2 Weeks and you bet I am counting!

I have decided the hardest thing about the end of the pregnancy is you have to accept that this is really happening (I tend to ignore reality sometimes...), at least enough to have general plans - visited the hospital, family coming to help, plans on where to send the kids, pack (or thought about packing) a bag. But, then once you accept that this is happening, it seems like every day is taking FOR-EV-ER to pass and your due date that seemed just around the corner is so far away. I can't complain physically, I feel great, but man, emotionally I have hit THAT point. And obviously, I understand by now that a due date is not an exact thing - I have had one baby a week late, one a week early, and one just about on time. Though it does make me laugh when my mom asks me every week, "So do you know yet when that baby is going to be born?" Nope, not yet mom!

I was excited to break up the waiting game with a baby shower that some sweet friends in the ward planned and hosted for me. Obviously, clothes aren't really the biggest need for boy no. 4, but man did we score on diapers. The kids insisted on making a tower of them and then totaling how many diapers we had. The number is currently up to 942. Hooray! Depending on how much this little guy poops, this could hold us for 3-4 months! Thanks to all who helped make my shower happen, it was a wonderful relaxing morning and we are so grateful for all the gifts.

Here is my latest belly shot, put next my first two. The doctor actually did an ultrasound last week to make sure the baby won't break the 10 lb. barrior, as Luke almost did. Ultrasounds aren't exact as far as size goes, but even give or take a pound, this baby stands to be even smaller than Luke.

The "loot"! There are a lot of talented women in the ward, so it included beautiful hand made booties, hats, afgans, and even a quilt (the Primary President makes a quilt for every baby born in the ward - and that is no small number!). I was super excited to see the quilt was in the colors I picked out for the baby's room - green and brown.

Oh the wonderful sight of abundant diapers!

One gal in our ward is talented with vinyl lettering and made these shirts for the boys. I thought they were just SO incredibly creative and cute and the boys LOVED them and insisted on wearing them on Saturday.

Besides waiting, life is just same old same old. In the words of Nathan, "I am so tired of waiting for April! Everything happens in April!" Of course, he is just thinking of Easter, Carter's birthday party, and then his birthday and could care less about the baby being born, but it does stand to be a much more exciting month. But, here are some day to day snippets and smiles.

We asked the boys to get dressed on Sunday and this is as far as Luke got. No pants, no shirt, just his sweater, toga style. This is how new trends get started you know...

If you are what you eat, my boys are most definitely a large bowl of cereal. Even my best attempts to not get Luke to go the ways of his brothers (P-I-C-K-Y) don't always pan out when this is what the big boys are doing.

I loved the day that Nathan realized he could read most of Luke's books and started reading to his brothers. Luke LOVES to read and it's such a great help to have Nathan read to Luke.

Matt is always an avid exerciser and sometimes the boys like to help make sure dad is in tip top shape. Maybe I should try this in one of my classes - father son weight lifting!

A few weekends ago we made a quick trip to Utah for a family sealing. It was awesome to see family, even for only a day and a half, and a surprisingly refreshing trip for being so short. Matt's brother Tim just bought this scooter to save money for around town trips and the kids had a blast even just sitting on it.

Vroom vroom!

I have never seen this type of smile on Nathan before. The power of the machine must have overcome him.

Of course, the big kid had to try it too. He took it for a couple of loops around the block. Too bad we just couldn't figure out how this would be practical for us to get for our home t0wn.

Hopefully my next post will be a baby announcement!!!

Luke's 2nd birthday and 1st haircut!

On Monday our sweet little Luke turned a whopping 2 years old (in the words of Nathan "Man, he has been 1 forever! Finally, he's 2!"). Growing up, we always woke up to decorations and often one of our presents already at the table. I cheated and just left the decorations up from Valentines day, but we did give Luke one of his presents to start the day. We followed that up with our traditional birthday breakfast of homemade waffles and strawberries. Nathan had waffles with just strawberries, Carter ate only coolwhip, and Luke ate heartily until he realized his brothers had already come and gone and he was missing out on potential fun (the early end to most his meals, sadly).

Presents, what are presents?

Don't worry Luke, your brothers are at hand with step by step instructions.

Boy, how do I get this posed picture all the time? Notice whose hands are on the present...not the birthday boy's!

Whee, bowling fun. Luke definitely had a hard time sharing with his eager brothers. I can see why my parents had the rule that you didn't have to share the first day you had something new.

Matt got the day off work, well mostly - he had to do a midday budget presentation that I went to (and learned all kinds of things about what my husband really does all day. Man, he is getting to be a smart cookie!). After that, we came home and bravely ventured off to the sledding slopes at two in the afternoon. Sledding is far from news on this blog lately, but here are some cute family pics, that just happen to be in the snow!

Nathan's king of the mountain pose.

Daddy talked Luke into the sled. After the run, Lukie said, "Scary!" Guess he joins the weenie club with Carter and Mommy!

We found these glasses sitting on a bench and I had to try them on Luke. I thought he looked just adorable! Don't look too closely, the girly flowers will kill the cool factor of his new look...

You know those pictures of your kid that you see and think, "THAT is my kid." It just captures the essence of your kid as you know them. This is that kid of picture for my goofy fun loving Carter.

They climbed into the tube together and just giggled for a few minutes head to head. Brother love!

If you have wondered why so many sledding trips lately, two main reasons: 1. Sledding is the main outdoor family activity to do right now and we love family outdoor fun. and 2. The look on his face says it all...guess who LOVES sledding?

After sledding, we hit McDonalds for the rare treat of not just a dollar menu item, but birthday happy meals for all. We got home and I hadn't gotten around, in our busy day, to putting Luke's cake together. So, Matt tried to distract the boys as I slapped together a construction truck cake in literally 15 minutes. Of course, its so quickly dismanteled as each boy claimed different candied parts, you wonder why I ever spend more time than that?!

We didn't get around to the special event of the evening that night, but did it two days later: Luke's first full haircut. We have trimmed the baby mullet in the back several times, evened out bangs, but never really given the guy a haircut. We let Carter's hair grow long at this age (see Carter's long hair below) and loved it, so we did so again. We had really grown attached to Luke's shaggy beach boy look, but realized it was probably time to make the cut and change from baby to boy.

Here is Luke the day before his haircut styling his cute long hair with a classic, "How can you say no to ME?" adorable Lukie look. *Note: if you want to get a real smile from your 2 year old, how about letting him do something he knows he's not supposed to (climb up onto Nathan's top bunk) and see if you can't get some of those smiles!

We couldn't resist one night trying out the capabilities of Luke's long hair. Note, he is NOT complaining and actually was begging us to put it back in after we took it out. Sorry buddy, this one's going in the blackmail folder!

Matt held Luke upside down and you can see just how long his hair really got in two years. Just by finger measurement, his hair from root to tip is almost as long as his face is.
The unsuspecting victim...
Not so sure about this. (Though to my credit his haircut was done in 5 minutes flat so the pain was short...that's about all the time you get to cut a 2 year old's hair!)

All done! Now officially a boy and not a baby. I was really sad and still miss the long hair and not so sure about the change, but what do you think?

Either way, we couldn't love our Luke more than we do. Seems like every day we have a "Man, I love that kid!" moment. He just loves life, loves people, and loves to make you laugh. He is such a joy, though definitely still a curious into-everything energetic 2 year old! Happy birthday our sweet Lukie!

January Wrap-Up

Well, despite my negativity about January in my last post, looking back on pictures we still had some great family fun. Nathan started Mighty Mights Basketball, a co-ed city basketball league for K-2 grade, which Matt was asked to help coach. Sadly, this is probably the first time Nathan has ever tried to dribble or shoot a ball, unlike some of his 5/6 year old friends who are suprisingly good at ball handling and shooting. But, Nathan is a hard worker and has fun learning the game. It's hillarious to watch these little kiddos play games, some kids just hold onto the ball for dear life and run down the court (forget dribbling!). I love that Matt loves coaching Nathan's teams and the time Matt and Nathan get to do this together.

I laughed at this last weeks game when Nathan decided that since it was so important to always have your hands up when you are on the defense, that he started having his hands up when he was on offense. Maybe in the hopes of getting passed the ball? But sometimes he would actually get in the way off a pass with those obedient little hands up!
Luke has a hard time resisting all the balls and occasionally gets the chance to chase after and play with them too.

Despite a very busy month, we were able to sneak away for our second sledding trip of the season on a Monday holiday. I won't bore you with as many pictures as last time, but here are a few of the highlights.

Best buds Nathan and Carter. Actually, the best news is that that doesn't just apply to a quick picture - they really have become the best of friends. We have stopped watching TV in the mornings and they have just started to play for up to an hour straight without any arguments having such great adventures. Yes - this is why the craziness of having kids close in age is worth it!!

The kids were so impatient to get the snowman done, I couldn't talk them into letting me make it bigger than this. Oh well, he's a cute little guy nonetheless.

Matt's parents sent us this great tube sled. Though there wasn't enough snow to use it much on the hill, it was a great place for the kids to hang out or to get rides from daddy in. Carter loved riding in it with Luke, but Luke wasn't so impressed.

On the way home from sledding all the kids passed out. I took this picture because you can very easily see how much Nathan and Luke look like each other!

Nathan's picture he drew in class when they were studying ocean animals was chosen by his teacher to go on display in an art show at the mall. Nathan was pretty unimpressed with it all, but I was excited for him. Not that he is set to follow in his mom's footsteps as an artist, but it's fun to think about your kid possibly taking after you in some way. I did laugh that Nathan is a very realistic artist- he always wants to do things EXACTLY like the example and prefers to draw or color things he can see a picture of. I was sadly the same way, even as an art major at BYU - I was only good at drawing things I saw, never very good at just drawing "off the top of my head".

Heres a close up - it has a orca, jellyfish, squid, crab, starfish, and long orange thing is a shark egg (they are often called "mermaid pouches" they look like long pouches - Nathan has read about them in books and seen one in FL)

Finally, it's hard to miss my belly these days. I have gotten used to the comments about how I carry my baby so "out" over the years, but I laughed at myself tonight as we were at a friends house and I kept knocking things down or running into people, forgetting the "out"ness of my belly! Seven weeks and counting!

January Hangover

Have you ever felt like that - that January is the hangover from the Christmas fun? No more holidays (at least till Valentines Day), no more anticipation, and, in my case, 10 1/2 weeks and counting until baby boy #4 comes. But, here are some of the things we have been keeping busy with.

The day after Christmas we were excited to have Matt's parents and sisters come for a visit. Mostly we were just happy to be together, but we did venture out for a day of sledding. Of course, in all the anticipation and after an hour and a half drive I realized I had forgotten my carefully packed bag of gloves and hats for our family. Ah! I was so frustrated - little kids think snow is so fun until their hands freeze (which takes all of two minutes) and then they are done. Luckily, my dear in-laws had brought enough to share some so we put adult sized gloves and hats on the kids and were able to make do. Whew! After that, everyone had a great time.

Aunt Megan holding Luke - he spend most of his time in someone's arms. Megan brought this adorable hat with her - Luke looked so cute!

Aunt Melanie and Lukie (good thing he had lots of family willing to hold him!)
One of Nathan's favorite snow activities: eating it.

Carter's favorite snow activity: throwing it.
Nathan looking oh-so sly with this snowball. At least his snowballs were all aimed at one place: daddy's head.
Lukie just being stinkin cute.


Nathan's attempt at a snowman. This is as far as it got, the snow was too packed and not fresh.

Matt always loves sledding and will do hills of any size. Nathan was braver this year and even did a solo run. Luke did some small hills with dad and grandpa until he decided that wasn't his thing. Carter wouldn't touch the sled, he just walked around trying to make snowballs to throw at people, mainly his mom!

Grandpa and Nathan

Matt on one of his solo runs down the big hill.

Nathan daring the sled for the first time by himself! He ended it with "That was awesome!"

We got our first (and only) snow this year the day before Matt's family left. The kids of course wanted to run outside and build a snowman. They settled for trying to catch the flakes.

Also, Matt's parents generously bought Luke his very own toddler bed, as well as a new set of bunk beds for the bigger boys (the ones they had were getting old). So, Matt and his dad assembled them and Luke was excited to sleep in his big bed. Or maybe he was excited about the not sleeping part, because that is what he does best every night - partying with his brothers. It's gotten to the point we have had to take the bookcase out of the room, as well as the dresser. Every night Luke would empty the contents of the bookcase, and then one night we found him jumping on the top shelf of the bookcase. They still party, but a little more safely. For a week straight they were so excited about their new beds all they wanted to do was play "sleep". Fine by me - what a nice quiet game!

For New Years we went and visited my oldest brother, Jonathan, and his wife Jenelle, and three daughters (Annika - 2, and twin baby sisters Clara and Nicolyn) in Portland. It was quite the bunch of kids for one house, but the boys were excited to visit their cousins with "two babies". Jenelle said Annika seemed the most excited about Luke coming to visit, probably because they are only 8 months apart and he is the calmest of the group. Except of course when he got bored and stopped loving on the babies (which he did a lot) and started picking on them. Sorry Clara and Nicolyn!

Annika just looking pretty. You can tell she will be quite the looker in ten years!

My boys in front of the Portland temple, where Jonathan and Jenelle got married.

Jonathan, Annika, Matt and our boys on the temple grounds.

Luke found this Santa hat at Jonathan's house and couldn't resist walking around shouting, "Ho, ho, ho!" It was so adorable!

Finally, Carter wanted an upclose shot of "my eyeballs". This picture is proof of the minimal evidence that these adorable children are not just Michaelis'. It sums up the only Vance resemblance in my kids - Carter's freckles, white skin, and gray-blue eyes. Sorry buddy, no tan skin or brown eyes for you!