A Trip to Spokane, part 1

We drove up to Spokane for Christmas this year to visit Keith's family, and we had such a great time. It had been two years since we had been up for a visit, and it was so nice to see everyone. We stopped at Dorothy and Brandon's in Spanish Fork on the way up, and it was fun to have the cousins finally meet and to see her kids. It had been five years since we had seen them and Isaac and Joben were babies the last time we were together. Finley had a lot of fun holding her baby cousin Emery.

Emery was such a cute, content baby! We were only there for a little while, but the kids had fun with their cousins.

The Heiners fed us some pizza before we were back on the road.

Now that they live a little closer, I hope we will get to see them a lot more. It was so nice to visit!

We got to Spokane early on the 23rd and had a relaxing day to recover from our long journey. We left our house at 5 am on the 22nd and got to gramdma's around 6 am on the 23rd. One thing we did on Christmas Eve was decorate some sugar cookies for Santa.

The visit was made especially fun because Noel and Jewell and their kids Katlyn, Tyler, and Ian were also there. The kids had so much fun with their cousins, while the adults were able to hang out and play a bunch of games. Anyway, grandma had all the supplies to make some cute cookies.

The kids each picked out their masterpiece to leave for Santa. Finley's was globbed with a little bit of everything, including some gummy bears.

Isaac made a Christmas tree with a giant star on top.

And Sareny made a portrait of Santa himself.

Meanwhile, Isaac learned how to multi-task. You can see from his apron that we were still in the process of decorating cookies, and he is simultaneously playing angry birds and watching a tv show.

And we got some beautiful Christmas Eve snow. That was kind of cool for us!

Christmas Festivities

In preparation for Christmas, Sareny had a school holiday concert. She got all dressed up and looked beautiful. She was a little sad and mad when the girl standing right next to her ended up wearing the same dress, but it wasn't too noticable. Probably the only people who noticed were us and that girl's parents.

I always love school concerts. The kids have been practicing for weeks and are always so excited.

A couple of days later, we headed to our local school that was hosting a breakfast with Santa event. The kids all took a turn sitting on Santa's lap and telling him what they wanted. I believe Finley told him she wanted a dolly and a necklace.

I'm sure everyone would be shocked that Isaac told Santa he wanted a wii game.

Sareny told Santa she wanted an ipod touch, and he told her lots of children were asking for those this year.

Then it was time for a group photo. At the last minute, Sareny remembered she was deathly afraid of Santa and started to cry. I think she was actually sneezing, but it looks pretty silly.

We reassured her that it would be okay, and she settled right down for a nice picture. :)

The Big News

I had my ultrasound back in early December to find out whether we were having a boy or a girl. I had told Sareny that we would be holding balloons at the bus stop so she could know what we were going to have--pink balloons for a girl, and blue balloons for a boy. Unfortunately, the gender of the baby was inconclusive due to the baby being breach and crossing its legs, so there was no big news to announce at the bus stop. However, I had promised we would be holding balloons and I didn't want her to think we had forgotten, so we got yellow balloons. She was a little confused since she had expecting either pink or blue and asked, "What does yellow mean?"

It was a bit disappointing for everyone to still be in suspense. Although honestly, I think it bothered other people more than it bothered me. After my miscarriages and years of trying to get a baby, I actually was just so thrilled that the ultrasound showed a healthy, growing baby that I didn't have room inside for disappointment. We made plans to have a 3-D ultrasound at a place that does them for free once I reached 26 weeks. We just had that appointment two days ago, and all I can say is that modern science is pretty amazing. I kind of expected to see smashed alien-baby pictures, and was surprised when I got this instead:

That looks so much like my other babies, it is amazing! So the big news around here is that we will be having another girl! Everyone was pretty excited except for poor Isaac, who has been praying for a boy. I felt pretty sad for him. Again, I personally would have been happy either way, but I know he really wanted a brother so I was kind of hoping for his sake...At least this way he gets to hold on to his title as my favorite boy. :) And a parting shot of the kids, because I thought both pictures were cute.

Sareny's Class Field Trip

Sareny's class had a field trip to a dairy at the beginning of December, and I got selected as one of the chaperones. She was excited to have me along, and I was glad that the smell of cows didn't make me sick, since I was (and still am, of course) pregnant. Above is a picture of her class, with her teacher Ms. Lizarraga. Then the kids enjoyed playing around in the hay and jumping off.

The kids sampled some flavored milk, which Sareny of course did not like. Then they went on a hayride tour of the dairy. Here she is sitting by Aimee and KcKenna.

Looking at the cows eating.

Then they petted and fed some of the animals.

The sheep licked her hand, and she wasn't sure about that.

A donkey nibbling a carrot off of Sareny's hand.

You can kind of tell from these pictures, but it was a cold day at the farm!

After some sack lunches, everybody got some ice cream. This was the group of kids I was in charge of--there was supposed to be one little girl in our group, but she was absent that day. Really, other than lunchtime, the kids just hung out with whoever they wanted.

Sareny with her friend Renee from church.

Back on the bus with her friend McKenna.

I thought we were headed back to the school an hour early, and that was fine by me. But nope! The bus made a surprise stop at a park for the kids to run around. It was actually a pretty big park and was able to accomodate the whole second grade pretty well. I felt kind of bad for the few kids who were there playing when we got there.

I took a long turn on tire swing duty, timing the kids' turns and pushing them.

Sareny climbed up this structure.

And then we finally really did head back to the school. I was glad I got to go along on her class trip!