Christmas in November

We have been keeping pretty busy these days, as I am sure all the rest of the world is. The Christmas season is upon us and with all the things there are to do, we are trying to enjoy it and remember what it is all about.

Christmas came a little bit early to our house this year.

We have had a new addition to the house, and really the family. The night before Thanksgiving we had our brand new piano delivered!

H O O R A Y ! ! ! !

*Ahem*

I am just a little bit excited about having a piano finally. Things just worked out and it is here.

A Beautiful Black Yamaha

The night it arrived we kept the kids up a bit late as I played away on it and they danced. And of course everyone took a turn serenading us. I am so excited to have a piano in our home. I used to play it for fun and to relax as a teenager, but it has been a long time.

Here are the kids all ready for church on Sunday.

And here is Katelyn playing some tunes after church in her mismatched outfit. She picked it out and put it on all by herself.

Here's the happy mamma

I think this piano is going to fit right in!

Thank you Santa....aka.....my handsome hubby!

Thankful

At the beginning of the month we had a family home evening about what we are thankful for. We made a poster to accumulate some of the many blessings that we thought about throughout the month.

Everyone contributed ideas, and Brandon wrote all of his own.

Some of our many blessings:

Friends, dancing, repentance, grandmas, holidays, hearts

Plants, "planits" (planets), "gospl" (gospel), "pepl" (people), world

"Chrch" (church), temples, the Prophet, "lecchrisude" (electricity), flowers, sun

Warm bed, job, Lindsey, Brandon, Katelyn, sleep, internet, iphone, family, "scripchurs" (scriptures), our baby, books

"Anumls" (animals), curtains, leaves, sharpeners, rainbow, Daddy, icecream

Eyes, hot chocolate, Jesus, roses, the Atonement, grass, fireplaces, "wobr" (water), Thanksgiving

And the list could just go on and on! I think it is very safe to say that we are so richly blessed.

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Fog

As I was coming up the hill from the church tonight, I drove into a pretty thick fog. When I got to our street, I couldn't even see our house until I was in front of it.

It's weird to see the fog in the street lamps and see it moving and swirling around. I guess this is winter time in Seattle!

A look down the street one way

And the other way

Hopefully it will be all cleared out by tomorrow!

*UPDATE*

The next morning (today) we woke up to beautiful clear skies and no fog.

{Thank You!}

I needed some sunshine this morning.

Baby Visit

We had another visit to the hospital today to check on our little baby. Another hour long ultrasound, lots of measuring this and that, and then our appointment with the doctor. I have been very grateful for the compassionate people that we have been able to work with so far. We had not had the best experiences before the bad news came, but we have been very pleased with everyone we have worked with at Swedish.

The news: basically the only new information we got is that the little guy's hydrocephalus is getting a little bit worse. This is not good news. Our hope was that the fluid levels would stay constant and in the mild range or even decrease. But now he is verging on moderate hydrocephalus. What does this mean in the long run? We still don't really know. But we will continue to pray and hope for the best! I'm afraid that this is going to be a long road, and we have to wait for a lot of answers. We will continue to get more information a little bit at a time.

How are we doing? Pretty well most of the time. It is hard to feel helpless and to have to be patient. It is all in the Lord's hands.

One positive thing today....we got to see our cute little guy's face again. Here are a couple of pics they sent us home with:

His perfect little foot

Can you see his sideways nose and mouth? And he's playing peek-a-boo with his arm covering his eyes.

That's all for now. More appointments in two weeks, four weeks, and six weeks.

Kitchen Curtains

Justin and I debated for the first few months of living here about how to cover our back sliding glass door and large window in the family room. We didn't want to do vertical blinds for the back door. I have had enough fun with those already! And the family room window is so big it would be very costly to order custom blinds big enough to fit. Plus, blinds would partially cover up our beautiful view of the wetlands out back. Well, we decided to do curtains that we could pull back completely during the day to let in all the light but could be pulled shut at night to give us some privacy. After lots (I mean LOTS) of shopping around I found some curtains for both rooms that coordinated but were different. The only problem is that we have 9 foot ceilings, so I had to add about a foot of length to reach the floor.

I am happy to report that the kitchen curtains are complete, and we absolutely love them! The red on the bottom gives them more weight and fullness.

Here are a couple of pics from the night Justin got them up for me. It was a very happy thing!

And here is them pulled back. They really highlight our tall ceilings!

Hopefully I will get around to sewing the family room curtains soon. I figure now is the time to get as much done on the house as I can.

Ready for the Rain

I think we've got what we need....

to stay semi-dry at least!

Note Katelyn's expression as she's telling me she doesn't want to give Lindsey a hug for the picture.

Now, if I could just get them to wear their rain gear every time it's raining!

Side Bar

If you want to quickly see if there are any updates on our little guy's situation, please check the side bar. We will keep it updated with any new posts as we learn more about our baby. Thanks!

All's well that ends well

Brandon had his last soccer game on Halloween day. We have had a good season and he has just loved it. I think he has really gained a lot of skill and coordination with kicking that ball. It's been great for him and we are all glad it is over now! :) We only had to spend two games this season in the rain, so that isn't too bad. It's been so fun to see him get so excited about it. Every Saturday he has "the BIG game!"

This is a quick video of Brandon scoring a goal, and Justin's "encouragement" in the background. :)

This last video is just hilarious. Brandon can't just sit on the sidelines and hold still. I'm so glad I caught this little gem on camera!

Halloween

Our Halloween festivities began with carving pumpkins. This year we had enough for everyone to do have their own. Our friend Scott joined us this year and he brought some of his paints over for the kids to use on their pumpkins. It was a fun family home evening!

Brandon and his spiderman pumpkin

Lindsey's lovely lady

The ward trunk-or-treat

Enjoying the spoils

The kids loved trick or treating on Halloween this year. And we got way to much candy!

Thank you to a good friend in our ward who let us raid her dress-up trunk for the girls' costumes. I really wasn't feeling up to making what I was planning to after last Wed.

A fun weekend for the kids!