We Elved Ourselves!

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Christmas Cookies!!

Each year we try and do at least one kind of christmas cookie and this year we actually slaved away in the kitchen and made three different kinds. Making christmas cookies is NOT my idea of fun, nor do I really enjoy it as it gets so messy. Elijah and Caden however think it is so much fun and so we continue to do it each year. I think the hard part for me is watching flour get spilt all over the floor, sprinkles go flying everywhere, clothes covered in sugar, and fingers scrapping all the bowls and tongues cleaning off the utensils. Im a tidy person in my kitchen and I don't mind having my kids help here and there with dinners, but to let them have free roam of my kitchen is really hard for me to do. Like nick had to constantly remind me "that we don't do this to have cookies in our house and junk food lying around, we do this for the experience and memories with our kids". Its just so hard to remember that!! But he is absolutely right because if we didn't have kids, I sure wouldn't do it!! So here are some pictures for you all to enjoy of us working(and eating/licking) in the kitchen:)Sugar Cookies with homemade frosting. Yummy. We wanted to do the cutout cookies but accidently made the wrong cookie batter. Opps!!It is so finger licking good, huh boys????
Is the bowl cleaning enough yet?? I did finally take it away as they had licked it pretty clean!!White Chocolate covered pretzels are my favorite and so simple to do, and the boys loved to sprinkle red sugar on them.Nick picked doing Buckeye's this year. They turned out great and we might just have to do them next year as well:)

Christmas Cheer!

Several weeks back we decorated our house for christmas. Its always so much fun to decorate for the holidays and watch the boys have fun decorating the tree. I have loved checking out all the other holiday home tours on blogging world so I thought Id just share a few of our pictures that we took this year of our decorated home. Enjoy!

Here is Caden putting on Jr. Asparagus from Veggie Tales.

Nick chose to decorate with the greenery. He ended up doing a great job. Thanks hun.Elijah loved helping decorate the christmas tree.And now for the pictures of the finished home all decorated. Here is our home from the outside.We have never had a white light christmas tree before, but this year I was able to buy a prelit white light christmas tree and I was so excited to have a tree with white lights. As we were putting up the tree Elijah asked where the colored lights were and I told him this year its going to stay white. He reponded "well, thats boring". So, I decided to be nice and allow him a little bit of color this year by decorating a tiny tree for our kitchen near our table so he could have his "colored lights". Here is the tiny tree.

Bunk Beds

Well, now that we are pretty certain that we will have 3 boys running around this house, it was time to get a bedroom set that would suit these three little munchkins. Elijah and Caden are delighted to sleep together in the same room, and so far we have only had one night out of 3 that we have had to constantly tell them to "shhhh" and "go to sleep". Here are the boy's beds. Id love to paint in there someday, but we plan to wait on that`for now.

Boy Names

Well, Nick and I have been talking "boy names" recently. We have several that we like, but really aren't sure we found one we want to call our son. I know this is random and I could get lots of thoughts and opinions from all my blogging buddies, but I thought it would be fun to see if anyone is willing to share boy names with us. We have no rhyme or reason to our kids' names so anything is a go. Although we both have strong feelings about a name that could be mixed gender, so we want a manly name:) So all you out there.....any ideas as to what we should call our son??
I think it would be fun if you leave a comment and give me at least 5 boy names you are willing to share. If you aren't willing to share it cause you want to keep it for your own boy someday, then don't share it with us, cause I can't promise you that I might not use one of the names listed:)
Have a blessed day!

My Best Friends Wedding!

All my life I have known Rachel Huber. We grew up together and did something nearly every sunday after church together. We were like two pea's in a pod. We even went on trips together starting at age 3. Ever since Ive been married (nearly 8 years) I have been praying for Rachel to get married as I knew this is what she wanted. Alas one saturday I got a call that she was engaged. Praise be to God!!! I just cried and cried with excitment and then she asked me to be in the wedding. After so many years I figured she would probably have so many friends to choose from that she wouldn't really ask me to be a part of her wedding. BUT SHE DID!! It was such an HONOR to be in her wedding knowing she could have chosen so many other gals. So without further ado here is my best friends wedding. (in the not so great quality pictures)

I LOVE YOU RACH!!

What Will Life Be Like??

I am sure you are all just dying to know:).....ok not really, but for those of you who care to know its official...we are having ourselves a BOY!! Yep, our third boy is on its way. You ask.."how do I feel about this?" I have cried many tears today in disappointment, but I do know that God gives us what we can handle and obviously he has reasons for thinking I need another boy. Im struggling a bit with it as my heart was set on a girl, even to the point where I bought a few outfits that I couldn't resist. Guess I'll either save them or pass them on as gifts to those who have the privelage of raising girls.
My boys are running back and forth all over the house...what will life be like when we add another boy to this mix of activity?? I have a feeling of lots of laughter, fighting amoungst siblings, lots of crazyness and energy and of course love.
The baby looks pretty healthy. There is a minor concern about a "bright spot" on the heart that showed up on the ultrasound. This "bright spot" can mean chromosome disorder in the child, however I have had a blood test to check for this and it came back negative, but we will have another ultrasound in 8 weeks to see if that "bright spot" has gone away. There are times where this "bright spot" will stay there during the entire pregnancy but yet the baby will be born completely healthy. My doctor is not worried at all, she just wants to recheck me in 8 weeks for this purpose. If the blood test had come back positive, or the baby wasn't growing like it should be then this "bright spot" would be more of a concern. I am not really worried about it, but I figure what can it hurt to have people praying for a healthy baby boy?? So if you think of it, say a prayer that this "bright spot" will be gone next ultrasound and that our little boy will be healthy. Thanks.

Prayer Request

Hi fellow bloggers...
Nearly a month ago I posted about Nick being in the ER with leg/back pain. Well, he is still seeing a chiropractor 3 times a week and he has not gotten anywhere with the pain relief. The Chiro wants to do one week of traction and if that doesn't help then he is going to be refered to another doctor. What does this mean...possible back surgery if need be. I really pray that God fixes his back before the need for surgery, but its an option and that scares me. I'm not exactly sure what they would do for a buldging or herniated disk but it fears me to find out. I just pray we don't have to get to that point.
Please Lord, if it is your will I just ask that You help Nick to recover here in the next week with traction and I pray that You will prevent him from needing surgery.
Thanks for your prayers on Nick's behalf!!

Upon Request

Well, Ive had a few gals ask me to post some pictures of my ever growing stomach!! I am really starting to stick out now, and its obvious I am expecting. I get lots of "when are you due" questions. However, I am thrilled to only have gained 5 lbs thus far which looks like Ive gained more, but this is what my doctor says so hey....Im not going to argue:) Enjoy!

Belated Halloween Pictures

Opps....I just realized I forgot to upload my pictures from the boys in their costume's and from trick or treating. So without further ado: My adorable firemen!!!

Thanks Mom Waibel for getting the boys these helmets for their birthdays last year...they came in handy to really make this costume so great.

Wow, look at all that candy!!

Poll Time!!

Not only is today a day to get out and vote for our president and congressmen, but today is also a day in which I am going to put up a poll and you all can vote on what your guesses are to the sex of our baby. If you care to, leave a comment as to what you voted for so I know who voted for what...it just makes it more interesting to see what everyone thinks. Thanks.

So while you are out and about today....please go VOTE!!!

Have a blessed day friends.

Pumpkin Carving

The boys always enjoy this tradition of ours: to carve pumpkins together as a family. It was neat to see how this year Elijah didn't really want much help until the end when it was time to cut it out, and Caden was GLAD to stick his hand down inside the pumpkin to retrieve the seeds so that mommy could bake them. The pumpkins turned out really nice. I unfortunently do not have a picture of nick's or mine, but nick's was Bob the Tomatoe with the phrase God Made You Special carved above Bob, and mine was a simple smiley face with a big grin.

Teeth, Pumpkins and Trains....Oh My!!

Well, lets start off with TEETH....on Friday morning I was brushing Elijah's teeth for school when I noticed a tooth coming up behind his front bottom tooth without him having lost any teeth yet. I was a bit startled and had not heard of this happening without a tooth falling out first. So I called my sister who is a dental hygenist and she said its normal, but that we want to play with the baby tooth and try and loosen it and get it out so he doesn't have to have it pulled out. So when Elijah got home from school I told him we needed to remove that front tooth as soon as possible or he would have to go to the dentist and get a shot to numb his mouth so they could pull the baby tooth. Well, when you mention a shot around elijah you are bound to get a reaction!!! He was like "we are getting this tooth out today". I told him it wasn't going to happen today because it was BARELY loose!! He insisted and wouldn't let me stop yanking on it. First he had me get him an apple to bite on. That didn't help any. He then wanted to know what else could be done. I told him we could tie string to it and then to a door and slam the door. He looked very scared and said "no, thats ok". So we left it alone for about 5 minutes. Then in comes elijah with some dental floss. He wanted me to tie it around his tooth and yank with all my might. So I sat him down on the chair....he held on to the chair for dear life....and I started yanking on it. Soon we heard a pop and then some blood started flowing. I knew we had done something. He used paper towel and just kept twisting it and soon it was just hanging on by a thread (or should I say root). And then alas....out it popped. He was so excited he exclaimed "mom, I was so brave...I didn't even cry and it didn't even hurt"!!!

Of course the tooth fairy visited and he was thrilled to get his dollar bill.

Now onto the PUMPKINS....on saturday morning after a quick visit to the chiro for nick as he has been feeling lots of butt and leg pain we ventured out to get our pumpkins for the fall. We went to a new place this year called Maple Lane Farms. It was nice and quick as we had other plans for the day as well. So we hitched a ride on a hay wagon and out to the pumpkin patch we went.

Well...immediately after the pumpkins we drove an hour for the TRAINS......we took a 3 hour train ride thru the mountains to see some beautiful scenery and in hopes to see the tree's changing color. I personally thought the train ride was a bit long, but Im not thrilled about trains as much as the boys are. Here we are enjoying the train ride thru the mountain....even with nick still feeling pain shooting down his leg.

And now for the OH MY....today(monday) at 10:30am I got a call from nick.

NICK:" honey, I just wanted to let you know that I am not at work right now, but that I am at the ER in Lenoir City".

SANDRA:" why are you there"?

NICK: "I could not walk or get out of a chair today after a meeting and my boss told one of my coworkers to bring me here to see what's going on with my leg".

SANDRA: "you want me to come be with you"?

NICK: "sure if you want to".

So I call around to find a sitter for the boys and head over to be with Nick at the hospital. They did an xray and nothing showed up on that and so they discharged him telling him to get an MRI done. The hospital wouldn't do an MRI unless we had a physicians order and we don't have a family physician here(never needed one). So I got my husband dressed which he really couldn't do it himself, and helped him out to the van after a scare with him about fainting due to the pain. We called the chiro today and we went there at 3pm today for an adjustment and we plan to go for the remainder of the week. Nick has orders to not sit, but to only stand or lay flat and to not go to work for a few days. So nick is home in bed and I am spoon feeding the poor guy his food as he lay's flat to recuperate. The chiro insists that it is a pinched sciatic nerve and we agree with him and he should be back at work at the end of the week. I just had to take some pictures of nick in the hospital bed as I was laughing at the circumstances. If anyone knows my husband he does not go to the hospital very easily. I asked him if his coworker's had to drag him in because he didn't want to go. He just laughed (which hurt of course). Nick is also not one to milk his pain for all its worth....when he is nearly in tears due to the pain I KNOW its serious pain. Enjoy the few pictures I got of him laying in the ER.