RoyalExpansion: "I sho do wike ife cweam"- Evelyn 2.5 Years Old

Exciting few weeks around here. Starting with Super Bowl Sunday...not so exciting for me but we spent it with good friends and it began to snow...and snow...and snow! The next day was our 20 week ultrasound and since we'd be finding out the gender we planned a party for Monday evening. But the snow never stopped. All night it continued and we woke up to a winter wonderland!

Of course we also woke up to a lack of electricity and internet. Ironically we'd placed the order for a woodstove for our new house just days before! Monday was chilly but when I could no longer convince everyone to "stay in bed, it's warmer there!" we boiled water for hot chocolate on the propane grill and toasted bagels on it for breakfast; a mix of staycation and snow camping.

Sweetie Saying Good Morning to our landlord's horse

Everything cancelled, no school, no appointments, no garbage pick up, no way of leaving our road without skis. So we played. We built a snow wall which was fun but never ended up being used for a snowball fight, we hiked down the road in the silence of the snow to the river and tested to see who could throw the biggest snowball into the water, and we appreciated the electricity when it came back on and we stood on the heater grates excited for warm air. I can't think of a better reason to have an ultrasound and party cancelled than a surprise snow day!

That week we enjoyed the last of the snow and by the end of the week our new house was back to taking shape. The roofing was delivered and the plumbing was close to completion. Even the windows were installed!

The end of that week my parents took ALL THREE kids for the ENTIRE weekend to their cabin 4+ hours away. They left Friday at 5:00am and didn't return until Monday evening. What a quiet weekend we had and what a loud weekend they had! But everyone had a spectacular time making memories and Evelyn loved going to be in her "fweeping bag" like a big kid. The kids had a BLAST with Gram and Gramps while Daniel and I stayed home. We didn't do anything exceptional, but everything we did, we did together. And we went out to eat wherever we wanted on whatever schedule we wanted. Glorious. When Daniel went to work Monday I pretended it was my birthday and ran errands at a leisurely pace, stopped for frozen yogurt, and checked out Daiso to see what junk I "needed." It was finally the day of my ultrasound and getting to see the little baby wiggle around while ultrasound technician comment over and over about how active the baby is was the best gift!!

Our exhausted happy kids went to bed late Monday night and when they woke up the next day Capper said, "Wow, that was a short night!" They did a good job of treating me well for my birthday and I only had to pull the "Please do it for me? It's my birthday?" card once or twice. Capper is quite the generous gifter and almost couldn't wait until Daddy was home for me to open my presents! The evening was spent with family, a friend, and the decadent chocolate brandied cherry cake I brought home from a bakery in California a few weeks ago which had been waiting until that day in the freezer. Of course the "adult cake" made its appearance after the kids were cozied up for a much earlier bedtime than the night before!

Finally, on Thursday, I opened the card from the ultrasound and couldn't believe my eyes. I read it over and over. I set it down and came back to it later. I considered asking Sophia to read it for me to make sure I was reading it right (but I didn't want to give away the surprise). I excitedly made a cake and filled it with BLUE candies. I filled a balloon for the kids with BLUE confetti. It was going to be an exciting party!! That evening my parents, my grandparents, our neighbors, another couple, and even Daniel's Mom came over for the BIG REVEAL.

My Happy Baker

OH BOY!!!

Grandma A stayed overnight

It's been fun to think and plan now that we know the gender. I had to spend my Carters Rewards before they expired so I've started buying a few adorable outfits since Capper's were given away years ago when we found out our "final" baby was a going to be a girl! It's fun to think about the rooms in our new house differently and plan on Capper sharing with a brother. Sweetie and Evelyn have been looking forward to sharing a room and I think he was feeling a bit lonely.

Building a LEGO replica of our new house complete with stairs and all the bedrooms!

Today was President's Day so no school for the preschoolers and no work for Daniel. We left Daddy to work on the new house while we went on a hike with some friends, being inside was starting to get to us after a wet weekend! This upcoming week is mid-winter break so tomorrow we'll go to the Seattle Aquarium and Wednesday evening we'll enjoy not being out late for AWANA. But other than that it will probably be a pretty normal week. Normal if that's what you can call anything we do around here.