WARMING UP!!!

Nothing like a nice cup of hot cocoa to warm you up!!! (Tate wasn't the least bit interested, he thought it would be better to wrap up in his favorite blanket)

It's fun to be freezing cold, right?

The boys couldn't get enough of the snow. Here they are with the neighbor kids. Their snowball fight lasted almost an hour. I remember those days of playing outside all day in the snow. I never wanted to come inside. It was all they could do to convince me I needed to eat and warm up a bit. Unfortunately for my boys I only like to look at the snow now. I almost despise it now. Three sets of wet clothes, three coats, three sets of gloves, and however many sets of wet socks they decided to wear out. It all takes forever to dry. When you have three times everything my house looks like I have forgotten to do the laundry for a few days. (Which is usually the truth, but I try to hide it) Then on top of that Pepper thinks she needs to be outside with them and when she comes in she has massive snowballs completely frozen and entangled in her hair that eventually melt enough to drop throughout the entire house making water spots EVERYWHERE!!!! UGGH!! In the end it is so worth it to have the boys happily entertained for a few hours. I love seeing their little smiles on their pink frozen faces. And that little boy smell when they come in. You know that mix of being outside and a bit sweaty smell? The best part of all is that I'm nice and warm inside all by myself with my feet up reading a good book. :)

A snowy day in Seattle

This is what we woke up to this morning. Who knew that fung shei trees could look so good. The boys had a teacher work day and were thrilled to wake up to snow. It was so nice not to have to think of something to do today. Kudos to Mother Nature, you pulled through for me!!!

Belle's Ultrasound/Echo

So we had Belle's appointment today. Can I just say ultrasound techies are pretty amazing. Even though she is getting bigger and we've had a few now, I still don't see anything close to what they are seeing. Today was the big tell all that we have been waiting for. So drum roll please..............they don't see any major defect to be concerned about right now. That doesn't mean that there won't be a problem in the future or when she is born. It just means that they can't actually "see" anything right now. From the echo they didn't hear anything to be concerned about right now either. They will still obviously be really watching her heart. We will be going in next month to meet with the pediatric heart surgeon at Children's. He will do an ultrasound/echo and see what he thinks also. We will continue going back to Belle's regular doctor monthly for an ultrasound until the 3rd timester then it will be weekly. She mentioned that I had blood spots in my placenta which everybody makes, but I have a rather large one that she is concerned about and will be watching. You better believe that I fully intend to work this to my advantage, less vacuuming, more naps, more foot rubs. :) Everything else with Belle is to be expected. She is a bit smaller than a baby of her age but that's normal. It is such a relief to finally have this appointment behind us. Our next ultrasound is on Feb. 19 so until then we can relax a bit. We will of course keep you all posted if anything changes and also when we see the doctor at Children's. I posted Belle's most current ultrasound with the others at the bottom. She is beautiful. Thank you all for your love and prayers.

This is Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. It is the tallest lighthouse and stands at 193 feet tall. This is the lighthouse you might remember watching on TV getting moved from its original position.

My four cool guys at the lighthouse.

We had so much fun with all the cousins.

Having fun in NC

All the boys playing beach football.

Jonah loves sand. He had so much fun playing with Aunt Jill at the beach. He was so proud of the cool monster feet she made for him.

Kiegan looking for shells and enjoying the freezing cold water. BURRR!

Tate also loved playing in the sand. He loved making sand castles and collecting shells. He had fun writing his name with a stick.

The Beginning of a New Adventure

After finding out that Belle has Down Syndrome, we realized how hard it was to keep everyone posted on what was going on. We are hoping with this blog we can keep everyone up to date on Belle's situation as well as what's going on with the rest of us. We are very excited (and scared out of our minds) to start this new adventure. We feel so blessed to have Belle coming to our family. We obviously didn't think this was how we would bring our only little girl into the world but we are very optimistic about the situation. We have learned so much in the past month about Down Syndrome and feel like we still have so much more to learn. We are very grateful for all of the support and prayers from all of you. Thank you for your friendships and all your love.

With that said, all of us have mostly recovered from the jet-lag of our Holiday trip to NC. We had a fabulous time. It was so nice to spend time with family and dear friends. We stayed at a beach house in Nags Head for a week with almost all the Austins. We were only missing a few. :( The ocean and the house were both absolutely beautiful. Kiegan and Jonah boogie boarded for the first time and loved it. Needless to say they froze and soon got a nasty cough. All the boys played football every day and sometimes twice a day. There was plenty of good food, lots of company, and a lot of Farkling going on. We saw both the Hatteras and the Bodie lighthouse which was the highlight of Tate's whole trip. It was sad to say goodbye to all the people we love so much in NC.

Once we get the whole blog thing figured out we will try to post some pictures. Keep checking back.