Santa

He's real.  The Southern States Santa.  I've written about it before but this time he proved it.  Santa had Colin on his lap and was talking to him and he asked if he still carried around his blue blanket.  Now the only thing we tell Santa's "elves" before is their name and even then we have to tell Santa when we get to him.  But Colin has never brought his blanket in stores. And even if he mentioned it last year I still think its pretty amazing for Santa to remember since he see's hundreds of kids during Christmas time.  I think my jaw dropped when he asked him that.  It might be a lucky guess but still.... I think he's the real deal :)

 He took his time with us.  Colin loved all the attention from Santa. 

 Joel even liked him this year. I think it helped seeing a doggie sit on Santa's lap before it was our turn. 

 He couldn't figure out why Santa asked him what he wanted for Christmas.  

 

And then Santa told me to sit on his lap and hold up a hat and he got the baby her own candy cane.  He made sure to tell me that when he sees our little girl next year it will be her SECOND Christmas. That this is her first.  He said our baby should get her picture taken with Santa this year too.

He's real - I'm telling you :)

The Farm

 We spent the past weekend at the farm.  The weather was beautiful and we all spent lots of time walking down to the creek or just being outside.

 Colin amazes me with his flexibility to go from the top picture to the bottom picture in a matter of seconds with no effort. 

 Grandpa told Colin he had to push him all the way up back to the house (its a long walk back)

 I love Joel's expression

And we slept in the room with the scary baby doll. (I think she needs to be gone before my little girl arrives or she'll never play with dolls)

Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving.  Yesterday I asked the boys if they could list a few things they were thankful for. They were not prompted at all and just started listing things.  

Colin: "I am thankful for..."
 *My family
*My food
*My aunts and uncles
*Such a great yard I have
*What a great home I have
*My school
*For my brother
*My mom
*My Daddy
*For the baby
*My Leapster
*For holidays
*For friends
*For God and Jesus
*My things
* Legos
*My comfy bed

Joel "I am thankful for..."
* Pick mommy flowers
*My pillow my bed (this one is funny to me because he doesn't sleep in his bed all night - he comes in our room)
*My flowers
*My Ma-ma-maa
*My grandpa
*My Ma-ma-maa (she made it on there a few times)
*My bumblebees

Squirrels

Joel loves squirrels.  It was really Brent who started it.  When he planted grass a few years ago he would give the job to Colin during the day to keep the squirrels from digging in his grass.  So Colin would see one out the window - run outside and yell "hey you squirrels - stay out of our grass or I'll cut you into pieces and eat you for dinner"  Gross but thats what he always said.  And then this fall Brent planted more grass.  And gave Joel the job.  But Joel LOVES squirrels so it's turned into an all the time thing. He will see one out the window and go outside and chase it down.  I wont let him out in the front yard because he'll run right into the street after a squirrel but he will run after them in the backyard all day.  Joel really wants to catch one. And by now the squirrels are playing with him I think. They will let him get close now and then run away. 

On our way to the bus stop last week we saw a squished squirrel.  That one didn't make it across the street without getting hit by a car.  Joel saw it and now every time we walk to and from the bus stopwe have to stop by the squished squirrel.  Its so gross but its actually helped Joel realize why he can't run out into the street.   And he was running ALL THE TIME out in the street or wiggling from our hands in the parking lots. Spankings weren't working. I told him that the squirrel didn't hold his mommy or daddy's hand and a car hit him and now he is squished. 

Last night walking in a parking lot for Colin's soccer pizza party Joel wanted to run free but I just leaned down and said "squished squirrel Joel" and he held tight to my hand.  It might not be a conventional way to parent our child but for now "squished squirrel" is working and I'm very glad.

Quick weekend away

 Colin had a three day weekend so we took off and headed up to the mountains. The boys spent a lot of time reading books.  If anyone wonders what to get them for Christmas - books.  They will read them over and over and over again. 

 Our first destination (after a quick stop in Yorktown) was Luray Caverns. 

Absolutely amazing. We went as kids and it was something that I always remembered.  The kids were in awe.  At least Colin was.  Colin kept commenting "I had no idea this was under the ground"  Joel wasn't sure about it all.  He would tell us "too dark. Scared."  He also said he was scared stuff would "drop drop drop on my head" 

Well worth the money to go.

  The leaves had already reached their peak but the drive up was beautiful. 

We then went and spent the night in Harrisonburg and met Mary and Robbie to go hiking the next day. 

We did this hike 3 years ago on our family vacation. We did Dark Hollow Falls. Its great for kids - and a pregnant woman. The walk back up was a little rough for me but over all a great hike. One the way up I started thinking how this baby girl has already run a 5 mile race and hiked a mountain. 

Amazing how in 3 years we've gone from a family of 3 to a family of 5. 

Colin got this "musket" at Luray Caverns.  He calls it his musket (but I'm not sure thats the right name for it) and it went everywhere with him.  He was either a hunter or a soldier.

 Beautiful nature around us and the guys are on their phones...

 Colin thought he should go in the pack for a little bit

 I think Joel was about done with the hike and just wanted to sleep.

 Since a few minutes later he was out.

 We then went over to Big Meadows. The kids ran around the meadow for close to 2 hours. After doing the hike.  They were so tired after and slept most of the way home. 

  A fun getaway and now Colin is busy planning our next family vacation. 

Student of the Month

Today Joel and I attended a short ceremony at school for the "Student of the Month" kids.  One student was chosen from each class and Colin was picked for the first month.  It was fun to see Colin walk into the cafeteria and see Joel and I sitting there.  They called each child up one by one and read a short paragraph on each student (written by their teachers) on why they were chosen for Student of the Month.  It was really nice.  And really fun to hear what the teacher thought of our Colin. He is dependable, hard working, diligent, a leader, and a bunch of other great things but I can't remember.  I was busy trying to keep Joel from running after Bubba and take a picture at the same time.  

Colin beamed the whole time they were talking about him.  We're so proud of our Colin.  And are now the proud owners of one of those bumper stickers "I'm the proud parent of a student of the month..."

Homework - take 2

Homework was fun until last week.   Then Colin decided it was anything BUT fun.  "Why do I have to do homework every night?"  He gets a few sheets of homework on Monday and its due back Friday so I had been giving him one a night to work on.  It usually took him 15 minutes to do each sheet. 

Joel LOVES homework time.  I finally got smart and just copied each of Colin's papers so Joel would have the same thing to work on. 

After a few nights of this I got tired of it and waited until Brent came home. 

Brent got Colin moving and finished on his homework for the week. This week I had a talk with Colin and he said he wanted to do all his homework on one night so he wasn't do it every day.  So we sat down and did it all on one night and he was very happy. 

Beautiful Girl

Here is a sweet picture of our beautiful girl.  She cooperated today and we were able to get all her measurements and everything looks good.  I was a little nervous that something might have been wrong. I know if it had been major they wouldn't have waited 2 weeks but there was always that worry in the back of my mind. She's not as active as the boys were at this stage.  But everything looked great and I got to spend another day looking at my baby girl.  And she is definitely still a girl.  I know she'll look completely different with fat on her body but I think she might have the same nose as the boys.  The boys think its hilarious that she drinks her own pee.  Joel and Colin keep asking to look at this picture. It makes it more real to them whats actually in my tummy.  I also can't stop looking at it either.  She's so cute.

Names

Naming this baby girl has been harder than the boys.  Mostly because we can't agree.  I thought I'd write out some of the names we've thrown out and also Colin's comments because they are pretty funny.

Molly - I like it - brents friends parents named their dog molly which we've never seen so according to brent thats out. Colin just mentions how he doesn't even have a dog to name and thinks we need to get a dog too like those people who named their dog molly. 

Naomi- we both like it but Colin is adamant that Naomi is a BOYS name

I LOVE Norah.  not sure why but I really like it - Brent isn't sure on it.  Colin also likes Norah but thinks her middle name should be Flower. Norah Flower Goedecke.  I think we'd pick Norah Elizabeth but thats just us :)  But then I was watching Parenthood last night and they named the baby Norah on it and now I don't know - maybe that will start a Norah trend with baby names and she'll have 50 norah's in her school. 

Colin loves Heaven. There is a girl in his class named Heaven and he thinks its just such a pretty name to say.  Only thing is Heaven likes to talk a lot in class. So he doesn't want his little sister to be the talker in class. (heaven is only on Colin's list - not ours)

Other names we've thrown around - Julie, Leah, Audrey, Emma and I'm sure there are others.  When you ask Joel he just says "babys a girl" Colin loves to go over names with me when we're in the car  together.  He also likes Emily. 

So we'll see what we end up with. I look at the baby name websites - write out my top names for the day and brent will come home and veto all of them. :) But I told him since i'm the one carrying the baby I do have the final say. 

And if you don't like any of these names don't tell us.  She'll read these comments one day and it might be the exact name we pick :) 

We are also passing all these names by with the kids to see how they get pronounced.  If Mary hadn't named her cat lily then  Lillian would be on the list but now we know Colin can't pronounce lily and calls the cat Larry.  And i have found myself calling lily "larry" myself so we just want to see any possible nicknames the baby might get right away.