Merry Christmas!

Hopefully you have gotten our card by now, but if not, Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

A few other pictures from our holiday photo shoot:

This is Evie's favorite photo from the shoot.  It is the screen saver on my phone right now and every time she sees it, she waves my phone around, shows it to anyone in the vicinity, and says "Caga kiss me!"

 Evie was just not in a smiling mood the day we did the photos (I made the big mistake of trying to bribe her with cookies, but it totally backfired and she was upset most of the session because there were still cookies in my purse that she hadn't yet eaten), but I do love these smiling ones of her:

The Littlest Burrus

I feel very guilty that I haven't given our little baby the appropriate amount of attention on the blog.  First of all, he is coming very soon--by January 28 at the latest.  And yes, it is a BOY!  We had decided not to find out, but he chose to reveal himself to us during the sonogram, and I am now kind of glad that we know.  It was been so fun preparing for another little boy and the kids are really excited about their new brother.  They talk about him every day, and are so sweet about him.  Evie loves to remind me, "baby in tummy," and some days, there is a baby in her tummy too (last I heard, it was a pink baby named "Elle") (Charlie is very sure that no baby is in his tummy!).  Lately, though, the baby is just in my tummy, and she loves to put her little hand on my belly and feel him kick.  She is not terribly patient, and is quick to declare that he is "not moving." But if he does move, she gets very excited and says "baby kicked me!"  Charlie couldn't be sweeter about him, and tells me frequently, "I just love our baby so much."  They have lots of plans for him: Charlie plans to hold him and tickle him, and Evie just wants to give him bobbies (pacifiers).  I am getting so excited to meet this little guy, although I am a bit nervous.  Clint and I consider both of our kids to be very active, but this baby has them beat, at least in the womb.  I have never had such a wild, active baby, and that has been so reassuring this pregnancy.  He almost never stops moving and my belly is constantly doing all kinds of crazy movements.  He is especially wild at night, which makes me a little anxious. ;)

Here is the little man at 20 weeks.  I love his little profile!

We are working on his room right now, and as you can tell, it needs a bit of work.  Here we are just after Clint got the crib set up...the room was crowded, cramped, and a bit of a mess.  No where to go but up, right?

We got the baby's dresser from Clint's favorite store, Ikea.  If you've never built a dresser, you really should try.  It is a big project!  Luckily, Daddy had lots of help from both kids.  Charlie was especially interested in the construction aspect, but Evie loved to sneak back there and "help" as well.  Clint said she was very well-behaved when she would sneak in, and just loves to point at the dresser now and exclaim over how much she helped.

Someone is SO excited about his new brother (and his building project).

Our latest encounter with baby #3 involved a 3-day stay at the hospital.  He decided he might want to come a little early (we were at 33 weeks, 3 days), and I got admitted with a possible small placental abruption (a minor tear) and contractions that were 2-3 minutes apart.  After a couple of steroid shots, a rocky night on magnesium, about 500 needle sticks, lots of baby monitoring (little guy looked great), and an extra night in the antepartum unit, I got to go home on bed rest.  It was a scary experience, and unfortunate timing, as it happened the weekend before Christmas.  Our Christmas plans changed pretty radically after that incident, and I didn't get to go down to Seguin for our family Christmas festivities like I was hoping to.  But my parents and the Reins stepped up and did lots of childcare for us and gave me a great chance to rest.  And now (fingers crossed) it looks like things are settling down a lot and baby boy might be planning to stay put for a while longer.  I would love to make it to 37 weeks, but am hoping to get released from bed rest even sooner.  Whenever he decides to come, however, we are all SO excited to meet this little troublemaker!

Other Pre-Christmas Fun

This holiday season has been so much fun.  The kids, especially Charlie, are really old enough to understand the season and get excited about it this year, and I have taken full advantage of all the fun things to do.  

First off, we made Christmas cookies!  We started out including Evie in this endeavor, but soon realized that it would be better off finished during her nap time.  Charlie, however, was a great helper.

This is his "I'm making cookies" face.

Charlie wanted to make gingerbread men for his teachers, so we did.  As I was concentrating on decorating, however, I looked up and noticed that half of our men were missing their arms (and Charlie was chomping away happily).  I asked him what he was doing and he responded that he was making a soccer team, and since his gingerbread men were soccer players, they didn't need their arms.  I protested, but he assured me that his teachers love soccer.  Let's hope he is correct!

A better eater than helper.

We spent one very cold morning at North Park, and despite it being a little crazy trying to corral my two crazies there, we enjoyed lots of Christmas activities.  First up was story time with Santa.  Charlie loves for people to tell him stories, and this was quite magical for him.

Little Miss got a little stir-crazy during story time. :)

Next, we went to check out the trains with Ryan and Grayson.  I think my two could have stayed in here all day.  They inspected each area very carefully and just loved seeing each train chugging around.  Thanks to Thomas the Train, Charlie knows lots of train lingo, and I love hearing his train talk. :)

We followed it up with a wild lunch at Chick-Fil-A...

...and finished up our morning with a peak at the amazing gingerbread village.  

This picture makes our trip look deceptively calm.

We also did the Kindermusik Christmas sing-a-long.  They especially loved making "snow" out of Kleenex.  So random, but fun!

And we had our playgroup Christmas party at the McDonough's...

Charlie played a lot, but Evie was very focused on her ice cream cone/Christmas tree decorating (aka candy hoarding).

Group photos just did not work!

Another activity we did this year was to buy angel tree gifts for kids.  I tried to explain this to them as we were picking gifts for kids who didn't have any toys.  Charlie found this so hard to believe and really wanted to know who these kids were.  He started guessing which of his friends it might be, which I found particularly hilarious.  I don't think any of them are in need of any toys!  Charlie was a good helper in the toy aisles at Target and had strong opinions about what a 4-year-old boy would like.  Evie also had strong opinions, but was very distressed when "her baby" was delivered to someone else.  Maybe she will understand a bit better next year. :)