When you refuse to take a nap...

Brotherly love

They boys are excited for Norah to come.  Colin is excited that it could be any day now (which means anytime in the next 3 weeks) They've been saying some really sweet things so I wanted to make sure I remembered them - and for Norah to read when she gets older.

Joel:  I love Norah.  He's my sister.  (I hear this many times during the day. and everyone is a he to Joel.  Makes me laugh all the time)

Colin: I can't wait to have a baby in the house again. Its going to be fun.

Colin: I want to hold her when I get home from school.  Every day.  

Colin: (holding up the cutest swim suit my friend gave me)  She's going to look so cute in this!  Its fun to have a baby girl.

Joel: Norah no sleep in my room - he sleep in Bubbas room with me and Bubba. Norah want to sleep with big brothers.

Colin tells any person in the store/out in public that we're going to have a baby girl soon.  He's so proud and beams the whole time. 

Joel loves to lean against my stomach all the time and I love the look on his face when he feels her kick.  "Norah kicked me. He loves Joely bean."  (Brent has nicknamed him joely bean and he calls himself that all the time)

They have had fun looking at all the bows and clothes my wonderful community group gave Norah a few weeks ago.  I need to post pictures of the shower.  We all have boys - most have 2 boys so I'm hopefully starting the trend in CG of two boys and then a girl :) This group has become a second family to us and we're so blessed to be apart of it.   Joel has already picked out what bows Norah will wear in order.  

The boys love to come up and rub their faces over my stomach. It looks sorta like how a cat rubs against your legs - but they say thats how Norah knows they love her.

Colin has started calling her Norah.  He told me he would save the name Leah for his parrot (his new choice of a pet)

Reading

 I love to read and especially love to walk into a room seeing this:

2-3 minutes

Two to Three minutes.  That is all it takes for this cute boy to get into trouble

 Brent has been painting Norah's room (we're still calling it Joels room for now and leaving his clothes/toys in the room) But the doctor told me wed that a baby could happen any time now so we're finally getting in gear.

 I thought Joel was going back into Bubba's room (they were going back and forth from Colin's room to our backroom where I was) Joel decided to take the roller while Brent was at the store getting more paint and 'help"The paint went all around the room.  Good thing it wasn't on carpet.

Colin was a big helper in scraping the paint off.

A beautiful day

Today was 70 and beautiful.  I think Joel would've taken a nap today (he was really tired all morning) but it was too nice to bring him inside. The boys ate lunch outside and then spent time playing in the mud. Colin was building something - he's been working on it for days and then Joel helped on and off while making his own mud pies.

 Then they came inside for baths and wanted to go right back outside.  Colin wanted to wash my car.  Of course! It started off great but then it turned really fast. 

 Its just too tempting not to do it.

But then Joel got Colin with the hose and both of them were happy and laughing. I had put my camera away by then in case they went after mommy.  The car didn't get finished but they happily plotted and schemed and waited until Daddy was home to ambush him with the hose :)  They are still outside playing with Brent and after another bath hopefully an early bedtime for all of us.

and does anyone know how to upload the highest quality picture on here?  the pictures are clear on my computer but a little blury when i upload them to the blog.

My Birthday Present

In honor of my birthday today I thought I'd show you what I got for my birthday (and Christmas and the next few birthdays/Christmas) The kitchen isn't totally done yet but we've  I've decided that since Norah is coming soon we should focus on getting ready for the baby and then work on the finishing touches to the kitchen.  I've had a few freak out moments thinking she'll be here in a month or less and we are not ready for her.  But most of the kitchen is done.  Just a few trim pieces, a few more tiles installed, transition piece, paining the ceiling, add another piece of trim under the window, and then picking out a backsplash.  And somehow those are the things that are easy but seem to take the longest to get done. So here are the before and after. 

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After (opening up the doorway makes such a difference. And you can see we're still moving in our stuff.  We have to unpack some boxes in the garage and figure out where to put them all.  We have so much cabinet space.  Its wonderful)

Before

After (where the microwave was there is now a full pantry cabinet. I love it. Its hard to believe we fit all our food in one tiny cabinet before)

Before

After (I love the fact we put the counter there for the kids. They eat breakfast and lunch there, do homework, color, its great.)

Before

After

We love it.  And got some amazing deals on everything. Its fun to even see the kids walk into the kitchen and just look around.  Its hard to picture what the kitchen looked like before.  We love it.

Pirates

Window

 Anyone need a window cleaner?

 

Snow

We've been enjoying a very mild winter so far which I love.  The kids have been able to play outside a lot and its been nice walking to the bus stop. The other day it was cold in the morning and Colin commented "boy that warthog actually got it right - there really is 6 more weeks of winter"  (hahahahah i love it!)  But Colin has been wanting snow so bad and really wanting a snow day from school.  We didn't a snow day from school but we woke up this morning to a light dusting in the ground.  We had to be at church early this morning but we bundled up the kids and let them go play outside before we left.  Just in case it was all melted by the time we got back.(which most of it was)

 And now we're wanting a real snow storm. Enough to cancel school, make a snowman, and go sledding. 

nap

 Joel is in the process of dropping his nap.  Sometimes he will go right down - other times he will fall asleep around 4ish and most days wont even take one.  Today he fell asleep in the car at 10:30 running errands with me.  So its anyones guess when he'll fall asleep now. Part of the problem is he's so excited to play with Bubba when he gets home from school that by the time we do start nap time it'll mean he'll be up really late. And since the boys are sharing a room and Colin goes to bed early -I would love to get Joel to go to bed at the same time.  So I'm not pushing nap time around here.

 The other day he fell asleep on the couch around 4:30.  We tend to stay in our pj's all day around here.

So cute