I learned everything I know from Dr. Johnson...

Photo shoot

This is one of the pictures we got yesterday during the ultrasound. Technology is so amazing but the babies always look so freaky. You should see Jack's! Looks nothing like him now. he he. But this really is amazing. She's crossing her arms and it looks like she's got big lips. Definitely NOT from me. It's still sinking in that this one is a girl but we are so happy that this one is healthy and normal (so far so good).

We're having another...

GIRL!!! I was quite shocked but I think I would have felt the same way if they said we were having a boy. ha ha. We are so happy that the baby is healthy and glad we get to put to use all of Charlotte's old clothes. yeah!! So we're happy and excited and now, time to think of names!!

Thanksgiving Eve and Thanksgiving

I've been horrible at pictures lately and only have one of Thanksgiving eve and Thanksgiving. I've NEVER celebrated anything on Thanksgiving eve before but decided, HEY! If we celebrate Christmas Eve with a family Christmas Eve party then it would be AWESOME to do the same for Thanksgiving EVE! ha ha. Well, it's all about eating a lot of food. So that's what we did. The first of many. And it was YUMMY!

I hate this picture of me. BLAH. But anywho. The food. We had mini homemade quiches, pikelets (mini pancakes, jam and cream on top), club sandwiches, egg rolls with dipping sauces, ambrosia and pomegranate 7up! Seriously, was SO good!

Thanksgiving:

Yep, this was us and just us on Thanksgiving. it was a little different not having family over but we enjoyed it. It was nice to have little pressure on getting stuff done! We enjoyed eating turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, rolls, cooked carrots with butter, and broccoli salad, bubbly and for dessert pumpkin pie and trifle. I wanted a 3 bean salad too but never got a recipe but NEXT year I will have it! yummy! Maybe, i'll have it for Christmas dinner too. YUM.

Wade's trifle. I had some and it was delicious of course! And the pie is always a favorite here too! Apparently Charlotte had TWO pieces at school the few days before. ha ha. My girl!

Decorating the tree.

This Christmas season is SO exciting! I think Charlotte is starting to grasp the whole thing (well, not the WHOLE thing) but really enjoying everything that's going on. She keeps telling me to put the lights/garland on the banister on and the Christmas tree on. ha ha. And says she likes it all the time. And JACK. Oh he's so cute! He loves to look at the tree and say, ooooooooooooooo. ha ha. I have a confession though. I admit that I've been listening to Christmas music since November 1st. I don't know, I just felt the Christmas Spirit since then and Wade has been HAPPILY wanting to listen to it too. At first, I'm like, you do?? ha ha. I thought he'd tell me off or something. But anywho, I've been holding off with decorating until the weekend before Thanksgiving and then Wade said, let's just do it Wednesday so I said okay. But then I said, let's start and get everything but tree done (meaning all set up but no ornaments) Tuesday evening and finish with the kids. So we did that which was BETTER cause we could decorate without the kids in the way and then just enjoy decorating the tree the next day. It was awesome. And they had a great time.

Just starting out!

Charlotte putting her first ornament on.

Jack with his first ornament.

Wade putting the star on!

What a lovely photo....ha ha. EYEBALL ROLL. Notice the ornaments? Yeah, they're even higher up the tree now than when this photo was taken! Now it really looks only decorated halfway up!! ha ha.

Child labor.

You all probably thought I was a nice person but this is what Jack does everyday when Charlotte is in school. He used to be afraid of the vacuum but now he is fine with it. Which is good cause he gets more done.

Look at this face! Makes me LAUGH! ha ha ha

p.s. I really don't make him vacuum. He really wanted to this day. And he did a pretty good job of vacuuming up nothing!

Carpet before and after

The tile just before Wade chipped it all out. seriously folks, who puts TILE in the basement at the bottom of the stairs??? Ahh. A nightmare of a project BUT it was all worth it for the safety of the kids (and besides having pretty carpet. he he)

Yes, that's the dust still in the air...

The debris of tile after all was chipped out.

The culprit of our CO poisoning. CURSES! ha ha All the mortar had to be ground down so the carpet would lay flat. And Wade couldn't do it by hand. Apparently, we're not the only crazy people to get a trip to the hospital for using this thing.

Before: (with everything ripped out and gone!! and of course all the walls were repainted to this color. It used to be a dark gray. Hideous.)

After:

We picked out the color "Biscotti" and a little design in it. We seriously had the HARDEST time picking out between the short style (whatever it's called) and the slightly shaggy one that we had before. But we just decided to be different and go with this and we LOVE it. It's SO soft and comfy and now that the tile is gone, it sometimes feels warmer down here than upstairs which was a great decision besides being a soft landing in case the kids ever fall down again...which I hope is never.

Yesterday we had an I.E.P. for Charlotte with her school, Sound Beginnings. She now goes from 8:30am-3pm, Monday-Friday. And she LOVES it. Every night she asks if we're going to school and I tell her she needs to go to sleep and when she wakes up, we will go to school. ha ha. It's so funny.

Anyway, Charlotte's teachers are incredible. They are doing a fantastic job and we are so happy with Charlotte's progress. We made awesome goals and know Charlotte will surpass them in no time. At first we were a bit concerned and a bit down because Charlotte was tested and the results came that her language and communication (overall) was about 2 years old, 1 month. When you have a four year old it's hard to realize she's at the level of a 2 year old. But once we inquired about what this all meant, the teachers were telling us that this is incredible. What? How can that be? Well, just think about it. Charlotte was implanted June 5th. She didn't start recognizing sounds until mid-July. So really, that's four months of hearing. It's like Charlotte started from scratch four months ago and is already at 2 years old in her language! That's fast and incredible once it's understood in those terms. So, go Charlotte! She seriously has been doing amazing. In the last week or so, she's been copying 3 or 4 word sentences. I.e. I'll tell her to open the fridge and I'll just hear her repeat it. Yesterday, I told her to say, "see you tomorrow" to her teacher's and she said "see ya morrow". We're always in shock when we hear something correct out of Charlotte because we're just not used to it.

Primary program.

I just finished curling Charlotte's hair here. I kept asking her to smile and she DID but likes to squint her eyes now. I'm fine with that cause she doesn't look like she's on drugs. he he.

I got Charlotte to tell me her line for the Primary program from this past sunday. She was SO excited to do it in church. She kept asking me, is it my turn? is it my turn? And I was like, no you have to wait. And she was SO excited when I said it was finally her turn to go up. I went up with her to help her chunk the sentences properly and she did a fantastic job and Wade was so happy he could sit and see her say it on the stand. Makes my heart melt. She's doing so well!!!

This was her line "I will strengthen my family."

Jack just loves stuffed animals. Here he's kissing a horse!

Aunty Crystal sent Jack some pictures of her cats. Here is the video of him looking at it the first time.