...and then there were 5!!!

So, for those of you who haven't heard....we are expecting baby #3 May 7, 2008 (that sounds WAY too far away!). That makes me 12-weeks along today! Done with the first trimester, but still too afraid to try a day without Zophran (the miracle anti-nausea drug). We are really excited to have another little spirit from our Heavenly Father in our home. Girl or boy, we will be excited...but send the girl vibes our way. :)

The boys, well mainly Cooper, are really excited too. The other day, when they did an ultrasound to find the heartbeat, he said, "was it a boy or a girl in the picture?!" He is way too anxious. "Mom, is the baby big enough to come out yet"? "Mom, I want to give you a kiss, and then I want to give our baby a kiss," and then he kisses my tummy. We were going to try and hold off telling them, but I am not kidding, one night at dinner Cooper out of the blue asked, "Mom, do you have a baby in your tummy?" I just looked at him stunned and said, "Well, actually I do." I mean, I know I have gained a few pounds...but I think he has some intuition. Maybe it was the fact that I couldn't get off the couch for a few weeks until I got the good drugs. :)

We are also glad that we will be having the baby while we still live here in St. Louis, avoiding a change of doctor mid-way. I still can't believe that I will have a 4 and 2-year-old before the end of the year...let alone be so close to #3. Gunner and the baby will be 28 months apart.

So there's our big news. I am expecting lots of advice from all you great moms out there who make it look easy!

Fall Festival & Our Firemen

This weekend the housing company sponsored a Fall Festival for all the people living on the Air Force Base. Each person got a free pumpkin, and each family got a free mum. They also had yummy popcorn, a few games for the kids, and best of all, the Fire Department was there. They had a fun obstacle course for the kids. They dressed in their uniforms and it went a little something like this...

-Climb up the blow-up ladder and slide down the slide
-Run over to a tarp and stop, drop, and roll across the tarp
-Help a fireman pull a dummy across the next tarp
-use a mallet to hammer a piece or wood through a path
-AND BEST OF ALL!...help a fireman pull the hose out and spray a cone

Cooper was SO into the competition. As most of you know, he is a pretty competitive kid! They had an announcer saying the kids names over the loudspeaker and cheering them on. It was cute. Gunner did love getting dressed up...and just joined the course as he pleased, mostly enjoying the stop, drop and roll.


They also got to climb up in the fire truck, and meet Smokey the Bear and Sparky the Dog.


Earlier this week, the boys also got to meet the firemen at Story Time at the library for National Fire Safety Month.


Also, we went to this month's Family Story Time and got to watch these two cute old women at the library make fools of themselves as they dressed up mummies, flew around dinosaurs, and read and acted out stories. They are really cute. The boys got to make these hands with candy corn as the fingernails, and then filled with popcorn, and then they got presented a reading certificate. They loved it. Except Gunner was scared of the mummy.

Gunner has been pretty funny with Halloween stuff this year. Cooper loves to go to Target and push all the "try me" buttons on all the decorations. Gunner is scared to death! Anytime he sees or hears something Halloweenish, he whines as says, "No Ha-ween!" I think it's pretty cute. Cooper is counting down the days until Halloween. He is excited to be Superman, but already has his costumes lined up for the next few years. "Mom, next year I want to be Spongebob, and then I want to be a skeleton, and then a pirate, and then I am going to be Batman again, ok?"

A Wild Weekend

We have discovered one more thing we like about the Air Force...we get all the "bank holidays" off. So, in honor of Columbus Day, we had a good 3-day weekend together. It was a lot of fun watching conference, but here are some other fun events.

First of all a trip to the zoo on Friday. The St. Louis Zoo was a lot of fun. Cooper makes sure we distinguish between the "St. Louis" Zoo and the real zoo... the Cleveland Zoo. The first pictures are the hippos. It is fun to get the underwater view...and neat to see the fish eating off them...or kissing them as Cooper says. The next pic is the cute baby elephant. It was so fun to watch him toddle around. There are so many elephants there. They have a few places in the zoo where kids can get wet and cool off. It would have been nice to know so we could bring a change of clothes, but it didn't stop Cooper! The "Children's Zoo" part also had a place to go in and pet the goats. Cooper took a seat right next to one! The zoo keeper brought out a barn owl too. It was one of Gunner's favs along with the snake, porcupines, and fish. Because the zoo is FREE, thanks to budweiser, we treated ourselves to icecream before heading home.



Saturday we went bowling on-base. Gunner spends everyday finding empty cups, juice cups, and water bottles around the house to use for "bowlin" around the house, so he was so excited to do the real thing. He used a ramp. Cooper is getting good at just running and throwing his ball. I think both boys beat the parents! Well, before we even got started, Gunner tried to pic up my ball and slipped, dropped the ball, which bounced, and fell on his hands. The bowling ball came right down on his finger with Andrew and me just watching. It was so sad, and he kepts holding up his immediately swollen hand saying "I brake it!" Then, later that night, something happened while he was playing by himself in Cooper's room, and he came out with this black eye. Rough day!



Today we went to the Science Center--another great FREE thing about St. Louis! There was this huge T-Rex exhibit with a bloody Triceretops that looked like it was breathing and moving around. The T-Rex was moving around and roaring. I have to say, neither boy was too excited...more scared. The did have a really neat "Discovery Room" for the younger kids. Cooper could have stayed there all day.


Gunner is a big colorer lately. I love the way his sits when he colors. So intense! The bad new is each time he colors...he usually sneaks a few pictures in on furniture or walls!


This wasn't part of the weekend, but we discovered this really neat wooden park called "Long Acre Park". There is a huge, old-school wooden park that the boys LOVE. There is also a man-made lake and lots of paved walking paths. They loved feeding the ducks and geese. Cooper got pretty good on the mini-rings.

Fall Fun!

I too love this time of year! It has been fun to read all the posts of those who are excited for the changing weather too. Unfortunately, it is still upper 80s and humid here. I've heard the weather changes fast though.

So the following pictures are from the "Family Fun Days" at Eckert's Milstadt Farm.


They had so many fun things to do! They had a huge pumpkin cannon that shot pumpkins down this hill over a mile! They could change the angle and shoot over 600 feet in the air too! So cool...although the boys got a little scared. They also had some carnival rides, 9-hole mini golf, carnival games, lots of animals, a huge slide, a little ride through the apples behind a mini tractor, and when it got dark, a Haunted Hayride (Cooper's favorite). The boys had a lot of fun, and the best part was we got in for free from a military officer spouse VIP pass...and once you were in everything was free except food.


The pig races were Cooper's favorite. He got picked from the crowd to cheer for the "orange" pig for one of the races. His pig won, and he got a pig nose as a prize. He really got into cheering...and Gunner did too.

So for those of you who are wondering why Andrew's smile looks a little grey, it is because he got braces! Him and another resident did them on each other. If you can tell from this picture...there is one tooth next to his front middle teeth that is crooked. The good news is that he only has to have them for 6-months, and I have only been injured by them once! :)