The Third

Well, here we go again! Snow baby #3 is on it’s way. Due October 15th.

These pictures were all taken about a week before going to the hospital. Notice a trend?? Besides the degraded level of glamour, that is. At this rate, I’m going to look like I’m having triplets this time. Oy, Oy, Oy. Or maybe I should say Ow, Ow, Ow. I swore to Rob I’d never let this 2nd picture out of the family vault, but this will show you why I’m quite nervous and maybe not as enthusiastic about the pregnancy this time around (still enthusiastic about the baby).

Let me just give everyone a head’s up…we’re not planning on finding out the sex of the baby beforehand. I know, I know, this bugs a lot of people. It used to bug me, too. But this might be our last chance to have the big surprise at the end when after all my effort and hard work Rob can announce to me, “It’s a _____!!” The thought makes me smile.

You’re 2, Maddie Gail!

This week is Madeleine’s 2nd birthday. I’ll do another post later with all her party fun, but I just love this little girl so much!! Here are just a few of the reasons.

• She is strong. She will seriously be able to accomplish whatever she wants, which will probably be a lot. She doesn’t like help; she wants to do everything herself and she doesn’t even second guess the fact that she can. She doesn’t let anyone push her around. She can stand up for herself.
• At the same time, she’s a sweetheart. She loves giving hugs and sitting on my lap. Her brother is her very best friend and they play splendidly together.
• She’s like me in the fact that she doesn’t like crowds or commotion. She’s like her dad in the fact that she’d eat nothing but fruit if I let her. 
• She’s smart. She knows how to count from 1-13 (excluding 4) and knows a bunch of letters. I wish I could take credit, but I think she just learns so much from observation (another trait of mine).
• The hair on top of her head is perfectly straight but she has ringlets in the back. She’s going to hate it when she’s older, but it’s pretty cute now.
• She’s not that girly. She’s not into princess stuff. I think this makes her really cool. Her favorite movie, music, and characters are Disney’s Chip ‘n Dale. She always chooses blue over pink. She always chooses simple barrettes over flowers or bows. I’m not overly girly either, so that’s great with me!! 

Madeleine is such an integral part of our family and we just love her like crazy. Happy Birthday!!

Missed Pictures

Rob was going through our collection the other night and found these precious pictures of him wrestling with Nate over 2 years ago. Cute, huh? A couple more here.

 

This is from the day Rob and I spent at Lagoon for my birthday last year.

 

And then here are a few pictures of last Christmas at the Raines Home. More pictures here.

Many family members watching the shadow puppet play of the Nativity.

Liz and Zach with the puppets.

Vance playing his chime.

Jordin eating her chime mallet.

Madeleine Loves Singing Songs

Our little Madeleine took to singing songs (all kinds) at a very young age.  It took Nate a while to warm up to it but now both of them are really into it.  Other than playing with her brother or getting hugs from her mom, I can’t think of anything that Madeleine likes more than singing and dancing. Below are a couple of videos of her doing her thing.  If you can’t view the videos in the post or if you want to see them in HD for some reason view them on our photo and video site here and here.

Hardware Ranch

Hardware Ranch is located in Cache County up a small canyon near Logan/Hyrum and is one of a few reserves around the west for elk to weather each winter.  Several hundred elk come every winter to eat, urinate, and defecate;  at least that is what my son saw and to be honest I didn’t see much else going on either.  We decided to leave the SLR at home and go low-tech using the media features of our phones.

The visitors center had some interesting displays including skins, pelts, skulls, and bones of elk and other various critters common in the area. The main attraction was a sleigh-ride among the elk.  Julie and I had a long discussion about the difference between a sleigh and a wagon.  We are pretty sure that we didn’t see any sleighs and just glorified wagons.  However, the horses used to pull the wagons were enormous!  I’m not very comfortable around large animals such as horses and the shear size of these horses was staggering.

After leaving the ranch we stopped at the Hyrum City Museum which was actually quite entertaining with its completely random assortment of artifacts.  We got the VIP treatment with one of the curators walking around with us describing the displays and even demonstrating them for the kids.  A display of dentist equipment was particularly disturbing…..

I (Rob) have some family living in Logan so we stopped in to visit until our reservation at Le Nonne. Logan is synonymous with great food and ambiance since my cousins own and operate that restaurant.  Nate thinks it is awesome that the chef of the “best macaroni and cheese ever” comes out to talk and visit with us.   

We’ve included a few pictures and videos of our queuing excitement and wagon-ride adventures.  If you like kids jumping around and discussions of pee and poop then check out the media on our website!

Play in January

Here are some purely fun shots Rob took of the kids one night in January. I thought I’d edit and post them for him.

Hope he likes!

 

Here’s Nate sitting in a colander with Buzz showing off his creation with stickers.

 

Nate with a balloon in his mouth.

 

Madeleine at the piano.

 

Madeleine on the stairs.

My Sister’s Wedding

My (Julie) sister got married last weekend! They asked us to take their engagement portraits. They wanted casual poses on a dark backdrop so the focus would be on them and their interaction with each other. They hugged and kissed and cuddled (with a little guidance) and we snapped shots and hopefully caught “moments” between them.

Their wedding announcement.

 

There was a last minute change of venue due to the weather so we ended at a family friend’s house. There wasn’t much time for pictures, but here are a few shots of the ceremony. The families went to dinner afterwards and the whole thing was a great success.

 

Together they have 5 boys. Five boys! And, as she points out, only 1 bathroom. Yikes. 

Congrats to the new Lewis family!

Monday Night Musings

I (Julie) should be going to bed right now. Afterall, we've been telling ourselves for years that we need to start going to bed by 11pm. We've made it to bed before midnight for the last few weeks, so that's serious progress. Anyhow, here I am left with my musings while Rob works on editing photos. So a few thoughts...

It was mentioned in Sunday School yesterday about Abraham and his servants or whatever. All I could think about after I heard that was, "Man, I REALLY wish I had servants." I have kids, but they're too young to really get them to do anything that I couldn't do in 1/100th of the time. Servants. That's what I want.

I go grocery shopping once a week. I REALLY need to find a way to stretch that out. It's so mundane to do it every 7 days. How can I get it down to 2 or 3 times a month?? I meal plan a week out so I can account for new recipes and using ingredients I have on hand or before they expire. But how do you plan out further than that when you still need to go buy fresh produce, milk, and bread every week? I know not everyone goes this often, so a little help would be much appreciated.

My kids have been really great lately. They play together so well that I'm left thinking, "Well, what should I do?" I already have a bunch of hobbies but I need something new. And it has to be cheap and something where I can be interrupted frequently.

We watched "Love Happens" last night and I bawled most of the way through. It was really cute, actually, and didn't have anything gross in it at all. Another fabulous movie we saw a while ago is called "The Dish". It's a true story surrounding the role Australia played in the first moon walk. After a few minutes of watching this movie I turned to Rob and said, "This must not be an American film. It's just too clever and fun." Sure enough, it's Australian. We both highly recommend it. Which brings me to my next point...

Netflix is great. I actually get to watch high quality movies. How great is that?! I can sort through movies and see why they're rated what they're rated and avoid anything that has scenes I'm uncomfortable with. I don't have to look at all the crude movie box covers as I browse the aisles at Blockbuster and there are SO MANY more options! Hooray!

Well, Rob says he's pretty much done with editing for the evening. So i guess we're off to bed. Goodnight.

Nate-isms

• Madeleine is usually grumpy when she wakes up from her nap. Nate was asking her if she wanted to do things with him (play games, chase, etc). After she said no a bunch of times he finally asked her, “Madeleine, do you want me recycled to a new family?” ….She remained silent….
• Nate’s a full-fledged boy. He loves cars, Star Wars, fighting, sports, the whole bit. But the other day I bought Madeleine a My Little Pony movie since she’s been subjected to boy movies her whole 2 years of life. Well, Nate’s fallen in love. He asks to watch it twice a day. Tonight I caught him prancing, dancing, and fluttering along with the ponies…. Rob told me I need to buy some Transformer cartoons asap.
• This afternoon I found a puddle of water on the dining room floor (not at all unusual). But then I noticed it was dripping from the heating/air conditioning register in the ceiling. Turns out, Nate and Madeleine decided to explore the registers in the upstairs bedrooms and thought it would be cool to pour a bottle of water down the one in my bedroom. In his defense, he thought the water would come out of the register located above our tv and piano….

All this and more in the last 24 hours alone.

Here's Nate showcasing his new-found talent for blowing air into Madeleine's teapot to get the lid to move. It looks like he's working on…something else...Yikes!! I was laughing SO hard!! (You’ll want sound.)

 

Here’s another one of him “playing the trumpet”. This one is hysterical, too. Just another night at the Snow home!

When Mom’s Away

A few more pictures are here.