Visit from Friends

We had some college friends (the Beckefelds) come to visit this weekend. They were on their way to VA and decided to break up their trip in KY. They have one son who is a little older than Jacob and are pregnant with number 2. The boys had a good time playing together.

Baby 3.0 Ultrasound

We had our ultrasound last Friday for baby 3.0. Again we opted to not find out the gender and they didn't let it slip. Things looked good. We didn't get very good images but here is a photo of the best one we got. It is a profile shot...

Blog Updates

I have put several updates on the blog... finally! Check down below this post and you can see what we have been up to.

Baby 3.0 Update

I haven't updated recently about Baby Hunter 3.0. He/she is still baking away. I am a little over 19 weeks along now. That means the baby is about 6" long from head to butt and weighs about 8.5 ounces. I have been feeling it move around and kick for a few weeks now. I actually put my hand on my belly the other day and felt it kick from the outside so that was neat! Daryl hasn't felt it kick yet though. 

I go back to the doctor on the 19th for my ultrasound and another checkup. I will let you know how that goes and I should have some good pictures after that. We are again not going to find out the gender of the baby... sorry, you'll have to wait! :) 

Nathan's Poem

A Peanut Sat on a Railroad Track, 

His heart was all aflutter.

Around the bend came #10, 

Choo choo... Peanut Butter.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The past two days I think we have had our turkey overload! On Thanksgiving Day we first went to celebrate with family of my stepmom. Nathan and Jacob got to play with some cousins and we had a good time. That evening we went to my mom's house and had some more yummy food. 

On Friday we went to the house of Daryl's brother's family. Nathan loves his cousin Aaron and he had a blast playing with him all day. He learned a new song from him, "Put a banana in your ear" (link) and has been singing it ever since!

Jacob's 2 Year Photo Shoot

We recently had Jacob's 2 year photos taken. They turned out so well. He was in such a good mood and smiley which made it really hard to pick which pictures to buy. Here are some of the top ones...

Happy Birthday Jacob!

Our little man turns 2 today. We had his farm-themed party this past Sunday and we had a houseful! Here are some of the photos...

He also went to the doctor and here are his 2 year stats: 34.5" and 28 lbs, 13 oz. He is getting so big and is learning so many new words. It is amazing to see what new words he comes up with each day. It is also really neat to see his personality emerging.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween Eve!

Today we had several Halloween activities. It started out with a costume parade at Nathan's school. He is dressing up as a farmer this year. He doesn't like dressing up, so I had to think of something that uses fairly normal clothes. I'll get some pictures of both of them dressed up tomorrow evening and post those.

Tonight we had a family Halloween party. Our dinner was pumpkin pizzas and witch's fingers. 

We watched a Dora Halloween show, ate Halloween cookies, read our Halloween books and colored some pumpkin coloring sheets. I think the boys had fun.

Cousins Photo Shoot

This is basically a visual representation of how the photo session went!

We finally did get some good shots though. Here are those...

Boy or Girl?

I was thinking the other day. Of all 6 people that were in our wedding party and us, six of us have baby boys and there are no girls! Also, of all my cousins on my dad's side, we have ten kids... nine are boys and there is only one girl. That seems like a whole lot of boys!

One interesting thing though is that both my mom and her mom had 2 boys first and then a girl to follow. I guess we'll see at the end of April!

Happy 33rd Birthday!

Hope you have a great day today! We love you and are so glad you are home.

Blog Contest Revealed!

One person finally guessed the correct answer to our blog question... Daryl's sister, Donna. Good job! The 171 is the heartrate of Baby Hunter 3.0! I am 9 weeks along today (Wed) and my due date is April 29th. I went to the doctor Monday and had a quick sonogram to verify due date and see the heartbeat. Everything looked great! I'll have to post the pictures soon although it just looks like a bean right now.

Thanks for those who submitted answers. They were quite amusing!

171?
That number has a special significance to us right now. If you submit the correct guess as to what it means, you will win a super duper grand prize! So, put on your thinking caps and submit guesses below in the comment section. You can post it as anonymous but be sure to put your name at the end of the comment so I know who you are! The answer will be given within 48 hours. 

Back to Normal Life!

Well, we just got our cable TV, internet, and phones back on. I had really started to miss those things. We are SO lucky and thankful though. We found out the people on the street right behind us do not have power. We think living next to the hospital probably helped us to get ours back so quickly. Daryl's brother is staying with us now because they don't have power and my step-dads parents don't have their power as well. Right now Daryl and his brother are going through the contents of their refridgerator he brought with him to throw away.

The reason for all this craziness was the hurricane we had in Louisville on Sunday afternoon! Ike came through and some other crazy weather phenomenons happened which caused us to get 75 mph wind gusts. It knocked out power to roughly 60% of Louisville and caused lots of tree damage. Schools are out again tomorrow for the third day. I had to get gas on Monday and it took a half hour to get through the lines and that was pretty short. I feel sorry for all those that still are without power with fridges that are starting to stink. They estimate it will still take 10-14 days to get everyone back online.

Extreme Office Makeover

As I mentioned in my last post, Daryl had decided that he was going to work out of the house from libraries or coffeehouses and such. Well, he found out that he couldn't do some of the things he needed to do that way. So, we decided we would build an office and do it in a week!!! It was crazy, but we are really happy with the results. 

We have a one car, detached garage. On the side of it there is a carport. That is what we decided to wall in to create Daryl's office. Here is what it looked like before.

Daryl and I did all the work with some help from his brother in laying the flooring. Here are some more photos of the progress.

What We've Been Up To...

I haven't updated in a month or so, so I'll include what we have been up to in one post. 

We had our friends from college/seminary/LifeChurch visit one weekend. They have a son that is a few weeks older than Nathan and they were in childcare together in Oklahoma. 

We also went to my dad's family's family reunion over Labor Day. We meet up in Nashville, IN. It was fun. Daryl played in the golf outing, we went swimming, ate lots, and had fun. The best part was being able to visit with family that we only get to see once a year. 

Daryl also started his new job. He had previously decided to work out of the house in libraries and coffeehouses and such... well, we made a different decision with that. More to come later on that! :)

My Boys...
Here are some fun facts about my two little ones:

NATHAN
- loves playing the computer
- hates stickers
- loves letters and numbers
- loves playing in the water/bath
- loves Super Why
- weighs about 40 pounds (needs another car seat soon)
- can read pretty well
- is potty trained-WOO HOO!
- loves fruit and pretzels

JACOB
- loves to chew on his blanket
- loves milk
- loves animals
- hates when Nathan lays on him
- loves playing in the water/bath
- loves Elmo (Melmo in his language)
- is learning lots of new words
- is great at animal impersonations
- loves to go outside
- is very smiley

That's all I can think about right now. The can be a handful at times and I wished they played together better, but I do love them. They are very different in a lot of ways but still do have some common characteristics. I look forward to them growing in their personalities and building memories as a family.

Daryl Through the Decades!

Try it yourself at www.yearbookyourself.com!

It's Over
Jacob did really well and we are back home now. He seems back to normal. He was really mad after he woke up but that wore off quickly. The doctor said a lot of stuff came out of his ears and it was really sticky so it was good to get all that out. He got some food and now he is pretty happy.

Jacob's Surgery
Jacob gets his ear tubes in the morning. We go in at 7:15 and his surgery is scheduled at 8:15. The surgery only lasts about 10-15 minutes and it is done as an outpatient procedure. We will update the blog when we get home and let you know how it goes. Please pray that Jacob does well and that he doesn't have any kind of reaction to the anesthesia.

The reason he is having tubes put in is because he has constant ear infections. The fluid in his ears won't go away even using all the medicines we have tried and has started to get thick and gooey. When this happens it is really hard for it to drain on its own. He is constantly itching his ears.

Trip Out West
We had a great time on our vacation (without kids!)


First we went to Vegas and stayed at the MGM Grand.


We got to see all of the sites and sounds there. We visited the Hoover Dam.

Where they were building a really neat bridge.

It was stinking hot!

We also visited the Grand Canyon!

We got to see the beautiful Red Rocks of Sedona as well.

The Painted Desert and Petrified Forest was really neat as well.

We couldn't pass up an opportunity to "stand on a corner in Winslow, Arizona." HA!

Overall we had a great time. We came away ahead in money from Daryl winning at a slot machine on the way out of town. We got to meet some really neat people at our Bed & Breakfast in Flagstaff. Thanks to our parents for watching the boys so we could get away for our 7th anniversary!