My Baby Belly

My sister, Courtney, had a baby about a month ago. During her pregnancy (even up to 40 weeks) she posted pictures of her growing baby belly. The problem is that her belly never seemed to be growing! It's like that baby was hiding in every nook and cranny of her abdomen.

I carry my babies more obviously - like a volleyball taped to my belly button. But, since I'm such a good sport, I guess I'll join in. This is my baby belly at 20 weeks:

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Did you really think I was going to be a good sport?

Bath Time

Today at about 2pm Tali wanted to take a bath. I wanted to read magazine article. What a great combo. I'll lay on my bed and read and she can play in the big bathtub - close enough that I can hear her, but far enough away that I can still read.

Did it work? Mostly. Tali is a non-stop chatterbox. If she's not talking to me, she's talking to something inanimate or Toby or herself. I could hear her constant jibber-jabber so I knew her head was above water, but I couldn't really make out any words so she didn't distract me from the article. (I am a "read in silence or I get too distracted" type person.)

The only trouble? Bubbles don't make any sound. I heard her turning the jets on and off, but I didn't think she'd be smart enough to combine jets and body wash to create a giant bubble explosion! I think she was having a great time creating bubbles . . . until the bubbles got a little too high. Then she yelled, "Mom!! Too many bubbles!"

This is what I found. She wasn't happy about the bubbles because she couldn't sit down anymore.

It was still a worthwhile afternoon activity. She had a blast in the tub and learned something interesting about bubbles and jets. I read that article. Now the only thing left for me to do is reach all the way down to the bottom of those bubbles and pull the plug. Tali said she couldn't reach it or her face would get dirty. I tried to explain that bubbles can't possibly get her face dirty because bubbles are clean. She didn't buy it. So, I'm waiting for the bubbles to die down a little bit. Maybe I'll just wait until Josh and Liz get home and bargain with them. "Pull the plug for me and I'll give you a cookie!" should do the trick. :)

It's a Girl . . .

. . . another girl!

We all made a guess the night before the ultrasound and it was 4-1 for a boy. I was basing my guess off of my pregnancy and very in-tune motherly instincts. Josh and Matt based their guess on the "need for another boy around here." I think Liz based her guess off of sher odds because she said, "I want a girl, but I think it's a boy." Tali was the only one who guessed girl.

During the ultrasound, Tali was giving her rendition of what she saw. First we saw the face and she said, "It looks like Superman. I think there's a Superman in there." Then, when we were looking at the spine and abdomen, she yelled, "Aaaah! It's a turtle!" I couldn't stop laughing. She liked looking at the feet, but when the tech started measuring the legs she said, "I think it's a bug."

All the while (while the tech was still looking at all the "important parts") Matt and I were looking for another important part. Every time she scanned that area we didn't see anything. Finally she got a perfect shot . . . of parts different than we expected.

We are all very excited to have another girl around here. Josh is a little bummed about not getting a brother, but he is thrilled that he'll never have to share his room (he thinks). I think his room might be the perfect place for a cute little baby girl.

Here she is

Hand in her mouth

Posing and smiling

A perfect little foot

Matt mentioned that in order to even up the teams in our house we'll have to have at least six kids. I'd rather just buy another male dog . . . or even a fish :)

Christmas 2009

Christmas Morning 2009

We had a fun Christmas and Christmas Eve this year. Grandma and Grandpa Novakovich were out of town so it was pretty quiet. (Grandma and Grandpa usually make it very loud - haha). We stuck with all our usual traditions, including a nice Christmas Eve dinner, reading of the Christmas story, driving around to look at Christmas lights - our favorite is in Bayshore, opening one gift, plus PJs on Christmas Eve, and leaving cookies and milk for Santa.

Our kids have never woken up ridiculously early on Christmas morning. This year was no exception. They woke up at 7:30am. It felt a little early to Matt and I since we stayed up late watching a movie after all our chores were done.

On Christmas Day we opened presents and ate cake for breakfast. Really, my mom gave me this great recipe for "breakfast cake" a long time ago and I make it once a year for Christmas morning. It's delicious and the kids love having cake for breakfast. We usually have Grandma's quiche to balance out the carbs, but this year Matt had to step in and make bacon and eggs.

Bacon, eggs and cake - the true breakfast of champions. Later in the day we went sledding and had another nice dinner.

Here are the cute pictures:

Christmas morning in their cute jammies. Don't peek . . . Tali!

Coming down the stairs. Each younger child got a 5 second head start. Liz's killer competitive instince kicked in and she quickly bridged the gap to be the first to spy the loot.

The Loot - Tali was the only one to ask for something specific and she got it. The first thing she said when she got it was, "Hey, I wanted this!"

Here are the kids in their new Christmas outfits (except Josh). He prefers fleece to new jeans. Novakoviches do stockings last. Matt calls it a consolation prize, just in case you didn't get what you wanted :)

A Budding Photographer

Tali loves taking pictures. Whenever she sees the camera lying around, she picks it up and starts snapping pictures. Most of her shots are of still life, but occasionally she'll find something animated :)

My favorite thing about her taking pictures is when I put the memory card into the computer to look at my pictures and find all these random shots. She takes lots of pictures of her own feet, which I think is adorable. She also tries to take her self-portrait a lot. I have a lot of up-the-nose shots of her. I think it's really cute and interesting to see the things she takes pictures of.

I have 160 photos saved in a folder called "Tali's Photography." Here are some of my favorites. (I'm indecisive so I have a lot of favorites.)

Almost the whole face

Up the nose

Feet!

Santa's plate on Christmas morning


The interesting thing to Tali in this shot has got to be the pretty purple flower on the TV screen.

Josh poses way better for Tali than he does for me.

Interesting (plus notice the foot/leg - she's sitting on the counter)

She got these out of the freezer and staged this shot!

Proof of pregnancy

Office shots

The computer screen

Can you see the black & blue football flying through the air? I think it's funny how she moved the camera to try to capture the moving ball.

Stay Toby! We also have lots of pictures of half of Toby as he runs by Tali.

Josh's room

Impatient

Everyone keeps asking me if we're going to find out if we're having a boy or a girl.

I know some people like to be surprised and some really old people, like my parents, didn't have any choice but to wait. (Just kidding parents!?!)

That's not me. That's SO totally not me! I have this nesting instinct that really needs to be fulfilled. I need to know what color to paint which room, which child/children will be sharing (or further sharing) their room. I need to know if I should pull out all the double-hand-me-down girl clothes or start anew with boy clothes. Okay, maybe it has more to do with shoppping than nesting. Have you seen those really cute baby shoes they have at Costco for $14.99? I need to know if I should buy pink or blue. I need to know!

I have an appointment for January 18th. That's just two weeks from today and I have plenty of stuff to do between now and then to help the time fly by. I have three baskets and one dryer full of clean laundry to fold and put away, classrooms to help in and field trips to go on, Primary lessons to plan and homework to help with. I even have a date already planned for this Friday night. Last, but obviously not least, my Christmas decorations are still up . . . and yet I sit here paralyzed with impatience. How am I going to make it?

This is how:
I had an appointment for January 18th. I called and rescheduled for January 8th. That's this Friday!! We will know what we're having this Friday!!!!!! and I am giddy!