Another 2 weeks in January

Right now I have two silly boys poking me in the back and laughing their heads off! Why it's so funny, I don't know. But it is really hard to focus!

There, now at least one is in bed. He's talking and yelling and giggling but now I can focus a bit more. I don't have a lot of news to write about. The past couple of weeks have been quite regular and uneventful. To be honest, I have really been enjoying it! It is relaxing to not be running around busy. The kids have been healthy and so my nights have been quiet, and my days are not totally full of whining. Plus, other than a brief 3-4 days of some back trouble I've been feeling well also. Such a nice blessing at this time of year.

Although I will admit daily how difficult it is to have little children I can't help but feel a little anxious about these kids growing up. I love the stages they are in. Sam is such a fast learner and he is really enjoying his joy school. He likes to play with me and do fun things like cook and do art projects. It seems to help him want to eat dinner if he helps me make it. It makes it less of a battle to get food in his mouth. We make cookies(not hard for me to get him to eat), and our favorite cookie to make is our chocolate, chocolate chip recipe. We made rolls this week and he made some rolls that looked like spiders, fish and rockets. I didn't take a photo of the rolls like I should have but here are a few pictures I took of my two helpers.:


Yes, that is flour on his face. His roll was molded a few times with his forehead.

Cleaning up.

Russell is as cute as he is crazy. He is into everything, over and over and over. I think I cleaned up the same bit of cereal 4 times the other morning. He is sneaky and I know if he's quiet I better go find out why! As you can see in the photos above he climbs everything, and starting a few days ago I realized it wasn't Sam opening doors for him, but that he had figured it out himself! Heaven help me! After the wet puppy(stuffed animal) incident the other night I know I need to go get some more door locks ASAP!
Russell is quite the cuddle bug and I try to enjoy every minute I get. My favorite thing he does right now has to do with his current food obsession-clementines! I have to keep them hidden in a high place or he'll get into them. We buy them by the bag full and he would eat them all in one setting if I let him. I was not aware that he's got some pretty awesome peeling skills until I came upon him sitting in the middle of an array of peelings enjoying a clementine without prior permission:) Now, I can give him a whole clementine and he works his own way in...

He even splits the segments in half, like I do for him. I don't know why I get such a kick out of these small actions that are so grown-up like but I think it is fascinating how much they can learn and do in such a short time.

As we draw closer to the birthday of our baby girl my anxiety grows. Having a baby changes everything, every time you do it! I am so grateful to already know I will have so much love and support. Both of my mothers will be coming out separately to help for a while and I can't tell you how comforting that is! So many changes can make things crazy and I am concerned for my boys and what the change will mean to them and how it will affect their lives. We have a sonogram this week and we are very excited! It is always fun to get a sneak peek at this baby in my belly. Which, by the way is quite large now. I don't have any pictures to show for it because I avoid cameras like the plague(lets be honest, I am not one of those cute little pregnant women) but I think I will try to get at least a few pictures taken just for reference sake. I would have loved to see photos of my mother while she was pregnant with me so I will try to take a few soon just as proof that I really was pregnant later down the road.