Little Snowman

My mom gave us a snowman kit (that includes plastic eyes, nose, mouth, buttons, a hat and scarf) and Nora has been very excited to try it out. Since we've gotten some snow lately, we went out and made a little frosty. 

Nora helping make the body

The finished snowman

Nora giving him a hug

Poor Evie had a bit of a hard time getting around in her snowsuit. She fell over a few times and needed help getting up. It reminded me of the little brother in "A Christmas Story". 

Here are a few other pictures:

Nora was watching TV like this. She told me that she was in her room.

Evie loves to put on hats, especially this strawberry one and her purple one.

Last night when Mike and I checked on Nora before going to bed, we found that she had caught Sabrina and was cuddling with her in bed!

20 Week Ultrasound!

On Friday morning, Mike and I went in for the baby's 20 week ultrasound. They were able to get a good look at all the organs and parts, and they said the baby looks very healthy! That was great news. We also said that we wanted to find out the sex, so the ultrasound tech tried to get a good shot. At first the baby's legs were really close together and it was a little hard to see, but then we all got a really good view. He is a little BOY! 

Little feet

Cute little profile

It was pretty funny to tell our families, because most people were guessing it was going to be a girl (except Mike's sister Carrie - she was right!)

To tell Mike's parents, and my family members that are in town, we got some little Valentine boxes, and a selection of blue and pink candy. When we found out it was a boy, we filled the little boxes with the blue candy and gave it to people as an "early Valentine present from the baby". It was fun to watch them open the box and see the blue in there! 

Reece and Nora - Nora was very excited about the candy!

Evie "helping" my mom (who had gotten a hip replacement just a few days earlier)

Evie took her little box into the nest and went to town!

We are very excited for our little boy. When we first told Nora, she said "No! I don't want a boy. I want a girl baby!" but she has gotten over that and talks about the baby a lot. Nora kisses my belly and gives me snacks and says "this is for the baby".

RIP Little Buddy

On Monday we got the sad news that Simon had passed away. The lady from Best Friends who is in charge of the Feline Leukemia cats sent an email to Jon, and he called me to let me know. They said that Simon had gotten really sick, and they finally made the decision to put him to sleep. I'm glad we have lot of good memories of him, and that he was able to be in such a nice place for his last few months. Love you, little guy.

Sneaky

Sabrina gets in kind of a crazy mood in the evenings. One of her favorite things to do is hide in her secret lair (behind a throw blanket that we drape over the arm of the couch) and then wait for some poor unsuspecting person to walk by (me) and then she jumps out and bats my ankles and scares the dickens out of me. Despite the fact that it has happened before and I know that she hides there, I still sometimes forget and walk by with my mind on something else and BAM - she gets me again. Doh.

Back Home

Well, on January 1st we moved back to our house. Nora was very excited to see the cats, especially Sabrina. I was really excited to see them, too. Sadie was very excited to see me, and has wanted tons of attention, but Sabrina seems to be mad at me. Mike's parents stayed at our house with us for about a week while they were getting things moved into their new house, so it was nice to have some help from them during that time. 

Nora coloring with Brina

We seem to have gotten settled back in and into the swing of things again. I have gone on a few outings with the girls to get us out of the house. We went to the dinosaur museum one day. That is always a big hit. Evie was especially excited this time and kept yelling "Dinosaur!! Dinosaur!!" 

We went to the "store for animals" (Petsmart) to get some more food for the cats. The girls always love to go there to see the animals. This time there was a couple there who had brought their little westie dog shopping with them, and Nora asked if she could pet it, and they let her play with it for a long time. They even gave her a little dog biscuit to feed it. She has been talking about this ever since, and keeps saying that she loves dogs and we need to get a dog at our house. (That's not happening anytime soon). Often when she plays, she will tell me that Evie is her doggie. One day she said "Evie is my doggie, who is a cowboy". Oh, ok.

Evie at the dinosaur museum wearing a dinosaur costume

Nora's dinosaur creation

The ever-popular sand and water table

Mike and I finally celebrated our anniversary! We went to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory (Yum!) and then went to see "New Moon". It was a fun evening. 

I ordered this special cat brush from Amazon that is supposed to help remove all the loose hair from the cat's coat and reduce shedding and hairballs. It arrived today and we tried it out, and I must say it seems to do a great job! This picture is from Sadie's first session. She got bored after awhile so I let her go, but this was the fur pile:
Don't worry - she is still a fluffy puff. Here she is cuddling against the "bump". She's going to love it when it starts kicking her. Hehehe.

My big ultrasound for this pregnancy is on Friday (the 22nd). I am a little nervous, but excited. I'll be sure to post about it. 

Christmas Cousins

I forgot to include this picture with my other post, but it's a picture of all the cousins together before we went to church. Nora and Evie had a lot of fun with their cousins while they were here!