Our little helper and BIG news!

Lately, Sophie has become quite the little helper. She has become quite bossy too! She is always babbling at us, in her own Sophie language, directing us about the house. She loves to help with the laundry. It doesn't matter if it is wet or dry, clean or dirty, she likes to pull things out and sometimes put non-clothing items into the dryer. In the background of this video you can hear Benny having a world class meltdown because he wanted to help with the laundry too and was jealous that we wanted a video of just Sophie. As you can imagine, Benny is actually a good laundry helper, and I like him to help out. Sophie causes more trouble than anything, but it is sure cute.

Sophie also likes to help me feed Smokey and throw away her dirty diapers into the garage. When we put her to bed at night, she directs us the entire time about where she wants her two blankets. She then points to the side of the crib to make sure we put it up. Finally she points over to her music box so we don't forget to play it for her. It is so fun to watch her personality develop!

Once Benny was finished with his jealous episode, we let him come help with the laundry too. Some day I will be begging these kids to help me with the chores!

Now for the BIG news! We are expecting baby number 3!!!! My blogging absence in August was primarily due to awful 'all day' sickness. I have no idea why they call it morning sickness, because mine only heightened during the day. Poor Nick has put up with me after several weeks of not wanting to cook or even smell dinner. This pregnancy has been by far the worst of all of mine, maybe even all the others combined. But at 12+ weeks now, I am starting to feel much better and have more energy. Besides feeling sick all of the time, everything is going well. I have even had an ultrasound and the baby looks great. I am due in late March just before Sophie's 2nd Birthday! Of course we won't be able to resist finding out if we are having a boy or a girl. We don't really have a preference, but long term were thinking a girl would be easier so she and Sophie could share a bedroom. Only time will tell!

Benny is super excited about becoming a big brother again. He actually wants another brother and another sister. He wants the brother to be his twin. Poor kid, he still can't grasp exactly what a twin is. He says either way he will be happy, but a brother would be better than a sister. He was the first to know a few weeks ago. I showed him my ultrasound pictures and he guessed right away what the pictures were of. Soon he was telling everyone, so we decided to finally share the news.

For now I am getting an idea what is like to take of three. Nick had hip surgery last week, and I swear it is like having another child at home. He had been a great patient, and is moving around quite well now. It still causes extra work around the house but it won't be for much longer. Unfortunately it looks like he is going to have to have another surgery in the future. He has a very uncommon hip problem and very few surgeons can preform the surgery to correct it. Sometime he will probably has to have an 'open-hip' operation that should correct the problem. Even having the scope here last week was a big deal for the hospital. His surgeon does 4 knees a week, but only 2 hips a year. Physical therapy sent him home last Friday without any treatment because they had never had anyone before with Nick's condition and didn't know how to handle him yet. He seems to be making a speedy recovery and really, it has been nice having him home so much!

The First 5 Years......

Happy 5th!

I wanted to do a bigger post for Benny's birthday, but it was crazy here last night when I was trying to blog. It's quite for now, so here's a quick trip through the first 5 years. We love you Benny!

Asleep just hours after he was born...

1 year old.....

2 years...

Blowing out the candles on his 3rd Birthday...

Apples Days at Fort Riley near his 4th....

Many more memories to come!

Benny's Birthday Weekend

Last Thursday was Benny's 5th Birthday! I can hardly believe it, the time just seems to be flying by. We had a bit of a bumpy start on his birthday, but the end of the day, Benny stated that it was his 'best day ever'! Late Wednesday, he complained that his eye was bothering him. On his birthday, he awoke with it almost completely swollen closed. I was pretty sure it wasn't pink eye but I still kept a close eye on it. By mid-morning, I had to make the call that he couldn't go to school and have his birthday celebration as planned. Instead, we headed to the doctor. Poor kid, he took it like a trooper. Nick met us at the hospital, and it was a good thing, because we were there nearly four hours. The family doc decided that it looked like a scratch and not an infection. So, they irrigated his eye, and then put in glow in the dark drops to look for damage to the cornea. In case you were wondering, this did not go well! Eventually, we ended up with an eye patch and instructions to go see the eye doctor upstairs right away. The process was pretty much repeated upstairs with much better success this time. The eye doc decided that he really only had a small scratch, but was having some type of allergic reaction to something. We still don't know what caused it, but his eye is pretty much back to normal now. After an afternoon at the hospital, we headed home, ordered pizza (Ben's favorite!) and opened presents.

Here is Ben holding up both hands, showing he is the big 5! This year he is really into 'boy' things. He loves action figures, Star Wars, super heroes, and is still really into Playmobiles and Legos.


The next day we were able to celebrate his birthday with him at preschool. He had a Spiderman cupcake cake that the bakery graciously held for us an extra day. The cake was a hit, as the kids loved the black frosting (I swear it was red in the picture). Sophie had a great time at preschool too!

This year instead of having a big birthday party we decided to take a family trip. We tossed around a few options and ended up heading to Kansas City for a Renaissance Festival that we read about on the internet. It was supposed to be a beautiful weekend-80 and sunny. It turned out to be about 65 and slightly rainy instead. We had a good time though. It was a huge festival, and seemed to go on forever. There were so many cool costumes (and weird ones too), and much to see and do. We actually ran into some neighbors from Germany in the parking lot-the Army is so small!

Here is Ben posing as St. George, one of his favorite knights!

Nick and Ben decided to try out a little archery. Benny had so much fun shooting the arrows. I think he could have done that all day. First he needed a little instruction from Daddy.

Now, he was ready to try it out himself!

After we had enough of the dreary weather at the Festival we headed to our hotel for the night. We stopped and had dinner at the outdoor mall first. We ate at the Saddle Ranch Chop House, which is a Hollywood take on an old western restaurant. The portions were huge. I think we probably could have shared two dinners instead of the four we ordered. In the middle of the restaurant there is a huge bull ring with a mechanical bull. Benny got a huge kick out of watching a group of middle aged men (and one woman) try to ride the bull. All but the woman were thrown off eventually. It was great entertainment! After dinner, we headed to the hotel and finished the night off swimming in the pool. The next day we did some much needed shopping for fall clothes for the kids and then headed home.

Benny had a great birthday weekend. It's just so hard to believe that 5 years have gone by since he came into the world! I think tomorrow I will do another post recapping his first 5 years! I have to get caught up, because Nick is having hip surgery on Wednesday and I know I will be busy taking care of him!