My 30th birthday present!

So it's not until November, but I already know what I get for my birthday this year.... :)
This little one is due November 26 (I'm 11 1/2 weeks), and we are so excited to meet him or her! We praise God for this baby and are praying for health and safety over the next 6 months!

Just a few random pictures...

Trevor caught his first fish this weekend up at Silver Lake! Camping was fun, but VERY wet and rainy the first half of the weekend!

Jaylen reading to his little brother. I LOVE it when these two get along so good!

Jaylen and Moby. He sure loves this kitty! Thankfully the feeling is (pretty much) mutual... most of the time. :)

My Boys!!

Trevor Bevor is 4!

Okay, I'm way behind, so have to post Trevor's birthday first... Trevor turned 4 the end of February and we celebrated by going down to Jungle Playland! It was SO fun! All the kids loved it, and almost everyone made it despite the snow in the area... Can't believe my "baby" is 4 - he hates it when I call him my baby! Trevor's a sweet little guy, but he's got a little fire in him too. :)

The kids ran and played and slid and jumped and rode and got a ton of energy out! Trevor loved his caterpillar cake, and we all had a great time!

My Trevor

This little guy is such a sweetie. :) We were at 5 Guys Burgers & Fries (which I highly recommend, by the way - kinda like In & Out) and he just put his arm around me and gave me kisses on the cheek, just because. I love it when he does that! We took the boys bowling for the first time last weekend, it was SO fun! They had loud music playing, and Trevor just started dancing and moving, jumping around. He's got rhythm. Unlike his mommy. :0)

Look Who's 6!

We celebrated Jaylen's 6th birthday a few weeks ago! Can't believe our little man is 6 years old already... His birthday fell on a Wednesday this year, so we went to McDonald's for dinner that night, then had his parties on Satuday. Phineas and Ferb was the theme for the day. In the afternoon, we had his "friends" party... two boys from school and a couple cousins came over - the kids had a great time, while the moms stuck around and we all chatted for a while. I have to say, it's pretty cool to see Jaylen's friends playing with him. This is such huge progress for Jaylen! That night we had the families over and had pizza and cake... Funniest part was when I put the cake in front of him. He looked at it, then looked up and said, "Sing!" Considering he used to hate the "Happy Birthday" song part of a birthday party, this was pretty funny to hear!

This picture is a little blurry, but I think it's still pretty cute!

Happy Birthday, Bubba!

Playing catch up....

Just a few pictures of some recent happenings around here - just before Christmas we had some family pictures done at the park. COLD day, but they turned out great. :) Christmas was so fun again this year, the kids look forward to it more and more each year. We tried to talk alot about Jesus's birthday and why he came to earth, etc. Santa and presents are so "in their faces" everywhere they turn, it's important to remind them of the real meaning of Christmas. One of the Christmas songs they play on our Christian station here is "I wonder what Christmas in heaven is like." I heard that while working one day, and it got me thinking. Our baby, instead of being born into this world, went straight to heaven. Was he or she celebrating Christmas? I don't know... maybe. God knows, and He was with him or her that day. Kinda crazy to think about. But I definitely missed our baby - even if we hadn't met our baby. The boys still mention "the baby" every once in a while, and I have to remind them that we don't have another baby yet. But they're just excited at the idea of having another baby in the family I guess, knowing we plan to have more. I kind of had it in my head that I would be able to get pregnant again right away, but that hasn't happened yet. Every month, I try not to get my hopes up too much, but it always bums me out a little when I find out I'm not pregnant. I know God has His timing, and He is the author and giver of life. I just need to wait on Him. He knows his plans for our lives, and I don't. So many people have gone through much harder things, lost many babies to miscarriage, lost a child to SIDS, or have never had the ability to be pregnant. I know there are so many out there "worse off" than me... but it still hurts. I guess God can't be our Comforter until we need to be comforted, right?

Anyhow, this post has gone in a totally different direction than I had planned, but moving on... Jaylen turned 6 last week - I can't believe that!! - and we had a couple of fun parties here. His first "friends" party, and then a big family party. So much fun! I don't have pictures of the parties on the computer yet, I'll have to get to those later! It was so cool to have Jaylen's friends from school over for his birthday. He told his teacher a few weeks ago that he had a best friend problem - TWO kids wanted to be his best friend! Wow - what a great problem for Jaylen to have! He's growing up so much. Poor little guy had an ear infection this last week. I know how bad those hurt! they also found a "Still's" heart murmur - just a benign murmur that a lot of kids get and outgrow. The doc said because of the infection his heart is working a little harder so it's easier to detect. We don't have to do anything about it - they'll just monitor it when he's in...

Sledding at Mt Baker! Geoff was off the week between Christmas and New Years, this was one of the many fun things we did that week...

Sorry, the pictures are being a pain to post! Above - Trevor on Christmas morning, below - Jaylen at Geoff's parents on Christmas Eve, they got us a Wii!!! (Sorry it's sideways, I tried to fix that...)

Watching "Frosty the Snowman" in their dumptrucks! :)

POOP!

Poop. Poop! Poop!! PooP! POOP!!! OK, now that we're all a little more comfortable with today's subject, here goes: I'm reading this book called "Dancing with Max" by Chuck Colson's daughter (I don't remember her name and the book is way across the kitchen, so... sorry I don't have the author's name) about her son Max, who has autism. So far, I'm liking it.
Some things I can relate to... she tells a story about when he was 2 and they went to visit her dad and step mom. They had a bunch of people over and Max could only handle it for the first few minutes, and then the two of them ended up in a bedroom, separated from everyone else... Yep, I remember that. At least when Jaylen was younger. He was much happier away from the crowd, and I (or Geoff) would wind up isolated with Jaylen from everybody else. Now, Jaylen has come a LONG way since then. He is so much more social now, you'd hardly think he's the same kid.
Another thing I could relate to was the irrational fears. Yep - this is where the "poop" comes in. Ever since we started potty training, pooping on the potty has been an issue. It took what seemed like forever before he pooped on the potty.... then he would do fine for a while, then he wouldn't. Once he was done with pull-ups, he wouldn't really poop in his underwear, he would just make himself miserable trying to NOT poop. And poop on a public toilet? Forget it! You want to know his biggest hangup with pooping? He's terrified the toilet is going to plug up.
That's it.
One would think, what's the big deal? But to Jaylen, it is a VERY big deal. He's even seen a toilet plug, seen it get plunged, and found that it's really not the arrival of the end of the world. But, it doesn't matter. Every few days, we end up bribing, pushing, threatening... whatever it takes to make him sit on the toilet. He makes himself so miserable! But, funny thing is, after he does, he wants "help" flushing the toilet, and he always wants the lid down so he doesn't have to witness such a terrifying event.
Last week he had diarrhea. Oy. Not a fun week. I remember the first time he had it after he was potty trained. I informed him he had diarrhea, and he started crying his eyes out. He was so scared that it was going to "die" him (DIEarrhea). He's pretty literal. He also thought the dentist was going to give him a DENT in his head. :)
Sometimes it's funny, most times it's frustrating as all get-out. Maybe some day I'll figure out what exactly he thinks is going to happen so I can assure him it won't. But until then, I guess we'll continue to bribe, push, and threaten... And don't get me started on the automatic-flush toilets in public restrooms! I'm convinced that some day Jaylen will invent a toilet that is totally silent and will never plug. :)