Playing Catch-up...A Snow Day in the Desert

On December 17, 2008, we received a rare treat...a Snow Day in the desert. In three days we received almost 18 inches of snow at our house! This hasn't occured in Yucca Valley for over 30 years! For all of the desert kids, it was a regular "Christmas Miracle." Schools were cancelled for two full days...(the city and county are hardly equipped to keep up with so much white stuff). It was like a block party...you could here all the neighborhood kids gleefully having snow ball fights and building snow forts.

Christopher and Stephanie were no exception. Growing up in Northern Utah, and then living in Colorado, snow is not exactly a novelty to me...to be honest, I'm not a real fan. But Chris and Stephie were so excited, I gave in and bundled us all up to have some fun in the snow together. I have to admit it was beautiful to normally brown, gritty desert blanketed in white.

Rising Above the First-Trimester Fog

Okay, so I have been doing a terrible job at updating my Blog...but I have a good reason! I am pregnant! That's right, number 3 is on the way!
I am 11 weeks along and I'm slowly coming out of the nauseous, foggy-brained, hormone-filled exhaustion that hits me in my first trimester. I'm trying to re-claim my life for the few brief months I have before I enter my "beached whale" phase during my third trimester :-)
My due date is September 21. And since we already have a wonderful son and an amazing daughter, we have no preference as to whether it is a girl or a boy. We are open and eager for either!
Christopher is very excited about the new baby and very curious. I had an ultrasound today and I showed him the picture. I explained that the little potato-chip-looking blob was a tiny baby growing inside my tummy, and that it still had a lot of growing to do before it could come out. He thought my potato chip analogy was hilarious. Several times today, he took the picture down and tried to explain it all to Stephanie. "See Stephie, there's a little baby, like a potato chip, inside mom's tummy. When mommy eats, the baby gets bigger!"
He asked lots of questions about the ultrasound. "How did they take a picture inside your tummy?", "Why does it look so fuzzy?" And so forth. I did my best to explain at a four-year-old level. Needless to say, I think this is only the beginning of Christopher's baby-related line of questioning. We've already had our first "How do babies get in and then out of mommies' tummies?" discussion. I kept it very simple...Heavenly Father puts the baby in the mom's tummy, and then I go to the hospital and the doctor takes it out.
I'll save the details for when he's a little older. I need to do some serious pondering on just exactly how to talk about it all!
Stephanie, on the other hand, is doing her best to ignore the situation. When I asked her if she would like to have a little brother or a sister, she replied "I want a puppy!"