Our Week

Nothing too exciting has happened here this week. We did get one snow day on Wednesdsay! Of course we were all excited about that. For the last couple of days Cole has had a nasty cough. He sounds like a dog barking! He hasn't had a fever or anything else with the cough. We got him some cough syrup finally, and hopefully that'll help him out.

Today we went to Cracker Barrel for lunch. We had some money leftover on a gift card so we thought we'd use it up! For all five of us to eat it only cost us $13! Not too bad, huh? The kids were well behaved too, and that always makes for a pleasant experience!

We now live in Steeler Nation! Seriously! That's what it is called around here. And with the Superbowl coming up tomorrow, our trip to the store today was quite busy! David would wait with the cart at the end of the aisle, while I squeezed down the aisle between all the carts and got what we needed! It was madness! =) People were busy buying up their Superbowl snacks for tomorrow. Poor David! We don't get the channel for the Superbowl, so he's hoping somebody at church will take pity on him and invite him over after church.

We are slowly adapting to the Pennsylvania culture around here. I forgot that we live within 90 miles of Punxsutawney Phil, the famous groundhog. So that is big news around here. The people on the news call it Groundhog Monday! (Like it ranks up there with Superbowl Sunday!) Kind of cracks me up! Anyway, are you hoping for Phil to see his shadow or not?

Dessert

Thought I'd let you drool over our non-fattening dessert. I thought the bananas were the best touch, while David liked the raspberries. I'm calling this one "brownie-banana split."

School News

Trevor just brought home is report card from the end of his second quarter of school this year. He is doing a great job! His average is 99% in all of his Pace work! Since the beginning of the school year Trevor has finished 59 Paces! Wow! Normally a student needs to complete 60 Paces in one year. Obviously he is one smart cookie! =) In his Math and Word Building subjects he is already in second grade work. In his other three subjects, he is only two Paces away from being in second grade. His reading is very good as well. I'm proud of him for doing so well in his work.

Cole is ready to start school. Well, he thinks that he is! Since he turned 5 he thinks it's time to start schooling. Of course he's done a lot of things at home with me in the past, so he'll be ready when the time for school does start for him. He will be the only kindergartener next year, so I will probably home school him. Yikes! I know that he will do well with his schooling, but when I think of homeschooling Cole, along with being a mom to Logan and a newborn baby, the task does seem daunting. Hopefully he makes it easy on me!

Rough-Tough Boys

Without a doubt, wrestling with Daddy is one of the best past-times in this house. Today David was sitting on the couch and the boys would run from as far away as they could get, and jump on him as hard as they could. (I love being a girl, so I can enjoy watching the boys, without having to get the bruises and bumps that go along with their rough play!) Well, Logan was so cute, of course! He'd start in the dining room and say, "On your mark, get set, GO!" Then he'd run and try to clobber Daddy. I loved seeing all three boys pile on top of him at once. Trevor and Cole kind of did a team thing. They'd run together and jump, hoping at least one of them could get a good shot at Dad. It usually worked.

I'll tell you, being the youngest child must make you extra tough. Logan's had two big brothers to deal with for the last couple of years, so he's learned how to take his knocks, and how to give a few too! Logan got hit pretty hard a couple of times. I was waiting for him to wail, but instead he pointed to the offended spot and went up to Dad for a kiss. The kiss made things all better, and he was back to jumping on Dad in a flash.

Trevor Story

I was thinking back to some of the cute things the kids have said over the years. Here's one of my favorite Trevor sayings: We went to Olive Garden when he was three and Cole was still a new baby. When we went to give our name to the hostess, we gave her Trevor's name. Well, we sat down to wait, as you usually have to do at Olive Garden! Soon the lady stood up and said, "Trevor, party of 4." Well, Trevor immediately piped up and said, "I'm not four! I'm three!" We had such a good chuckle on our way back to the booth.

Short Respite

Yesterday and today we were able to get a short respite from the freezing temperatures. Today and even this evening the temperature was 50 degrees! That's so much better than 2 degrees! Although we haven't had it as bad as some areas of the country, we sure did enjoy the sunshine today. I did mention this was a short respite, didn't I? Yep! Tomorrow night the low will be 8 degrees and the high won't be too much better than that. *SIGH* I try not to envy my aunt in Colorado, of all places, enjoying 70 degree temperatures in January! I keep thinking that spring is just around the corner. So for tomorrow, we'll keep putting logs in the wood stove, and stay tucked up in our house safe and sound from the weather.

In My Tummy

All of the boys now know that there's a baby in Momma's tummy. Yes, even Logan! Just today somebody said something about a baby and Logan said, "Is there a baby in your tummy, Mom?" I told him that there was. Then he said, "Can we get a baby at our house?"

Tonight we were at a restaurant. When Logan was done eating he stood up and his tummy was big and firm! I laughed and said that maybe he had a baby in his tummy. Well, just a while later as we were getting into the van Logan told his dad, "I got a baby in my tummy!" Oops! Maybe I shouldn't have joked about that one.

Each week I get an e-mail from a pregnancy website updating me about the baby's growth that week. It's the highlight of the week for my boys! They love to look at that picture of the baby swimming around in Momma's tummy! Right now the little bean isn't a little bean anymore! The baby measures 5 inches from the crown to the rump! So of course, the boys get a tape measure and we measure to see how big the baby is. Each week Cole thinks it is now big enough to come out! But I keep telling him not quite yet!

These are exciting days! Soon we will get a real look at the baby. That will be very exciting. God has been so good to us.

Romantic Snow Globes by WiddlyTinks.com

Logan Jofuss

I've mentioned this before, but I got Logan on video and it's just too cute not to share.

Reminiscing

I thought I'd do a little bit of reminiscing from the past couple of years. It was so much fun looking at these photos, and the changes in the boys.


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Snow!

Wow it is coming down today! It's such a pretty snowfall and things are really looking white. It's just gorgeous. That's our neighbor's tree getting covered in snow.



I opened up the window from my den to take a picture of the snow, and lo and behold there was a crane in the creek! I was so surprised, because I hadn't seen him there before. I was also excited because I got a pretty good picture of him. Do you see him there in the water?

After taking a few pictures, I made some noise so I could get a picture of his wings. This was my best shot at that; he's in the bottom left corner of this photo. By the way, if you click on any of the pictures, they will open up in a bigger window.

Logan and the Baby

Each time we sit down together for a meal my husband prays. Lately, whenever David is done praying, Logan pipes up and says, "I want to pray for the baby too." So we all bow our heads again (except for Mommy who is usually peeking at the cute boys!) and Logan says something like this:

"Dear Jesus, Thank you for the new baby. Help us be good boys."

It's just precious!

Baptism Video

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Another Name in the Book of Life

About a month ago Cole told me that he had asked Jesus into his heart! He had done this during one of his classes at church. We were excited about that decision that he made, but since we weren't there, we wondered if it was real. We asked Cole a lot of questions, and found the teacher that had taught his class. She explained that she had given an invitation and Cole prayed and got saved! Hallelujah! This happened the first week in December.

Today Cole got baptized! He was a bit nervous about it, as you can see in the video. He actually had been wanting to get baptized for a while, and was excited about it. Then his dad told him he would dunk him under the water real quickly. After that Cole was thinking about changing his mind! But he did get baptized today and he's excited that he took that first step of obeying God after salvation. By the way, his daddy got to baptize him.

Here's a slideshow of the farm show.

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Butter, Butter, and More Butter!

Yesterday we went to a farm show in Harrisburg. It was a good day with a lot of things to see. We didn't even scratch the surface and we were there about 5 hours. there were farm animals, crocheted blankets, canned goods, an amazing food court made from PA farmer food, a carousel, rodeos, etc. . . . It was like a county fair, but all indoor. I'll post more about it later, but first I wanted you to see the butter sculptures. These sculptures are made from 900 pounds of butter! (That is not a typo!) They were pretty amazing.

Tagged!

I've been tagged by my friend Katie! This tag is a tag of 4's. Everyone who has been tagged should post the 4th picture in their 4th picture file folder and explain their picture and then tag 4 more people.
My fourth folder was from December 07. It's a picture of Cole and the graham cracker house he made last Christmas.


Now I'm going to tag Virginia, Alice (get that blog started!), Amy Sue and Suzanne! GO!

Hidden Talent

We have some hidden talent in our family.


And here's a follow-up of that one, because it's just too cute!

Sledding

Today our boys have spent some time sledding. They've had a good, cold time out in the snow. There isn't all that much snow on the ground, actually, but enough to keep a sled in motion. Here's a short video of them sledding by the house. After this video, David took the boys to a neighbor's hill. It's a BIG one! I'm sure they're having a great time. In fact Trevor, Cole & Dad are out there now. If the snow sticks around a bit longer, I hope to get Logan out there too. Unfortunately it's his nap time, so he's sleeping.

Puzzling

I spent the last few days working on the hardest puzzle I've ever done! Wow! It was worth it when it was all done, though, because the finished product is beautiful. I had to take a picture for you to see. It is the first time I've ever done a shaped puzzle. Usually you start with the frame of a puzzle and fill it in. In this case, it was hard to find the "straight-edged" pieces, since there weren't very many!

And just so you know I'm not exaggerating, here are some of the shapes of the pieces!

Ice Day?

Yesterday was a great day for us. We had an ice day! We did not have snow on the ground, but there was plenty of ice on the roads, so school was cancelled for the day! Not a one of us was upset about that! It almost felt like Christmas vacation was extended. By late morning we left the house and the main roads were not bad at all. We ran a few errands, used up the rest of a Wendy's gift certificate somebody had given us, and browsed in a new store we found. It was a good day. Of course, by the evening the ice was completely melted and church was on schedule as usual. Would you believe that we drove to church??? If you've been to our house you know we live just a short walk from the church. (Probably less than 1/4 of a mile!) But with some ice and the wind, we drove up to the church.

This morning David got up and logged onto the Pennsylvania web site to see if we would get to have a second day off in a row! =) We did not! But it was still a good day here anyway.

Happy Birthday!

This might be the sorriest rendition of the Happy Birthday song I've ever heard! =) We started in two different keys, then David kept switching the key. It was pretty comical, but Cole didn't seem to notice. It took him FIVE tries to blow out his FIVE candles! Funny!

Monkey Lips

You really need to know Cole personally to appreciate this video. He always has his lips doing funny things. I call him "Monkey Lips."

Cole Boy

Here are a few more photos. Of course the camera was snapping pictures left and right today. Notice Cole has a bowl of cake and ice cream, but he'd rather play with his miniature UNO cards!

The Man of the Hour

It's Cole's fifth birthday today! What an exciting day for him! Here are some pictures of the man of the hour for you to enjoy.

2009!

Can you believe it's 2009 already? Life is just flying by. Tomorrow is an exciting day in our house; Cole will turn 5! He is pretty excited about that. I am pretty excited that David and I are going out (BY OURSELVES!!!) tonight to shop for the birthday boy. Of our three boys, I think Cole is the most excited about having a new baby in the house soon. The other day I was telling him it was almost January 6. And what special thing would happen on the sixth? Cole excitedly said, "Your baby is coming out!" Well, not quite! But this morning when I reminded him it was the sixth tomorrow, he did not hesitate to get excited about his birthday. I hope it's everything he wants it to be.

Heartbeat!

Today I had an appointment at an office, and we were able to hear our baby's heartbeat! It was pretty exciting. I was pretty nervous because it took the lady quite a while to find the baby. Once she did, we heard that nice little tap-a-tap beat of our next baby. The heart rate was 156 beats per minute. I must comment on the fact that our boys' all had heartbeats in the low 140's. =)