Tidbits

1. First a baby update...I'm at 33 weeks now, just 7 more weeks to go. (Last week was my 32nd birthday, and I was exactly 32 weeks along!) Everything is going very well. Eli is an active little one, from the time I wake up til I go to sleep at night. I'm up to every other week for appointments, and in just 3 more weeks I'll start going every week. I've reached a certain number in weight that I really hoping to avoid, but I've still gained less than 20 pounds, so I'm not worried about it.
2. What I am worried about it Xander getting used to the new baby. He just seems sort of disinterested, says he doesn't want to be a big brother, and he really doesn't like it when I call the old playroom "Eli's bedroom."
3. We've enjoyed the wintry weather since Christmas, especially since Uncle Mike had a couple extra days and was able to take the boys sledding with us. We went to Dix campus where there are lots of big hills. We tied a 200 foot climbing rope to the sled so we didn't have to keep hiking up and down the hill. It worked very well, and the boys had a blast. This last bit of wintry weather, ie. the snow/ice/sleet/freezing rain that we got Monday night and Tuesday morning and caused the kids to lose a day and two half days of school, was not as great. It wasn't something the boys could really play in, but on Wednesday, we explored the backyard to see what the ice was like. We found a really cool formation at the bottom of the downspout, plus sheets of ice on the swings.
4. I still have more Christmas decorations to pack away. The manger is still on top of the entertainment center and the stocking holders are still on the mantle. Then of course, we have to put the boxes away to store til next year.
5. I'm making progress on Eli's bedroom, and as soon as Mark anchors the shelves in the boys' room, I can really make some headway. We're having a shower to celebrate Eli's birth in two weeks, and I would really love to have his room done (at least partly) before the shower.
6. Speaking of the boys' room, just in time for New Years, Mark finished Zack's loft bed! He now has an extra little bedroom underneath his bed. We put his dresser in there temporarily (we're hoping to build some shelves instead), and he has his desk underneath. The part that he loves is that there's a door that he can lock so his brother can't get to his toys. We moved Xander out of the race car bed and into Zack's old twin bed. We helped make it exciting by letting him pick out some sheets for his new bed. He went straight for the Toy Story sheets, but since we didn't pick them up right away, he looked around and fell in love with the Spiderman sheets. So much to my disappointment, my three-and-a-half-year-old has Spiderman sheets on his bed. I almost cried! Also that night, he picked out a little Spiderman/Green Goblin set instead of an Imaginext robot thingie that would have been a much better deal and much more age-appropriate for him.
7. Mark got me Adobe Photoshop Elements for my birthday, but I haven't installed it on the computer yet. I'm looking forward to having fun with photos, and once I do, I'm sure I'll put lots up on here.