We've had a good past couple of weeks around here. The kids are doing great and the pregnancy is going great. We had our formal ultrasound this past week and the baby looks great! We did not find out the sex of the baby but we are taking guesses. I think it is a girl and Chris thinks it is a boy. It was really hard during the ultrasound for me not to find out. I figured it would be difficult, but it was way harder knowing we were in the middle of it and the doctor could just look and tell us what it was. But we were strong and we are just going to be surprised when the baby arrives! That will be so fun.

We had about 5 inches of snow here last Friday. We have had a blast playing in the snow with the girls. We only lasted about 30 minutes because we do not have snow pants, boots or appropriate gloves for the girls. The snow leaks through fairly quickly and the girls were frozen so we had to come in. Alana's school was closed on Friday due to the weather and she is off tomorrow as well. The roads still are not great. It hasn't been above freezing so the snow has actually stuck around for a bit this time!

Chris is doing good. His work schedule has changed AGAIN. He is back to Monday through Friday, which is great, but it may change again soon. CCA needs to get their act straight and figure this stuff out.

Enjoy the pictures!

Baby face. We didn't get any good full body pictures, so we just picked a few of the other ones we got.



Baby is flexing. He or she is going to be tough: )



Baby leg.

Brayden falls asleep most days while eating lunch.

Princess Skyler.

Very messy Brayden.

Yeah!!! All clean!

Chris pulling Alana on a toy rocking horse. It was funny.

Snow angel.

We didn't have a sled so we had to improvise with a wreath box. The girls loved it and Chris got a work out in.

Eating snow. They loved it.

We actually got some snow last week and it is still here! The girls have had some fun playing in it. They thought it was great to throw the snow at mom. But they also thought it was fun for me to throw it at them, too! Fun times: )

Chris' days off have changed again. He now has Friday and Saturday off permanently. We think this is better than having Thursday and Fridays off. We are just trying to get used to him not being here on the weekends. We like being lazy on Sunday, and the kids and I are still upholding that tradition: )

These first two pictures are of Brayden and the vacuum cleaner. He has such a fascination with it. It is really funny to watch him watch it move around the floor. He loves climbing on it and just playing with it. Silly boy: )





The girls playing in the snow.



Throwing snow at mom.



Sweeping up piles of snow to throw at mom.

Silly kids: )

We love this picture. He loves the tub! So cute!

We finally got the pictures off of Chris' phone from Christmas at our house. We had a great time and we all got wonderful gifts. The kids especially got a good haul this year: ) Thanks to everyone for your generosity!

Chris, Alana and Skyler putting the angle on the tree after it was all set up.



This the the gingerbread house we made. Isn't it just lovely? The kids had a great time decorating it, but I think Chris had the most fun: )



Brayden was just nuts about the tree when we first put it up. He went crazy trying to grab at the branches and lights. It was really funny. Thankfully, after a while he got bored with it.



Brayden and Alana under the tree.



This is what Santa brought the kids. They got to basically look at these gifts and pick out one to take with us on the plane to Colorado. But it was fun for them to come home to some unopened gifts.

Chris and Brayden playing with some new toys Christmas Eve.

Brayden's first tractor toy: )

Alana is holding up Brayden's new dinosaur jammies.

The girls opening gifts.

More gifts.

More gifts.

Alana and Skyler in their new robes and playing their new keyboard.

Our sweet children: )

Okay, once again we are way behind on updating the blog. Better late than never, I guess! So first off we need to announce that we are expecting another baby in June! We are very happy and so excited. And yes, this was planned. We have had to tell people that it was a planned pregnancy because some people just can't believe that we would want to have another child so soon after having Brayden. We want to have our children close together in age and we just don't want there to be a 3 1/2 year gap like with Alana and Skyler. Anyway, the pregnancy is going well and I am feeling great. I'll be sure to update more as the due date gets closer.

We had a great Christmas and New Year this year. We flew out to Colorado over Christmas to spend it with Chris' side of the family. We had a great time and the kids did pretty good on the plane. But of course, we caught some bug from the plan and now illnesses are flowing through the house. Since I have become a stay at home mom, my children and I are not exposed to many people like they were when they were in daycare. Therefore, Brayden ended up with a fever on Tuesday the 29th and we think it finally broke yesterday the 4th. I took him to the doctor on the 29th and they said it was a virus and it just had to run its course, which could last 7 to 9 days. His lasted 7 days. Poor little guy. We fought it with Motrin, but not Tylenol. I swear, our children's fevers do not respond to Tylenol at all. It's like we are giving them a glass of water. But thankfully the Motrin took the edge off during the week so Brayden wasn't miserable the whole time. But of course he and I also ended up with a cold at the end of last week. Brayden also got a nasty cough with his cold. The colds still have not passed and now Skyler and I are getting the cough. So much fun. Some days I do wish my kids would be exposed to a daycare setting so they can grow some kind of immunity to these yucky bugs. Anyway, no fever yet today for Brayden, so we hope that part has passed. We just need to handle the colds now.

Another new development around here is that Chris has new days off during the week. He used to always work Monday through Friday and have the weekends off but they have changed his schedule. He will be working Saturday through Wednesday for the next three months and then back to Monday through Friday for three months and continue switching off ever three months. We are not too thrilled about it, but at least he has a job! It just sucks because it will be another 3 months before all five of us will have a day off together again. Kind of sad when I think about it. We really enjoy our weekends together.

Anyway, here are some pictures from our trip. We took a bunch of pictures on Chris' phone from Christmas Eve that we wanted to post, but we are having trouble e-mailing the pictures to the computer to post them on the blog. If we get that working, we will post them another time. Happy New Year!!!!

Arriving at the Denver airport.

Opening gifts at Kerri and Ryan's Aurora.

Eddy and Alana coloring. Eddy is Josh and Erin's child. They flew in from Hawaii for the holidays. It was great to see them.

Erin. Nice pose: )

This is Kerri and Ryan's dog, Pongo. He is a Merle Great Dane. He is huge!!! Seriously the size of a small horse! As you can see, he is standing and his head is way above the kitchen table. The the kids loved him. He is a sweety: )

Skyler and Alana and Joshua opening gifts with Grama Robin. We stayed with Rich and Robin who live near Colorado Springs.

Breakfast. L to R - Skyler, Joshua, Alana, Brayden and Eddy.

Our family.

Grama and Grampa with the grand kids. L to R - Alana, Haylie, Robin, Brayden, Skyler, Rich, Eddy and Joshua.

Rich's mom, Mary Ann (GG) was also there. She flew in from near Deadwood, South Dakota. She went home to 54" of snow! At least she went home after the snow had fallen and the roads were plowed.

Mommy and Brayden. He loved my necklace.

Alana and Skyler all bundled up to go play in the snow.

Alana and Skyler in the sled
.

Rich and Robin pulling the kids. They definitely got a workout: )

Joshua and Alana pulling Haylie and Eddy in the sled.

Eddy, Haylie, Skyler and Alana.

Eddy: ) She's too cute. We almost took her home with us.

Alana and Skyler.

Sweet little Brayden: )

This was too funny. You strap the Donkey (from Shrek) to your leg and put a kid on it and you just bounce him around. Too cute. Donkey talks, too.