Ben update

Well, it's official, our little man is a climber! He loves to climb and sit in our high bar stools, he's climbed out of his crib int he middle of the night (and had a hard fall, it was very traumatic for all), and I've found him on top of the kitchen table and I'm ashamed to admit...even the kitchen counter! (I'm really not a horrible mom, he's just quick!) We've taken up stock in bubble wrap and decided to pad our entire house (and even Ben himself) in the stuff! And to top it all off, he's 110% BOY! He loves to rough house with his sister, he's already trying to tackle her and thinks it's funny to run into the wall and fall down.

He had 2 mega head bumps today, thankfully, Nurse Terri was already scheduled to come this afternoon. I thought I would post a picture of the two of them. She's become such an important and special part of our lives this past year! She's nothing less than AMAZING and we love her to pieces! We are so thankful for good health care professionals who truly do care.

Sweet Story

This is Kirk's busy time of year and for the past 3 nights, he's gotten home after the kids went to bed. They have really been missing him, even though we've stopped by the office a few times. He's usually gone by the time they wake up in the morning as well. So, this morning, the kids and I were getting ready and I heard Grace yell from her room "Mom! Who wrote something on my board?!?" I went back and on Grace's easel, Kirk had written "Daddy hearts Grace" while she was still asleep. She was so tickled and excited that she called him right away on the phone to tell him she had gotten his message. When we got home this afternoon, I went back to her room to check on how her cleaning was coming along and noticed she had written "Grace hearts dad" right beside his message. I almost started crying! It was the sweetest thing and brought tears to my eyes. I know Kirk will be just as touched when he sees it tonight when he gets home!

It's a....

BOY!!!! Here are a couple of the first pictures of our precious baby. He appears healthy and measuring just fine, thank the Lord! We kept asking if she was sure about the gender (she was a fast tech and went over that part really quick). I didn't look at the pictures until later in the afternoon and the last picture was, uh, clearly evident...she even put the cursor towards his anatomy and labeled the picture "it's a boy!" Grace said..."look mom, she left the mouse on the picture!" We are thrilled and can't wait to meet our sweet addition. Grace and Ben will love having a baby brother!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Our loooong week by the numbers:


3 Valentine's parties at MDO
2 dozen homemade sugar cookies that G and I baked for her class
20 Kung Fu Panda Valentine's with suckers attached (of which the proud mommy might add, G folded, decorated and signed her name all by herself...on every single one)!
4 home made dinners... ordering pizza tomorrow night
50 (give or take) hours that daddy has put in at work, and it's only Thursday!
3 trips to Wal Mart
1 EXHAUSTED and feeling-very-pregnant mommy!


I have to say, having a little girl is so, oh how do I put it? Everything in life is either hot or cold, high or low, love or hate, naughty or nice, you get the idea. She cracks us up. She's usually 80% tomboy. For example, she insisted on Kung Fu Panda Valentine's (even though I was steering her toward the princesses, fairies and care bares.) In the car a few days ago, we were asking her if she is excited for soccer season to start up again and she responded "Well Dad, I'd really like to try football." But today, I finally got her to wear a dress to school and she let me do her hair! (see pic below). And in the store the other day, she had a meltdown because I wouldn't let her get Hannah Montana perfume! YEAH!! Not that I don't love the tomboy in her, I do indeed, but there are just certain expectations that come along with a girl and it's so fun to experience both, but quite the roller coaster ride, and I have a feeling, this is just the beginning....


One more thing I must add, I successfully infused my son ALL BY MYSELF this week! Of course, his nurse was right beside me, talking me through it. But I did it right and was successful on the very first try! I've been feeling fairly confident that I could do it myself if I HAD to...so I suggested to her that we start 'training' and just take it slow. I still feel like I got pretty lucky, but I'm going to keep trying until I feel completely comfortable and can take over. Sweet boy must have known that I needed encouragement because he didn't even cry!

The ice has melted...

We survived! We were lucky to only be out of power for about 50 hours. Some people are still without. The first night, we stayed in our house and all slept together, but in the morning, we could see our breath. So the next 2 nights we crashed at our friends house, who were gracious enough to put us up (thank you Carlsons)! We were so grateful to have a warm (and lighted)place to sleep and hang out. For two days, all you could hear outside were trees cracking and falling, and since then, all you can hear now is chainsaws, busy at work. The damage was horrific, I've never seen such big trees split into so many pieces. Amazing how something so beautiful can be so dangerous!


These huge pine trees line the property behind our house and back up to our fence. They are not supposed to be in our backyard. Since the ice has melted, they've lifted quite a bit, but we still might have to cut some of them down.



The first day of the storm, I was being productive inside and paying bills, when I went out to put them in the mail, I couldn't get the mailbox open! Needless to say, we didn't get mail for a few days.





The biggest icicles I've ever seen!

Still Iced In! Still Powerless!

We are 1 of the millions still without power. We have been without power since Tuesday afternoon! We stayed at home on Tuesday night, but yesterday it was just too cold and we decided to stay with friends last night. There are currently 3 huge pine trees in our back yard, and we can't see our fence, so we don't know if our fence is still standing or not. The electric company has said it won't be until Saturday night that we get our power back, but we are hoping it happens sometime today.

When we get our camera up and running we will upload some pics of the damage.

Ice Storm

Well, we are experiencing our first real ice storm! My over-achiever, I mean, very committed husband, braved the 2" thick ice on the roads and went in to work this morning, hope he makes it home! (I really hope he makes it to the store first too to buy a few flashlights). We are hoping not to lose power, but some parts of the area already have. Grace and I went outside to take a few pictures. This has all happened in less than 24 hrs. and the freezing rain is still coming down. I have to say, it sure is beautiful compared to a Southwest dust storm!

The boy loves to dance!