And The Winner Is...

First of all, thanks to all who entered the contest about guessing baby number 2's gender. I used the list randomizer on www.random.org to generate a random list and the winner is whoever ended up in the number 1 spot on the list. I entered the names in the same order the comments were left. Here is a photo of the list from random.org-



Congratulations Belinda!! Send me an email and let me know what gift card you want. So, what did Belinda and the others on the list guess? BOY! We are having a boy- Yay!!! He gave us quite a view too so there is no doubt. Although a girl would have been great too and I would not have been sad at all to hear that news, I was hoping for another boy. I just always pictured myself being the mom of boys. Here is my precious baby boy's latest photo.



My labeling on the photo didn't work as well as I had hoped but I think you can still figure out what everything is. The ultrasound tech spent quite a while going over everything and said he looked great and was really healthy. Rob went with me to this appointment so that meant a babysitter for Rex. It was the first time we ever left him with a babysitter at our house and he did fantastic. That's awesome news because now mommy and daddy can get in a few date nights before the "new kid" (as Rob called him the other day- HA!) arrives!

Well, We've Done It!

This was the big announcement made by the weatherman on tv this past Sunday night. "Done what?" I innocently thought. What we've done turns out to be setting the record for the most snow in December (27.7 inches) for the past 97 years. Oh, how exciting. He was actually talking about Des Moines but I'm pretty sure this feat has been accomplished by most of central Iowa. And there are still two more days left this month- wonder if we'll be adding some more by then? After consulting various weather forecasts, it looks like we will. In fact, last night they said on the news that we may even get the record for most snow in any month. Of course, this comes from the same people who told us just a month or so ago that this winter would be mild and we would not have a lot of snow, so who knows. The first winter we were here was brutal- very cold and snowy with no breaks from November until early April. Last winter was better overall but we had some record setting cold days last year. I remember one day in January that was -29 and the windchill was -45. Yikes. So now I think maybe this winter we will finally get a break but no way. I know I signed up for cold and snow, but does it have to break records every winter? Here we are during our first weekend in Iowa- I don't know why I'm surprised by anything that's happened since.

'Twas 3 Days After Christmas..

And Shelby finally got to her holiday post
Though she wasn't the last
She was later than most
Hopefully Santa was good to you
He was very good to our kid
Check out the photos below
To see how Rex did!

His big gift from Santa was a new playhouse. Rob wants to put a skull and crossbones and flag on it to make it look like a pirate hangout. We'll see.



Anything with Elmo is a big hit. He liked the slippers ok (too hard to get around with them on though) but he loved the Elmo Encore Live doll that talks. Rob and I think Rex believes that really is Elmo in our living room, talking to him!




The rocking horse didn't get put together until Sunday but here he is, having a grand time riding it.



Rex got so many presents- you can check out Flickr to see the rest of the photos with Rex opening his presents and playing with his toys.

On to the food! We had a roast with potatoes, carrots and celery, as well as some dinner rolls and jello. I didn't take pictures of anything but my Christmas tree shaped jello. I was just so excited that I got to use my Christmas tree mold for the first time and that I actually got the jello out of the mold without incident! Then I kind of forgot about everything else. Oops. Here's my jello.



The best thing about the roast though was probably making beerocks (something we miss from Fresno and also sometimes spelled bierocks) with the leftovers the next day. Yum!! This photo is of Rob's plate and beer- I just had the beerocks.



Here I am on Christmas Eve, making eggnog sugar cookies to give out as part of our Christmas treats. Truth be told, most of these stayed here in our house because they are Rob's favorite and he was not willing to part with many. Rob actually took this picture because we thought it was funny that I was barefoot and pregnant and cooking in the kitchen.



Hope you all had a wonderful time like we did!

Getting His Hands Dirty

Rex has been getting his hands dirty today. Actually, it has only been for the last 20 minutes but we've had two incidents now. Here is the funny one. He was playing in the refrigerator and I knew he had the cool whip but foolishly, I did not think he could get the lid off.



I'm not sure why he looks so distressed. I was laughing and he was laughing too right up until I took the picture. He didn't get in trouble at all- I thought it was so funny! Unlike the first incident, less than 20 minutes before, when he stuck his hand in his poopy diaper. NOT funny and he did get in trouble for that. There are no photos of that though because who wants to relive that moment? Hopefully this concludes our dirty hands portion of the day.

Baby Bump and a Contest

With my first pregnancy, it was quite a while before I started to really show much. And then it was a while longer before I put up a picture of what I looked like. Well, the bump started way earlier this time and I'm prepared to share earlier too. I don't love this stage of pregnancy where you tend to just look a little chubby rather than pregnant. Anyhow, here I am- 16 weeks and 5 days into my pregnancy.



I've been a little depressed with the lack of comments I get on the blog. I know lots of people check in thanks to my sitemeter, but I usually only get 0-2 comments per post. It kind of stinks to put this much work into something and get little or no response. I know I have been a bad blogger lately (really really bad while I had so much morning, afternoon and evening sickness) so part of it is my fault. I've been trying to be a better blogger and in order to try and stir up some comments and see who is reading, I decided to hold a contest and give away a $25 gift card of your choice (but please remember I have to be able to get the card in Iowa). The contest is to guess whether we are having a boy or girl. We find out on December 30th but I am making the cutoff for entering midnight on Christmas Day (12/25/09). Of those who guess correctly, I will randomly pick one winner for the gift card and announce it in a post on December 30th, after we go to the doctor. If the baby is not cooperative for the ultrasound, we will still do the contest but have to delay the picking and announcement of the winner until we find out. So please leave a comment with your guess and say hello! And to my husband Rob, if you read this, you are not eligible to enter the contest. Sorry honey but it just doesn't seem right.

A Place to Sit

Rex has been making some interesting choices lately about places to sit. Guess he is like Goldilocks, trying to find just the right spot. Or maybe he's like Sheldon on Big Bang Theory- HA! (If you didn't get that, then you aren't watching that show and you should be!!)

First, it was in the bookshelves. No, we haven't been robbed. We just can't keep anything on the lower shelves right now because Rex destroys everything.



Then it was in a box while watching tv.



Finally, yesterday he tried out one of the containers that we keep his toys in.



I don't think he was too thrilled with any of these options. Maybe Santa will bring him an Elmo chair like this or maybe his mom and dad will get one for him someday.

Storm of the Century

Most of you have probably heard it was snowing pretty good in Iowa lately. One of the local newscasts went so far as to call Tuesday and Wednesday's storm "The Storm of the Century." I think they were being a little dramatic but even the National Weather Service called it an "epic" storm. We stocked up on all the essentials last weekend and were ready for it but still, wow. Most of the snow fell early Tuesday morning through Wednesday morning and then it was really windy, enough to cause blizzard conditions, for most of Wednesday. It was a lot of snow for Iowa- between 14-17 inches here where we are. Usually we get about 2-3 inches with a storm and a big storm may bring 6-8 inches so this was quite a lot. Pretty much everything (roads, schools, businesses) was shut down yesterday and a lot of the schools still are closed today. Rob didn't have go to work yesterday but he was back today. I didn't take any pictures during the storm because you aren't going to get me going outside to take pictures during a blizzard. Also, much of the snow fell Tuesday night so I was asleep for a lot of the crazy stuff. Here are some pictures from when it settled down yesterday afternoon and what we are left with.

Here is the front of the house from across the street.



The walk to our front door is somewhere around here. It used to look like this.



Aha! There it is.



This is what we saw when Rob opened our garage door.



Our backyard- did someone steal my planter box? Oh, it's just buried in all that snow!



I don't think we will be dining outdoors for a while.



Finally, here is Rob with our neighbors' snowblower cleaning out our driveway. Our shovel works okay for the amount of snow we usually get but it was time to get the heavy machinery out. I ask Rob every year when the snowblowers go on sale after winter or during the summer when we see them at yardsales if he would like to get a snowblower and he always says no. Guess what he said after using this? He came in and told me, "I gotta get one of those! It was so much easier and even kind of fun." Looks like I'll be checking out the snowblower sales in a few months.

I Want to Wash My Hands, My Face and Hair With Snow

Today we have our first snow of the season (you can see the snow falling better if you click on the image and make it larger).




It seems winter is here. This is much later for our first snow than the last two years so I won't complain. I keep hearing people say that this winter is supposed to be mild so I'm hoping they are all right. Our first winter here was quite awful and cold and then last year wasn't so bad. If this winter is even warmer with less snow, that would be great. I don't mind the cold and snow so much but I would say it is something that I endure rather than something I look forward to. I do look forward to our springs, summers and falls here though.

I know I was going to start blogging more but there has been a small incident with my glasses. Rex nearly broke them once before but Rob was able to save them. They sat crooked on my face but they worked. I'm afraid this time he has damaged them beyond repair. Anyhow, it makes reading and typing pretty tough when I don't have them. I'm okay for a short while but then I feel like I am going crosseyed. In fact, it is time to wrap this up. Hopefully I make it to the eye doctor soon and get some new glasses!

*Title for this post is part of the lyrics from Snow from the movie White Christmas- need to watch the movie soon now that it is the Christmas season!