Baby 3 update

I am right around five weeks from my due date! I know I can't believe it, this pregnancy has gone by so fast. I have already informed my husband that any more children we have, we must try to have them be born in the winter, because between holidays and birthdays I have barely had time to remember I'm pregnant. Ok that might not be completely true, but you get my point.

I am right around 33 weeks pregnant, and at my last ultra sound baby was a little more than 3 pounds. The baby is very active, so active in fact I'm a little nervous about if it's going to be a hyper toddler. Erik and I were laughing today about how when I was pregnant with Jack he was pretty active, and he is most definitely a busy boy, and Anna was never all that active and she's our little sleepy head. So I'm thinking there are some personality traits you can already see from the womb!

We do not know what we are having, we like to be surprised, and we keep going back and forth on what we think the baby is. I am really excited to see how this baby is received by Jack and Anna, though I have little doubt it will be a somewhat difficult transition. I well remember having to get used to having a thirteen month old and a newborn(since you know it was only a little over a year ago!) and I don't imagine things being any easier this time around. But it will pass, and before long we won't even remember life before we became a family of five. That's one of the benefits of having children so close together, they are pretty adaptable!

Christmas at the Saltsgaver's

Our Christmas Tree on Christmas Eve. We hadn't put any gifts out until the kids went to bed, because we wanted them to be surprised in the morning.




Miss Anna enjoying the stuffed dog she got from Erik's aunt and uncle. It's a battery charged dog that barks, giggles, and rolls over, and Anna is absolutely in love with it. She most certainly gets her love of animals from her daddy!



The kids enjoying their new fish tank. We put a towel over it, and let the kids pull it off on Christmas Morning.



The mini drum set was the gift that trumped all others for Jack. He adores those drums, much to Erik's delight! When he's coloring, which used to be his all time favorite activity, he'll say, "Can I please get down so I can play the drums?"



The face of one very happy and worn out little boy on Christmas. We had such a great day celebrating and relaxing with each other!

The 2 year old, the Grinch, and the Baby Jesus

Hey, everybody, I am working on a Christmas post, but since it will have lots of pictures in it, it is going to be awhile before it's posted. Just thought I'd share an interesting story with you all about my 2 year old.

Erik and I have been together for five years, and every Christmas Eve since we have always went and looked at Christmas lights. This year we were so looking forward to sharing this tradition with Jack and Anna since they are old enough to see the lights and be excited about them. After our dinner on Christmas Eve we bundled them in their Christmas pajamas, cranked up the Christmas music, and set about our way.

We were happily stopping at the many houses lit up, and pointing out the things we figured the kids would love to see. One of the houses had a gigantic Grinch standing out in front of it with an evil grin on his face. We didn't really comment on it, but when Jack saw it he freaked out, and started screaming, "No more!" repeatedly. We moved onto another house, but Jack had his mind made up that there would be no more looking at Christmas lights that night, and to make things even stranger he kept repeating, "No more Baby Jesus! No more Baby Jesus!" Somehow the kid got it in his head that the Grinch was the Baby Jesus! Nevermind the fact that Jack has seen many Nativity scenes throughout this month, never mind the fact that we have a nativity scene in our house, Jack's mind was made up that the Grinch was in fact baby Jesus.

We thought it was weird, but figured he was probably tired, and we would take them out again Christmas night after they'd had a little rest. So Christmas night rolls around, my inlaws are over enjoying some presents and watching the kids play with all their new toys, when we announce that we are going to go look at Christmas lights again. Jack stops what he's doing, gets very serious, and says, "No more. Please no more! No more baby Jesus!" We were very surprised by his reaction, because like I said, it's not as if we haven't been talking with Jack about why we have Christmas, and why we pray, and he's never had an issue before. We quickly changed the subject and told him we were going to go for a drive with Froggie(his beloved stuffed animal.)

Off we went for the second time, Jack was a nervous wreck, but finally he started to calm down, and by the time we were almost done looking at lights he was very excited. We steered clear of any Grinch's we saw at any houses. When we got home and were getting the kids ready for bed, I brought out the Mary figurine that I have that's holding the Baby, and told Jack, "See this is the baby Jesus!" Relief came over Jack's face, and this morning when he woke up, he walked right up to the manger scene and said, "Good morning, Baby Jesus!" Something tells me we'll be asking God for lots of wisdom throughout our kids lives.

For our sakes He became Poor

"Joy to the World! The LORD has come! Let Earth receive her King."

Merry Christmas Eve to anyone who is still reading this! Sorry it's been so long since I've updated, life has been very busy, and there hasn't been much time to get online. Hopefully I'll be updating more now that my husbands finals are over.

Six years ago, when I was eighteen, I became a Christian. That first Christmas as a born again believer was one of the most special Christmas's I've been blessed to have. For some reason, the Lord saved me and gave me a heart for studying and knowing His Word. The last couple of weeks have been filled with lots of activity, and unfortunately time meditating on God coming to Earth hasn't been as frequent as I had hoped it would be, but the last couple of days, the Truth has really been manifesting itself in my life. One thing that has occurred to me is how singing Christmas songs has become such a loved tradition in my life, that I almost forget how true the lyrics are to some of our favorite Christmas Carols(excluding the Santa ones, lol.)

Tonight if you're going to a Christmas Eve service, or tomorrow if your Church has Christmas Church, or if you're just going to be driving around looking at Christmas lights and listening to Christmas Carols, please be encouraged to truly worship the Savior to your favorite songs. And be thankful to God that He loves us so much that 2000 years ago he became poor for our sakes. Not because He owed us any favors, but because He loves us.

Merry Christmas!

Having a Happy Home

I'm not going to lie. Staying home is not something I enjoy doing too much of. I don't like weeks where nothing is going on, and I hate weekends even more that are void of any activity. Call it pregnancy hormones, or maybe it's just the way I am, but I am definitely someone who likes to be busy. One of the reasons I don't like winter is that being on the go is a lot more difficult. Especially with two little ones!

Anyways, I had always heard things like, "You should make your home an exciting place to be," and "One of the best things you can do for kids is staying home more often." I thought these were nice ideas, but I'm not sure I believed them. That is until this week. This week has been crazy busy. Actually, every week since the middle of November has been pretty busy, but this past week has been filled with Moms group, Christmas shopping, doctors appointments for the kids and myself, Church, Bible Studies, and errands. Things were starting to wear on me, but I didn't realize how much things were getting to my kids until Thursday morning when I was bustling them out the door to make yet another doctor appointment. On our way out to the van, my two year old started crying. I asked him what was wrong a little distractedly, and buckled him into his car seat.

The crying continued for a block or two, when finally he says in his little two year old voice, "Mommy, want to stay home with you! Don't want to go bye bye!" How that pierced me! At the stop light, I turned around and told him we did have to go see the doctor that day, but I promised we would stay home and play this weekend. I'm not sure how much he understood,but he did eventually stop crying. And since Thursday afternoon, we have been at home. And when we have left for Church or errands, it's been the four (five?) of us together. So the past few days have been spent coloring, playing with play doh, decorating Christmas cookies, reading stories, wrestling(that's more Erik and the kids, my belly gets in the way), and having family dinners. It might not seem like anything too exciting, but to our kids it's much better this way.

Well we finally accomplished most of what I had planned for the baking and freezing day. I actually got it all done on Thursday, but I haven't had a chance to post our accomplishments. Here is a list of what I was actually able to get done:

1.) Broccoli Cheese Soup
2.) Whole Chicken cut up and packaged
3.) Reeses Peanut Butter Cup Christmas Cookies(That actually never got frozen! What can I say we like cookies around here!)
4.) Chicken Noodle Soup

That pretty much was all I was able to get done on Thursday. We had a lot of fun cooking though. As you can see from the picture, Jack was took his job of helping put sprinkles in the cookie dough very seriously. Unfortunately I was so focused on getting a good picture, I didn't notice when he dumped the entire can of green sprinkles into the dough! So in an attempt to even them out we added more red sprinkles than necessary as well. Let's just say that those cookies are a bit to sugary for someone with gestational diabetes. Oh well Erik, Jack, and Anna like them, so that's what matters.

Having a Baking and Freezing Day

I have always enjoyed making meals ahead and freezing them. When I had Anna, I got the idea to freeze several meals(I wasn't so smart when I had Jack :-)and it served our family really well. Since there is a blog carnival over the next couple of days for people who are having a baking and freezer cooking day, I thought I would participate, and use this experience to prepare me for next month, when I plan on having a really big freezer cooking day, since this baby will be getting close to due by then! So here is a list of things I am hoping to make. It's not nearly as impressive as others on the money saving mom blog, but this is just what has to work for me right now!

1. Make whole Chicken in crockpot, and shred meat for various meals throughout the month
2. Whole Wheat Waffles(my kids are obsessed with these, and I'm thinking the whole wheat makes them decently healthy.)
3. Sugar Cookie Dough
4. Reeses Peanut Butter Cookies
5. 2 pans of chicken enchiladas
6. Broccoli Cheese Soup
7. Chicken Noodle Soup
8. Chicken Broccoli Cheese Casserole

We will see how much of this I am actually able to accomplish, but all the times I have done this has been a huge blessing since we are able to avoid eating out on busy nights, or nights when I'm too tired to cook. I will be updating later today or tomorrow to let you know what actually got done!

To participate in this freezer cooking day, or to follow others who are participating check out Money Saving Mom's blog!

Starting new Traditions

Traditions. The memories we have and hold dear for our whole lives. This last week has brought up much talk of traditions between my husband and I. My husband and I grew up with different traditions, for example when I was growing up most holidays were easy going days, there wasn't a lot of travel involved, usually it was just the four of us, or we would go up to my aunt's family's and celebrate. Occasionally we'd go see a movie. My husband, on the other hand, grew up with getting up really early and going up to his grandma's house and spending the entire holiday with almost every member of his extended family. To me thanksgiving is cooking and relaxing in my sweats all day with a few people, but to my husband thanksgiving is meant to be spent with your entire family, the men watching the game, the women hanging out in the kitchen.

Since we've been married, and most definitely since we've had kids, holidays have become rather busy affairs. We're blessed to have both sides of grandparents who want to be involved, so thanksgiving and especially Christmas can turn into a very busy time, trying to uphold everyone's long standing traditions. This year since our oldest is almost two and a half, we also want to start our own family traditions. A lot of questions have presented themselves to us in the last few weeks. Should we do Santa Clause, or should we not do Santa Clause? How big a deal should we make out of gifts? Especially as our kids get older? How do we keep the main focus on Christmas being about Christ's birth? These are all questions that every family has to answer for themselves, and we certainly have no idea if some of our ideas are going to achieve the results we are hoping for. Of course I guess we'll just learn from the mistakes we made with Jack and Anna, and by the time our family is complete we'll have it all figured out, right? Just kidding.

So this month will be filled with an Advent Calendar, cookie baking, and cozy nights watching Christmas movies as a family. I think one of the nicest traditions we've hopefully started is cutting down our tree, decorating it, and then watching a Christmas movie with some pizza. Simple, but hopefully something our children will look forward to every weekend after thanksgiving. However, when the kids are excited about the pretty Christmas tree or the gifts they have been given, we will be quick to remind them that the only reason they are able to enjoy these things is because of the Perfect Gift God gave to us two thousand years ago.

So what traditions do you and your family have, and what ways do you strive to keep the focus on Jesus?