Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

I do feel blessed this year!

The Best Present of 2009

We welcomed the newest addition to our family yesterday - our beautiful daughter Margaret Sue!

Our story started on Friday morning when we drove to the hospital for our scheduled c-section. When we got there, they hooked us up to the monitors and found out that I was having regular contractions and had gone into labor! What a blessing to have everything work out this way!

They prepped me for surgery, while Jon got things organized in our room. Jon's parents stopped by to pray with us before we went into surgery - definitely a comfort!

The surgery went so well, much better than with my son - probably because I knew what to expect this time.

Meg was born at 8:06 am on Friday, December 18th, weighing 7 lbs 13 oz and measuring 20 1/4 inches long! Same weight as JD!

So many family members and friends stopped in to visit our sweet baby girl and are still visiting us!

The jury is still out as to who Meg resembles, but I think she is already Daddy's little girl!

JD LOVES his baby sister and couldn't hold her long enough yesterday. He kept asking for "10 more minutes" to hold her. It was such a precious moment to see JD meeting his sister for the first time and the awe of holding her in his arms. I love my two kiddos more than I ever thought possible.

I couldn't have asked for a better Christmas present than the birth of this amazing little girl.

Doubling Our Fun

We are exactly 2 days away from doubling the number of kids that we currently have! We are so excited to meet Margaret Sue and know she is going to change our lives in such a wonderful way!

In all of the sonograms that we had for Miss Meg, I never got a good shot of her face, so I really can't picture what she is going to look like. There was no surprise with JD who looked identical to his profile shot in his sonogram (which also is identical to his daddy).

But Meg has been a mystery to us. I can't wait to discover her personality and see who she resembles and acts like. I know she will have unique characteristics of her very own too!

JD has been talking about when Baby Meg gets here, so I think he is excited to see her too. Either that or we have been talking way too much about "we'll do that after Baby Meg gets here."

I think JD is going to be a great big brother! He will show Meg all of the cool things that you can do when playing (even when mommy is cringing from worry). He will also protect Meg from the "scarys" out there because he is so aware of them now! He will most likely try to pass on his love of cars and trains and playing outside so he will have a buddy to play with when she is older.

We can't wait to meet you Margaret Sue Boyd!

Massive Hat Hair

It has been quite a bit colder this week, so I have put warm hats on JD any time we go out and about. Last night, when we got home, JD's hair did something I have never seen it do...CURL!

It actually looked curly when we took off his ski cap at home. I started laughing hysterically when I saw it. Then I showed it to JD and he started to cry and say "no curly hair!" Guess he doesn't do well with hair changes!

But then he decided if I was laughing that hard, it must be okay and he started to ham it up for the camera for me.

Tree Time

JD is such a fan of Christmas trees, especially since there is a huge one in his favorite movie Polar Express! Last year, he called them "ho ho tees," but can now say Christmas trees like a pro.

On Saturday, we put up the tree during JD's nap and he was so excited to come down to see it after he woke up!

He has looked at all the ornaments and loves the ones we put down low that he is allowed to touch. Every morning, we have to turn on the tree and look at all the ornaments all over again.

He is just so amazed by Christmas this year! I love sharing the holidays with him!

So Thankful!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm so thankful for these two guys!

And our little one on the way!!

Falling into Fall

It has been a tough autumn for us! Between my hugely pregnant self and JD's neverending illnesses (thank you 4 year molars), we haven't been able to enjoy the fall as much this year.

But we did manage to get out to the park to make some leaf collages with our playgroup. JD loved finding the different color leaves and we were all amazed to see how beautiful the trees could be around here!

We also made it to the arboretum for some pumpkin and fall pictures with JD's cousins. We all took pictures, but our friend Rachel Cooke took some beautiful ones!

I can't believe it is almost time to say goodbye to turkeys and pumpkins and hello to Christmas trees and lights!! How quickly the time flies!

Showering With Love

On Saturday morning, Baby Meg had her first baby shower! My sister Dara, our friend Emily and my friend Tricia threw me the best brunch shower ever! My mom opened up her home for us.

Starting with the so-cute invitations that matched Meg's nursery decor so well, the shower was just perfect! It was a great blend of old friends from EDS and my book club to newer friends from JD's playgroup and Baby Boot Camp!

Jon, Josh and Jordan provided the incredible food - french toast layered with bananas and strawberries, topped with some kind of maple rum sauce. Yum!!

My sister did a phenomenal job on embroidering all sorts of cute clothing for Baby Meg to hang on a clothesline! I am so lucky to have such talented friends and family!

I really enjoyed getting some time to visit with everyone who attended. I felt so loved and I know Meg will have all sorts of loving "aunties" when she is born!

We are ready for Meg's arrival in about a month!

Thank You Jesus!

It is so timely with Thanksgiving right around the corner that JD has started to understand the idea of being thankful. We always kick off our mealtimes with JD saying Thank You Jesus Amen! JD has also said it at bedtime for his nighty-night prayer.

Recently, he has started to add what he is thankful for in his prayers. I just think this is so precious and it has actually brought me to tears a few times when I hear all the things for which he is thankful.

Especially when I hear things like "Thank you Jesus for the muddy mud (he loves to watch dirt car racing with his daddy)." There are some other references to washing cars and race cars too...you can see where his interests lie these days.

I'm very hopeful that we have a prayer warrior on our hands!!

Here is one of his nightly prayers (sound only)...

Moving On Up

Three weeks after JD's entry into the toddler bed, he has now graduated to his very first big boy room!

JD went to spend the weekend with his grandma and grandpa and have a little fun on the farm up there, so we could get his big boy room put together as a surprise!

We are still missing a couple of pieces of art and a book case unit to store toys, but other than that, we were able to get the room assembled.

His room is, of course, a firefighter room! Over the past month, Jon built the bed and we painted it on Friday night. My mom found the bedding and we already had his little playtable and a lot of the accessories.

JD was pretty excited when he saw his room for the first time this afternoon. He counted all the firetrucks in the room and when he sat on his bed for the first time, he said, "I really like it!"

It doesn't get better than that! We still have some finishing touches, but he has already taken his first nap (a successful three hour one at that) in his new room and he is looking forward to sleeping there tonight!

Time Out

Yes, I do sometimes just need some time out, but that isn't what this post is about today.

Ever since JD entered the "terrible twos" (which really haven't been that terrible for us), he has started to understand cause and effect a little better. Which means for us, we can discipline him and he understands why (at least most of the time).

We've employed a method of warnings and time outs for the most part. Spankings are reserved for the most severe offenses. But the warnings and time outs had been working for us.

For instance, if JD throws his toys, he first gets a warning. If he does it again, he gets one more warning. Then if the unthinkable happens and he does it AGAIN, he gets put into time out for 2 minutes. Sometimes, we will put the toy into time out if it is a repeat offense (this is almost as effective).

But recently, I have begun to question the time out method. Especially since my son has started to put himself into time out. Hmmm....kind of takes the punish out of the punishment if he WANTS to go to time out.

Now if I give him a warning, he automatically goes to the time out chair and says "sorry for (fill in the blank), now can I get down?" Since I didn't even put him in time out to begin with, this isn't working too well for me!

And if he stopped doing the offense, then I would consider myself lucky to have a self-punishing kid. But as soon as he pulls himself out of his own time outs, he continues to do whatever it is he wasn't supposed to do.

I wonder what Supernanny would say about that!

Can I Have Some Candy?

Halloween was quite the event for JD this year. He grasped the concept of saying "trick or treat" and getting some candy pretty fast.

We went over to Dara and Josh's for some dinner and playtime before the kids went out to trick or treat. We had a tough time convincing JD to leave the cars behind and to go out for candy instead.

He LOVED the scary decorations on the street and asked to go back to houses that he knew had scary stuff.

By the end of the night, JD had decided it was easier to just ask for the candy instead of saying trick or treat. But he still waited patiently at each house for his turn and said thank you with a smile after each treat.

Now what to do with all that candy...

So Much Fun, It's Scary!

JD is so excited about all things "scary," from pumpkins to skeletons. He points them out on houses and at the grocery store and doesn't really appear to be that scared of any of it, just more interested.

We had a Halloween cookie decorating playdate on Friday with our friends Tricia and her daughter Margaret. JD LOVES to play at Margaret's house because she has so many fun toys! It was hard to get him focused to actually decorate a cookie!

Our church also had trunk or treat on Sunday, so JD got to wear his Halloween costume for the first time. My sister and I decided to do a trunk around the theme of "The Polar Express" this year. JD wore his train engineer costume and the girls wore pajamas. Jon and Josh wore their chefs jackets and handed out hot chocolate.

We had some relatives from Indiana visiting this weekend too (my dad's brother and sister and her husband) and so we had a real Santa Claus for the kids to talk to also!

JD and Kenna were just "monkeying around" a bit!

Trunk or Treat is always so much fun, but always hectic getting it all pulled together! We got second place(ish) for the kids' choice award (who doesn't like Santa, after all).

We also had a fun Halloween playdate yesterday with our playgroup, complete with scary treats and games for the kids! So fun!

We can't wait for Halloween this weekend!!

Just a Few Updates

JD and I have been battling some illness over the past week, so I have been a little lax on posting lately.

Here are a couple of pictures that I thought were pretty cute of my little boy, who is not looking so little to me anymore!

Look at the size of those feet!

On another note, I am finding it really hard to resist buying little girl things for my little girl on the way! I knew it was going to be difficult, but I keep finding the cutest little things that I just know Meg will look adorable in.

Over the weekend, we had another Food Creates Community event at my friend Tricia's house. So much fun!