YEAH!!!

My cute sister-in-law Maria got engaged over Thanksgiving break! She is marrying Kirk sometime early next year...probably February, but date's aren't final yet! We are SO happy for them. They are seriously the cutest couple and are just so great for each other! We are super excited to have Kirk in the family. He is currently in his pediatric dental residency in hawaii. Long term plan for Tom and I is to convince them to move out this way and us help him find a job close! If not, no worries...we'll be going to pedo conferences with them forever.

This picture was taken over Labor day at my house. Aren't they so cute!?!

IT'S A...

Healthy little baby! I had my ultrasound today and I got to see the little one moving all around. Healthy, all the parts in their correct places, and pretty cute too! But I'm biased as the mother!

What is the gender? Well, that we will all have to wait until D-Day. That's right. We didn't find out. We have two boys, one little girl, and we'll be thrilled with whatever comes next. We've never been surprised and just thought it would be really fun this time!

Funny though, how much of an opinion everyone has on the subject! I think I have only had one or two people actually say, "oh, that's fun!" Everyone else gives me the, "you are one of those" or "why would you do that" or "just put it in an envelope and give it to me so I can know" (the most popular phrase yet believe it or not)! But the truth is, I don't care what others think. I'm 100% satisfied knowing everything is healthy at this point and really look forward to finding out upon delivery!

Cameron's big day

We have had a CRAZY couple of weeks in our house. Maybe not so much for everyone else but at least for me! It started with Jane's birthday last week, then I hosted book group at my house and fed everyone Cafe Rio salads. Then I prepared for Cameron's birthday (one week later), did some last minute shopping, had a family party with him on the 5th, and then a friends party on the 6th. Let me tell you, 7 eight-year-olds = chaos! At least Cam had a blast!

The next morning we woke up and got ready for a very special day...baptism day. We didn't get to celebrate one baptism, but two!! Cameron's lifelong friend, Kate, was getting baptized the same day. They are 6 weeks apart and have been friends since they were born! Lizzy and I met in dental school when we were both pregnant with these guys! So anyways, we went to Kate's baptism that morning, at 10:00, then went over to their house for lunch. Tom's parents came in about 2pm and we hung out with them until Cameron and Tom had to go to the church to get ready for Cam to get baptized at 5:00pm.

Cameron and Kate right after Kate's baptism.

Just before going to the church with dad and grandpa.

All dressed in white.

Right after the baptism. Can you tell how much my kids LOVE having their picture taken?

Kate came to Cam's baptism too!

After the day was over, we decided to celebrate by taking Jane to a sitter and going out to Red Lobster! Cameron and Kate LOVE shrimp and got the bottomless shrimp. Man, did they put it down! Here they are toasting with their root beers!

What a great weekend! We really had a blast with Grandma, grandpa, and Jonny coming to celebrate with us! But today I'm in my PJ's and am going to stay that way! :)

Halloween Fun!

We had a GREAT Halloween this year! It was just so fun because our kids were so excited about it! We went swimming in the afternoon with the kids at the Kroc center, went to a halloween party at a friends house where we had potluck dinner and the kids did crafts, then we came home and went trick-or-treating. I stayed at home to hand out toothbrushes & a piece of candy to everyone who came by our house, and Tom took the kids out. Jane was hillarious! After every house she would say, "one more house, daddy". She did not want to come back in and would not let anyone hold her candy bag, even when it got heavy. The boys had a blast and could have kept going but it was getting chilly and we bribed them with a movie.

My three amigos!Jane was a unicorn (thanks to my friend). Braden was Indiana Jones and Cameron was Zorro.
During the movie Braden said, "This is the best day ever!"

Oh, and they didn't really care about how much candy they got b/c in our house, the halloween goblin comes and eats their candy anyways. What's that? Well, the boys write a note to the goblin, put their candy out on the front door step before they go to bed, and in the morning, the candy is gone and a prize is there waiting for them. They were so excited about it this year they had NO problems picking 5-10 pieces of their favorite candy to save(after stuffing their faces all night) and putting the rest out. Sure enough, this morning, the boys each had the prize they wanted (thanks to Tom and his late-night Fred Meyer run), and I don't have to deal with candy, wrappers, and more candy messes than I care to deal with post-halloween.

Last year I even had enough candy still left at Christmas to use to stuff their stockings!

Jane's birthday!

We had a birthday party for Jane. She had 7 friends come and we did a "mommy & me" music class. Jane loved it. Bubbles at the party!

Jane was all about the present opening! She was so excited to get some cute "girly" things!

We had a family birthday party tonight with the kids. Jane totally enjoys singing happy birthday to herself!Happy Birthday to my sweet baby girl!

Happy Birthday Grandma!!!

Cameron's soccer is officially over. Happy day! The rain has come, the weather cold, and I'm glad we don't have to sit out in it anymore! This is a few shots from the last game...sunny amazingly enough! I didn't bring my camera to any other game so they are kindof funny pictures!
Cameron did have a great season this year. It was really fun to watch the games. It's amazing how the skills jump from age 5-6 to 7-8. These guys can get pretty intense at times! Here is Cam with his coach, Coach Tom. Funny thing is, we didn't volunteer to coach, they were desperate for help this year. So Tom said he would do it (this was a week before the first game and after all the teams were set). Well, come to find out, we aren't even on the team we sponsored! Even more ironic, Tom is coaching the OTHER pediatric dentists sponsored team. By the time we found out, it was too late to change anything. Oh well! Tom was a really good sport about it and just laughed it off.

We were lucky to have our cousin Max come to visit us from Las Vegas. He had a bit of dental work that needed to be done. One frequent flyer later, we got to spend all weekend with him! The boys LOVED it!

Jane decided Saturday night she wanted to sleep in her big girl bed. We've had this set up for a few weeks and suddenly the other night she was crying in her crib saying "big bedroom". I put her in here, mostly for kicks to see what she'd do, and she fell right asleep. Next night, same thing! Is this a foreshadowing of the future? When she decides something, she does it. All of the sudden she has to be the one to put her shoes on, she has to pick out her clothes (although if I distract her enough I can get what I want on her), she has to get out of the car by herself. Everything is "my do it".

But who can resist those blue eyes and white curls?

One down...

After 2 months of soccer games taking over our Saturday mornings, Braden's season is over. He did amazing! He was by far, the most aggressive player on his team (yes, I am talking about Braden) and scored at least 2 goals per game. Yesterday he scored 4...just wanted to end the season on a high note! It has been SO fun to watch him grow and come into his own. He had so much confidence this season and really just fell in love with the game of soccer. I'm really proud of him. He needed a season to be the best, and not be in his brothers shadow. Here he is getting his trophy.

And here is a clip I took of him scoring a goal. Glad to catch it on camera!

I wanted to post this picture of my boys...this is where they hang out with our neighbor, Ryan. We have since moved the tramp by the fence so they jump off the fence and land on the trampoline. When Ryan wants to play, he climbs up onto his fence and yells Braden's name till someone comes to the back door to tell him if they can play. It's pretty cute.

Jane picking flowers in front of our house. This was one of the last warm days of the year. We went to the pumpkin patch and animal farm. Jane LOVED it! Of course, every picture of her with an animal she turned away when I snapped it!

And finally, Tom's new baby...

A Lemon.That's the size of the baby right now. So why is it I'm only 14 weeks and TOTALLY feeling like I want to slip into those comfy maternity clothes? Unfortunately, my pride won't quite let me. Give me 2 more weeks and anything goes!

April 6th...my due date. And YES...we're really excited! :)

WICKED

What can be better than a weekend in Seattle with friends (and some family), shopping, seeing WICKED, more shopping, eating YUMMY food, staying up LATE, and more shopping?

Plain and simple...nothing!

We had a blast. Thanks Traci for hosting. Yummy treats to snack on till the wee hours of the night! Comfy beds to sleep in. Fun running trails for our early morning runs (8:30...that's early for not having kids!), a fun hike.

Thai food. CPK. Panera Bread. Bellevue Square. Ross. Ikea (although I skipped out on this one!).

Did I mention it was 48 hours of pure fun? Every mom needs a weekend away sometimes!

Can I tell you how much I love having a girl? I feel like I'm playing dress-ups all the time. I got her some new clothes this last weekend and it was so fun! I had so many hand-me-downs I couldn't justify buying anything for her. But alas, the hand-me-downs have slowed to almost a complete stop and although it stinks, it's okay too. Because now I can actually buy things for her and not feel guilty! This is one of about 4 new outfits I have for her. I'm sure the pictures will keep on coming b/c I can hardly stand how cute she is! One of the best things is that she loves bows in her hair. She puts them on and says, "pretty". Once again... reading, reading, reading!

Remember Jane's book obsession? Here's a few pictures...
See that basket full of books? She dumps them all out and pics a few she wants to read with me. Then when we are done, she says, "One more book. One more book."

Sassy

I thought only little girls were sassy. Nope. Cameron has had 3 incidents in the last week where he has been completely sassy and disrespectful. What do I do? He has consequences, but to that he says, "I don't really care, mom" or "whatever, mom". It's all I can do to keep from physically strangling the boy! Worst part about it, Braden did it to me this morning! AHHH!
It's a stage, right? They are learning it from kids at school, right? The'll get over it, right?

I'm in need of a major mom-cation. Good thing this weekend I'm going to seattle with GIRLS ONLY to do some shopping and see the play "Wicked"! It'll be totally quick (2-days), but it will be spent with some of my favorite people. Pictures to follow!