We Have a Secret!

The big question these days is "are you going to find out the gender??" The answer is "yes". In fact, we found out this morning. Should we tell? Should we not? Wait and see!! :)

The Cat's Out of the Bag

My brother and his wife have a little boy, Will, and are due in a few weeks with another little boy. Both pregnancies, we didn't find out Angela was expecting until they already knew the gender...so around 5 months. This put me out quite a bit, so I decided we'd try the same trick with them next time around. Well, I am currently 17.5 weeks, with my ultrasound scheduled for Monday and who should unexpectedly come into town for the day from California? My brother. He calls and wants to have lunch, which of course I want to do since I hadn't seen him since April! The first thing I did after hanging up with him was call Philip and ask "should I wear a sweatshirt and hide my stomach or just tell him I am pregnant?!" We decided on the latter, which was a good thing because nearly the first thing Dan says to me is "Angela had a dream last night that you're pregnant again...are you?" Well, that pretty much took care of it! I told him I had it all planned out...they were going to get a "specially edited" version of our Christmas letter with no announcement and I was seriously considering not telling them about the baby until it was born (which he said he would have found funny...as I expected). There was just one slight problem. They read this blog. If they didn't know about the pregnancy, I couldn't post about it on the blog. So, to end my inability to talk about the pregnancy, the cat has been let out of the bag...and now the whole world can know: I'm pregnant! :)

And now, to answer some questions.

How far along are you?
About 17.5 weeks. I am due on May 18.

Are you past the point when you miscarried the last two babies?
Yes. I lost the first at about 12 weeks and the second at 15 (though I didn't know until 18).

Have you been nervous about this pregnancy?
Yes, it's been very stressful. I have just really relaxed in the last week or so.

Are you feeling the baby move?
Yes, lots. Philip says I said this about Joshua, too. Please no...I can only handle one kid that crazy!

Do the boys know?
Yes. Caleb totally gets it. Joshua sort of understands. He is always asking to listen to the baby's heartbeat or trying to give me my nausea meds to "make the baby feel better".

How do the boys feel about it?
Both boys are very excited. Joshua is having a "sympathy pregnancy" and often tells me he has a baby in his tummy too.

Have you been sick?
Yes, yes, yes, yes. I think I may be about past it though.

Are you going to find out the gender?
Hopefully we will find out next Monday

Do you have a feeling on whether it's a boy or a girl?
I think it's a girl and I am 2-0 on my guessing so far. Caleb also says it's a sister "since we don't have one of those yet." Philip says "quite possibly". Joshua's latest comment was that there are two babies.

This is me last Tuesday at 16.5 weeks. :) Despite the fact it doesn't look like it, I've only gained about 2 pounds! Yeay!

It's Time!

Ok, so this is slightly off the seasonal topic of Christmas and snow and such, but I am so excited to tell you that our kitchen is FINALLY DONE that I am going to blog about this today anyway! A "10 day" project that turned into a 9 month headache is finally finished, thanks to a lot of hard work and long hours from Philip. We hired a contractor to do most of the work, but ran into some quality problems with some of the materials and work. This first resulted in a 2 1/2 month delay in all of the cabinets being installed and then Philip wound up doing much of the finish work himself, which turned out to include remounting some of the cabinets and putting up all the molding. Needless to say, we learned a lot during this whole experience and if we ever have to do a kitchen remodel again, we'll do some things differently! :) Anyway, it's finally actually done and I am very glad! Below are some before, during and after pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Here's a review of what we did:
changed the floor
replaced all cabinets
replaced all appliances
replaced and relocated all lighting
removed the soffit to add 12" extra inches to the cabinets
replaced the countertops
removed the peninsula and made an island
repainted the walls...twice
repainted the ceiling...twice
added the tile backsplash
replaced the sink and faucet

Here is the kitchen when we bought the house in February.

Here we are having lunch in the gutted kitchen a couple days before we moved in in March. The only thing that hadn't been removed in this picture is the soffits and the old light fixtures. Don't you love our kitchen table? :)

This was the kitchen the day after we moved in. That's right, no countertops, no stove, no sink. Made food prep a little tough. I had never been so thankful for a kitchen sink and stove as I was the day those two finally went in! We were very thankful for Costco's frozen cooked chicken during those 10 or so days. Amazingly, we only ate out once!
Yeay for a sink and stove! Only 10 days after we moved in!

This is how the kitchen looked for several months while we waited for the replacement island and desk/pantry cabinets to arrive. We had quality problems with the originals and decided to order different ones from Kraftmaid...in another color, but similar style. In the meantime, we couldn't use this "placeholder island's" cabinet space and the desk area was just an empty hole. It made totally unpacking the kitchen a challenge. You can also see in this pic that the walls were primed, but not painted and the cabinets over the fridge and microwave were the wrong size and had to be replaced or remounted.

And finally, the kitchen yesterday. All the finish work done and fully functional! Interestingly, in the picture the off-white island looks kind of out of place, but in real life, most people don't even notice it's a different color.

Snow!

Yesterday we got our first snow of the season...an early one at that! It's very unusual to get snow in December around here, and certainly the first week! We got 3-4 inches. The boys and I had to go out to Bible Study in the morning and cut our errand running short since it was just cold and miserable! When Philip came home, he shoveled the driveway. Caleb and Joshua "helped" by cleaning the snow off of the bushes. Although, by the end, Caleb had a shovel too and was trying to actually help. I was amazed that he stayed outside for a good hour yesterday and today. That's a big increase from his snow endurance last year! Yeay!
Joshua cleaning the snow off the fake flowers!

"You're Putting Christmas Up!"

Over the weekend we decorated the house for Christmas. This was the first year the boys really paid much attention to what was going on. Caleb, in particular, is SOOOO excited about Christmas coming. As I was hanging garland and lights on the stair rails in the house he kept saying, "you're putting Christmas up!!!" We let them help decorate the tree on Saturday night and they both thought that was great fun. Thanks to Grandpa and Grandma Hines, both boys have a collection of ornaments with their names and/or pictures on them, which the boys got to hang themselves. We are also doing an Advent Calendar with them for the first time this year. Apparently, they just "can't wait that long" for dinner the next day to come to open the next flap. Ahhh, the enthusiasm of a child! I am looking forward to experiencing the whole season with them this year from Christmas songs and celebrating the birth of Christ, to all that Christmas baking that I love to do.

Merry Christmas!