Baby Girl

With the other kids, we always had a nickname: Logan = "Baby Grape" and Bennett = "Baby Kumquat".  I'm thinking this baby is just going to be "Baby Girl".  In this house, that sets her apart from the rest.  :)

Here is Baby Girl's profile from our ultrasound on October 25th.  The ultrasound technician kept laughing at what a happy girl she is: here you can see her mouth open as if she is giggling.

And, she gave us this sweet-as-can-be wave from my tummy.  This is the boys' favorite photo because Baby Girl is waving to them.  Bennett likes to say, "Hi baby" to my tummy and then give it a kiss.  I'm hoping his sweet side is the one that shows when the baby is born!

This whole family is so excited to meet Baby Girl (John, of course, has already nicknamed her "The Princess"...uh-oh!).

BIG Halloween Weekend!

New House Fun

There are so many things we've been loving about the new house.  Namely, the outdoors.  This fall has been remarkably beautiful weather and we've been soaking it in!  The boys love the new yard, love playing in the garage, love raking the leaves, love racing down the driveway, and exploring the new 'hood.

 After work at Starbucks one day, I came home to find the boys going crazy in the leaves!

Leaves are an amenity we didn't really have in our old house. 

Nothing like a fun fall day jumping in leaves! 

 We also tried out the back patio with a bonfire - complete with s'mores!

 The boys are fire maniacs...why would I expect any different?  They LOVED it and were crazy about the bonfire!

Our dear, sweet friends, Mollie and Aubrey, who helped us so much with our move joined us.  We spend time with them most weekends.  Thanks for being the best friends!

Pink or Blue?

Logan's first reaction when we told him we were going to have a new baby back in Sept was, "I think its going to be a boy...or a girl...or maybe something else".  Well, we explained that it would be either a boy or a girl (not, "something else") and then the fun began.  He loved talking about the baby and likes telling everyone about the "baby in Mommy's tummy".  Sometimes he would request a brother, other times a sister.  Lately, he has mostly wanted a brother.  To be honest, I think John and I expected to have another boy - maybe after two boys we just defaulted there when thinking of the next baby.  My pregnancy feels so much like the last two that I thought it would definitely be a boy.  John, however reminded me of a few differences and wasn't sold on the idea that this baby was a boy...

Tuesday we found out....

Its a GIRL!

We were both pretty surprised to learn that our baby is a girl!  How exciting!  Our ultrasound showed great development and a healthy looking baby girl.

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Here's a little teaser of our new house!  I don't have any more house photos, but I will post some once we have anything decent to photograph.

We are loving life in "the yellow house", as the boys call it.

Have you heard?

We moved!  It all happened October 5-October 7 and it was crazy!  Somewhere in the middle of moving in, we found time to have my friend, Rachel, take our family photos!

The brothers! 

 And, in case you haven't heard...these brothers are going to be BIG BROTHERS in 2012....

 Yes, I am growing a bump.  This baby loves to kick and wiggle, just like the others always did.  Baby 3's due date is March 10th, which brings me to 20 weeks this week!

Of course, we are thrilled that our family of FOUR will so soon become a family of FIVE!

So, my lack of blogging has a lot to do with baby, a lot to do with moving, and a lot to do with too little time!  We hope to update the blog on the few weeks we missed, so check back into September and October for updates I haven't yet posted!

Moving Day!

Moving started on Wednesday, October 5th.  We didn't close on our house until October 7th, but we worked a deal with the owner of our new house (a single guy) to start moving a couple days before closing.  We were so grateful for his granting our request!  It gave us a couple days to get moved in, rather than having to be out of the old house and into the new on the very same day.  We had gracious friends who help so much...what would we do without you?!  Many thanks to my friends who came over the week of moving to help pack boxes (even hiring babysitters to come help) and to all the guys who came after work or class to help us fill the moving truck!  Even our awesome moving truck was borrowed to us by friends who have a construction business.  We are blessed with great friends here in Eau Claire!

Over a couple weeks, everything slowly moved out to the garage... 

Logan sure loved the moving truck!  The ramp that ran from the ground up into the box truck was so much fun for the boys.  Yikes!  Good thing we had Logan's big muscles to help us with moving!

Taking a break from the heavy lifting.