benett.net

Right this minute, I am a free woman. . . and now I have surely jinxed it and will be overrun in 3 minutes or less by my sons, my dog, my husband, or my unborn daughter and her constant need to kick my bladder ferociously.

Until that time I will relish the many blessings I have as a Mom:

My boys, whose little 4 and 2 year old personalities are just the right mix of sweetness, hilarity and obstinance.

My husband, who is nothing short of miraculous as a Dad and a hubby.

Our dog, because he doesn’t mind that he is often fed and let out and very little else each day.

My house, because even though it isn’t as organized or clean as I hope for it is snug and home-y and filled with our love and memories.

My own mother, who less than 3 weeks ago paid her own money just to fly out and babysit for the weekend while hubby and I took a breather.  She even cleaned my refrigerator and scrubbed my bathtub while we were away. Above and beyond Mom, truly.

My grassy green backyard where my children can run and jump and climb and generally create chaos like little boys should.

And, at this stage of pregnancy I cannot forget the best present of the holiday: sleeping in while Daddy watches our children! No easy feat when our youngest wakens before the sun each morning and wants to snuggle and be chatted to, even though he knows he’s supposed to stay in bed if its still dark.

Such is the life of this expectant mother. What a joy it is to me.

I should have posted this days ago, but since it is an ongoing prayer request I’m doing it now.  Please visit http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/joshsorvik  And join us in prayer for our dear friends the Sorvik family. Jeff is the pastor who performed our wedding ceremony and he and his wife and children are loving, wonderful, Godly people whom we love and respect and miss now that we don’t live in the Duluth area anymore. Their second son, Joshua, was injured last week and is facing lifelong paralysis. We hope and pray for Josh’s healing and strength and courage and for his family’s as well.

Last week Evrett had his “Beary Special Day” at his preschool. Every kid gets one day for this and they do the usual picture board, getting to be line leader, etc stuff. I’ve posted the photos he chose for his little ‘all about Evrett’ poster just because they’re cute. Enjoy!!!

We have here, from starting from the top and moving across each line: Evrett as a baby(to compare with how he looks now, which the teachers like to do); Evrett wrestling his cousin Cole; our family taken just last week and including Bailey the wonder dog, as well as Evrett’s teddy bear and Ben’s stuffed puppy; our boys with their cousin Jake and their uncles Brian and Adam; Evrett and Ben being super heroes for Halloween; and Evrett in his own ‘homemade’ super hero outfit complete with gloves, boots, mask and underwear on the outside because Mr. Incredible and Superman have that. He’s a weirdo, but he’s our very own adorable little weirdo and we wouldn’t trade him for the world!

Yesterday we had to be out of our house part of the day, so some men could finish repairing our sewer line. So despite a Ben’s fever and my lack of desire to haul him around town we packed up and went to a nearby coffee house for some breakfast and time-killing. While we were there a cat wandered into the shop from the adjoining shop next door. Ben usually loves all animals, especially dogs and cats, so I was more than a little shocked when my poor little guy took one look at the feline and began to scream in absolute terror!! It should be noted the cat itself was doing nothing menacing or odd, just walking around on the floor about 4 feet away. I felt sorry for it, actually, since Ben’s piercing shrieks frightened it so thoroughly that it spread all 4 legs out in fear and then disappeared back into its own shop at lightning speed and did not return. Benett switched from screaming to sobbing fairly fast, but took several minutes to calm down even though I held him and rocked him and did all manner of soothing Mommy-esque things.

So that’s a bit odd, even for my kids.

The boys just have some painting left before they can play on it non-stop. They’ve already had a nice time on it pretty much all day Monday and didn’t even get any splinters. So far so good–and it was really really good for Evrett to have the extended time with Daddy. He’s still a bit needy but is a little more reasonable about it.  He is also very very excited to have any and all his friends over to play on it, apparently every day for the rest of his childhood. So let us know if your little ones are in need of a play date, because he’s all for it!

So lately Evrett has been acting a bit forlorn and working harder than usual to get our attentions. So today Ross and I decided he needs a special project for “big boys”. He and Daddy are going to build him a ‘real’ pirate ship for the yard to go along with his rope swing.(Like a playhouse, but Evrett-style) The weather is supposed to be great today, and the rest of the week so he’ll have lots of time to play in it. I’m not sure exactly how this little endeavor will turn out but we’ll try to keep you posted.  Have a great Sunday folks!

Baby #3 is a girl!! We had our ultrasound today and despite our little one’s initial lack of cooperation the sonogram tech was able to get a few good peeks at our newest addition. She is an acrobatic little thing who seems to have a tendency to cross her legs a lot. 🙂 Ross is hoping to find a way to scan a few ultrasound shots and post them here so check back for that in a few days.

And to save us all some time and money let me say this now. Please avoid pink if at all possible. Neither of us is fond of it and I have some harsh memories of having it forced upon me in my childhood. I really really hate it, actually. But feel free to indulge any strong urges for frills and ruffles and all that junk(which I also hate but they’re baby clothes, what can you do? 🙂 in any other color. I know there’s lots of cute purples and oranges and yellows and reds these days, because my friends with girls have stuff like that.

Her name is still undetermined and probably will be until she’s born. Not because we’re deliberately secretive but because Ross and I can never decide beforehand with absolute certainty. Names are important, and the child will have it forever so we tend to wait and see them to make up our minds.

That’s about all I’ve got for today. Hope everyone is well out there in blog-reading land. . . .all 4 of you.

For those of you on Facebook, Ross posted our Christmas pictures on his page there so you can view them that way. We’re still working on finding time to get another online gallery up and running. Enjoy your weekend all!

All right so I haven’t blogged lately, sorry. In my defense I have had all the usual holiday insanities, which were made more difficult by an ear infection and an upper respiratory infection(Evrett and Ben, respectively) and by a delightful combination of morning sickness, heartburn and exhaustion for me. Apparently all the wise women in my life neglected to share the exponential increase in fatigue when a pregnancy occurs when Mommy is already chasing 2 active boys. Guess I should have seen that coming huh? 🙂 Oh well, they’re amazing kids and the baby is healthy(thank God) so I’ve tried not to complain. . . .Not sure I’ve been too successful in that attempt but anyway.

As far as pregnancy updates go, I had an appointment just today and everything is great!! That is always good news, and as a bonus today I heard the heartbeat for the first time. Ross would have loved to listen too, but was being a rockstar Daddy/husband and took the boys somewhere else so they wouldn’t wreak their typical havoc in the doctor’s office. My doc is an awesome woman who encourages me at every visit and doesn’t mind my occasional bouts of ‘pregnancy paranoia’ when I call her with bizarre questions or issues that are probably not actually issues at all. So Yay for my Ob/Gyn and a healty little baby.

I should note this baby is the first one of ours to immediately cooperate with the little heartbeat detector thing. Evrett consistently moved as far away from the sensor as he could so that the doctor had to chase him all over my abdomen–later in the pregnancy you could actually see him twisting and turning in my belly! And even though Ben was never quite that blatant he was still not usually willing to submit himself to any examination without a little effort on the doctor’s part. Baby #3, however, didn’t mind at all and the second the device touched my skin we could hear the reassuring sound of his/her little heart beating away. Perhaps this is an indication our third child will be more naturally cooperative in later life? We can only hope!

We had Christmas in the frozen wonderland that is Minnesota with my Mom, brothers, sis-in-law and nephews. I must admit I felt lousy nearly the entire trip but it was really great to see everyone and we even managed to squeeze in some time with a few cousins on both sides of my enormous family. The boys always love seeing family and had tons of fun with their uncles and cousins and grandma.

The highlights of the trip, for me, were Benett singing his own precious renditions of ‘Jingle Bells’ ‘Deck the Halls’ and ‘Jesus Loves Me’ throughout the trip and one specific moment with Evrett. My family did our ‘big’ family celebration the Saturday before Christmas so Christmas morning was a quiet affair with just those of us actually staying at my Mom’s house. So when the boys woke up we wished each other Merry Christmas in our room before we went to do presents. Evrett came up on my bed and hugged me and said “Merry Christmas Mommy.”

“Merry Christmas buddy, I love you.” (Me)

“Mommy before I get down I need to say Merry Christmas to the baby in your tummy!” And then he did.

awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww  It was so sweet I almost cried.

Hope that warms your heart like it did mine! Happy New Year all.

All right I’m a terrible blogger, but to make up for it here’s another site of pictures; some of you may already have seen them but they’re adorable so I know you won’t mind. 🙂

http://www.evrett.com/butter-cookies

There will be some more soon because I know Ross has some in the camera and he’ll want to empty his memory card before we go to Minnesota for Christmas. As for our life the last 6 weeks or so it is mostly a blur of Preschool, a few ear infections, and me having morning sickness and heartburn. Baby #3 is due next summer and is well on his/her way to making Mommy just as sick as the boys did. We’ve mostly been laying low at home and relaxing. We went to the local Christmas Parade a few weekends ago and the boys were thrilled. Benett cried all the way home and repeated “one more band! one more ‘pade!” over and over. (hint: ‘pade=parade)

Other than that life is pretty mundane at the moment, although we are getting ready for our trip to see my family for Christmas. Part of that prep was purchasing a second vehicle. We are now the happy owners of a 2000 Honda Odyssey minivan. We needed to upgrade to something that will hold 3 carseats and the sedan just wouldn’t cut it. Another nice feature is that we’ll also be able to bring Bailey the wonder dog with us once in awhile which hasn’t really been possible since Ben was born. Poor dog.

I’ll try to be better about writing but for now I’ve got 2 little boys wanting their Mommy.