A Birthday Cake for Jesus

One of our Christmas Eve traditions is that Sage and I bake a birthday cake for Jesus. This is a BIG deal to her, and she actually is quite capable to do a lot of it. Later on, Travis will read the Christmas story for us. I was so proud this morning. One of her cartoons was on this morning with a Christmas theme, and they were singing, "It's not about presents. It's about being with people you love." She said, "Mommy! That's not right. They're saying the wrong thing. Christmas is about JESUS." I was SO thankful. Even though we love Santa, and tomorrow he will have (most likely) overwhelmed her with presents, we celebrate because of Jesus. Merry Christmas, everyone. I pray it's your best yet.This is was our audience for the entire cake making process.
Pouring in the water.
Stirring it up
This is so you can see that it did say, "Happy Birthday Jesus." There's a reason for this picture.
Her favorite is the sprinkles.
And I let her do it however she wanted.
And how great of a mom am I? Icing for lunch.

Twas the Night BEFORE the night Before Christmas

Today is Christmas Eve, and tonight Santa will come and take all his elves back to the North Pole with him. So as one last hurrah, the elf threw herself a little Christmas party in our family room last night. We were all in shock when we walked into a room full of Christmas red and green streamers. Sage was thrilled.What a messy party

Then she hid in the top of the Christmas tree.
Boo boo and her elf

17 weeks

See how much Mayer has grown? This is what he does if you go outside near the deck. He won't let Chanel NEAR to get any attention either. Anyway, this was Saturday night of the Christmas program at our church. And TOMORROW is Christmas Eve, which I can't believe. Someone in this house is very excited.Bad boy. And poor Chanel
17 weeks (4 months)
Wow...ha, I mean, what caption do you put for these?

Sage's Christmas Party

Sage's school's Christmas party was today at Party Central, which is a place filled with inflatable slides, obstacle courses and bouncers. All of the kids there played so hard! There were many sweaty children running around, but they had a blast. Sage even woke up at 6:30am because she was so excited. Isn't that GREAT???!!!

Look at her! Notice her bracelet, which she calls a watch.
Down the slide, head-first of course.
She is MORE than ready for Christmas.
That's her friend, Hope. She's trying to help her in the bouncer. It was a little high for her.
She made it though, with a running start.
You can't really tell from the picture, but that slide is HUGE. It's as high as the ceiling, and she screamed with glee every time she went down it.

Sage and Hope holding hands.
Actually, these 3 are best friends in their class. It's Gracie, Hope and Sage. There was a period of time that Sage would come home talking like a baby. It was really annoying, and when I asked where she heard it, she'd say, "But Gracie talks like that." Finally I said, "Well the next time Gracie talks like that, you tell her that she needs to talk like a big girl and not a baby." That was before I found out she has a speech impediment. I took that one for the team. yeah.

I thought this was a cool picture though.
This was when they called the kids out on the floor to dance . This is them break dancing.
This is them doing the worm. Isn't that hilarious?
Trying to take a class picture. This was probably what most parents got. I thought it was cute and more candid. There are WAY too many cool things in there to stop and take a picture.
I did manage to get a good one though. They had a blast!

More Belly

Well, I never take these, and when I do, I almost always immediately delete them. If I'm going to post a picture of myself, I like to look like I didn't just roll out of bed. In my defense, I like to think I look put together most days, but when Travis gets home to take a picture, it's the end of a long day, and I could care less at that time. Unfortunately, I'm finding that my pregnancy is going by so fast, so I figure, you take the good with the bad. My hair is gross, I should've worn a black bra (it did NOT look like that in person), I didn't have makeup on.. blah blah. BUT it's the miracle of life. haha.

I think this is 15 weeks. I'm almost positive.
16 1/2 weeks

On Telling Sage

Well, I have to admit that I kind of dreaded telling Sage that it was a boy. For as long as I've been pregnant, if someone slightly mentioned that it MIGHT be a boy, she'd get upset. I would have rather told Travis it was another girl than told Sage it was a boy. Ha.

It didn't help that as I was walking down the hall to pick her up from her class that 2 different teachers asked if I knew what I was having because Sage told them that day that it was a girl, and we were naming her Carson. She is stuck on that name, and I have no idea where she heard it. Anyway, I wasn't sure of how and where I wanted to tell her, but as we were walking down the hall towards the exit, I just knelt down beside her and said, "Sage, guess what? I found out what the baby is today."

She said, "What is it?" I said, "It's a boy! You're going to have a brother!" Her face frowned and she said, "WHY???!!!" hahaha. But then I said, "Sage, it's still going to be a baby that you can take care of. He won't play with your dolls, and we will still have lots of fun with a boy. HARRISON is a boy, and he's your best friend." She said, "And Isacah." I said, "And who knows? Maybe next time, God will give us a girl, but THIS time, He wanted us to have a boy." Then she smiled and just like that walked on like it was good enough for her. Then when we got home she said, "Chanel, Mayer, aren't you excited it's a boy?!" She also told her tap teacher it's a boy, so I think she's good. Phew! It could've gone either way!

It's REALLY a boy!

Well, it's not anyone's best side, but hey, we had to know. For those that have no clue how to read these things, in the first one below it's bottom's up. Those would be the 2 legs and in between...well you get the idea. Now you can see what the ultrasound girl was saying. See the cord coming up further and looking unattached to what the arrow is pointing to?
And then here is another view of the same thing. Two legs with an arrow pointing to the fact that he is a "he." To the bottom right is the head. And maybe that blurry thing in the middle is a hand, I don't really know.

The Word

Well, the verdict is in: It's a boy! I'll post a picture so all you, "ARE YOU SURE?!" people can see. We're excited. Travis is ecstatic (he was teary); I'm a little unsure. Not to say I won't LOVE this baby, but I have a girl. I know what to do with a girl, but I know when this (NO name) child is born, it will be exactly what I wanted just like Sage was. So, now you all can start throwing some names this way because Travis and I really didn't want to start fighting over them until we could eliminate one sex. Let the fun begin. :)

Oh, and on a sidenote and to be a little more specific, everything is measuring perfectly. I've gained a total of 2 lbs so far (can I get a *woot, woot*). I opted not to have the "what if there are defects" bloodwork simply because...well there won't be. It would change nothing about the pregnancy other than cause unnecessary worry. Anyway, the baby was lazy; it wouldn't move. She said, "What do you want?" I said, "Well I personally would be thrilled with another girl, but my husband would love a boy." And she said, "Well the cord is right there between the legs...but see that right there? That's not cord. Let me see if I can get another view." And she turned the transducer some and prodded my stomach some (which did nothing to move him), and she said, "Yeah, see this? That's cord. Now see this? That is NOT cord." I laughed out loud, excited that I could hoard me knowing this news and Travis NOT knowing for as long as I pleased. I did tell him shortly after though, and he is ecstatic. Now...there's telling Sage. THAT could be tricky. She gets a little mad when people even SUGGEST a boy. We'll see how that goes.

A Special Visitor

There is a special house guest we have staying with us until Christmas. And yes, she is an elf. Her name is Cara, and she mysteriously showed up outside of Sage's bedroom 2 mornings ago. She had a letter with her, a Santa bag, and North Pole snowflakes. Maybe some of you with small children have an elf that is at your house too right now. Apparently, this is something that has gone on for quite some time during Christmastime, and this is our first year. These elves come after a year of making toys for kids. They bring instructions (in the letter) and snowflakes to be sprinkled on them at night. And these snowflakes are magic. They bring the elf to life while everyone else is sleeping, and they do mischievous things during the night. The letter says that Santa allows them to come during Christmastime to have fun and tell the kids that baby Jesus was born on Christmas day, a gift more precious than any in his sleigh. On Christmas, all the elves go back with Santa to the North Pole, but they say they'll be back each year at Christmas. I thought this was the cutest idea, and it turns out to be sooo much fun. Just look what that elf did the first night she was here. Sage LOVED it.Each place at our table was set with Sage's play dishes and food. Then she stacked some play milk and a cup on the candles to get to the chandelier. Sage couldn't believe it.

Beautiful

I stole this video from a friend's blog, but this is my mom's church. They did this drama on Sunday. They are real people, and these are their real testimonies. It is so beautiful to see people be so transparent with a dirty past (like we ALL have) and use it to illustrate God's love, forgiveness, power and grace. I know it's long, but it is definitely worth watching.


Cardboard Testimonies at New Vision Ministry Center from New Vision on Vimeo.

VOTE!

My next doctor's appointment is one week from today, and the suspense is KILLING me to know what this child is! The worst part is, I'm not 100% sure he'll do it (99.9% sure). I thought I knew, but honestly, I have NO idea. So, what do YOU think? I've added a poll to the right, so (hopefully) you have 6 days to vote. soooo, boy or girl???

When Streaming Goes Bad

Apparently the internet streaming of our church was off yesterday because....we were all blue.
I even had a hard time figuring out what day this was because I did NOT remember Steve wearing an orange shirt. My shirt WAS hot pink. ;) That's 15 weeks there too, and I'm still hanging on to my clothes. *applause*