My Turn

Okay so a few nights ago we went out with our dear friends the Owenses and the Does. Marcie wrote a blog post reflecting on our night and and our friendship in general. And now it's my turn to blog about this same thing.

Many of you readers know that the Does are moving to Texas in about three (gulp) weeks. They are planting a church in Frisco and we are so incredibly proud of them for taking this leap of faith and I know God is going to use them to accomplish great things. Michael and I are both trying to hold it together because of our joy and excitement for them as they enter this new chapter but secretly when no one is around we are grieving. Well Michael says he doesn't care that they are moving ;) but I might have seen him cry after he came home from the Suns game the other night (he went with Jared and some other boys).

As Marcie wrote we have been through a lot together these last years. Probably most meaningful has been the birth of our kids. We had hoped that Oliver and Sophia would turn out to be great pals as we laid them next to each other when they were just teeny tiny but as Oliver put it the other night before bed, "She is my best friend in the whole world." Ugg.

Well I should go so I can cry myself to sleep. But really, Does- we value your friendship so very much, are truly thankful for you, will miss you greatly, and LOVE you with all of our hearts.

"ARIZONA FOREVER"

New Interests

I thought I would take a minute and highlight a few of Oliver's and Wesley's interests.

Again these next three were taken a while ago but in the past three or four months Oliver has started to really enjoy coloring. And I am always pretty impressed with how well he colors in the lines.

He is also VERY into doing puzzles and it amazes me how fast he can put them together.

Wesley is OBSESSED with trains, cars, and basically anything else that has four wheels and moves. He loves walking in parking lots and looking at all the different cars. He spends tons of time putting together the train track and playing "choo choo."

Because he likes machinery in general he also really likes lawn mowers. Whenever he goes outside he will point at Michael's mower and say"Daddy's." He also likes to push his own around the backyard.

He also likes stealing my glasses and then as soon as he puts them he says, "cheese."

Sleeping Children

I found these pictures on my camera the other day. Actually the truth is I couldn't find my camera charger and so couldn't access any of these photos for at least the last three months. As you can infer finding the charger was not exactly on the top of my list of priorities. Luckily my ever so organized mother-in-law had an extra charger and so here are a few pictures I took a long time ago. When I went to get Wesley up from his nap I found him asleep on his Mickey Mouse stuffed animal. So cute. And another one of Oliver fast asleep. Is there anything more precious than sleeping children?

I've been Crafting

Since Halloween, when we spent a ridiculous amount of money on costumes for the boys that were poorly sewn and cheap looking, I have been thinking I need to get a sewing machine. I will not go through another Halloween dealing with these gosh darn terrible store bought costumes. So for Christmas Michael bought me my very own Project Runway special edition sewing machine. And since we finally finished our play room equipped with my very own work station I now have a place to put my extra awesome machine. It also seems totally ridiculous that I would not learn how to sew, at least the basics, with such an incredibly talented seamstress for a mother.

I managed to figure out how to thread and wind a bobbin the other day, which seems simple but, like most things, is never as easy as it looks. And I sewed my very own little pillow. Okay I know this is one of the most basic things you can sew but it's a start, right? Here is a picture.

I also recovered a lampshade for Oliver's room in vintage Star Wars fabric I got off of Ebay. He was more excited about the Obi Wan Stand up we got for him but I happen to love the way the shade turned out!

It's a BOY!!!

I am sure that everyone already knows this (news of this nature seems to travel fast) but in case there is anyone on the planet that missed it baby Fay #3 is a BOY! We had our ultra sound a few weeks back and as soon as we settled into the dark room the tech said to us, "Well do you want to know the sex?" We, of course, answered yes and before we knew she had maneuvered the wand so we got a great shot in between the legs and before she could even say, "Do you know what it is?" I glimpsed that little pee pee (being used to recognizing it in ultra sounds by now) and I knew we were going to have another boy! She measured everything else she needed to and informed us that in her opinion we had a very healthy baby which of course is a relief, you can never be too thankful for that kind of news.

I would lie to say I didn't have a twinge of disappointment though. We had been hoping for a girl. However, after those fleeing minutes I can honestly say I feel nothing but excitement. My dear friend Robin (who also has three boys) said to me that the Lord must really think I am a special woman and one up to the task of raising up boys to become men of the Lord or He wouldn't have given me three. And I must say I am not sure that I am worthy but I truly am thankful that He has given me this great job and calling.

Here is a not so great picture from the ultra sound. He just didn't want to show us his profile for some reason. All he wanted to do was look straight out at us and so the image of his face isn't the greatest. Oh well just makes me anticipate all the more what his sweet little face will look like when we get to meet him sometime in June:)

We have these up on our refrigerator to remind the boys that they are becoming big brothers soon!

Star Wars Room

I didn't get a chance to post about this prior to Christmas because of the craziness of our lives but one of Oliver's Christmas presents was the redecoration of his room. In another few months or so we will transition Welsey out of the nursery and into Oliver's room and se we knew we needed to re-do the room to prepare for this. I also knew that there was nothing Oliver would like more than to have his side of the room be covered in Star Wars stuff. So we picked a day just a few days out from Christmas and my mom, Nona, and Dad all all pitched in to make his room one that Yoda himself would be proud of or should I say, proud of it Yoda would be. Michael took the kids out of the house so we had some space to get everything done and we told Oliver that the Elves and Santa were coming to help Mommy and Mimi fix up his room. It was an insane day int he middle of an insane week but the look on his face when he walked in made it totally worth it.

Welsey's side of the room will have a cars, trucks, and trains theme and I will post those as soon as we get it all completed. Here are a few pics of the Star Wars room.

FIRST Day of School!

I knew once Oliver turned three it was going to be more than time for him to start some kind of preschool. As much as he loves playing at home with his brother and mother I knew he would LOVE being around other kids. And since Michael talks about school and the kids he teaches when we mentioned to him he was going to start school he was VERY excited. In fact for the last few weeks he has been telling us about the "kids" (imaginary friends) at his school (even thought he hadn't until today actually started). One name that seems to come up a lot is Jewy (sp?). Apparently he and Jewy go to school together and have all sorts of experiences that he then fills us in on. Got to love his very robust imagination:) Anyways he cracks us up.

So today when it was time to go he was pretty much ready. I checked him in and walked him to his class. We met his teachers and when one of them said, "Okay do you want to say bye to mommy." He came over gave me a kiss said bye and went and VERY casually sat down on the carpet with the other kids. Like he had done this school thing his whole life. I was proud to make it to the van before I shed a few little tears. He is growing up so fast.

When I picked him up today the teacher told me he had done very well. And on the way to the van he said, "That was so fun." He was especially proud of the penguin sticker he had received and displayed on his hand. Overall I think it was a big success!

Let it Snow!

We wanted to take advantage of the time that Michael had off for Christmas break and since the kids had never seen snow and it's been FREEZING here the last week or so we drove up to just south of Prescott. And snow it did. In fact we drove off at this little stop right in the middle of a blizzard. Oliver thought it was awesome. He got out and ran around, made snow angels, and threw snowballs. Wesley was not so sure. He DID NOT like his mittens and refused to wear them and for most of the 45 minutes or so we were there he looked at us like, "Really, this is supposed to be fun?" Needless to say he is an Arizona boy and I can't really blame him. Despite the layers of clothing it was still cold out.

A LOT of snow!

He preferred the warm car.

Not happy.

Snow angel.

Christmas Morning!

I think this is only a sampling of the pictures we have from Christmas morning but I wanted to get some up in my attempt to catch up. These days I feel like everything just moves so quickly and I am hanging on for dear life just to keep up. But I guess that is normal and I better get used to it because adding another one to our fold is only going to make it go all the more quickly.

We had breakfast at our house so that everyone (Mimi, Papa G., Nana, Papa, Nona, and Gramps) could watch the kids open ALL of their presents. And ALL is an understatement. There were presents EVERYWHERE! Michael took on the job of cooking us all breakfast. Although we were all pretty exhausted from the previous night it was still a blast and the looks on the kids faces made all the prep worth it:)

He loves his new car. The whole morning he got in and then out. In and then out.
Shoes. One of the lesser exciting gifts but he was still pleased.


And you can see here how tired I look and somewhat cross-eyed too but the real highlight was the Yoda shaped pancake. Star Wars is everywhere in our house even in our pancakes.

Like I said. Not too many but at least it's something.