A Very Merry Christmas!!!

We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! Ours was fun and the boys were so excited!! Actually, Sean was MORE excited! He was up at 5am!!!!! THEN, he woke the boys up at 7:30! That, of course, meant I had to get up. Here are the boys coming down the stairs first thing in the morning.




Coolest gift EVeR!! Lucas got a robot!! Oh, and you have to notice, Lucas lost one tooth last week and the other the night before Christmas!! Love it!!!


And just as cool...Xander got a digital camera!!


We got them table top air hockey. Santa can't always get the cool gifts!

Later on, our friends, the Phillips came over for dinner! It really was a good Christmas!

And here are some pictures of the other day. Sean had piled up the snow so the boys could play. Then the neighbors let them use their sled! This year we didn't have to go all the way home to sled ride!

Snow, Snow and MOrE Snow!!

This post is for our friends who have abandoned us for the holidays to spend time with their families! Thought you would like to see the Winter "Wonderland" that we got! We have been hammered with SO much snow. Yep, I know, you're jealous!! We have gotten approximately 18 inches of snow since Friday. That is our best guess. The wind has been blowing it so much it looks like it is ALwAyS snowing! I bet you would like me to stop going on about this "beautiful" white stuff that you missed out on! You also missed out on the HoURs of shoveling! Yep, even if you have a neighbor with a snow blower, you still have hours of shoveling to do!! Well, here are the pictures! Enjoy everyone...we miss you all!
This first picture is from our living room window. You can barely see the house across the street!


This is how you spend a snow day!! Lucas had off school today and on Friday!! He woke up so excited. Four day weekend...lucky us!!!!!!!!


Can't you still enjoy the swing set in the winter time? Just seems useless just sitting there, so Xander hopped on!!


They came in and warmed up, then on to make a gingerbread tree!!


Xander's Godparents were "crazy" enough to drive up from PA to exchange gifts in the middle of a storm warning! Maybe they are not crazy, just braver than I am.




And here is the aftermath. Snow plows have hardly come through. They are so backed up right now. We have been fortunate enough to NOT lose the electricity, though!




So it does look like we will have a white Christmas! But it can all go away after that. To all of our friends and family near and far,
HAVe A VeRY MErRy ChRIsTmAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ultrasound Appointment

We had an ultrasound done today to see whether the hemorrhage was still there and if so, if it has gotten smaller. Well, it IS still there and it has not EVEN gotten smaller. Seems so unfair, since I thought I was taking it WAY easier than I really needed to.

So to answer the question that I am SURE is on everyone's mind...NO we will not be able to make it home for Christmas!!! Sorry to disappoint everyone. We were really looking forward to going home. It has been so long.

Back to the ultrasound...the baby IS doing great!! Growing really well. The ultrasound tech seemed impressed. "Except for the stinkin' bleed" as she put it, all is going well!! She said they will be doing another ultrasound in 4 weeks for the 18 week and they will look again to see if I am healing.

Oh, there was one other NaGGiNG question that I know needs answered! I am sure all of you wonder if we found out the sex of the baby. You know...I am ONLy 14 weeks! What do you think? We did bring it up. We mentioned that we know that I am not that far along, but is it possible to determine the sex of the baby? What do you think she said?

"Well, we can take a look!" But there was a hint of "don't get your hopes up." What do you think she saw?

NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!

That's great news, considering IT'S A GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!

She did let us know that she couldn't say 100% certain, but she was "pretty certain!" And she said it with quite a bit of confidence in herself!!! My gut has been telling me this, so it just confirms my suspicions! It will be confirmed in 4 weeks at my next ultrasound!! So we will keep you updated!!

Santa & a Play

Yesterday I took Xander to the mall for "Breakfast with Santa"! He got a free breakfast, picture with Santa, free ice cream cone, and a craft!! You can't beat a day full of fun that cost $0! Ok, I did get a pretzel for me, but everything for him was free. It was a day about the kids! What a great idea!!! Xander had a great time and it was good for him to get out of the house!


There was free face painting!!


He got a free carousel ride!


The first grade at Lucas' school had their play last week. It was about animals in the jungle and Lucas' class were the monkeys!! I seemed to think that it was fitting!! It was so cute and so much fun to watch!


He did really well and definitely seemed to enjoy himself! We are so proud of him! He was really nervous that day, but you wouldn't have known it!


Here he is with some of his friends from his class.


Last but not least, we put up our little tree and decorated for Christmas! I just LoVE this holiday!! I love to decorate for it, even though I have a lot less decorations since we sold them when we moved here from PA. But, now that I have a bigger place than last year, it's noticed and I think I will have to find more!!

BiG NeWs

Yep! We are expecting our 3rd child in June!!! We are so ExCiTeD!! We are almost 12 weeks along, and it hasn't been easy. I have had horrible morning sickness. So Xander hasn't been able to do much lately. I feel bad for him, but I have been laid up on the couch. This is the reason we have had to turn down invitations to fun nights, and why I have had to give big thanks to Sean in my last few posts. He has had to do a lot more lately. We also had a scare a week and a half ago. So I was on bedrest and now still have to take it easy until I am in the clear. I have known for SO long what great friends I have up here. But when moments like that happen, I realize I have the GREATEST friends in the world!! Many thanks go to Heather, Andrea, Crescent, Megan, & Katie! Between them, they watched my kids while I was at the ER, drove me to the ER and waited with me until Sean was able to get there. They also brought us ThE MoSt WoNdErFuL meals!! But we have faith that all is well and feel safe to make this announcement. The ultrasound we had last week showed that the baby is doing great!

So unfortunately this year, I was unable to make it to my family's Thanksgiving. It was the first time EvEr that I haven't been with them for this holiday. But, we were fortunate enough to be invited to the Marchant's! The food was unbelievable and the company even better!!! And I did take my camera, but the battery was dead. So, I stole these from my friend, Stephanie's blog.

Here is everyone enjoying the great food!


And here is all the great food!

School Pictures

Lucas' school pictures finally arrived. Now, I was quite anxious and scared to open them up. The day that he was to have them done, he was refusing. He even asked "why do I have to do this?" I told him that it was for the grandparents. He seemed to understand that. Well, I guess he really got the idea because when I opened them, this is what I found! I don't think I could have asked for a better school picture! So thank you Lucas for this WoNdErFuL smile!!!!!

Halloween Night

I know that this is a few days late, but figured some wanted to see what we were up to on Halloween night! Here is a picture of the boys. Xander is Bumblebee Transformer and Lucas, of course was Darth Vader!


Sean and I dressed up for the festivities, also! Sean is Joe the Plumber and I went as Mia Wallace from Pulp Fiction.


We went out Trick-or-Treating with our friends the Marchants.


Then off to our friends, the Moellers, for a Halloween party! Here is the Gardener family dressed as the Rubbles. Great job Natalie on making the costumes!!


And I had to put a picture of little Valerie in! Her mother made this costume also! I could only dream of being this talented!!


We had such a great time that evening!! The boys were out like a light as soon as they got in there beds!!!

Pumpkin Carving

So last night, we finally carved the boys' pumpkins. OK...actually Sean did. The night didn't start off well at first. We went out to get the pumpkins that we had bought a couple of weeks ago. Well, they were starting to rot! So obviously we weren't going to attempt to cut into them. The boys were SO crushed! So, Sean quickly ran to Wegmans to grab 2 more. I have no pictures of them getting carved. I was busy trying to sort seeds to bake them. The boys, of course were not going to put their hands in the pumpkins to get the slime and seeds out. They just thought that was too gross. But they would have loved to get their hands on the knives to do it themselves!!

Well here are the finished products. The top one is Lucas'.


And this one is Xander's!


Great Job Sean!!

Happy Birthday Xander

Happy (Early) 4th Birthday to Xander. His birthday is actually not until the 27th. But, since we had family and friends traveling 2 hours up for it, we wanted to beat the snow. So we had it on the 18th. He thinks he is 4 now. But no sense in arguing with him! I don't have that many pictures. I feel like a bad mom. Our battery in the camera wasn't charged all the way and died after a few pictures. So some of these are with my phone.

Here is the cake he picked out and him blowing out his candles!


Tearing open his gifts! I think he got WAY too many of them. But he was so happy! Thank you to everybody for them. He really appreciates ALL of them!


The boys' Uncle J and Aunt Atsuko's neighbor gave them their playhouse. Since they only have dogs and figured they really wouldn't enjoy it, they gave it to the boys. Uncle J brought it over the day of the party and the guys all set it up for them. Here is the birthday boy being a BIG helper for Daddy!!


Thank you everyone for coming and helping eat the food and for all the gifts!

A Week in Review

So I am just going to sum up the last week and a half for everyone. We went one Saturday to the Great Pumpkin Farm in Clarence. So much fun. You are going to notice that the pictures are of Lucas. Please don't think I favor one kid over the other. If you look in the first one of all of us, Xander just doesn't want to be in them! So happy isn't he!!



Xander didn't want to take the hay ride on the tractor so Lucas and I went on it with the Marchants!

But Xander did get to shoot the pumpkin cannon while we went by!!!


Sunday we went for a walk to the park right up the street. We had never been there. It's not that big, but definitely entertained the boys!!


Monday, Lucas had off from school and the weather was AbSoLuTeLy BeAuTiFuL, so we went to the zoo! Of course neither one would cooperate in front of the camera, though. But they had a great time. I guess I do have enough pictures of them here.


That afternoon, my parents came up to drop off Tyler for a dental appointment the next day. They took us out to dinner at the Texas Roadhouse. There was this AwEsOmE balloon guy there. This is what he made for the boys. Xander's is a squid and Lucas' is a hammerhead shark! Pretty cool! You should have seen the Goldilocks this guy did. He was AmAzInG!!!!!!!


So, now one Thursday a month, a bunch of us girls are getting together for Bunco night! I have never played (let alone heard of) this game before. It's a dice game and it's so much FUN! I really ejoyed myself and being with everyone. Also, it was nice just to get away by myself for an evening!

A little bit of this, A little bit of that

Just wanted to catch everyone up on the busy lives of the Fox boys. Xander and I made a trip up to the aquarium again. Sorry that the picture is so dark. It was the only one that he was facing forward in. He usually turns his back to the camera. We went up with our friends Crescent and her daughter Maia. I think I could take him up every day and he would not get bored with the place. Even though it is really small!


We had our friends Crescent and Dave, along with their daughter Maia, over for dinner. This is Lucas reading to Maia. So SwEEt!!!!! Seriously, he needs a little sister!!


After dinner, we played the game Wits & Wagers that they brought over. We never have even heard of the game before. It was SO much fun! We will definitely have to do it again!!!


Lucas has been continuing his swim lessons. He is finally over the whole "the water is TOO cold" thing. Here he is running and diving in the water (you have to look closely). I will have to video tape it next time. He is SO graceful at it! I am so SuRPrISeD and so very PrOUd!!!


And here, if you notice, is Lucas in the 12 foot section. I would like to be able to say he swam all the way there all by himself. But that would be a lie!! His teacher is down on the bottom. She was showing Lucas how to go down. But I am proud. He has no fear that deep anymore!!! Way to go big guy!!


And today, I got the pleasure of watching Maia! So I had to snap some pictures of her and Xander. Or is it Lucas, as she likes to call him!!


Then yesterday...Crescent was watching the boys for me while I went to an orthodontist appointment. Yep, I will bee getting braces! But anyway, I went to go pick up the boys and would you bee-lieve, I got stung by a bee. Now I am sure he didn't look as sorry as the bee pictured bee-low. I am pretty certain, he was smiling! Now mind you in all my years (21 of them!), I have NeVEr been stung. I always swat at them and my darling husband has told me eVErY time "ya know, if you keep doing that you're gonna get stung!" Well my system has worked this long and never failed. And I have constantly reminded him of that! Now yesterday, I truly was doing nothing and out of nowhere this bee flies right at me and stings me right...



...bee-low the eye!! Can you bee-lieve it! My first time, and I bee-lieve it is one of the worst places EVER!!! SO this is what I looked like this morning. Unbee-lievable!! Is it karma? Probably, I have killed a lot of bees in my lifetime!! And I am sure there are many more to come!!