We are alive!

Sorry we seem to have dropped of the face of the earth lately! I have had a REALLY rough week and now I have a cold which would probably explain why my last week was so bad! Hopefully at least. The kids are doing GREAT though, Tiana is getting another tooth but besides having a runny nose she hasn't been cranky which is good. I have been so thankful this past week that the kids LOVE to play with each other. They are happy as can be if I am just laying on the floor beside them while they play. It makes me feel guilty as a mom when I get sick and don't feel like I can do some of the things that I usually do. However I do realize that our kids are not worse for wear! They adore each other and love all the Mommy time at home that they get. Besides as soon as Daddy walks through the door it is rough-house time which the both LOVE. Thanks so much for the congratulations and all of the thoughts of us... it helps it all seem more real which has been fun! I am glad that I am not showing at ALL yet but on the other hand I can't wait until at least we can tell I am pregnant in some way besides the being sick part!

Our second little bookworm has discovered the bookshelf. She is all over the house getting into things and following Keaton and I around..... albeit at a MUCH slower pace! She has gotten quite fast but nothing much compares with her speedy older brother.

After quite the day on Monday we decided that we would have projects every day.... or as close to that as we can. Keaton found a Sharpie Marker and decided to "color" all over the couch. Mind you this was in the space of time that I left the study, made Tiana a bottle, handed it to her to feed herself and came back!!!!! Luckily hairspray is WONDERFUL and after Mommy went through the roof we ended up getting it out after quite a bit of work! Later that evening he decided to try his hand at "coloring" on the wall..... lucky for us he found a pen that was out of ink. Needless to say I decided that it was high time to put my K-12 Art Education degree to work! I have projects galore that I have in my head from college so we are starting to do something little every day during Tiana's nap time. Plus it is GREAT Mommy and Keaton time. We just colored yesterday because I didn't feel good enough to go to the store to get the supplies that we need for some projects. He was so proud of his work of art that he sat at the door waiting for Daddy to get home to show him what he made!

Today we painted with chocolate pudding!


After a successful 3 pictures and pudding everywhere he said, "Eww yucky Mommy sticky, ALL DONE, go wash!". I then asked if he wanted to eat some and he looked at me like I was crazy and said, "No mommy, Yucky paint". Needless to say he may not be eating pudding for awhile but he loved it and keeps looking at his pictures.

The other news is that Tiana has learned to clap. She is so proud of herself. She has really been trying to learn and when it clicked she was SO happy. The good news is that signing should be right behind as soon as the novelty of the clapping wears off.

Clapping
Video sent by mommy

4 plus 1 = 5!?!

2 parents and 2 kids means busy days but we aren't outnumbered yet. Although most of the time Daddy is at work which means this Mommy has her hands full. Come July all of the time we will find ourselves being outnumbered by kids!

Yes... after 4 years of trying/not preventing we are pregnant!!! I know that we will get a TON of comments to the effect of "that always happens" or "I told you that you just needed to relax".... well I think that it has a lot more to do with God's timing than anything else. We have been "relaxed" for 2 years now but for some reason NOW is when it happens. We have two wonderful, beautiful, children that we love SO much and are so glad that we have. We are just so excited to be able to give them a younger brother or sister. This isn't our "first" child... it is our third.

Yes.... we will have 3 under 3! But Keaton is so excited to have another baby around and Tiana... well she is such an easy baby who adores her brother, so welcoming another sibling will be no problem for her. Am I overwhelmed? I could be if I really wanted to be I suppose, but what we are, is SO excited to be parents again.

We are almost 13 weeks along and due the end of July!

Here is the little munchkin at 9 weeks.

This also explains why I haven't been the best emailer and blogger this past few months. (sorry) I have been sick. It is getting better though with more good days and only some bad days thrown in after I have a busy day or I don't get much sleep. Cars and me don't mix much right now especially in the evening but that should be getting better in a week or so.

We got to hear the heartbeat yesterday and it was a strong 160 beats a minute! We are excited for every step of this little journey. Our next ultrasound should be about 20 weeks so the beginning of March we will find out if we are welcoming another little girl or little boy into our family. If anyone would have told us 2 1/2 years ago, amidst fertility, that in 3 years we would have 3 children, we wouldn't have believed them at ALL. But here we are and isn't it exciting!!!

Catch Up

Chip got the kids a Toys-R-Us gift card over Christmas so last weekend we took them on their little shopping spree!! Keaton couldn't decide what he was going to get. The morning before we left we told him he could get a car, truck, or ball.... a few of his favorites. He switched it several times over the course of the morning only finally to decide that Sissy would get a ball and HE would get a truck....... working the system already! He was just enthralled with the train sets though so he picked out a Thomas race track that he just LOVES!

HE has to say ready set go.... and then he cheats!
Sissy took one look at this in the box and got SO excited so this was her choice. She pouted and cried when we put it behind her in the shopping cart! Keaton loves it too because it plays music. Here he is dancing along!

She still just gets so excited when she sees it and has to scoot her way over to play with it.

THANK YOU so much for the gift card it was so much fun to take them in there and have them choose their gifts and plus they have LOVED their choices and play with them all the time!

Sunday after meeting we put Tiana on the floor only for her to promptly start scooting around and almost crawling!

Laundry basket rides!

This girl is NOT afraid of getting dirty especially when what she is covered in is FOOD!

I love this. Since Tiana has been scooting around the two kids will play together for hours!

Since Keaton got his little trains he has come to love ALL of his little cars. He parked them all in a row.

Then tried to haul them around in the bus which didn't work to well.

So we got out his Tonka truck and he has been wheeling around all of his little cars non-stop ever since.

Daddy was home yesterday so they built a HUGE fort in the living room!

He declared this room "his room".

And we will leave you with a few goofy photos proving just how fun Uncles are!

After these Keaton became convinced that photos where so bad after all!

Photos of the kids

Here are Tiana's 8 Month photos finally! Here is a bit of what she has been doing this last month:

She LOVE food…. Of ALL kinds… well except green beans! She will tolerate them and eat them because she loves to eat but will shudder and make faces the entire time. It really is quite entertaining! Surprisingly enough she hasn’t got gained any weight again over the last month even though she out eats her brother many a meal! She is sitting steady between 20 and 21 pounds but is now 30 ¼ inches long!!! Her growth has finally slowed a little bit and because of that she has been developing VERY rapidly in other areas. It has just clicked that she can move around in a scoot/crawl. She should be fully crawling in the next week or so I would think. Not that it will speed her up much; she just gets anywhere and everywhere in no time flat. It has been wonderful to be able to set her on the floor and be able to have her entertain herself for an hour at a time! Tiana and Keaton play SO well together although she has gotten quite possessive of her toys. We hear quite the little squeal when Keaton takes something of hers… which has been nice… got to keep that big brother in line! She has developed such a goofy little personality lately which has been SO fun. She loves to make faces to make us laugh. Once she gets in a showoff mode she sticks with it for quite a while keeping everyone laughing!
We have also been very proud of her in crowds lately. She puts on her little “I am trying soooo hard to be brave” face and toughs it out. She will even let other people hold her now for short amounts of time!!! This is QUITE the feat for our little timid and shy girl. She does NOT like new and different situations at ALL. I took her in the shower with me this past weekend and that was TERRIFYING for her. We try to ease her into things like that so that she can get used to them. She has gotten somewhat used to her snow clothes and being outside but it isn’t a favorite yet. We also took her into a swimming pool this past month and she did very good trying to be brave as long as ONLY her feet where in the water! She loves her baths though so we will keep trying little things with her to get her used to it. This has been so different for us because Keaton was totally game to do anything and everything from a VERY young age. We just have to remember how sensitive she is and slowly work on getting her used to new situations without pushing her.

She has such good balance standing up already..... we just may have an early walker on our hands... who knows!

Our handsome little boy all dressed up for Special Meeting.

Just a few of her goofy little faces.

We took some photos of my entire family while all of my brothers are home and I will post those soon. We have some hilarious ones of the uncles and Keaton!

Counting.

Keaton has discovered the joy of counting EVERYTHING! In the video he makes it to 8 but he actually can go all the way to 10. He has discovered that he can pretend he doesn't know something. He pretends to get my brothers names all mixed up all the while giggling because he knows it drives them crazy! When frustrated or really wanting their attention what do you know he has no problem with the right name. He also had discovered that the gets quite the reaction from Mom and Dad when he counts to 8 then says 4! When you actually catch him counting or ask him what comes after 8 he will go all the way to ten. Needless to say even 8 is quite a big deal for a 2 year old!

P1030245
Video sent by mommy

Snow fun!

On Friday we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa's house to enjoy the snow and relax.

Daddy built a BIG snowman that Keaton still thinks is SO fun!

Daddy and Keaton then had a snowball fight.

Eating his ammo while getting hit by a snowball from Daddy.

Keaton did some sledding which was a first for him! He loved it... which wasn't real surprising since he doesn't have much fear.

Sissy decided that all that snow was too tiring so Mommy and her went inside to finish the nap!

You can't actually see the horse in this photo but Grandpa helped Keaton ride while the horse was eating!

He then finished wearing out Grandma and Grandpa by climbing up the hay stack! Even though he was being bribed with popcorn, cocoa, and a BSU game he still threw a fit to come inside. Shows just how much he loves the snow.

While we were making dinner our boy got mischievous and we found him giggling in the dryer!

Our little photographer in the making found a camera and was walking around saying "cheese"!

Tiana also turned 8 months on us this last weekend! We will have a little update and photos in the next few days... I have to get over and get them taken first! We are looking forward to Worker company tomorrow night, a potluck on Friday Night, photos and seeing the Uncles again on Saturday and then Special Meeting on Sunday! Sounds like an eventful next few days.