It's a GIRL!

What a great past few days we have had. It all started on last Thursday. Josh took off that day from work so that he and I could go to Idaho Falls together for the big ultrasound - the one I had been waiting for since I first found out I was pregnant. We decided to leave the boys at home because they both had school and then could be babysat for an hour or two afterwards by a friend of ours (Shout out for Stacey! :)

So we dropped them off at school around noon and headed to Idaho Falls. I was so nervous... my stomach was not happy. But as soon as we got there we went in for the ultrasound and the lady was like, "This is the 20 week one right? Do you want to find out the sex?" and I was like, "Uh YEAH!!!" (Who wouldn't!?!? Crazy people.) So she started the ultrasound and within about 2 minutes got the between the legs shot and said, "Oh... what do you have so far?" and I was like, "2 Boys..." and she smiles and is like, "Do you know what it is?" and I'm like, "Well... it doesn't look like my boys' ultrasound did... there's no turtle..." and she's like, "I'm gonna say it's a girl!" but then she kept looking to make sure and it became positive it was a girl. :) Then she spent the next hour checking every little thing from two kidneys to cleft lip (all good) and I was just thinking, "Let me leave so I can go shopping!!!" But then when she was done we ended up just getting my weekly progesterone shot and heading out because my doctor had to go deliver a baby and they were sooo behind. I was like, "I just saw the baby's entire anatomy... I can come back a different day, we're fine."

So, of course then I texted everyone who had been anxiously waiting to hear the news and everyone was so excited, as am I. My babysitters had made cupcakes for us when we got home and a different friend stopped over with a "It's a girl!" balloon and some baby clothes. (You'd think this baby was born already from all the hoopla!)

I was pretty much expecting that it was a girl the whole time but I wasn't sure if it was just that I really wanted one or that it was an accurate hunch. I did have a dream the night before that I had the ultrasound and it was a boy and I woke up like, shocked... and relieved it was just a dream. :)

The next day was Friday and it was Gabe's official Birthday! He took cupcakes to school for a birthday treat and he had a special poster that we made about him for his "spotlight day." The weather was a little cloudy and windy that day so we didn't spend a ton of time outside, but we did go to play at a park after school and then got a cheese pizza (Gabe's favorite) and a movie to watch.

Saturday was GORGEOUS! We had planned to meet some friends of ours out at the sand dunes (don't ask me why there are sand dunes 15 minutes outside of Rexburg but there are) and we built a fire and roasted hot dogs for lunch and let the kids ride on the four-wheelers with the dads. Our friends, Lynn and Erin, have 4 kids, ages 7, 5, 3, and baby, so the boys had lots of fun running up and down the sand dunes with them. It was hard work getting up to the top! I about died. Going up once was a enough for me. But the weather could not have been better. It was in the high 70s I bet and sunny. I even got a little sun tan. Then at about 4 I had to get home to go to the young women's broadcast at church. Josh and the boys stayed outside all evening and worked on the playhouse, which is really close to being done. A little bit of paint, trim and flooring and it'll be done. The goal was to have it done by the time mom and Jasmine come out to visit so it'll be close!

Sunday was nice weather again and we went to church, came home, relaxed. Josh and the boys played a little baseball in the front yard and I sorted through the baby girl clothes I have been collecting over the past few years. Some stuff I was like, "WHY did I ever think this was cute?!" and some stuff I was like, "I can not wait for her to wear this!" But I still have a LOT of shopping to do. :)

So that was our fun weekend! Today is Monday and Josh had to go back to work today. It was quite the good past few days though! Now we have a few more days and then a little visit from the family to look forward to! Gabe and Caleb are so excited. Caleb already started setting up pillows and blankets in the playroom where all the kids are going to sleep. :)

Here's some pics!

Gabe's 6th Birthday Party

Well, I survived Gabe's 6th birthday party today... barely. He wanted a Dinosaur themed party and I had it here at our house from 11:00 to 1:00. I was wondering beforehand if that would be enough time to do all of the amazingly fun activities I had planned out in detail for Gabe and 7 of his closest friends. I looked at the clock in exhaustion after the little tazmanian devils had whirled through lunch, a "Pin the Horn on the triceratops" game, a Dino-Egg hunt, and a pinata...... It was 12:05. And I was ready for a nap.

I think that next year I am going to just fork out the money to rent some place and let them go crazy there. They seemed to be having fun though.

For lunch they had ham sandwiches shaped like dinosaurs (used a cookie cutter), grapes, dinosaur claws (Bugles), and some fossils (jello with little dinosaurs stuck inside them.) His cake was a "volcano" (a Bundt cake with some orange frosting coming out of it) and then I took cupcakes and put them all around it to look like a little dinosaur gathering. It was not professional like some of my more talented cake-making friends (Ms. Jamie I mean you....) but the 5 and 6 year old boys liked it. :)

Gabe got an aircraft carrier from us (he had specifically asked for that because he has a million little airplanes), some walkie talkies, a helicopter, a backhoe toy, and lots of other fun stuff. I have to say, he was pretty good about sharing after he opened his presents and each kid instantly wanted to play with the toy that he had brought (or those that others had brought). I learned that with 6 year old boys, you really shouldn't plan out detailed dino-egg hunt game with checklists because they really just want to run around crazy and play. I also learned that 2 hours is plenty for a birthday party. Maybe even an hour and a half....

Here are Gabe's stats for being 6 (well officially next week!)

Height: 47 inches
Weight: 50 pounds
Clothing size: 7
Favorite toys: anything animal related, the Wii, airplanes, cars, trucks, his new puppy! He goes for a walk with her every morning at 7:00 am with Josh! Even when it's cold and dark!
Favorite part of school: "Recess" (his own answer...)
Favorite color: Blue
Best friends: Alex and Andrew from school, neighbor kids - Noah, Michael
Mom's description: Gabe is still my little snuggler. Ever since he was little he liked to be close to me. He still sneaks into my bed some early mornings, especially when Josh is at work, and likes to snuggle. He likes to do things that make me happy and often says, "Mom, you the best mom any kid could ever have!" Sometimes, things still get his temper riled up - usually it is Caleb. But he is a good big brother and a good helper to me. He is working hard in school on reading, and still goes to speech therapy about twice a week during school time. We can tell he is improving with his words all the time. All of his teachers say he is so fun to work with and very cooperative. He still gets mad when we suggest he has a girlfriend at school. :)

Happy 6th Birthday Gabe! We love you!

Funny Random Conversations

Here's a couple funny moments with the boys lately:

CALEB

So Caleb was in his room for a nap (which he really needed that day so I basically put him in his bed and closed his door and told him not to come out...) but I was standing outside his door listening because he sounded like he was talking to someone. I could kind of make out the words and it sounded something like this:

"Hey.... why can't you be bigger? I wish... I wish dat you were bigger so you could turn on dat light...can you? Can you..... Mr.???"

(new, higher-pitched voice) "No! I just a stuffed animal!!!"

Also...
Caleb woke up from his nap and groggily walked downstairs. He sat down next to me and I said, "Hey Caleb! How was your nap?" He looks at me, still tired, and says, "When I was a asleep I was dreaming about Chick Fil A." Awesome.

GABE

Gabe and I were discussing how next year he would be in first grade, which means he will go to school from 8 am to 3 pm and not just in the afternoon. He started whining that he wouldn't have any time to play at home during the daytime and how he didn't want to go to school all day long. So then I said to him, "You know, when I was in high school, I would get up and leave my house at 6 in the morning when it was still dark out and go to a church class before school everyday. Then I would go to school all day and after school I would stay for dance team or yearbook or musical practice. And alot of times when I got home, it would be dark out again and I would just eat dinner, do my homework, and go to bed. Then I would do it all over again every day. What do you think about that?"

And Gabe looks at me with a totally straight face and says, "You're going to give me nightmares."

Pretty scary for a kid I guess!

Dino Museum Field Trip

Gabe had off from school on Monday and Caleb's preschool had a fieldtrip planned to the Dinosaur exibit in Idaho Falls, so I decided to go along and take the two boys together. We met there at about 10:00 and there was about a billion little preschoolers there waiting in the lobby! I think the old ladies that work at the museum were about to have a heart attack. But the good news was, it was way cheaper than usual because of the group rate for the kids, so I just had to pay for myself to get in - which was $8.00. Any other day it would've also been $6.00 per child so I was pretty happy.

We spent about two hours there, exploring all the dinosuar fossils and even talking to a guy who was working on piecing together some bones that were found recently in Wyoming. I didn't realize that they usually find like - hundreds of pieces that need to go together just to have ONE bone. It's not like, "Here is a femur!" It's like, "Here are 300 pieces that we need to put together to make the femur!" Crazy.

The boys were too young to appreciate a lot of the info at each exhibit but they still had fun seeing it all I think. Caleb had one little melt-down (I'll post a picture...) but otherwise it went smoothly. We just saw everything a LOT faster than adults probably would! :) Anyways, it was a fun little trip and it was a good warm-up for Gabe's Dinosaur party coming up on March 17th for his 6th birthday! We are celebrating a week early because one of his best friends is going to be gone the weekend of the 23rd. I am going to try to do the whole party myself at home - even making the cake.... it should be interesting!

The Fam is Growing!

Lots of news!

A) I realized that I never officially announced that baby #3 is on the way. Oops. I guess once it's baby number three it's kind of like, "just another kid..." :) Right now I am about 17 weeks and I wish I knew if it was a boy or a girl by now but I don't. My ultrasound tech seems to be the only one in Idaho that insists on waiting until 20 weeks to even try to see what it is! I know two girls that found out at 16 weeks what they were having! (Both also having girls... no fair.) Of course I am hoping for a girl again, just like I was the first and second time. So I guess I shouldn't get my hopes up too much! The mom thing to say is, "I will be happy no matter what it is!" But whatever, I want a girl. I have done my time! If this one is still a boy I might just be throwing in the towel.

B) BUT, in other news... we did recently add a girl to the family... in dog form. Josh has always been an animal-lover and has wanted to get a dog since the day we got married. Luckily, we were living in apartments for a while and couldn't have one. Then we moved to Wisconsin and had a house and tried out a little tiny dog. We had it for about 3 months but it was just too much. The kids were still really young and it seemed like it just chased them around and bit them all day. So, now we have our house here in Idaho and Josh has been asking about getting a dog again since last August. I kept putting it off for various reasons, but then this kid we know said that his cousin was moving and needed to find a home for her newly adopted golden retriever puppy and she was willing to just give it away to a good home. We had talked about how a golden retriever was the kind of dog we wanted to eventually get and if you have to buy them they are usually about $400 out here to buy as puppies, so Josh appealed to my sense of bargain hunting by saying, "Tiffany, this is a FREE dog! Why wait until next year and pay $400 when this one is FREE and it's exactly what we want!" Oh boy. He was laying it on thick. I actually think he was surprised when I agreed to even go look at it. But when we did, he was ready to take it home with us that second. I made him wait four days until he had his 3-day weekend and so we could get the house dog-proof. But then we officially went and got her last Monday.

So it's been a week now and she has become a member of the family. She has her moments of puppyness where I am like, "Arg! Stop biting everything!" but overall it has been easier than I thought it would be. She seems to be worlds smarter than the other little dog we had. She goes to the door to go potty and Josh already taught her to sit and stay. I think that's pretty good for an 8 week old puppy. Oh and we named her Zoe. She's pretty cute and the boys seem to like her. Gabe got up early this morning and got himself dressed just to go with Josh to walk her in the cold. My hope is that she can just be mostly trained by the time baby #3 is here!

That's the news for now!