Pregnancy Update 2

Week 32

Since there are several of you who don't see me regularly, I thought I would give you an update. I am almost 34 weeks pregnant. She loves to move around, and is getting stronger each week. I am kind of looking forward to when she runs out of room to move so much.

We have started getting her room ready. We have all the furniture and toys, we mostly just need girl clothing! The crib will be reassembled this week, and the swing will also be put out. We are putting her toys and things out very early to give the boys time to play with them. (They already play in her bathtub, Bumbo, and rocker. If they are too big for it, like her swing, then they like to put toys in it!) This way they are more accepting when she arrives. It worked with Kevin and Colin, so we are hoping it works again.

The boys are so excited for her to arrive. As they tell everyone, Colin "will teach her to walk," while Kevin "will teach her to climb." They both like to feel her kick, and Colin loves to sing to her. He makes me lift my shirt up so he "can see her."

We are trying our best to be ready for her April 8th due date! We will let you know the name when she arrives!

Week 19

Week 25

Week 33

Week 34

Kid Art

Here are some recent art projects completed by the boys.

Colin's art is simpler, but no less adorable.

Here is a painting he brought home from school this week.

Colin's cutting face. He has been working with scissors lately, and gotten much better. Now he can cut all the way across the paper all by himself!

What he did with scissors last week...

Compared to this week! Unfortunately this coincided with Valentine's Day. So all the Valentine's he made for friends were small scraps of paper. We struggled to get him to even draw on the paper hearts we had cut out.

Here is Kevin's recent art:

About 2 months ago, Kevin's class had different materials out for art projects. All the other kids just glued down straws and toothpicks and scraps of paper. Our kid made a fire truck. All by himself. They weren't told to make a truck. (We were told that he did have help making the wheels.)

At the coffee table creating. It is a nightly thing in our house!

Last week he started tracing his train and adding coaches to the back. He told me his have seats on the top and the bottom, so he drew windows for the seats. He started adding faces in the windows, which you can see in the bottom two trains.

When we told the boys we were going to make Valentine's for friends, Kevin just started making these. They are drawings of pumpkins.

Wednesday, Kevin brought home this. It is a map to get from daycare (bottom left) to home (bottom right). The stripes at the top are the bridge by our house, and the river is the blue line below it. At the top is an orange airplane in the blue clouds. We pass two airports on the way home. He told daddy to use it to get home.

The Boys' New Room

Since the boys were in two different rooms, we needed them to move in together so the baby can have a room. To get the boys excited about this, we let them pick out the theme for their new room. They chose planets and stars! (Kevin was okay about moving in together. Colin was not. He told me that his room "makes me happy, and Kevin's room makes me sad." But once we let them pick out outer space things and started calling it "the boys' room" he has been all gung ho.) We have painted the room blue, put up the mural, hung up glow-in-the-dark planets, and moved their furniture in. We are still waiting to hang up the glow-in-the-dark stars, for their bedding to arrive in the mail (well, Colin's is here), and for bunk beds. (The bed will be purchased after baby sister arrives so the boys get something big for themselves.)

So a few weekends ago we moved most of Kevin's stuff into the hallway, and his bed into Colin's room while we painted. This also gave them time to sleep in the same room before the big move. (It takes much longer to get them to fall asleep when they are in the same room! LOTS of giggling and playing!) Then we started taping and painting.

Both boys loved helping paint, and were great at following directions about where to paint and where to avoid. (Colin kept moving around the room saying "Okay to paint here. Not here though. No.") After a while they got bored. Kevin decided to be "the boss." To him, this meant telling us we could take breaks and saying "good job" a lot. Colin decided to be the ice cream man. He would give us pretend ice cream on our "breaks." Later on, they even brought instruments upstairs to play music for us!

Now that they are moved in, they are having so much fun. They read every night together in Kevin's bed, and have conversations while they fall asleep. (Sometimes I sneak close to listen. Last night they were pretending that the music-and-light machine on Colin's bed was showing a movie. It was Spider-man. And it had commercials.) Here are a lot pictures:

Before any painting

Break time!

Yes, I am pregnant and on a ladder. I survived!

In house entertainment while we finished up.

The mural on the dark wall.

With their current furniture.

They line up toys each night to protect them while they sleep.

"Reading" in Kevin's bed.

If we turn the lights out before they are finished with their books, they read by nightlight.

He-Man!

The following is what is being said while I take the pictures:

"By the power of Greyskull!"

"I have the power!"

I love my boys.

Jail

The other day I walked up the stairs to see Kevin and Colin closing our bedroom door. They looked very suspicious. Kevin told me to be careful when I opened the door because it is now a jail. A while later I opened the door and saw this.

McKerr Weekend 2011 Part 1

We have had very fun past McKerr weekends before (here is one, and since I can't find the other one, this will be accepted). And since we anticipate more this year, I labeled this one "part 1." It all started when we loaded everyone and everything up Friday evening a few weeks ago and drove to KC. And we were not the only ones staying at the Kerr's - Walter was in town, too!

Hannah is much bigger now. She is almost two! The boys were very excited to see her in the morning. We started Saturday off at Union Station to see the model train exhibit.




All three kids had fun looking at the trains. The exhibit took up several rooms. Here are a few more pictures.




Afterward we headed to Fritz's for lunch. The food is just diner food, but it is delivered by train! There is a train track hanging from the ceiling, and the train leaves the food on a platform for your table, which then lowers down. Obviously, everyone loved it.

Train tracks around the ceiling.

Food being lowered down.

The reason Walter came in town was for the big Turkey Fry. The Kerr's traditionally hold it around Thanksgiving, which is why we never attend. But since the flu hit their house the same weekend, it was postponed until our visit. The Vrooman's, Bailey's, McGuire's, Kerr's and Walter were all together again Saturday evening.

Steve and Walter were in charge of the turkey fry. Here is the story in pictures:

Great. The turkey is charred beyond recognition!

Wait! Maybe it is just cajun-style, since only the outside is blackened!

Wrong. The inside is still raw. Walter blames Steve's unwillingness to budge on his stance that the turkey did not need to be thawed. (UPDATED: This debate continues on the comments page of the Kerr Blog.)

So we headed to the store and bought chicken. It was delicious. Having 9 adults, 2 of whom are pregnant, and 4 kids in one house for the evening was quite fun. The boys played a few very serious games of Monopoly, while the ladies put the kids down and watched a movie. Here are a couple pictures of all of the kids. (And the preggos..)

Colin, Hannah, Norah, and Kevin

Getting ready for bedtime.

We are less than a week apart!

Another successful McKerr weekend down. Read here for the Kerr version, including Words Of Wisdom from Walter. (We had to start writing them down, there were so many.)

Robots

After dinner one night Kevin asked for a box. He said he wanted to make a robot. Luckily we had forgotten to put out the recycling the previous week, so there were plenty of boxes. Of course, once Kevin got started, Colin had to join in. They needed help with cutting and taping, but everything was their creation. Now if we can just program them to clean the house.


We will update you if the robots become hostile.

Snowflakes Attack!

A teacher showed Kevin how to make snowflakes around Christmas. He was very excited and proud to show us how to make them as well. He immediately started making snowflakes for our house. He has hung up every one that he made. I love that he is so excited, and also that he is working so hard at it. He worked on snowflakes for about a week. He told me that he "wants to decorate the entire house, and that will take a long time." He even took paper and markers to show his cousins how to make them. In the end, he hung snowflakes in five areas in our house.

Here is how it started...

hanging up each snowflake...

and even cleaning up after!

Here is the finished wall in the kitchen.

There are two pictures under the snowflakes. Kevin drew this snowman and said "He goes at the bottom so the snow will fall on him." The orange picture is of Kevin "as a bigger boy holding an umbrella to protect myself from the snowflakes."

Then he moved into the family room.

And then behind the other chair.

Here is the wall between the kitchen and family room.

And finally the sliding door. The snowflakes hang next to the ocean we made a week earlier. There are fish of different sizes, an octopus, a pirate ship and even a treasure at the bottom.