Christmas, Adam's Birthday, Christmas again, Etc!

This is ridiculously late to be finally re-capping Christmas! Sheesh! I hope I remember everything!

The weekend of December 17 (Adam's birthday!) Adam's family came to Clinton for the weekend so we could celebrate an early Christmas and Adam's birthday together. 

Saturday the 17th, we had breakfast at our house and then it was time for presents!! The kids were so excited!!

Hope is such a great present-opener. So expressive!

Ask Adam how long it took to put that dinosaur together, hee hee! :)

J loves the TV show "Battlebots" so he was thrilled to get his own Battlebot Arena!

 After the present extravaganza, we headed over to Matt and Lorayne's house. The kids/men played in the snow, gave sled rides behind the 4 wheeler (!!!!!!), and the ladies went out for coffee.

Remember when we had snow??? I barely do.

Hope takes after her momma- why do people think this is fun?!?!

She only lasted a couple minutes!

Then that evening we all gathered back at Matt and Lorayne's house again to enjoy a nice Christmas dinner and to celebrate this guy!

This was not just any old birthday- it was the BIG 4-0!!!

40 looks good on him, right? :) We all had such a fun time!

December 22 was J's last day (a 1/2 day) of school before Christmas break. His teacher invited parents and siblings to join the Christmas party, so Hope and I did just that! Hope had a blast! The kids made Christmas trees out of plastic cups, decorated and ate yummy cookies, and played a couple other games.

Jeremiah was SO excited to give us the Christmas present he made at school! So it did not go under the tree, he had us open it as soon as Daddy got home from work.

So cute!
 

Adam was able to have Christmas Eve off, and the Ranch is closed Christmas Day so it was so nice to have him home and be together for 2 days!

On Saturday, Christmas Eve, we went over to Mike and Heidi's house to decorate cookies and have a birthday party for Jesus.

That's a lot of cookies!!!

We had chili and cinnamon rolls for dinner at home (possible new tradition- we liked it!), and then let the kids open one gift after dinner (Christmas jammies!). Then we went to the Christmas Eve candlelight service at our church.

Is my brother smiling? Cause then I'll smile, too.

Twinsies in our scarves :)

I love candlight church services!!

After church, it was time for Christmas jammies and presents!

We got the kids their first sleds! I know, how did we ever live in snowy MI and not own sleds?!?! I don't know.

Unfortunately this is all the sledding they've done, since our snow is long gone. Maybe someday they'll really get to use them! Also, Hope could not be bothered for a picture. She was much too busy playing with her "Hy-Vee" (her new cash register)!

That night J insisted that we put out cookies and milk for Santa (even though I reminded him several times that we already opened presents....). I have no idea what he thinks about Santa, but it was important to him, so we did it. Cookies and milk for Santa plus a cookie for Rudolf because we didn't have carrots.

Christmas Day was a nice relaxing day. In the morning we opened stockings!

Sit still, Hope!

The kids spent time playing with their new toys,

and Adam and J went to see the movie "Sing!" In the afternoon. We even made a Christmas dinner- turkey breast, stuffing, veggies and cheese sauce, mashed potatoes..... yum!!!

We spent New Year's Eve at Mike and Heidi's house eating yummy food, playing games, and having fun! But we left at 11:00, just after seeing the ball dropped in New York. So we celebrated on eastern time, I guess!

J was off of school till January 5. Unfortunately we didn't really do much exciting over his break(that I can remember....). We did decorate more cookies, though, because why not??

In more recent news, J lost his top tooth while eating dinner last week! Thankfully he did not faint, but he did go lie down because he "felt weird."

Hope is trying to streamline the whole potty-training process.

And regarding Baby #3- we found out that she is a girl!!

J was pretty disappointed. :( Right away he said, "Aw man! Now I'll have another little sister to keep out of my room!" Plus he really wanted bunk beds. But, I think he's coming to terms with it. He does think it will be cool for just him and a Daddy to go do "guy stuff" together. And Hope is clueless right now, but hopefully she and her sister will be great friends!

Already baby #3 is being neglected as I have done no baby bump pictures or really any documenting of the pregnancy. Probably because it hasn't felt real to me! Crazy, I know, but it felt like I was just sick with a stomach bug for like 12+ weeks. Fun times! But, I think in the last week or so I've started showing more, and I've been feeling her move around in there, AND I've been feeling better (YAY!!) so it is starting to feel more real. I am just about 18 weeks along right now, and my Dr had me do a blood test to test for all kinds of genetic things (basically because I'm old). So that is how we also found out the gender (and everything else looked good, too, thankfully). I don't have my 20 week ultrasound until February 1st, and that will be a Level 2 ultrasound with a University of Iowa doctor (with an office in Davenport)....  again I'm assuming because I'm old. Everything so far has gone well with baby, so I'm assuming the level 2 ultrasound will too. I'll be sure to update when I have some pics of little girly to share!