Ready... Set...

We have been doing a lot to prepare for Van to come soon. Soon = 43 days exactly. Well, give or take a few days, depending on his schedule. But as for me and Evie, we are counting down the days. We made a paper chain so that Evie could take off one link per day until it's time for Van to get here. I think this has helped her "see" how much longer she has to wait.

And is she ever ready! She went to a big siblings class at the hospital a few weeks ago. She learned how to hold a baby, change a diaper, ask visitors to wash their hands, etc. Lately, she has practiced going through a series of questions to find out why her baby dolls are crying. "Would you like a bottle? No? Is your diaper dirty? No? Do you just want me to hold you? Oh, you do!" Yep, I think she's ready to be a big sister. (Pictured left, Evie paying close attention to the teacher at her big siblings class)

The craziest part of the hospital class was when we started seeing all of the similarities between the families in the class. There were 4 families, all with little girls. Each girl was the first born, and each family was expecting a little boy. To make things even crazier... when we announced we were from Louisiana, two of the other families said they were, too! So, a family from Slidell, one from New Orleans, and us from Lafayette all ended up in the same big siblings group in a New Hampshire hospital. What are the odds???

We have also cleared out our extra bedroom to convert it into a nursery. The paint has gone up, the furniture has been cleaned and set up, and the decorating is coming along. And I learned an important lesson along the way. I had spent most of one weekend painting all of the window frame and closet a nice shade of white and the walls a beautiful robin's egg blue. Evie was obviously needing attention, so I promised her when I finished with all of the painting and her dad set up the furniture, she could help decorate. Well, "helping decorate" in 4-yr-old language means literally creating the decorations. So, Evie has been working hard every weekend since drawing all things "boy." She has decided on different themes for each wall... animals, space, and sports. She has chosen the images and drawn them herself. And then I have helped her cut them out and stick them up on the walls. (pictured right, Evie's elephant, lion, tiger, giraffe, and bee.)

At first I thought I would let her have her fun, and then take it all down for more "traditional" decorations. But the longer we leave the drawings up, the more they grow on me. She really is putting a lot of energy into making them "just so," and she is so proud when they are hung on the wall. I decided that we would probably move the comfy chair out of the room in a year or so, and then want to rearrange the furniture. So, for the first year, Van may have homemade artwork made by his loving sister to entertain him. (pictured right, Evie's star, Jupiter, plane, and rocket ship)

As for me and Van, we are doing OK. At my last Dr's appointment, she commented that I was "literally carrying this entire baby out in front of my body." I thought she was joking or teasing, so I laughed. Then she told me, "No, I'm serious." Apparently you can feel the top and the beginning of the back side of my uterus. So, literally, the entire baby is sitting outside of my body cavity, with little to no support from the core of my body. I asked if this was OK, and then she finally laughed and said, "Yeah, OK for the baby, but you're probably going to hurt a lot before it's all over!" Great!

I am getting tired lately, but I think it's due to the beginning of the new semester at school and the re-starting of the night study halls that I run on Monday and Tuesday nights. By the time I go into work at 8:30 a.m. and get home around 8 or 8:30 p.m. on those nights, I'm exhausted! Luckily, Joel is a fantastic husband and father. He and Evie have a new tradition of going to his school's cafeteria to eat dinner whenever I work late. And, of course, all of the students there gush over Evie, and on top of that, she gets ice cream from the soft serve station. So, now when I tell her that mommy's working late, she cheers, "Yeah for the cafeteria!!!" LOL. At least she doesn't miss me too much. (pictured right, Evie's stripped bouncy ball, baseball, football, hockey stick and puck, and a blue frisby)

But I think we will all be ready for Van to get here soon. It's getting close now. Only 6 more weeks... or 43 more days. But who's counting? Oh right... we are!

And his name shall be...

Yes, that's correct. We finally have a name for this baby #2. When I was pregnant with Evie, we had been talking about names for her for so long that we knew exactly what we were going to name her. But this little boy has been more difficult. Since Evie is named after my side of the family, we really wanted to honor Joel's family with our baby boy. So, after much deliberation, we have decided to name our son....Van Doran Stake.

Van Doran was Joel's great-grandfather (Mr. JD's mom's dad) who was a hard-working, "salt-of-the-earth" farmer and cattleman. He was well-liked in the community and became an active Christian later in life. He is also where Mr JD got his middle name from (The D stands for Doran). So, Van Doran seemed like a good roll model for our young son. If our Van turns out to be a hard-working, well-liked, Christian, I will be proud.

We have started calling the baby "Van" at home, and Evie now hugs and kisses Van goodnight every day. (pictured at left, Evie and Van at 25 weeks). We are starting to have fun picking out things for the new nursery, which we will start working on after Christmas! So, stay tuned for photos of the new nursery as soon as we put it all together.

Thanks for all of the love and support that you have been sending our way. We feel so blessed to be "completing" our little family with a baby boy.

Halloween Tricked Us!

This year, Halloween pulled the biggest trick on all of us! We had a HUGE snow storm the week before Halloween, and most of Nashua was still out of power by Halloween night. So, instead of Trick-or-Treating that weekend, we did this...

And Joel and Evie had a huge snowball fight...

That looked like so much fun from the safety of inside the glass door, nice and warm where I watched the entire thing.

We actually had a lot of fun this week without power. Our home was only out for 2 days, so as soon as our power came back on, we invited 19 people from our Sunday School group to come over. They all brought whatever food was about to go bad in their fridge, and we cooked and ate and had a big party. The kids went downstairs and played in the basement and watched a movie. It was so much fun, that Evie asked if we could do it every night. I'm sure everyone enjoyed the fellowship, but I also bet everyone was glad when their own power came back on! Some of our neighbors didn't have power for a week, so our home also became the shower and laundry central for the next few days. And even with power, our cable and Internet was off, so even our own little family had a good week of playing HUNDREDS of rounds of Hi Ho Cherry-O and dominoes.

Finally, all power was restored, and Nashua held Halloween in November. But the kids didn't care. Evie dressed up in her cute butterfly outfit that her Nana brought her from Arkansas.

We planned to join the McKay boys down the road for trick-or-treating. They dressed as the three musketeers and guarded the little butterfly all night.

Then after 2-3 houses, we met up with two other families from our church, the Minches and the Packs. The older girls were dressed as nerds, and the younger was a hobo. The older girls help with Evie's classes at church, so she was thrilled to see them, and even more thrilled to get to spend serious Halloween time with them.

So, we decided to join groups.

With all of the different families and all of the different people to visit, we ended up walking all over our neighborhood. Evie LOVED being one of the "big kids." And the big kids did such a great job protecting her and making sure she didn't get left behind and making sure she got plenty of candy. We stayed out much later than we planned because we were having so much fun. Evie didn't want to leave, but when her plastic pumpkin was full and so overflowing that Joel and I had to put candy in our pockets, we decided it was time to finally go home. So, even though Halloween tried to trick us this year, we had the last laugh. And I hope we laugh and have just as much fun next year!

It's a...

BOY!!! We had an ultrasound this Thursday. The entire family went, and Evie was so excited to see her little brother on the screen. But the technician took too long for Evie. She kept asking, "Is it a boy or girl???" She wasn't impressed with the size of the head or the counting of the heart chambers.
But we were impressed with her. Just before the ultrasound, we took Evie to her doctor's appointment. The doctor commented, "Wow, she's tall." She is still above the 90% on height (43 inches!) and only in the 60% for weight. The doctor commented, "That weight is all in her height. She is long and lean." Evie proved why when the doc asked her what her favorite food was, and she replied with, "WATERMELLON!" The doctor was also impressed that we hadn't been back since our last check-up a year ago. I guess we're just a healthy family. Let's hope that trend continues with baby #2.
As for our baby boy, our next task is to come up with a name. That, of course, is what everyone is asking for these days. But, no, we don't have a name. We don't even have many contenders. Right now, we are just going back and forth vetoing each other's choices. LOL. With Evie, Joel and I both agreed right from the start. This little boy is already turning out to be more work!
We should probably call him Frosty or Kris Kringle, because the night after we had the ultrasound, this happened.... That's right. SNOW! In October! And we're supposed to get 6-10 inches more this weekend! So, for now, he's Frosty hairy Eyeball. I'm guessing that won't stick!
Or maybe we should name him something Biblical. While we were taking some ultrasound photos, Frosty Hairy Eyeball kept lifting his hands to his face, until he finally rested them in a prayerful position. I guess that's a good sign...and a good validation that God does know us even in the womb!

Bunnie Buddies

So, I broke down and bought the first thing for the new baby today. I blame it on my thriftiness. See, I received a coupon in the mail for a local baby store. So, after my Dr's check up, I had an hour to kill before I needed to pick up Evie from daycare. So, I decided to check out the store. And there, in the middle of the store, was a display of Bunnies By The Bay stuff. Bunnies By The Bay is the company that made Evie's beloved Hoppy that she still sleeps with and takes everywhere with her. We've bought several other items from them over the years for Evie, and they are all equally adorable. So, even though we don't know the sex of the child yet, and even though I swore I wouldn't buy anything until it was closer to the due date....well, I had a COUPON, after all! So, this child will have a light brown bunny all her/his own (see photo to left).

And I don't think Evie will mind "sharing" her love of bunnies. She has gotten even more interested in the baby in mommy's tummy. She has started telling EVERYONE that she's going to be a big sister. On her "about me" drawings at school, she always has some element of her being a big sister incorporated. Unfortunately, this usually manifests itself with a normal looking Daddy, a normal looking Evie, and a mommy with a HUGE tummy! It's a good thing she's so happy to show me these drawings, or I might be offended! (right Evie and her Hoppy when she was 2)

Evie is so excited, she has picked out a name for her new brother / sister -- Harry Eyeball Stake. Everyone so far likes the name. Uumm... we'll see how much Mom and Dad agree when it gets closer. And it should be about that time soon. We go in for the ultrasound in two weeks. Joel, Evie, and I are all equally excited (Evie gets to go with us to share in seeing her little brother / sister on the big screen). So far, the guesses by our friends (and even one by the nurse practitioner at my Dr.'s office) have been equally split between boy and girl. Feel free to make your own wagers. We'll let everyone know soon!

Baby # 2

Well, it's been a while, but we have a good reason to re-start the blog. Baby #2 is on the way! Joel and I have been debating having another child for quite a while now, and we finally decided to take the plunge. Evie was SSSSOOOOO excited when we told her we were having another baby. She is already picking out which of her toys she will give to the new baby and how she will help be a "little mommy." She is BEGGING for the baby to sleep in her room with her, but we'll see how long that lasts once the real baby is here and crying throughout the night!

Joel and I went this week to a prenatal ultrasound. It's still too early to tell what sex the baby is, but we had a lot of fun actually getting a first look at baby #2. The technician performing the ultrasound kept commenting on hos active this child already was. The baby kept turning and rolling and kicking. For about 5 straight minutes, the baby kept kicking its legs like doing a bicycle kick. The technician was so tickled that she kept giggling. She finally commented, "This baby will never walk. It's going to RUN everywhere!"

Then, at another period, the baby started moving its mouth and lips. The technician laughed out loud again and commented that it was either blowing kisses at the camera or already talking up a storm. Hhhmmmm.... an active child who likes to talk? Why does that sound familiar?!? From the photos that we received, it seems this child is also very long and lean, much like its older sister. It will be so fun to see just how alike and how different this baby and Evie will be. Either way, we know that our lives are about to be filled even more!

Fun in February

The month of February has been a busy one for the Stake clan. With Evie getting more active, more social, and more communicative, our lives have quickly turned exhaustive.

At the beginning of this month, Evie was invited to her first birthday party since we moved to New Hampshire. The party was for a Chinese girl at the day care, Michelle, who is probably Evie’s best friend. At least Michelle (or “Shell” as Evie calls her) is the child Evie talks about the most at home. So, we knew that Evie was one of the “special” guests that Michelle wanted at her party, mostly because Michelle’s mom kept calling and emailing to make sure we were coming. (Pictured left, Michelle Evie and Kylie are the first to gather around to EAT!!!)

What we didn’t know was that Kylie and Max, two other Chinese students in Evie’s class, were the only other kids from daycare who were invited. The rest of the children at the party were from the Chinese community in Nashua. So…that meant that Evie was the only Caucasian at the party! She certainly didn’t seem to mind, or even notice, while we ate traditional Chinese food and the rest of the adults and kids spoke in Chinese. But she did look a little surprised when it was time to cut the cake, and everyone sang the birthday song in Chinese! Michelle’s mom was very accommodating, though, and we sang the song over in English just for Evie! And it made me a little proud that our child obviously doesn’t mind kids who are “different” than her.

One thing that was obvious to me and to the other parents at the party was Evie’s exceptional language skills compared to the other children. Evie was the youngest at the party, and yet she spoke constantly to all of the adults and children there. Of course, she was the only one there only trying to learn one language instead of two, but Evie’s teachers have mentioned her excellent vocabulary to us as well, and Joel and I are certainly having a hard time keeping up with all of her words. She has also started learning the letters and what sounds each one can make. Being the little social butterfly that she is, we started using the names of her classmates as references for many letters. So, now K is for Kylie, T is for Timmy, L is for Lucy, etc. At first Evie got a little confused and thought the letter actually BELONGED to that person, which led to many amusing scenes as Evie chased Giggsy around trying to give her the letter G while yelling, “G for Giggsy! G for Giggsy!” It is also amusing as she spots various letters around the house, and “claims” them for various people. The other day, I was wearing a sweatshirt with “LIMITED” written across the front. Evie pointed to my shirt and exclaimed, “Lucy! Ice cream! Maya! Ice cream! Timmy! Evie! Daddy!!!” So…now we are working on using the actual names of the letters so that it’s not confusing to her kindergarten teachers one day when she calls all Ws “Mrs. Walsh’s letter!”

My parents also came for a visit this month, and a usual, Evie loved being spoiled by the grandparents. The first night they were here, Joel and I left the trio to get into trouble as we went to Joel’s co-worker’s wedding. All we knew was that the grandparents were bringing presents and fudge! So, we were pretty sure Evie would have a great time! By the time we got home, Evie didn’t want Grampa and Grandmom to leave to go to the hotel, and she cried all night after they left.

By the next morning, Evie was watching out the window for her grandparents to return. We piled into our car and went for brunch before driving into Boston. My parents have been to visit several times, but we had never gone into Boston. So, we decided to check out the Children’s Museum for a day of toddler fun, which turned out to be a great idea!!! The museum was three stories of activities designed specifically for children under the age of five. And, as an added bonus all military and their immediate family got in free. So, Dad’s military ID paid for him and mom and…me! And then educators also received free admission, so Joel’s faculty ID got him in for nothing, too. Which meant the only person who had to pay was EVIE!

The first floor was a lot of fun and mess! The first room Evie ran to was the bubble room. There were short tubs full of soapy water and all sorts of instruments to make bubbles. Grandmom knelt down at one of the tubs with Evie and helped show her (and the other kids gathered around) how to use the instruments to make bubbles. It didn’t take long for her to have an audience of little children. I guess even when on vacation, a teacher can’t help but teach.

Evie also loved the boats room. However, true to character, Evie immediately found a rubber ducky among all of the boats, and claimed it as her own, carrying it all around the room from water tub to water tub. And, true to character for Joel and me, we decided against using the rubber smocks and just let Evie splash in the water and get wet. She had a blast just pouring water and splashing, while the rest of us laughed at another poor father who was trying to explain the physics behind water power to his 2 year old son.

Next, Evie loved the special time with her daddy crawling under a turtle exhibit and watching the turtles swim in the water. Of course, pretty soon other little kids became curious as to what they were doing under there and decided to join them. Joel was stuck in a tiny space with more kids than he had ever bargained for!

Evie also enjoyed the game room, which had musical chairs that played music when you sat on them, an interactive wall with projected balls that bounced when you hit the wall, and a chess set. Evie was able to play her first game of chess. She looked very serious as she studied the pieces and tried to figure out where they needed to go.

We are pretty sure she won as she finally declared herself the victor and took the knight piece as her trophy.

We finally retired to the “under two” room where Evie was free to run and play with the playhouse, train tracks, life-size car, slides, and fish tanks. Grandmom and Grampa followed her around while Joel and I sat and watched other children with their exhausted parents and were thankful to have adult help! The museum was a blast and great entertainment for both toddlers and adults. We will definitely have to visit it again soon!

The next day was President’s day, and I had the day off to visit with my parents as they played with Evie and Joel went to work. We decided to all bundle up and go outside to play in the snow for as long gas Evie could stand the cold. Little did we know that Evie would be the last one to want to go in!

I was worried that she would sink in the deep snow that we had in our front yard, but I never realized that as the lightest of all of us, she actually had the easiest time! She loved running and running as her grandparents chased her. Then Grandmom and Grampa started a snowball fight while I made our very first snowman. Evie and the grandparents helped to finish off the snowman by finding two sticks for arms and a handful of rocks for the eyes and mouth. After Evie pronounced that his name was Frosty, we decided it was time to go in. Everyone was exhausted except for Evie, of course. She spent the rest of the afternoon playing at full speed – dancing, singing, and running around – while the rest of us tried to keep up.

The next day, my parents kept Evie while Joel and I both had to work. They played at home until the afternoon when it was time for Joel to take them to the airport and it was time to say goodbye to the grandparents. Evie was ok with them leaving until the next morning when she ran to the window to look for Grampa and Grandmom and couldn’t understand why she had to go to school again. I guess it just means that they have to visit often!

Joel and I have finished off this month in adult style. This week, we both took a “personal day” on Thursday and drove up north to go skiing. Though we had both skied many times before through high school and college, we had never skied together. We were both pleasantly surprised that we were at the same level of skiing, and we had a blast enjoying being outside and spending quality time together.

Then, on Friday night, Joel’s favorite band from college, Toad the Wet Sprocket, was in Boston. So, after Evie went to sleep and the babysitter arrived, we went to Boston and joined a room full of other “30 + somethings” who were all dancing and enjoying reliving their college years. I guess we’re finally learning how to enjoy both our family time and quality time together as adults. And I think it’s good timing, too, as Evie is soon to enter into the terrible two stage! (As is evidenced from the "accidental" crayons all over the table the other afternoon. Oops, Mommy!)