, and over, and over (as you can see by these two pictures as the tracks are piled in two different spots, meaning they've done this a number of times in this one sitting). Sometimes the switch it up a little by putting the box in a different part of the room so they have to walk from where the toys were dumped to where the box is.

As you can see by this next picture, it's a game that doesn't really get old either. It can be played all day long (in the first two pictures Deacon was in his jammies showing off his "Rico Suave top button unbuttoned" look, in the last one, he's in his clothes for the day). Or, as is more often the case, it can be played at any time of day for any amount of time. You can always stop once all the toys are in the box, then play again later on.

It can also be a solo activity, but it's usually more fun when they're both playing together. Now we play it every day before they go to bed. It's wonderful.

Dodge This!

That's what Josh yelled at this teeny, tiny, 12 year-old girl today, as he wailed a ball directly at her during the dodgeball tournament our church's youth group held today. I think the ball left a bruise on her back. There might have been tears. It was hard to tell in the flurry of the game. When asked about the incident later on Josh said, "Hey, she had it coming. She was mocking my age."

Okay, that's not really how today went down. Our church's youth group did hold a dodgeball tournament today. Each person who played gave $10 to do so, all proceeds going to an orphanage in the Congo. Once there, you could also buy t-shirts and/or refreshments. It was a pretty sweet set-up. Two guys from his work (one being Matt, who had us over for Thanksgiving dinner, and one being one of the other guys from dinner) played too. The boys and I went out to watch for a little bit. We got to see them play one game. Then Zeke had had enough of the noise and crowds so we went home for some pbj's and naptime. Josh's team "The Leftovers" (because they were made up of all the people who signed up without teams) didn't win the whole thing, but Josh sure did have a lot of fun.

Here's what the t-shirt looks like (front [left], back [right]):

Thankful

As yesterday was Thanksgiving, like most people, I took a moment here and there to reflect on some of the things that I am thankful for. Obviously there is so much that there's no way I could list them all. So, I'm not going to list any. Especially since I'm sure you could guess a bunch of them on your own. Instead, I'm just going to recap yesterday and today for you.

Even though it snowed a good portion of the night on Wednesday, we did make it to Thanksgiving dinner, and we had a lovely time. The boys were well behaved. Of course, they did hang out in the basement watching movies all day with the two other children who were there, but still, they didn't get "slap happy" (as in "gently" slapping not only each other, but the poor, sweet other boy who didn't want to play that "game") until it was close to leaving time. But the food was great, the company was fun, and the drive was exciting, to say the least.

On the way out the roads were a bit messy and slippery, and there was a portion of road with no mountain coverage, so the wind got a little intense. The ride home started out a little better as the roads had been plowed while we were eating, but about halfway home it started doing this weird raining, but not really raining thing. However, we made it safely there and safely home thanks to Josh's superb driving.

Of course, the only two pictures we have from that day have the other two kids in them and I'm not entirely comfortable posting a picture of someone else's kids without their knowledge or permission. So, I apologize for no actual Thanksgiving pictures this year.

I do, however, have pictures from today (which would be the ones running down the right side of this post). Today, like Josh said after dinner, was a good day. We didn't really do anything special, just relaxed around the house. It snowed all day, giving us another 4 inches on top of the 4 we got Wednesday night, which is now sitting on top of all we had before. Yay! So, after the boys' naps we bundled up and went out to play in the snow again. And after that we made a fire in the fireplace and had leftover turkey and stuff for dinner. A pretty good first half of our holiday weekend.