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.