Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Everything In Between!

To get us caught up, this blog is mostly going to be pictures. Let's be honest, that's what everyone likes seeing anyway!

Christmas Eve was spent at my parent's house. It was our first year with out my grandma and normally that's where we would go on Christmas Eve. We missed her a lot and we talked about her often. We were still able to have a great time and finished the night off with a Wii bowling tournament which Ryan won!

Opening gifts from Marcus and Fran.

Easton and Joey are only a few months apart

Finley LOVES to play with Auntie's iPod Touch.

Santa came to our house while we were gone and left the boys their presents. Luckily though Spencer thought to leave out cookies and milk for Santa because Santa stopped at Grandma and Grandpa's to fill his stocking there.

Where does Santa find such crazy things?

It's become a tradition to take a picture on the steps in our Santa hats.

We thought we would try a goofy one also...

Then it was time for the present opening to begin. It was an unorganized mess!. Spencer wanted to open his gifts up really fast and Finley didn't seem to care too much about opening. Easton slept most of the time.

 Both boys got a lot of great things and are so lucky!

Auntie gave Spencer an empty box!

His real gift was hiding in the back room! He was super excited about his new big chair.

Finley got a little tired . It's hard opening so many gifts.

This was probably one of Spencer's favorite gifts. His dinosaur boots that he calls dinosaur feet.

He wore them all day and continues to want to wear them.

Grandpa has the special saying of "See you later Alligator." Spencer hasn't caught on just yet that he's supposed to respond with "After while crocodile." So Grandpa got each of the boys books so they could practice. What a great Grandpa!

When we got home the next day Spencer was so excited to see that Santa had been to his house and filled up his Santa sack. All Spencer had been asking for was an orange airplane. So when he opened his stocking and he saw a match box car he said "but I wanted an airplane."  Luckily Grandma had given Santa some help and there were two orange airplanes waiting for him to open under the tree. Both boys were spoiled again and they both had a great Christmas.

The best part of Christmas is getting to play with all of their new toys!

I had off on Wednesday this week. We were going to celebrate Christmas with my mom's side of the family but my mom wasn't feeling 100%. So instead we joined Auntie and Finley at the Eau Claire children's museum. Heather's little sister (from big brothers big sisters) joined us. Thankfully she was there because she was a lot of help with keeping an eye on the boys. It seemed Easton and Spencer were always going in two different directions (I keep thinking what life will be like with 3 going in different directions!)

This picture of Easton made me laugh. Only because I'm a GI nurse and he is about to make his way through the GI system. It also makes stomach noises along the way.

Spencer wanted nothing to do with crawling through.

We spent New Year's at a kid friendly party at Auntie's house. Sadly this is the only real picture I got from the night....

Saturday while Grandma and Grandpa went to the real Rose Bowl in California, we decided to have a party here with the neighbors. It was pretty crazy here with five kids four and under. They all got along great and even though at one point you couldn't even see the floor of the basement they were having fun.

The crazy mess!

Go Badgers!

It's hard to get all five looking at the same time.

We want to wish two VERY important people in our lives a Happy Birthday!

We Love You!

Surprises and Big Changes!

I love this time of year because there are always so many fun things going on to keep us busy. This week we had Spencer's day care party. I thought for awhile we wouldn't be able to go because the snow plow came through and plowed big snow boulders onto the end of our driveway and blocked us in. Luickly, I picked the right time to go out and try to move them because he came through one last time, saw me and plowed me out! Spencer had so much fun at his party.

We signed Spencer up for a video email from Santa. He was so excited to hear Santa use his name and show him pictures he had of Spencer. Spencer was in aww and it confirmed in his mind that Santa really is watching.

The boys went to daycare on Thursday while Ryan and I stayed home to get some major projects done. While I cleaned and wrapped he cleaned out the back bedroom. Who knew we had SO much stuff in that room!

We started our long weekend off by going to the Twite's house for some Christmas cheer. It was at the Twite's house that we announced our big news. If you haven't heard already, Ryan and I are expecting baby #3 at the end of July! I will go into that more at the end of the blog. The boys showed up wearing matching shirts and just waited for people to notice. I ended up leaving early to help celebrate my friend Renee's birthday while the rest of our family stayed at Twite's. Spencer ended up staying up till 1:00 am that night! I was surprised when I got back to my parent's that they still weren't back home. I think that's officially the latest he's ever stayed up. He must be getting ready for New Year's!

Christmas Eve morning Ryan got up and went down to the lake to clear a spot so we could take Spencer skating for the first time. He was so excited (Ryan that is)! Spencer made a couple of laps around the square but decided to wear his boots the rest of the time. This is only the begining I'm sure.

Today our baby boy is 11 months old! I just can't believe he's that old already. I still think of him as my new born. It's crazy to think in only a month we will say goodbye to bottles and formula. I'm curious to see if he will be able to drink whole milk or if he will need soy since's he's on soy formula. So what is our 11 month old up to? He's into EVERYTHING! You can't take your eye off of him for a minute and you never know what you will find him doing. He might be elbow deep in the toliet or putting paper in his mouth. I think he's going to be our sneaky child. His Grandpa clams he is the happiest baby ever. He tells him that all the time. He's such a good baby.

Eating: He will try anything and everything. He's a very good eater and loves to eat. He doesn't get anymore baby food, it's all table food now. It's nice that he can eat on his own but of course he's very messy! He's also drinking 4-5 bottles a day.

Sleeping: He still takes 1-2 naps a day lasting anywhere from 1-3 hours. I try not to let him nap very long in the morning only because I want him to take a long nap with Spencer in the afternoon. He goes down around 7:00 pm and gets up around 7:00 am.

Things he loves: playing peek a boo, and having you chase him. He likes to crawl up the stairs and wait for you to  try and catch him so he can crawl away. He loves to stand on his own, cuddle with his blanket and play with all of his brother's toys (this drives Spencer crazy!). He also loves baths or playing in water, and putting everything in his mouth.

So, onto our other exciting and surprising news. We are expecting #3! A shock I know! Everyone's reactions have gone something like this..... Wow! That's so exciting!! Wait, when are you due? How old is Easton? Wow you are going to be busy!  Everyone's reactions have been totally what I expected and actually more supportive then I thought.

Finding out I was pregnant was a WAY different experince then in the past. If you've been around me you know how badly I wanted to be pregnant or maintain a pregnancy before I had Spencer and now this time I wasn't even sure what to think. I had this strange feeling that I might be pregant (Grandma says she will never watch our kids over night for us again!). I actually woke up at 4:30 am one morning and just couldn't shake this feeling that I was. So finally after an hour I woke Ryan up to tell him. He told me I should just go get a test since I wouldn't be able to rest until I knew for sure. So there I was at 5:30 am out at the store to get a pregnancy test. Did you know that the only place you can buy one that early in the morning is Wal-Mart! I figured I was already in my pj's, it was early in the morning and I was buying a pregnancy test, I would fit right in! The first 3 tests all came back negative. So I thought ok maybe I'm not... it just must all be in my head. Then people started saying stuff to me like "I think your pregnant" or "I had a dream that you were pregnant again." It was from really random people and I didn't think I was feeling or acting all that different. I would just laugh and say there is no way I can be pregnant, I have a 9 month old! Well, a few days later I still couldn't shake this feeling and I started to have strange symptoms that really reminded me of being pregnant so I thought I would take one more test and sure enough if came back postive. In the following few weeks I took a total of 4 more tests just to prove to myself that what I saw was correct.

Ryan and I always knew we wanted 3 kids. I just didn't think it would happen this fast or that they would be this close together. My emotions have been up and down since finding out. Part of me is so excited and there is a big part of me that is nervous and scared. I thought about all the changes that are going to happen in the next 9 months. We either need to finish a room in our house or move. We need a minivan to fit 3 car seats. Ryan brought up the fact that when we are empty nesters are kids are all going to leave at the same time and I cried because we will have 3 college tuition's to pay for at the same time! We have a few trips planned this spring and even though I can go pregnant it just won't be the same. I was excited for my sister that she was going to be pregnant alone since we shared our first pregnancy I apologized and felt bad about that. I think the hardest thing though was I feel like I was rushing Easton and Spencer to grow up a little bit faster. Honestly though when I think about all of that it just can't take away how excited I actually am. I love my boys and I know we are busy right now and things will only get busier, I just can't imagine life with out my kids. People tell me that going from 2 to 3 kids is really hard and that the first few years are the hardest but everyone that I've talked to that have kids this close together say how great it is in the end. Their kids are close and have become great friends. So if I could change things and space it out a little more I probably would but things happen in life for crazy reasons and we will love this child just as much as we love Spencer and Easton. Spencer is already liking the idea of another brother or sister and he's been such a good big
brother.

Meet baby #3!

So here are the answers to a few questions we often get........

#1: Was this planned? Obviously as I've mentioned this wasn't planned (yes we know how it happens). Honestly we never thought we would just get pregnant like that. We tried for awhile before having 2 miscarriages. We tried 2 rounds of infertility medications and then finally when we were on a break we got pregnant with Spencer. I never went back on anything not wanting to mess with my system and when we decided we were ready we got pregnant with Easton. So even though this wasn't planned and I cried for a few days after finding out we are finally getting used to the idea that we are going to be having another baby.

#2: How old will Spencer and Easton be? Spencer will be just over 3 and Easton will be 1 1/2. So we will have three kids three and under! It sounds kind of crazy when I think that we had a baby in 2010 and will again have a baby in 2011! We figured out this weekend if you include my miscarriages I've been pregnant the last four our of five Christmas's.

#3: Will I continue to work? As of now I'm planning on it. Only time will really tell I guess. I'm just not sure I'm cut out to be a stay at home mom. I enjoy my days at home with the boys but I also enjoy getting out and working. I like what I do so that would be really hard to give up. I also really like the school or daycare that the boys go to and feel that they are learning so much each and everyday. Spencer comes home talking about all of his friends and loves going to school to play with them. It's expensive to have 3 in daycare and we'll be pretty much working to have them there but overall I think it's the best option for us.

#4: Do I think this will be a girl or are we planning on finding out? The comments have been made by many that maybe this will be a girl. I'm doubtful.... yes it would be nice to have a girl. I know how much I love my mom and the thought of having that someday with a daughter would be great, but in reality I really love my boys (plus I'm not sure I could handle a girl in middle school!) So I guess we will just have to wait and see when #3 arrives if it's a boy or girl because we plan on being surprised again!

#5: How have I been feeling: TIRED! That was my first clue something was up. I was wanting/needing to go to bed at 6:00 pm. When I was pregnant with both boys it was more needing to eat all the time and going to the bathroom 10 times during the night. This time it was heartburn and I was overly tired. I thought maybe it was just being tired because I had started working out (I was really going to try and loose weight after having Easton) and the fact that we are busy with our two boys. My hunger has finally kicked into full gear and this time I want chicken wraps, fajitas, salads, clementines, and then anything carb related! Over all though I can't complain.

#6: How many weeks are you? When are you due? Will you have anymore? Currently I'm 10 weeks. I'm due July 26th. At first they thought July 23rd but we had an ultrasound at seven weeks and it pushed it back a few days. At seven weeks the baby measured as it should and the heartbeat was 146 (both Easton and Spencer were 125ish at seven weeks). Most likely we won't be having anymore.

Well, I hope everyone had a great Christmas and were able to enjoy time with family and friends. We feel truly blessed with all of the family and friends that continue to love and support us. We look forward to all of the adventures 2011 will bring! I will be posting later about all that we did for Christmas but I'm honestly worn out from this weekend!