Our Newest Addition

Did you think I was talking about our baby?  Ha, gotcha!  Let's be real, I'm sure this baby won't be coming til at least 40 weeks.  I'm just hoping she's not 10 pounds by then.  Anyway, ever since Paco died Josh has been trying to convince me to get more gerbils.  I have been resisting saying that we should just wait til after we potentially move.  Josh took Shane to the library yesterday while I stayed home with napping Marissa and I started to get a little worried after they'd been gone for 2 hours.  I mean Shane could have lasted that long reading books, but I knew Josh wouldn't have!  And then I knew immediately what was happening- he was taking Shane to look at gerbils!!!  He came home and started to tell me and I said "I know exactly where you where.  I know you too well."  Apparently he had taken Shane and was talking to him about getting some and Shane had said, "No, mommy said we need to wait til May."  As they were walking out of the store Shane got sad and said, "But I have no pets."  And Josh told him they could go get some now and Shane still said, "No, mommy said we should wait til May."  Oh how I love that little boy!!  So after convincing me that it wouldn't be a big deal to move them, and having the kids ask in their sweetest little voices, I caved.  My husband can be a persistent little bugger.  But that boyish excitement and enthusiasm is also why I love him:)  Oh, and he also said he would cook dinner if I agreed to go to the pet store after, and I said, "No, I don't mind cooking dinner. How about if you clean the toilet and mop the floor?"  And we had a deal. 

So now we are the proud owners of Boovis and Material.  Can you guess who named them?  We averted the whole Shane desperately wanting to name the baby Boovis situation by telling him when we got another gerbil he could name him Boovis.  And apparently Material is also a very funny name.  We were telling him on the car ride back that he could decide when we got home which gerbil was which, and when we pulled out the light brown one he immediately said, "Oh!  That's Material!"  And so it was.  Which meant the black one was Boovis.  The kids were in heaven watching them get acquainted with their new home and Shane was telling them he loved them and all sorts of other cute things.  At one point he was watching them and said, "Yep. Those are the right names." And I'm happy, because I have 2 very happy kids (3 if you count Josh;) ), and a clean floor and toilet.   

Around Here

After a bunch of busy, busy months we are having a little time of calm around here.  Well, as much calm as you can have with little kids around!  I feel like they are growing up so fast. 

Marissa's hair is starting to fill in nicely and she is starting to sit a little longer for me to do it.

 # 3 is growing quickly too.  Here is me at 35 weeks, I will be 36 weeks tomorrow!  It still hasn't quite hit me that we are actually going to have a baby next month, and I will admit that sometimes I don't mind the idea of her staying put for awhile because I am a little scared about how I am going to handle 3 still!  But we are getting so excited to meet her.

 Josh had a birthday.  We didn't do a whole lot to celebrate but I did make his mom's delicious chocolate cake.

And we continued our Valentines tradition of one of us making a nice dinner and the other making dessert.  Josh was on dinner this year and went all out.  He made P.F. Changs style lettuce wraps complete with dipping sauce (my favorite part- I may or may not have licked my plate clean)

 mongolian beef, stir fry veggies, and rice. 

 And I made oreo pie, with oreos made from scratch because I didn't want to shell out the mega bucks for gluten free ones.

John and Pat came to visit, and of course spoiled us.  Pat brought these shovels for the kids and they have been having so much fun with them.

 And we decided to make the transition to a big girl bed for Marissa.  They had so much fun "helping" Daddy put it together. 

She seemed excited about it but when we tried the first night to put her down in she screamed "No!" hysterically while we tried to calm her down for almost an hour.  I think she was scared of it.  But the second night she went down fine, and she is so excited to be in a big girl bed "just like Shane's!"  She hasn't tried too hard to get out (yet), though she didn't fall asleep for nap time yesterday (not an uncommon occurrence in the crib either unfortunately) and when I came to get her she was on the floor next to it.

 

Other events not pictured:

-We took the kids sledding for the first time.  On the snow they had plowed in the Walmart parking lot.  Yep, we are that white trash.

-The death of Paco, our gerbil.  He made it almost exactly two years.  Poor Shane was sooooo sad the night we found him, mostly about not having a pet anymore.  "I have no peeetttt.  I'm all alooooonnnee!"  "I will never stop being sad.  I will wake up in the morning and I will still be sad."  He is since doing much better, and it's a good thing because ironically enough next week is Pet Week at his school!



 

Good Times

We went on our last little trip as a family of four this past weekend for another "Second Look" in Indiana.  I am actually going to miss all these little trips, we've had a lot of fun!  Shane and Marissa got to try their hand at bowling for the first time and loved it.

 

 A plate of baked goods waiting for us in our hotel room?  Yes please!  Among other spoils.

 And the best part?  This is the second time that we've stopped at a Wendys and some old man has given our children money for being cute.  Last time it was a quarter, this time it was a dollar.  I should really keep them around, this could become quite lucrative. 

 She kept waving her dollar around (and let's be honest, she was also trying to eat it) and saying, "I got some mooooonnnneeey!"  Oh Josh, you may be in trouble!!