Gingerbread Fun

Vance has been bugging me since July (if not before) to do gingerbread stuff so I thought that would be a good way to kick off the Christmas Season this year. You can see more specifically what we're doing at my other blog .

The boys had fun decorating our house, but mostly they enjoyed sneaking the candy into their mouths.
They are proud of the finished product as you can see.

Tanner decorated several cookies all by himself, but he mainly wanted to lick the frosting off all of them.

Vance decorated many all by himself too. This one has white gumpdrops so it's hard to see, but it's my favorite. He gave the gingerbread boy two eyes and three buttons and of course some sprinkles!

Oh boy!

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We enjoyed it at my parents house. Here's a picture of the boys anxiously awaiting some pie. Stephen was back to work today. Lame, but at least he didn't have to work yesterday!
On Wednesday I finally had my ultrasound (about time too). We found out that we are having our third boy! Yay! We're excited. Of course, we'd be excited either way. I'm just glad I finally have it confirmed. Yes, we thought we would have another little guy. We're going to name him Porter. I assume if you are reading this blog you probably already know my that Porter is my maiden name. Anyway, now we'll have to work up a middle name. Also, noteworthy is that I am measuring way ahead of my regular due date. It'll be up to my doctor to decide whether or not to change it so I'll let you know if it changes when I see him next month. My due date now is March 25. I was measuring at a due date of the 14th. I think my oven just cooks baby's fast...
Anyway, we have much to be thankful for! Now it is time to gear up for Christmas.
Oh, here's our complete Thanksgiving Tree list (mostly put together by Vance) In no particular order (because I don't remember the order)

Trains

Turkeys

Grandparents

Jackets

Mom

Sunbeam Teacher

Legos

Brothers

Dogs

Dinner

Mario Kart

Computers

Toys

Horton the Elephant

Movies

Grandma's House

Alphabet

Puzzles

Music

Balloons

Mom, Dad, Tanner, Vance

Fish

Wall-E

Little Einstein

Outside

Fun

Last night was the closing night of my sister's high school play of "A Christmas Carol". She played The Ghost of Christmas Past (check her out in this costume my mom made). She had some other parts as well. She did a great job and Stephen and I enjoyed watching it. I hope they do a play that Vance would enjoy sometime before she graduates so he can see her in one. Since we were at my parents using their free babysitting services we decided to see New Moon early that day. It was a very good day for everyone. Stephen and I got to go out alone and the boys got to play with Grandma and Grandpa.

Stickers anyone?

Vance's new favorite thing

Vance is very into somersaulting lately so I did a video of him doing it last night to share with you all. Here is also a continuation of the things we have put on our Thankful Tree:

Grandma's House

Mario Kart

Brothers

Legos

Dogs

Fish

Toys

Alphabet

I'm pretty sure the new Pixar movie "Up" is going to make it's appearance some way or another. Actually I think that's why dogs made the list. It is the boy's favorite movie of the week. Tanner refers to the old man as Grandpa.

Baby Update

Everytime I turn around someone is asking me if I know the gender of our baby or when we're going to find out. I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and so I thought I'd give an update for those interested. I took the boys with me to my appointment and Vance thought I had an airplane in my tummy when we listened to the baby's heartbeat. That'd be quite an accomplishment.
Anyway, this entire pregnancy I've been consistently measuring about a week ahead of what I actually am. I had an ultrasound at 13 weeks and based on those measurements I'd be due March 16 instead of March 25. The doctor told me that we'd wait for my second ultrasound to see what it said and decide if he was going to change my due date or not. I'm measured around 22 weeks as of yesterday so he wants me to go back and see him in two weeks, at which time he should order an ultrasound for me. So to answer the questions I don't know the gender of this baby yet and I don't know when we will find out except that it'll be in more than two weeks.
In the meantime I will put up a poll for you to guess if we're having our third boy or our first girl. Stephen and I have our suspicions, but I'm not going to share them with you. HA!

Rose's Birthday

Today is my little sister, Rose's 17th birthday. We went up last night to celebrate. Vance loves the cake and candles, but he really hates the "Happy Birthday" song. As you can clearly see, I didn't think our singing was that bad.

Countdowns

This was our countdown to Halloween. I made it all with my Cricut Machine. Sorry, it's not a better picture, but I think you get the idea. We had all 31 days represented and each day we'd put a new "Halloweenish" thing up. The boys enjoyed looking at it, in fact Tanner was pretty sad when I took it down.

Last year we did a Turkey Countdown for Thanksgiving. It was fun, but I decided to go with something a little different. We are still writing down things we are grateful for, but we're using this cute Thanks Tree. She also has a Giving Tree where you write down things service you've done. However, we're just sticking with the first tree as we will be doing something with service later on in the month. It took some coaxing to get Vance to think of something he was grateful for the first day, but after that he has been the one to bring up that we need to put a leaf up and had something in mind to write down. Anyway, here are the first few days... Hopefully we can get Tanner to tell us a thing or two as well.

1. Balloons (I think we can thank my mom for this one since she brought the boys black balloons on Halloween)

2. Grandparents- I couldn't put just grandpa's or grandma's, it had to be both.

3. Family- Technically he made sure I wrote down Mom, Dad, Vance, and Tanner

4. Sunbeam Teacher- I thought that was pretty sweet. I am thankful he has a good Sunbeam teacher too.

5. Horton the Elephant- Very important. Not only did he make me write it down on a leaf he made me draw a picture of an elephant on another piece of paper. Folks, I can't draw. I'm not even one of those people who says they can't draw, but are decent at it. Stick people are a stretch for me.

My kids are enjoying countdowns so much. What are we going to countdown to after Christmas is over?

Because it makes me happy...