Say Cheese?

Last weekend was spent at Cori and Brad Brooks house in Nevada. We were all excited to spend some quality time with their beautiful new little girl, Leah. Connor was most excited!! When he found out that we still had to wait another day to drive out and see her, he couldn't stop crying! As soon as we got there he wanted to "Take Leah". He held her for a little while before I demanded my turn. That seemed to be enough to make him happy for the rest of the weekend. Which meant I got to hog her from then on!! She's such a sweet little thing! Max gets his Leah fix with the baby doll we have in the house. she's most recently been named... Leah! Shock!
          

   While we were there, Rob and I tried to teach Connor how to smile for the camera. Here is the first.. ahem.. attempt.

And it didn't get much better with the second.

 

We gave up.

  But I did get to snap some pictures of more brotherly love. This happens quite a bit!

Rob has been asked to go back to the night shift. He normally would work 3 months on nights and 3 on days. He only got 2 weeks on days before having to switch back to cover for lack of guys. I hate having him gone at night!! But at least with this switch, he'll hopefully be back on days when the baby is born, and I'll have his help at home every night.

 I'm trying to get myself motivated enough to potty train Max. Boy that's hard! I don't know why the thought is so daunting to me. I need to get busy!! Only a few months left before we have a baby, and I don't want 2 in diapers.

Wish me ambition!!

A beautiful mess!

I have no idea where Connor heard or came up with this phrase, but I've been hearing it a lot, unfortunately. A beautiful mess. At least once daily, Connor will run up to me with excitement in his eyes and say "Mommy! A beautiful mess!! Come see!" Upon following him to his bedroom or the hallway, I discover his beautiful mess. Usually it's just the toys dumped all over the floor or piled precariously on top of his toy train. And I actually pretend to be excited for him because he's so proud of it! I can't stand to NOT encourage his beautiful messes! I'll put it down under creativity. But today I had to put my foot down a little.

While torn up kleenex's aren't a big deal to me, I can just see what it would lead to in the future! (Maybe another baby powder incident??)

At least the boys are very good about cleaning up when we tell them to.

I made myself a key rack that I FINALLY hung up today! No more searching for keys! Little things make me happy.

Sunday was Rob's 40th birthday! I married an old man. :) He asked me NOT to bake him a cake or give him anything black, or anything that said "Over the Hill." So I didn't. I'm a good wife. Instead, I got him some normal gifts and we took a Sunday drive up the mountain. It was gorgeous! We got up to the ski slopes and were in the clouds. It was nice to be in the fresh air, instead of the smog down here in the valley.

It's Max's birthday next! (In April) Since he's obsessed with any form of cooking, I'd like to buy or make him a little kitchen. I think he'd love it.

Time for some pink!

 We're having a girl!! Our due date at the moment is June 27th. Since it's a repeat c-section, they will perform it a week earlier. So we can expect her around the 20th, give or take. I'm so excited to buy pretty little dresses and tights and pink blankets. Every time I would shop for the boys I'd get a little green with envy at the massive amounts of adorable girl clothes, while I had two racks of boy clothes to choose from. Now I can claim the girls side of the store as MY TERRITORY!!! Other moms better back away!
   Not to mention, now I can have someone on my team at home! I'm very outnumbered at the moment.
   
  I think I should start an album dedicated to Connor's sleeping habits. This is how we found him last night.

Back to almost normal.

   We are very happily settling into our new home, finally! I still have pictures and shelves and what-not to hang on walls, but otherwise the house is FAIRLY in order! Rob painted the kitchen cabinets, but has yet to paint the cabinet doors! Once his garage gets cleared up he'll finish the job, but for now I get to look at the exposed innards of each and every cupboard. Yay!
   I know I promised before and after pictures. They're coming! Eventually! I'm very disappointed in my ability to take before pictures, however. Most of them don't really give any clue to which room you are looking at. The afters are alright though! And I haven't taken a photo of the outside yet either. I'm slacking off. I know.
   Just so you aren't too disappointed in me, I will post photos of our view. Well, part of it anyway. It's impossible to get the whole thing in there.

                I'd like Rob to get a good picture with his good camera of all the twinkling lights at night!! It's really something to see!
     The boys are happy here. There's lots of room for them to run races. Or... Connor's version of racing anyway. "Come wiff me, Max! Run, Max! We're racing!" Meanwhile, Connor's running circles around Max, who's doing his best to figure out which way Connor's supposed to be going so he can run WITH him!
    They've been big, big fans of Winnie the Pooh lately. Which I love, because that used to be my favorite show as a child! Every time I hear Eeyore talking, or listen to Pooh's "I'm just a little black raincloud" song, I'm smiling. With Grandma and Grandpa Uhl's Christmas money, I bought them a few toys. But the best ones of all were a big stuffed Pooh bear and Tigger! They are LOVED!! Connor can't sleep without Pooh now, and if he can manage to sneak Tigger away from Max, he'll sleep with him too!

You can JUST barely see Froggy squished underneath Pooh! Speaking of sleeping, this is how we found Con the other night:

He was dead asleep!! He'd taken off his jammies and put on some clothes. Must have been planning to sneak out of the house later on. The very next night we found him curled up against his bedroom door. Thankfully since then he's been good about getting back under his covers after he's had his fill of night-time adventures.
    Max is finally putting words together, thanks to Connor. And he loves eeeevvvvverrrything! His Thomas the Train toy. "I LUHLOO THOMAS!!!!!" His toy computer. "I luhloo puter." Grandma and Grandpa. Connor. Even his breakfast in the morning!
    Connor's imagination is coming into full swing too. Today he started giggling out of the blue. He told me it was because Froggy tooted. Then Froggy said "Eeeewwww!!!"
    Well, I like to blame it on other people too.
    Next post - Due date and possible gender of our last one on the way! (Surprise!)