Meeting Minnie!!

As shocking as it is, since we are notoriously cheap, we bought a new car!!!!!!!!  Well, new to us anyway.  The Sorento was just falling apart, and last week when we were driving the kids for a special fun trip to ride the train at the airport, she just stopped working while we were going 75 on the beltway.  Disturbing to say the least.  So we decided to suck it up and just buy something!!

So, a mere 24 hours later, the kids were having their first ride in our new vehicle, Minnie!!  You know we like to name all of our cars, and the name should really just be a variation of the model of the car.  Josh's motorcycle was Yammy, the civic was Civvie, the Sorento was Soary, and now our new minivan is Minnie!!  Wyatt was in LOOOOOOOOVE with the name, cause he is a little bit obsessed with Mickey and Minnie right now.  We got a year old Toyota Sienna, and I am pretty much in love with it.  The kids love it too, especially the doors that open all all by themselves.  Of course, now they fight over who gets to push the button and/or pull the handle!!!  It will be so nice to bring Annie home in it!  But the poor boys are heartbroken that Annie will not be sitting between the two of them.  We had really been prepping them to have her in the middle when we thought we were keeping Soary.  I think they will get over it the first trip we take where she cries! :)

And Wyatt is especially in love with the car, cause now he gets to sit in a big boy booster seat.  He thinks he is so grown up!  So thankful for my dear sweet hubby who works so hard so we can have such a fantastic car!  Thanks honey!!!

Play time!

Since I finally got all the kids dress up and costume stuff into some baskets in their room they have not stopped playing with it all.  Here is Noah as a pirate monster....

And then Wyatt as Yoda doctor!!

They crack me up!!

Getting ready for Annie!

As I'm sure you know, our house has been a construction zone for over a year now.  So when we finally got pregnant with Annie, we were a little overwhelmed cause we knew it would add so much work to our construction list!!  But I'm excited to say that it is finally, slowly, coming together!!

When we moved in to this house, we had a leak from the back of the washer that backed up to what is now Annie's closet - well, it ruined all the carpet in that room.  We cut out the messed up part and just left the rest for a years now.  We didn't worry about it cause it was just an extra room up till now, but we finally had to do something about it. 


Josh painted and replaced the baseboards that were ruined, installed a fan, and we ordered carpet.  As soon as the new carpet was installed I had Josh in there putting the new crib together!  I just need to see things moving along, ya know?

  I think he was just happy to get another box of stuff out of his garage!! :)  Of course the boys felt the need to help out - in the only way they know how - by making a mess!!!!

They immediately ran to get their scissors and started poking holes, cutting packing materials, and just generally creating as many little tiny pieces of cardboard as they could!! 

They are so excited about Annie, and already love her more than you can imagine!  They seriously talk about her every day, and even are happy to snuggle with her (aka me!) on the couch under a blanket!  Noah talks about how beautiful she is going to be, and how he hopes she has hair just like him, but long.  Wyatt can't wait to dress her in little tiny shoes and even picks out clothes he wants her to wear to certain places.  He has 2 hats picked out that he wants to put on her at Kemah!  We finally started washing the clothes we have been collecting, and they want to help me put each piece up in her drawer - they have to look at each piece and so, "Ohhhhhhhh, this is so cute!!!!!!!!!!"  Wyatt says "Annie look adorable in this!"  Just this morning Wyatt stuck his eye up to my belly button and proclaimed "I can see baby Annie in there!!!"  I love it!! 


We have so much more left to do - we're painting the glider white, we're painting the boys old bookshelf, we still need a changing table, and really have no decorations or curtains!  At least I need to make sure to get a shade for the window in case she decides to come early!  We can't wait to meet this little girl!

4th of July!

Like I said before, we already celebrated the fourth earlier in the week, but we got to celebrate twice this year!  We went over to my parents house for my dad's delicious BBQ after Josh woke up.  The kids were quite excited to put on their flag tees, and I even wore my squeezed on non-maternity flag shirt the kids insisted I buy to match theirs!

 
My dad got the coolest pink, super long smoke bombs, and the kids had a blast using their light sabers to whoosh the smoke all around.  Where on earth do they come up with this stuff?

Please excuse my swollen, non-make-upped face!!!  But I love the boys in that pic - so cute posing with their sabers!  And once again, the face we are starting to all get to know so well....

To finish off the night the boys got cupcakes AND jello with special sparklers in it - you can see what a hit it was!! 

We then rushed home and popped a few more fireworks with G&G, and then crashed into bed exhausted!!!!  The boys were super happy cause I let them go to sleep in our bed cause the fireworks were so loud, although it was difficult for me to doze off with them in there!!

Our early 4th celebration!

  

So Joshua had to work this 4th, since it did not fall on his weekend, and he has scheduled all his vacation for when Annie arrives.  And my children are OBSESSED with fireworks, so we decided to do an early celebration that Josh could be present for.  So we went and bought way too many fireworks, invited the grandparents over, and planned a special ice cream sundae dessert.  You can see how they enjoyed the smoke bombs and poppers before dark....

 

I don't really remember what Wyatt was upset about, but you know I just love this face!

And they were both quite tickled with the sundaes we made - I think they have only ever had ice cream at home maybe three or four times before, so this was quite a treat.  Anything with whipped cream and cherries is perfect for Wyatt - I think he actually had more cherries than ice cream!

 

And lest you think Wyatt is the only one with sad faces, here is Noah J quite upset about his ice cream.  He was so super excited about  the sprinkles and teeny tiny chocolate chips, only to discover that he didn't like it on the ice cream!!!  We told him he had to eat it and he was quite heartbroken.  Of course I gave in and scooped him a plain bowl, and he was a happy boy.  I think he takes after me!!  I can't stand pieces of stuff in my ice cream!  

The nice thing about celebrating this way is that we still got to have a nice dinner and do a few more fireworks on the actual fourth, so we got to celebrate twice!  Of course we are still dealing with Wyatt being heartbroken over the fireworks stands being closed - to this day he still points out every single one we drive by and then gives some sad sad speech about not being able to go there anymore.  So pitiful!!

Pancakes for Padawans!!

Can you tell what these are????????

They are quite possibly the world's cutest pancakes!!!  My sweet friend who told me about these and my great mom who bought the molds, made this moment possible!

I kept them a secret and made a big deal about our "special" dinner we were having.  I made Josh and the boys stay out the kitchen the whole time I cooked, and all three of them were anxious to find out what it was.  Noah kept saying it smelled like pancakes, and Josh said putting the syrup on the table gave it away, but in the end all were surprised!

They were actually so surprised you can see I forgot to take a nice picture of them - we're just lucky that Josh hadn't already chowed down like the boys had!  Wyatt was cracking me up cause he picked up the Darth Vader pancake and held it to his face and made the darth  breathing noise - so cute!  Of course, then his face was covered in syrup, but oh well, right?!

You can see they came out pretty dark - I kind of had a hard time making them!  In order to get them cooked enough to flip they had to cook for forever!!  It seriously took me 45 minutes just to make 9 of them!!  I happily ate plain round cakes that only took a couple of minutes!

And yes, my kids are in their undies eating dinner!!