Ready or Not

Surprise!!!! Baby #4 is on HER way! We found out this morning we are having a girl! I am due June 16th. We are excited (nervous) and decided to keep it a secret until we found out what we were having- just for fun, why not, especially it being our fourth kid. I was really nervous to tell people, but excited to be able to finally talk about it. I've been waiting a long time to tell and wanted to tell my family SO bad at times! We were kinda hoping for another boy, but happy everything looked good on the ultrasound, I was nervous. Good thing I like my sisters, I will have fun with my girls. :) I felt a little more nauseous at the beginning of this pregnancy than I did with the others. Now I feel good. Clothes are getting tighter so I need to pull those maternity jeans out soon. I'm almost 19 weeks and due only 10 days after my sister-in-law, Sadie, (she's having a boy) and we were due a week apart with our girls, Lindsey and Reagan. Crazy we are due close together again! Fun times for cousins.

And it Finally Snowed

We have had some snow this last weekend and today it hasn't stopped snowing. There's some big storm that's supposed to come through tonight so we should be getting even more. It's fun to get snow, but then school gets cancelled and when that happens too much then it's not a good thing! Kate has been checking the weather on the iPod to see when it will snow so she was super excited when the snow came on Saturday because according to her weather report it wasn't supposed to snow until today!

Kyle helped Kate build a snowman with the little bit of snow we got on Saturday. Preston did not want to go outside AT ALL. He kept opening the front to door to check on us, but he would say "no way!" when we asked him if he wanted to come out.

Going on the sled. Lindsey loved the snow and was up for doing anything. Our neighbors have 2 Siberian husky dogs that they hooked up to a sled and was pulling the kids around.

Today, school was cancelled so this morning we had pretend school (Kate did some homework while I helped Preston cut, write his letters, match items and sort/count legos- I wouldn't want to do homeschooling!), we had story time, snack time then recess. :) It has been snowing non stop so we bundled up (even Preston, I forced him) and we went over to Kate's school to go sledding. They have a hill that's perfect for it. Preston actually loved it and had fun. Lindsey's hands got really cold toward the end so after an hour and a half we went home for lunch. They were even going down all the slides on the playground. It was fun. Kati and her kids met us there to play.

Lindsey wants to dress up when she sees Kate playing dress up. Well, Kate helped her get dressed and put the leotard on backwards, very revealing! It was pretty funny.

My Name is...

Preston wrote his name for the first time (at least that I've seen, unless he's written it at school)! I was so excited for him and he was pretty excited too, probably because I made a big deal about it. ;) His is the 3rd line down. I helped him with the 2nd line. Poor kid has such a long name to write too!

What's for Dinner?!

I was feeling adventurous and tried some new recipes last week for dinner. One night I made Sweet and Spicy Bacon Chicken (recipe and picture off of pinterest), twice baked potatoes and oven roasted green beans. I was excited for my new meal, but the only other person who liked the chicken was Kate. So that was a no go. I thought it was rather tasty.

Then the next night I made Chicken Tetrazinni, which is a recipe from my friend, Kati. Her family loves it and I've eaten it at her place before so I thought since it was pasta it would be a safe bet. Well, it wasn't too bad. The kids ate it okay except they didn't like the crunchy part (you bake it in the oven). So that's a maybe for the future.

Then another night I made chicken enchiladas with a green chili sour cream sauce (recipe and picture off of pinterest). It was pretty tasty, but a little too saucy for me (and I even like saucy stuff). I wish it had a little more kick to it.

And then because I was craving cinnamon rolls, I made these vanilla pudding cinnamon rolls (you guessed it! recipe and picture off of pinterest! :)) and they were amazing! We loved them. I shared a bunch of them with my friend and she loved them as well. I will definitely make them again.

I bought some whole chickens from Costco, they come in a 2 pack and aren't that big. So one night we had roasted chicken, mashed potatoes with yummy chicken gravy and green beans. That was a good home cooked meal after a LONG stressful day.

Some weeks I have a hard time deciding what to make for dinner (I try to make a list of 8 or so ideas and go off of that for a couple weeks) and then other weeks I am dreading dinner time because I don't know what to make! What to make that all my kids will eat- that's the big issue.

Happy Cooking and Baking (my fave)!

Doll Party

Kate and her friends all came up with birth dates for their dolls and Kate chose one in January. She insisted we should have a birthday party for her doll. So I caved and had one for her. :) I made cupcakes- big and small, got a balloon and tried to make it somewhat festive. The girls brought their dolls and we sang happy birthday to Kate's doll, Kaley. I made little party hats for their dolls too (found the pattern on pinterest).

Kaley getting sung too. ;) Kate even wrapped some gifts for her doll.

New Things

I made pretzels a couple weeks ago for the first time and they were yummy. They are sitting on my new cake stand I got from my parent's. :) I had seen a friend on facebook make the pretzels and just used her recipe.

Kate was watching a show and made some popcorn, but made sure to get a small bowl of popcorn for her new doll. She includes her doll in a lot more stuff.

Today, I had put the gate up to keep Lindsey out of the kitchen and office and she was jabbering off and on when all of a sudden it got super quiet. I went to check on her and found her asleep on the floor!!! She never does that! It was cute, but I woke her up a few minutes later for lunch and then put her down for a real nap.