Can't argue with his logic!!

Last night we were driving home from dinner at my parents house. We had a half-eaten pan of brownies that we had brought for dessert. From the backseat, Sam started out by saying, "Dad, you know how sometimes we get those chocolate muffins from Costco and we have those for breakfast? Well, those are chocolate just like brownies, so we could probably have brownies for breakfast tomorrow, right?"

Joe and I were having a good laugh in the frontseat.

But, Sam was not ready to let it go. "And what about Cocoa Puffs? Those are chocolate and we have those for breakfast, so that means we can have brownies!"

He had really thought this argument through! But, to no avail. He didn't get brownies for breakfast this morning :-)

My Hired Help

This week was the kick off to Joe's "busy season" at work, which means he is out of town...and will be a lot over the next couple of months. And, wouldn't you know it, the first week that he is gone is when Winter decides to show up in Spokane! We got our first real snowfall of the year, accumulating somewhere around 8-10 inches over the last two days. Since Joe wasn't here to clear all that snow and I certainly can't do it under doctor's orders to "take it easy", well the boys had to step up to fill their daddy's shoes! And they were so excited about it...

...too bad the enthusiasm and the effort only lasted about as long as it took for me to take these pictures :-).

Luckily, we have a good friend who came to the rescue and has been looking out for us until Joe gets back. He's a lifesaver!

Nothing Cuter!!!

I don't think there's anything cuter than little kids all bundled up in their snow clothes! Here are two of my little cuties!

(Sam was too busy playing to come and get his picture taken!)

The Results are in!

With this pregnancy (as with all the others) I've had lots of ultrasounds from the very beginning to check up on different things. They've all been a little too early to give a definitive answer as to the gender of the baby. Well, this morning I had "The Ultrasound" and we found out that we are having a...

...girl!!!

Yay, we're excited!

After I picked up Andrew from the friend's house who was watching him, I told him the news on the way home. He said, "What? This was supposed to be a boy!!" I pointed out that this way, we'll have 3 boys and 3 girls in our family. He thought about that for a few minutes then said, "Well, it's a good thing that we have Baby Benjamin, that way the boys team is still winning!"

That made me smile :-) I'm glad that he knows that he has another brother who is part of our Eternal family.

Demolishin g the houses

At our house, when it's time to put away Christmas decorations, that means it's time for one of my kids favorite January traditions...demolishing their gingerbread houses! They can't bear to simply throw them away, but if they get to destroy them first then it's okay! Here they go...

 Sam had no problem with his! He was done in about thirty seconds!

 Andrew was not able to break his by stomping on it (they are suprisingly strong!) so Joe tried helping him out with jumping on it...

...that didn't work. So, here's his next attempt...

...no luck on his so he decided to stomp on Sam's crumbs for awhile. Then, Abby had an idea...

...still no luck. Finally, Joe got out the heavy hitter!

Yay! Success! It's a fun and silly tradition, but they have a great time and I get the stale houses out of the living room! It's a win/win situation!

Comfortable....?

The kids were watching a movie this afternoon and I went downstairs to check on them (too long with no fighting still makes me nervous, even if there's a movie on!) They really were just watching the movie, quietly. But this is how Andrew was hanging out...

He looked at me like I was crazy when I pulled out the camera. He is one bendy kid...maybe we need to put him in gymnastics!

Oh, and yes he's in PJ's at 5:00 PM. Let me explain, today was pajama day at preschool so he got up and put on fresh jammies (that he'd picked out days ago, just for the occasion). It was my day to volunteer to so I got to wear PJ's too! After school, we had to run some errands so I stopped at home to change. I gave him the option to change or not. He gave me his devious little smile (if you know Andrew, you know what I'm talking about!) and said he wanted to wear his jammies to the store...and all day! So he did. He's four, so he can get away with that!

Finger Painting

For Christmas, Andrew got a set of finger paints as part of an art kit that we got him. That art kit has been one of the best presents that we've ever gotten one of our kids, he loves it! He's spent many hours making and creating art, I love to see the fun projects he comes up with. Today, he decided to share his finger paints and art paper with Sam and Abby. They had a great time painting together!