Gingerbread Houses

This afternoon when the kids got home from school we got to work on our gingerbread houses. Last year we had issues putting them together with the frosting stuff we made. We thought we would be smart this year and just use glue. This year we learned that the glue didn't work so well either. It made the crackers too soft and didn't work well for trying to glue stuff onto the actual house. We still had a really great time though and we already have some ideas in mind for next year to make it more successful. I love that we started this tradition last year. It is a great way to spend time as a family and it is always fun to see what each of us creates.

The houses built and getting some drying time before we start the decorating.

 Olivia with her mouthful of Bottlecaps. She thought her contribution would be to see how much candy she could decorate the inside of her tummy with.

 Zoey's

 Noah's

 Daddy's

 Mommy's

 Our happy little gingerbread village.

Backtracking - Pumpkin Painting, Pumpkin Carving, Halloween

I just realized as I was looking through some pictures on my computer that I never posted about Halloween. My kiddos looked absolutely adorable and we had a lot of fun so I figured I best throw some pictures up from then.

Here is our little guy (confirmed again it is a boy). 33 weeks and he is looking great. The ultrasound went great and fluid levels and measurements are all as they should be. It is always great to know things are going well and the baby is healthy. I can't believe he will be here in 7 weeks or less. It is coming so quickly now. I am excited to meet him but I am so not ready yet. I feel so incredibly nervous about it all. I know everything will fall into place though and he will fit in and settle in just like the others have. It was very exciting and fun to see him on ultrasound yesterday. The tech had a hard time getting any good profile shots or 3D shots of his face. He is all squished up against the uterine wall and the placenta. He also sat with his feet up by his head most the time. He was not very cooperative in giving us a good shot of his face or anything else the tech was trying to look at or measure. She got everything though and got this shot the best she could. We did get to see some cool things like him practicing his breathing and at one point he had some fingers in his mouth and was sucking on them. Jay thinks he looks like the Terminator but I think he is so cute. He has chubby cheeks and the tech saw some fuzzy hair on his head and a little tuft of hair at the base of his skull. This is our first baby to stay head down the entire pregnancy. Different experience for me. Not sure how I feel about his feet constantly pushing up at my ribs. Anyway, we are just thrilled he looked so great. What more could we ask for? Totally nervous but completely excited and in love!

 

 This is a front view of him. You can see his head with both his eyes and his nose and his mouth. He has his right hand up by his face and his other hand is at his mouth. Can you see it? I hope so. My 5 year old boy saw it right away without any help. It was very cute because he was so excited.

When the kids got home from school today we got to work putting ornaments on the tree. We cranked up the Christmas tunes on Pandora and had a great time. It's fun having bigger kids and not having to put all the ornaments on by myself. We did save some to put on with Daddy when he gets home.

We had Cosmo come spend a week with us while Grandma and Grandpa were out of town. The kids were happy to have him around.

Naughty Baby

This little lady is really having a hard time not being naughty lately. I can't count some days how many times I pull her off the table. She must really be testing the water to see what she can get away with and still get a good visit from Santa.

32 Weeks

 So, I realized I don't think I ever even announced on the blog that we have a baby on the way. Kind of crazy how fast time goes. We are expecting baby number 4. It's a little boy and his estimated appearance is the 24th of January. So here I am with only 8 weeks or less to go. I feel HUGE. The doctor actually said I am measuring big so next week we get to have a look at our boy again. I am excited that we get to see the little man again, we have never had an ultrasound this far along before. 

So far, everything has been going well. Mom and baby have been healthy and things have gone just as they should. I have experienced more contractions from earlier on than I have with the other 3. I have had some moments of serious discomfort but I suppose it comes with the territory. It's been a pretty good pregnancy but my hardest so far. I am just constantly tired and often don't feel well or have back aches or contractions or whatever other thing may be causing me issues. I am grateful that things are going as well as they are though. I feel very blessed so far by every pregnancy and every delivery I have gone through. They have all gone well and relatively been uneventful and we just hope for the same for this little dude.

This baby is a total, unexpected surprise to us. We weren't planning on other kids maybe at all but for sure we weren't planning on any for a long while. The initial shock was difficult to deal with. This is for sure the first of our children where I actually had to work to accept it and be happy and excited about it. This baby brings on a whole new financial aspect for us and that has been hard to swallow. The biggest thing is our having to buy a car. We are a 1 car family and adding this member leaves us with not enough room for everyone. We have been blessed to never have a car payment and now we have to take one on which is so not a fun idea. Thankfully we get a lot of money back from tax returns and we have that crutch to help make the payments if needed. If we have learned one thing it is certainly that children are not cheap. At least we have both boy and girl already though because hand me down clothes really come in handy. 

This boy was certainly not anything we expected. There was a lot of guilt at first about being pregnant and in our financial situation. Also a lot of guilt associated with the lack of thrill and excitement we felt about bringing another child into this family. I am incredibly grateful that over time the excitement has built and that we are all very happy to welcome a baby brother into our family. The financial stress is still there but we know it will all work out. This was not our plan but obviously we don't always see the big picture. We do know how incredibly blessed we are. Babies are wonderful and we are now so truly happy to get to bring another life into this world. We are so thankful for our family and know we are so blessed to have each other.