An Email From God...

Another mom on the Guatemala boards posted this today and I thought it was great. A good reminder when things seem out of control or confusing in your life. It's nice to know that YOU are not in control. :)

TO: YOU
DATE: TODAY
FROM: GOD
SUBJECT: YOURSELF
REFERENCE: LIFE


This is GOD. Today I will be handling ALL of your problems for you. I DO NOT need your help. SO, have a nice day.

I love you

P.S.

And remember,

If life happens to deliver a situation to you that you cannot handle, DO NOT attempt to resolve it yourself!! Kindly put it in the SFGTD (something for God to do) box. I will get to it in MY TIME. ALL situations will be resolved, but in my time, not yours.

Once the matter is placed in the box, do not hold onto it by worrying about it. Instead, focus on all of the wonderful things that are present in your life now!.

Help!!!

Ok...so this isn't an actual picture. BUT this represents what we found on our FRONT STEP when we got home from Girl Scout's this afternoon!!!! Can you BELIEVE that????? I didn't see it at first...but suddenly poor Sofia is SCREAMING "SNAKE, it's a snake, it's a SNAKE, MOM get the snake, SNAKE!!!!" at the top of her lungs as she was running wildly down the driveway. After the snake made his exit into our bushes, we actually cracked up at Sofia's reaction. She could have won an Emmy with that performance! Then reality hit again and I realized there was a SNAKE on our front step. I think he was checking out our pumpkins. Why???? I have no idea. So now I can't stop thinking about the fact that there's a snake in our front bush and the possibility that there could be MORE!!! Get me out of the country people. I want the city life back NOW!!!!!! Really! Please??? Come get me! I'm serious!!! Help!

Pumpkin Masterpieces

We carved pumpkins last night. It was messy, sticky, and time consuming...but it was still kinda fun. We couldn't keep Sebastian interested, so we gave up and decided to leave his pumpkin whole. He was much more interested in watching and running around. :)

Here are the three pumpkins glowing in front of our house.

Katryna carved hers ALL by herself. She was very proud and he turned out great!

Sofia wanted Mom's help to make a "kitty pumpkin". Not the easiest to make, but he's pretty cute...don't ya think? Bazzy called him the "meow pun-kin-"

This was Mia's. She was very decisive about what her "jack-oly-lantern" must look like. Big round eyes...WITH eyeballs. Round Nose. Two teeth. So, this was the finished PERFECT pumpkin. She loved him and everyone was happy.

So the messy, sticky mess was worth it. We even made roasted pumpkin seeds which I LOOOVE! Yuummm-mmmyyy!!!

If Snow White Needed Dental Work...

...She would look like this!!!


Mia greeted me at the bottom
of the stairs with
this lovely look yesterday.

The kid cracks me up!

She can always make me smile! :)

I ate a bug...UGH!

The Natural History Museum in town has a big halloween party every year. We were of course looking for something to do...so I dragged Kris (almost literally) to another party. The party was actually very cute and lots to do. The girls favorites were petting REAL snakes and getting to eat a BUG!

They had a table set up that had chocolate covered crickets and mealworms, and cheddar cheese flavored wormie-type things. Blah! I'm not sure the girls understood that these were ACTUAL bugs...but they seemed intrigued.

Sofia was the first to be brave. She grabbed a chocolate covered cricket and popped it in her mouth. I'm still not sure she realized it was an actual bug. ;)

Katryna, of course, couldn't look like a chicken~ so she grabbed a cricket too and chomped him down. She quickly asked for some water afterwards. The crickets were dried...so they were a little crunchy.

Mia decided to join in the fun. It took her awhile to take that first bite...
(notice Sofia's "I ate a BUG" sticker!)

...but she finally did and said "it tastes like chocolate!" That's good, because I don't think you want it to taste like cricket. Blah!

We've gotten to do some WEIRD things since we've moved. I never thought I'd encourage my children to eat bugs! ;)

A Tale of Becoming Nemo ( when you really don't want to! )

So this is how Sebastian felt about becoming Nemo. He LOVES Nemo...but apparently he wants nothing to do with actually BEING Nemo. You would have thought I was trying to give him a shot or something when I was trying to put the jacket of his Nemo costume on. PURE TORTURE (for both of us! LOL! :) ) He continued voicing his disapproval all the way to the children's museum.

Once we arrived and got him in the stroller, he had fortunately stopped screaming, but continued to give me "the look" to show me how he still felt about being dressed up as an orange fish. I kept thinking "but you LOVE Nemo!".

We got into the party and he still was NOT happy about this whole ordeal, but reluctantly decided he could at LEAST play a game or two. Notice he's still giving me "the look". ;)

Finally he decided to just go with it and play with his sisters. Sofia even signed his name "Nemo" on the chalk board, and Bazzy was OK with that.

Shortly after that, he decided he had had enough and the Nemo jacket was forcefully removed and thrown on the floor. Mommy kinda had seen this coming, so had oh so smartly put his Nemo pajama top on underneath. So at least Nemo was still represented. Bazzy was very proud of his accomplishment and proceeded to make monster noises at Mommy to assert his dominance. Hopefully there won't be as much drama the next time he becomes Nemo. We shall see.... :) :) :)

Halloween Party

The Children's Museum had a party today. The girls had the day off from school...so we all went. A good time was had by all. It took about 20 minutes to convince Sebastian to wear his new Nemo costume, but that's a tale for another time. ;)
Here's Snow White (Mia), Captain Jack Sparrow (Katryna), Nemo (Baz), and Ariel (Sofia).

Sinking In

Reality has slowly started sinking in that I'm actually pregnant again. Reality that goes beyond the nausea even. I've been to the OB way more than anyone should be (like normal for me) already, because of a few issues...but so far all is well and the little peanut is growing just like he or she should be. We're starting to think of where we're actually going to put this little one in our house. We had everything so well planned out with everyone being in their perfect place...but a baby kinda threw that plan for a loop. So~ do we give up the kid's playroom and make that a nursery? Do we put the munchkin in our room for awhile and then proceed to disperse said munchkin into the room with the same gender children when he/she is older? I have NO idea. That will all work itself out I suppose.

It helped me to have my sweet little nephew Keaton here a few weeks ago. I got to take his pictures and hold him and snuggle him...and even though his mommy didn't know I was pregnant yet (we were still in shock/denial I think), it was great to see the girls and Bazzy loving on a baby and imagining what it will be like when they have a new tiny sibling in the world.

This picture definitely makes me excited about having a baby around the house again. I mean, who can resist tiny baby toes? Am I right??? :)

The funnest thing EVER

Valla's added the FUNNEST thing to the Pumpkin Patch this year! A giant bouncy inflatable island type thing that kids and adults can just jump and jump on until they pass out or get tired.

Mia loved jumping on it and sliding down it on her tummy. This was the perfect Mia activity. She bounces all day anyways and this just helped her to bounce MORE.

This is a big view of the "big kid/adult" bouncer. They just kinda come out from the sand, so even if you go flying off or rolling down, you land in the squishy sand and all is well. The little kid one was not near as busy and Sofia and Mia bounced and bounced.

Mia could NOT have been happier.

Sofia loved it too!!! :)

I even walked onto the little kid one with Sebastian. We didn't really bounce, but he thought it was great that we were on there together. I LOVE that giant Bazzy smile!

Way to go Vallas! I wish I had one of these in our backyard! SO fun!!!

The Pumpkin Patch

We went to Valla's...our all time favorite pumpkin patch this weekend. We were visiting friends that came through Omaha to see us. Before they arrived, we just HAD to visit Vallas. :)

This was actually the end of the day. Everybody was a little worn out.
Vallas isn't your typical pumpkin patch. It's more like Disneyland. There are shows, rides, and tons of stuff to do. Too much to do in a day. ;)

We tried to get some pictures of the little yahoos. Here's Mia's "scary smile", as she calls it. This is her favorite smile. :)

Katryna posing by the pumpkin tower.

The whole crew. Sofia, Bazzy, Mia, and Katryna. It was SO bright, so they're all squinting...but at least they are all in one place for at least ONE picture. :)

Kris was making them laugh behind my head while I was snapping pictures. Baz thinks dad is absolutely hilarious. What a smile! :)

Woah!

So needless to say, this was a bit of a surprise. :) Babies are always a blessing, so once is soaked in...we were ready to start this new adventure. We're still a bit shocked, but it's a GOOD shocked. ;) I had my first appointment today and found out that I'm already 8 weeks! Woah! Explains why I've been so darn sick!

I've been stressing about the possibility of having a pre-term baby in a smaller town, but I was SO relieved to learn that the high risk OB that I saw in Omaha actually comes here quite often to check in with high risk patients and if they have concern that the baby might come before 32 weeks, they will transfer me to Omaha to deliver. Hopefully I will go past 34 weeks and all will be well!

We actually told Sebastian about the baby before the girls. Sebastian was napping while we took the video. We figured he's pretty oblivious at two...so we tried to get his approval earlier in the day. Here's how the conversation went.

Mom: "Sebastian. Mommy's going to have a baby. Would you like to have a baby brother or sister?"
Sebastian: "no no"
Mom: "You love babies. Don't you want a baby to play with?"
Sebastian: Shaking head and saying "no no"
Mom: "Well, in a little while we will have a baby."
Sebastian: "no no"
Mom: "Ok. Would you like some candy?"
Sebastian: "no no...uh yeah!"

So maybe we'll have to cover the baby in candy...but I think he'll get used to the idea. He's definitely still my baby right now, so I'm thankful it will be 6-7 months before this new little VZ comes along. Woah!

A little Surprise

Quiznos Sub ~ MMMMM....Flies!

Wanna hear something really disgusting? Kris and I decided to get a quick lunch today at Quiznos. I wasn't really in a Sub mood (since we went to Jimmy John's yesterday. YUM!), so I decided to get soup in a bread bowl. I love clam chowder and was pretty happy with my soup...UNTIL I took several bites and then saw something black with little LEGS sticking up IN my SOUP!!!! BLAAAAHHHHHHH! Even now it makes me shudder. I almost ATE a fly. BLAH!!! The funniest part was when Kris brought them the bowl of soup WITH the fly inside and they said "so do you want a different bowl?" Kris was like "um...no thanks. Just our money back please." I'm not even sure they dumped the soup or anything.

The moral of this story is: maybe reconsider if you think about soup from Quiznos. Blah!

Finding Nemo

I spent about 20 minutes today trying to find Nemo. Literally. Sebastian has become attached to this Nemo stuffed animal. Ok...ACTUALLY it's kind of a purse, but we try not to stress that part since that means our son is in love with his purse. But anyways, we'll call it a Nemo with handles. ;)

He HAS to have it at bed and at naptime and of course we couldn't find it today before nap. It just struck me funny as I was walking with Bazzy and I said "where is that Nemo? We HAVE to find Nemo!"


~ I won't be blogging again for a few days because I will be at a Mom's conference with my Omaha Mommy friends. I am SO excited and can't wait to spend a weekend with friends, food, no kids, learning about Mommy stuff, and shopping. The conference is in Minnesota, so OF COURSE we had to make time to go to the Mall of America and IKEA! YAY!!!

I'll be back...