It's about time...

I have been such a slacker on blogging. I was thinking "Well, I have an excuse..." but then as I was checking all the blog updates of friends and family, I saw Nina's blog and decided that I have an excuse...it's just not a very good one. :)

We finally got to see our baby on Dec. 22. (And yes, since everyone keeps asking, we are further along with this one than we were with Elizabeth - our last baby). I was all excited about posting "pictures" - but our scanner is broken. Darn the luck. So you'll just have to believe me that we have the ultra sound pictures. That is one active little guy/girl. The baby kept moving and shifting and kicking...it was very reassuring and real nice to see. I don't know when we'll find out if it's a boy or a girl. For sure not our next appointment, but maybe the one after that. I was so pleased to find out that we can go to our same Dr., but to a different office (as long as we are not having an ultra-sound done). My OB is 2 hours away...and on these Wyoming roads in winter...not fun. But this other office cuts off about 45 min of drive time for us. Yeah-a-h! Jon's not sure whether to be happy about it or not. A closer office means less driving for him, but it also means that it's close enough that he doesn't get the ENTIRE 1/2 of the day off of work...it means we're done in enough time that he has to go back. :) Jon always comes with me because if I leave the kids with someone that's an all day job. Since the Dr. is 2 hours away (on good roads), that means 2 hours up, 2 hours back, plus the time in the Dr. office and usually a stop for something to eat. It's a minimum of 5 hours for babysitting. I hate to ask anyone to do that.

I thought it was SO adorable though. We've FINALLY convinced Topher that boys can't have babies. He was thoroughly convinced that the Daddies had the boy babies and the Mommies had the girl babies...like I'm going to let Jon get the credit for all that hard work I did. lol. Ethan hadn't said much until about a week before the appointment. He's convinced that he's also got a baby in his tummy as well. So when we were ready for the ultra-sound the nurse went and got Jon and the boys. They were thrilled to see the baby on the "TV". They thought it was so cool. Then when we were ready to leave, Ethan started to walk into another exam room (thankfully an unoccupied one) and started to climb onto the table. I said "Ethan, what are you doing? We're all done, it's time to go home." Then he started to throw a fit (not a big one, but big enough you could tell he was MAD). He said "MOM! It's MY TURN NOW!" and he pulls up his shirt to show his belly "It's time to watch MY baby on the TV." All the nurses had a good laugh watching me trying to convince him that there was no baby in his belly. Then the next morning I was feeling pretty sick so I figured the TV could babysit for a little while until I was feeling better. I pulled out the DVDs and asked Ethan what he wanted to watch. He searched through the DVDs for a while saying "Nope, it's not that one...Nope, not that one." Then he hands them to me and says "Mom, I want to watch the baby on the TV." I thought that was so stinkin' cute. So that's the main things that have been going on in our family.

I love this family!

My boys are the greatest! Ethan was sitting on a stool and leaned over to get his blanket that was on the floor. Obviously, he tipped over, then as I was heading over to see if he was alright I could see the stool going too. He flipped head over heels on the way down, so when the stool fell it landed right on top of him, hitting him in the head. As I scooped him up in my arms and was cradling him and checking that he was alright I saw Topher JUMP UP from the table (he was eating lunch) and run over to Ethan. Then I saw Justin running as fast as his little legs could carry him, both were coming to see if Ethan was alright. Justin gave him a hug and said "Brother OK? And then Topher got up and spanked the chair yelling "Don't you hurt my Ethan! SHAME ON YOU!" Then Topher picked up the blanket that Ethan was reaching for when he fell and wrapped it around him. Then Topher went and got 2 of HIS favorite blankets so that he would feel better. Justin saw this and decided to follow suite. He went and got Ethan's frog blanket and gave it to him. It was so stinkin' cute. Apparently Topher went and got 2 pillows because they are laying on the kitchen floor together showing each other their owies. :)

Haven't posted for so long

So I've been feeling guilty about not blogging. I've just been so busy (such is the life of a mother I guess). Oh, before I forget though, I wanted to share a recipe that I got from Ranee' (yeah, it's pretty much the best). For pumpkin bread. Take a box of spice cake mix (by the way Ranee', they just started stocking it - or it was hidden behind the stinkin' yellow cake...grrrr...anyhow I found some). Pour it into a med. size bowl, mix with a can of pumpkin (the small can...15 oz I think). Then put it in a bread pan and cook at 350 for 20-25 minutes. Yeah, it's SOOOO good. And Michelle, I love you for introducing me to that Resolve, deep clean. It got all the spots up (well, all of them that I have cleaned so far). I've been living in this house for a year and a half (give or take) and I have tried EVERYTHING to get those up, nothing has even lightened them! And that carpet cleaner took those spots up almost instantly! And you thought getting your freezie stains up off your carpet was impressive.

So now to the fun stuff...although right now I can only think of one incident that I wanted to blog about. We were in Wal*mart and Jon remembered that he needed shampoo. So we were over there looking at the gazillion different kinds of shampoos when the fire alarm suddenly goes off. We look up and (to my horror) there is my son, standing with the door propped open - you know the one with the "Alarm will sound when this door is opened" sign on it? To make matters worse he has a hyper-sensitivity to sounds (the Dr. said it's due to his PDD). So it's got this high-pitched shreeking sound and of course everyone back there is looking trying to decide if there's really a fire. They saw us doing the "What are you doing?" "Why did you do that?" thing...I guess they decided there was no fire because they all went about their shopping. It took FOREVER before we could find a Wal*mart associate to shut off the noise. I felt so bad for my little guy, he's over there with his hands pushed against his ears as hard as he could, trying not to cry (he tries real hard to be "tough" when Daddy is there). It just made me want to cry. So that was our most eventful trip to Wal*mart...so far. lol.

Check out my newest creation!

I thought this was so cute, it was worthy of sharing with this blog too. (Sorry to those of you that are following both blogs, you can see it twice...and those that are following me on FB too...sorry, but it's too awesome not to share with EVERYONE! If you want to see how I made it go to http://www.stampinup.net/esuite/home/karenegeland/blog?directBlogUrl=/blog/2041982/entry/halloween_cake

Happy Halloween everyone!

Wow!

It's been way too long since I blogged. I guess that's what happens when you go on "vacation" every month this summer. It's been so exhausting but it's been fun too. We went home (a 5-1/2 hour drive...if we don't stop...but we do because we have 2 kids in the car that need to go to the bathroom every 20 miles and one that needs a diaper change every so often. But I wouldn't trade them for the world. I can't wait for school to start again and we can have some type of a routine. I think things will slow down a little after school starts...of course that's what I said about summer vacation too, then I found out I was VERY wrong.

Nothing too much is going on here (a good thing in our house). I am, however, typing this blog on my brand new computer. (I'd like to give a shout out to tax returns yeah!) I'm pretty excited. Now after Jon gets home (and straight to the computer after dinner), I can still work on my Stampin' Up! stuff, so I'm pretty pumped right now that we are both on the computer, one of the kids are in bed, one is watching Lightning McQueen and the other is sitting very nicely on my lap. I love it.

Karate

Topher had his first Karate practice tonight. He had so much fun. And I think he did really well. I was laughing because they were teaching him the horse stance and some blocks and how to bow. When Sifu Jim came over to see how well he was doing he asked him to do the horse stance. Chris did it and Sifu Jim said "Wow, even your Daddy didn't do that good on his horse stance." ;) And when they were warming up they were sitting on the floor with their legs spread apart and Sifu Tony told them to grab their left leg. Topher grabbed his left leg and the kid next to him was grabbing his right leg. Topher turns to the kid (who was about 11 years old) and says "Hey, he said LEFT...that's your right." I thought it was funny. But he did well and had a ton of fun.

Teacher Easel Card

Sorry to those of you that are followers of my other blog (www.stampin123.blogspot.com), I know I have this on there too. But I just so much loved this one that I wanted to share. Cassandra asked me to create a teacher appreciation gift. Then as I was talking to others, they seemed to have the same problem...they just didn't know what to get for the teachers this year. Here's one of my ideas (this one was my favorite and I just had so much fun making it). And thank you Mary for getting me hooked on Stampin' Up! I will love you forever for that. ;) And thank you Heidi for letting me borrow your punch for this.

If you would like to make one feel free to go to my website www.karenegeland.stampinup.net to see how. Go to the "About Me" tab - click on "My Stampin' Blog" and go to the Teacher Easel Card for Step-by-Step directions.