Jesus Wants For Me A Sunbeam

I figured out a few days ago that while Will usually refuses to sing songs, he is actually learning the words. He knows every word to "The Wise Man and The Foolish Man," "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree" and "Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam." I know he messed up a bit here, but it was a bit of stage fright. And he always says "for me" instead of "me for". I think both ways are true. :)

Will also told me yesterday that when Jesus was born, there was a helicopter in the sky. What the what? Where does he get this stuff? I think it's from watching Madagascar, when they think they see a star and it's actually a helicopter, but still.

Ethan's decided he will do anything for candy. I woke up Saturday morning because all the lights were on downstairs, but I could see Ethan trying to wake up Will. I went to get him and found him with half a chocolate orange in his hand! I was too tired to do anything, so I just took it out of his hand and put him back in bed. It wasn't until I went down to turn off the lights that I saw that it was 3:30 a.m.! Apparently he woke up and just needed chocolate. I know I certainly did at that point.

And we actually have a thumb sucker! Our families know that Anthony and I were both notorious thumb suckers for way too long, but Will and Ethan have never picked it up. It surprised me to catch Jonathan doing it every once in awhile.

This video isn't super exciting. Just a bit of Jonathan babbling and smiling. Mostly I enjoyed it because of Jonathan's gesture in the first few seconds, since I'm wicked. "It's kind of like a souvenir."

Our branch of the NRA

The boys like making guns out of pretty much everything. Ethan made an outstanding pistol from our Trio blocks, and Will just had to make his own too. Anthony taught him that even if he has a shotgun, he should have a pistol in his pocket for backup.

Jonathan earlier this evening. This is as up-to-date as you can get,
so no more requests for awhile! :)

I don't mean to be so bad at updating, but he always wants to be held from 8 p.m. until at least 2 a.m. and it's hard to work on the blog when he's squirming around. Plus he's so cute, I'd rather pay attention to him anyway. I'll try to be better at sharing him.

Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam!

Last Sunday was Will's first week in Sunbeams at church. The Primary had pushed it back a week because their teacher was on still on vacation, so Will got an extra week in Nursery. On Sunday, I made sure Ethan was distracted before we slipped out of Nursery because I knew he'd have the hardest time. I can't even take Will out to the car without Ethan having a breakdown, as if he's never going to see Will again. Will wasn't excited about leaving (he threw himself down on the floor and said, "I want to go in THERE!"), but I convinced him to try Sunbeams out (by dragging him down the hall). Once he was there, he was fine. They said during singing time, he loved singing "Do As I'm Doing"--he did it high, low, fast and slow. My kids are growing up too fast!

 So grown up!

Showing off their new ties

December Pics

Visiting Santa at the Ward Christmas party. No tears!

 Helping Daddy sand down our table

Ready for the Hawaiian Christmas party for Anthony's squadron. 

It took some work to make sure we all had Hawaiian shirts!

A little disgruntled the first time in the bathtub

One month old! But why must he always flare his nostrils?

 We made our Buche de Noel for New Year's Eve. So good!

Christmas

We're still at the point where Christmas morning doesn't have to start at the crack of dawn. I think it was almost 10 before the boys came downstairs (we spent Christmas Eve with a group of friends, so the boys were awfully tired by the time we made it home). I had stayed up all night getting everything ready, so unfortunately we didn't get a lot of pictures, but it was a wonderful day. Will was excited that Santa had finally filled their stockings--every day he was looking and telling Ethan that Santa hadn't come yet. (The night before he was wondering why we were putting out cookies and milk for Santa: "Is Santa very hungry?") Ethan was so excited to finally see his pillow pet that morning under the tree. It was pretty cute, "Pillow Pet, Daddy!" We'd been in Fred Meyer the week before, and he was almost in tears asking for a pillow pet. Darn marketing department! That was also the evening that he was trying to open a Matchbox car in line, and I told him we had to buy it first. He said, "Okay" and tried to take a bite out of it. I guess bite made more sense than buy. Anyway, Christmas morning we started out by watching the First Presidency Christmas Devotional and ate cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate. By the time we started opening presents, it was already noon. We got part way through and once again, they were done. Ethan refused to open any more that day (I think it took 3 days to get through all of his), and Will just wanted to "tear the presents." He'd pull off the wrapping paper and move on without even looking. Some of their favorites were the Pillow Pets, a telescope, their doctor's kit (everyday they say they're going to "shot me"), all of their movies, and these awesome I Spy bags our sister-in-law Laura made. They loved everything of course, but those are the ones that stick out. The best by far was the bouncy castle we got them with money from Great-Grandma and Grandpa. They've always loved to bounce when ever we're at an even with one, and I found a great deal on this one, so we figured it would be wonderful to get out some energy while we're stuck inside these next few months. Every day Ethan tells me, "Jump bouncy castle! Come on Will!" and they head downstairs.

This is probably loud, so you might want to turn down 

the volume on your computer.

And it's kind of long--I figured mostly the grandmas 

would want to see it. :)

Christmas morning before the fun began. I guess that's why everyone looks so somber.

Not excited at all.

Opening presents from Santa

Ethan's 2!

It's hard to believe that Ethan's already 2! It doesn't seem like that long ago that we were with him in the NICU, scared of what was going to happen and wondering if he'd be okay. And now, there's' no stopping our little tornado. We celebrated at home because the boys were getting over being sick and Anthony was just starting to be. We had a wonderful dinner of barbecued ribs, opened presents and had a peanut butter and chocolate cake.

 Playing with the new toys and rug

 Every time I tried to get a picture, I saw Ethan's hand creeping in to grab a piece.

Happy birthday, Ethan!

Our Thanksgiving Baby

This year we weren't too sure what to do about Thanksgiving. I was due to have Jonathan on Saturday the 27th, and I was sure if I bought a turkey, I'd go into labor as soon as I started cooking it. We were invited to have dinner with friends, and that seemed like a good idea, until we were blessed to receive a full Thanksgiving dinner from the First Sergeants group. Every year they choose families (usually young Airmen with families) that may need a little extra help during the holidays, and this year they chose to do a breakfast and then we "shopped" in the Commissary--really we just walked through the front of the building and they handed us each item. The only issue I was worried about was that we had to be at the breakfast at 7 in the morning. I've been blessed with boys that like to sleep until 9 a.m., so having them up and out the door by 6:45 seemed like a tremendous task. Will is the one I really worried about--Ethan's totally a morning person--but I explained to him the night before that we were going to get up early for a special breakfast, and he totally grabbed onto that concept. As soon as we got him up, he was asking if we were going to our special breakfast, and for days afterward, he asked if we were having another special breakfast. Nothing can ever compete with it in his mind. When we got home, I was faced with the task of figuring out where to put a 16-pound turkey. Our freezer was already filled to the brim with 3 weeks worth of meals I made for after the baby was born, so that was out. We decided that as long as Jonathan didn't come early, we'd go ahead and have Thanksgiving at home, which ended up being a great choice. Everything was pretty relaxed, and we had a wonderful dinner together.

 Ethan, being picky as ever, mostly ate turkey and deviled eggs.

Will ate so much, he had to unbutton his pants.

That night at midnight, I was checking out some of the Black Friday sales online when I started having contractions. By two a.m., they'd started getting pretty painful, but I didn't think we needed to head to the hospital, so Anthony tried to get some sleep. I went to bed too, but I definitely couldn't sleep. Around 3:30 I told Anthony that we might want to go in, just in case. By the time we got the boys over to a friend's house and headed back to base, the contractions had pretty much stopped. They had me walk around for an hour and then put me back on the monitor, and even though the contractions had started again, they still sent me home. I couldn't believe it, especially since I was having trouble walking out to the car, but you can't argue with military doctors. I decided that I didn't want to be sent home again, so I'd just wait until I couldn't handle it any longer. That lasted until 3 in the afternoon, and we headed back at 3:30. This time we were lucky enough to first be stuck behind a car going 20 mph in a 35 mph zone, and then once he turned off, we were stuck behind a bobcat endloader going, at least it felt like, even slower. By then I realized I'd probably waited too long, and I was starting to worry that I'd be one of those stories on the news for giving birth in the car. Anthony dropped me off in front, and even though I knew there wasn't a lot of time, all of the nurses nonchalantly went about checking me in. We arrived at almost 4 p.m, and at one point we were alone for about 10 minutes while they downloaded my file. By the time the Captain came to check on me and ask if I wanted an epidural, it was about 4:15. She then checked to see how far along I was, and suddenly everyone was rushing around to get everything ready. No time for an epidural, not even time for the doctor to make it to the hospital. As she told me later, she was at home watching "Keeping Up With The Kardashians." I can understand--it is near impossible to drag yourself away from Kim and Kourtney. It wasn't really the doctor's fault; no one called until I was at the hospital, and she never would have made it. They kept telling me to wait for her. Yeah, right. Jonathan Joseph was born at 4:26 p.m. on Nov. 26th. He was 7 lbs 15 oz and supposedly 22 inches, but he'd shrunk a quarter inch at his 2 week apt, so I guess we'll never know. We were both pretty surprised that he had dark hair, and quite a bit of it. Will's was dark when he was first born, but he didn't have a whole lot, and it lightened up pretty quickly. So far Jonathan favors me, at least in that way.

Will was so excited to hold Jonathan. He loved having 

a new brother right away.

Our favorite things he said were, "Can he talk?", "Does he have teeth?", "Is he hungry? Does he want macaroni and cheese?" and "He just walked out of Mommy." (as if it was so easy!)

 Will was obsessed with touching his toes.

Ethan was more interested in running away.

  

He just had to get back to the light switch.

 From the beginning, the Government staked its claim on him.

Our hospital experience was pretty different from the first two times in a civilian hospital. Everyone was very nice and helpful (except when they forgot to bring my pain medication and had to have a conference to determine if I was lying about not getting Motrin), but we didn't have any cell phone service or Internet access, so we had trouble getting the word out. I've never felt so cut off! Anthony had to sleep on a ridiculously small and uncomfortable fold-out chair, and by the time they released us, we were more than ready to be on our own.

Leaving the hospital

They were using Jonathan as their race track. He didn't mind.

Before the 1st bath at home

After the bath