Baby #3

We had our ultrasound today and it's a BOY! Josh was pretty sure he caught a glimpse at my last ultrasound (when I was 16 weeks) so today I figured we better just make sure. He was right. We got a nice clear shot and there was NO question about which gender. Emmett was excited. Melynn started crying in the ultrasound room. I am not even joking. She just burst into tears. Poor thing. We are very excited to have another boy. And everything looked great. Woohoo!

Highlights from Christmas

Melynn playing with her dollhouse from Santa

In Christmas jammies setting cookies and milk out for Santa, with a note

Santa came! Do you like the tree? I need the Grinch to come and fix the lights on one side.

The sister missionaries got some gifts too.

Very excited children. Not too excited that they have to wait to open the presents.

Melynn by her BIG present

Emmett by his. Pose was his idea.

The family on Christmas Day 2011.

Melynn with her dollhouse. Does she look happy or what?

Emmett with one of many movies. This year was a hit for movies.

Santa brought Emmett legos. He was so happy. He also got legos from his cousin and they are just as treasured.

Playdoh for Melynn. She played with this first after we were done.

Our Christmas day was a little odd compared to what we are used to. Josh is working nights, so we waited until he was done working to open presents. That part was actually nice because it allowed me to focus on getting the family to church and to be reverent for the Christmas sacrament program. My visiting teacher was nice enough to take care of Melynn while I was on the stand for the whole thing. The music all went well and it was a very simple but meaningful program. After present-opening, the kids started playing, I started cleaning and Josh went to sleep. Poor Josh. He didn't get to have any fun. We fed the sister missionaries a nice brunch (which was done in shifts since I don't know how to finish everything all at once), and then I woke Josh up to talk with his brother Isaac, who is serving a mission at the North Pole (Edmonton, Canada). He yawned the whole time. Poor Josh. He didn't get enough sleep. Once we were done skype-ing the family he went back to bed and the missionaries took their turn talking to family. I rested my eyes a teeny bit (think Junie B. Jones) while the kids played. Then I took the missionaries to their next place, fed Josh some leftovers for dinner and sent him to work. Poor Josh. He had to work again. I feel bad that it was such a lame holiday for him. I put the kids to bed early because they were cranky and had the evening to myself. That was the best part of the day.

School Stuff Before Christmas

Before the big day arrives, um, tomorrow, I figured I better download whatever pictures were on my camera and get them recorded for my blog book. I am already excited to put another year of this thing into print. It is a big project because I like to make my pictures big and edit all the mistakes I made in my text, but it is so worth it.

So, here are some pictures from our last little bit.

One of our 12 Days of Christmas presents. Jammies, fuzzy ones. I think this year will be The Year of the Jammies because I kept telling people that the kids needed jammies.

Melynn made this at the gym child care center and they had it taped on the wall because it looked so nice but she adamantly refused to leave the gym without it. She had to have her "leaves and snow".

Two Rudolphs from story time

End of the Unit project: The Human Brain Hat. So fun to make. Hilarious to wear around the house.

Top of the brain hat. As you can see it is labeled and has little pictures showing which part does what. Fun to talk about!

And it has big words like occipital and parietal.

He had to have each side pictured so here is the other side too.

Okay, so seriously, the brain hat was and is the most hilarious project I have found on the internet so far. It is meant for older kids, probably junior high, but we took it and made it a kindergarten project. Emmett colored each section (I did an outline so he could see the difference between lobes), I cut it out and made the slits. He held it so I could tape it together. It ended up smaller than I thought it would. That almost makes it funnier because it looks a big like the brain is bulging out of the head. Anyway, it got Josh involved with school because when he saw it he just naturally started telling Emmett all about what goes on in the brain. I assigned him to explain the sensory and motor cortex. It was fabulous.

One thing we did last night that I didn't get pictured (so sad about that!) was to play handbells at my friend Sheri's house. She is very musical and had charts showing which color bell plays. Each kid got a bell to ring and we tried to form an impromptu bell choir. It was great. Noisy. Slightly irritating when the kids got out of hand with ringing, but lots of fun. One time she had the parents do a song and we didn't do any better than the kids. Seriously, it was hard.

We have made lots of treats and delivered them to neighbors and friends, we drove around and looked at Christmas lights, and we've had lots of hot chocolate, even though it is usually in the 40s during the day. I have to pretend it looks a lot like Christmas because honestly, it doesn't. Tonight we have a small gathering with friends for dinner and it should be fun. Then I'll read the Christmas story from the scriptures, let them open their Christmas jammies, give them a bath and put them to bed. Oh! And we are tracking Santa online. So fun.

Riding the Downtown Trolley

I had this great idea that I needed to find something uniquely Memphis to include in our advent calendar activities, especially since I had to replace some Omaha things. In the Memphis Parent magazine that is free at our gym I read that the trolley is a fun and inexpensive activity for families and you can see lots of pretty lights on downtown businesses. Well...I think they exaggerated on the pretty lights, but it was fun and inexpensive. We spent $4 (we even got to use up some change) to take a ride on the riverfront loop. We went early in the evening and it was great. We were home by 6:45 PM and could still get the kids in bed in time to see the GOP debate online, although Fox's online video stream was stinky. I learned that it is an activity that I would never do without Josh there with me. We encountered our share of scary people. Josh even gave a guy $2 to go buy a Subway sandwich. It was Emmett's first view of homeless people. I kept trying to see past my fear to have fun during this activity, since it really pushed me out of my comfort zone. Anyway, it will not be repeated next year. I will have to find something else that is uniquely Memphis and much safer for me and my kids. I'm just glad I had the thought to do it on Josh's night off so he could help me with the parking. He helped with a lot more than that! I didn't see another family or any other kids the whole time we were in downtown. Does that tell you something or what?!

Look what Melynn did this morning. This is NOT a washable marker.

These were the only pretty lights we saw. They are on top of an empty fountain.

The boys on the trolley

The girls on the trolley

Inside of the trolley

Outside of a trolley. Notice the pretty lights on the light poles. That was about all we saw.

The rest of the mess. I love that she brought the marker with her when she decided to clean up.

Twelve Days of Christmas

My mom has been doing the 12 days of Christmas for us for a couple years I think. It is really fun the first day to see the kids open a present. It gives them a little taste all the way up to Christmas day. Anyway, today Emmett got a new quilt. It is so cute. I took some pictures of his bed all made up and of the red chair that my mom helped me fix so it matches. Right now the chair isn't in the bedroom but eventually we hope it makes it in there.

And as a side note, we checked this book out from the library and I really liked it. It has a nice message, a soft rhyming pattern and beautiful illustrations. I kept wanting to read it to the kids because I liked it so much. I could just sit and look at the pictures in this one. Go check it out before Christmas is over!

Out with the Old...

We got our dishwasher installed yesterday, finally! It had been sitting in our dining room since Thursday or Friday. I can't remember because it was in the middle of all the other stuff going on. Anyway, it is a beauty...and it was covered by our home warranty. Woohoo!

The old dead dishwasher

The new pretty white one It makes my fridge look bad.

A Charlie Brown Christmas Party

Because I had been liberated from the prison of bedrest, I got to go to our ward Christmas party last night. Emmett was Linus in the program. We had been practicing for two weeks so he could memorize his lines. He did awesome. My friend Jill took a video of it for me. You may have to turn your volume up really loud. Hopefully it will load.


And if that works I will attempt to put on some pictures as well. Wouldn't it be great if I could get all caught up on everything in the next few days? I went outside with Melynn this morning because she wanted to ride her bike and I weeded for ten minutes. Yes, we have lots of weeds still. I'm hoping to get the flower bed all ready to plant my tulips. I don't know if they will grow here because everything I have read about them says that they need a colder climate (that's why I'm planting in December). I have also learned to plant them twice as deep as you normally would so they stay cold. It is funny to think that a flower needs to be cold enough or else it won't bloom. That seems backwards. I will be very happy if my tulips bloom because they are from the Nauvoo temple grounds. They were throwing all the bulbs away when we visited in May and the gardener let me have some for the new house. What a souvenir!

Yesterday before the party I had just enough time to take the laundry to the laundromat and get it all washed then came home and threw the first batch in the dryer. I got it all dried last night and folded it all this morning and put it away before Josh got home. I like to fold on my bed so when he is sleeping in it all day it throws me off a bit. So that is back to normal. I need to catch up the dishes, since we are still washing by hand, and Josh didn't do any while I was out of commission. We have no spoons to eat with. Funny that we ran out of spoons before anything else. Why is that? Because cereal and soup and macaroni and spaghettio's is all the kids ate for two days? Possibly. It's strange to me. I have my Christmas cards sitting here with all my letters printed off and ready to fold up. I need to print address labels and buy stamps. I need to get gas in my car. I need to finish some plans for Primary music for next year so they can start making the music CDs. Oh boy, lots to do!

Melynn with Santa Claus

Kids with Santa

Our Thanksgiving Turkey: We put it in brine and it was delicious!

Another turkey

Emmett's Tree

Melynn's Tree

First Memphis Snowfall, or what's left of it Dec 2011

Melynn by the tree

Preschool for Melynn

More preschool

This was from the week I taught

Emmett's craft from Cloverbuds

Melynn is learning to accessorize her mismatched jammies

Melynn

2nd snowfall in Memphis Dec 2011

Emmett ready to play in the snow

Melynn ready to play in the snow

And they're off!

Building a snowman

The snowman. Not extra large.

Emmett with Santa

"I want a dollhouse, but what I really want is to eat this candy cane RIGHT NOW!"