And the baby will be.....

A Boy!

We are very excited to be expecting a little boy. The ultrasound technician said that ultrasounds are never exact, but we all got such a clear shot, that she said she would "eat her hat if it isn't a boy". If he is anything like his brother and sister, we'll be very blessed. So, time to drag the boys baby clothes back out of storage!

A Thousand Splendid Suns

I had a work trip to Frankfurt, Germany last week and I bought a book to occupy my "free" time while there. My sister had recommended A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (the same author that wrote the Kite Runner). The plot isn't complicated, and there is very little happiness in it, but it was a very good read. It made me glad a) I wasn't born in Afghanistan, b) that I am not in a "bride for sale" culture, c) that I have an amazing husband who makes me feel loved and inspires me to be a little better each day, d) that I live in relative prosperity, and e) that I have a large family of loving, caring individuals. I expect that for the next few weeks at least, I will unconsciously find things (even of small scale) that I am thankful for, and that is a great thing.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day from our two cupids. We celebrated by making the reddest Valentine's cake you have ever seen and eating dinner by candlelight.

A kidnapping

Our kids were counting down the days to Valentine's with as much vigor as they did Christmas. They were really, really, really excited. And last Tuesday night and Wednesday morning they started telling "secrets" to each other and daddy. On Wednesday morning, after dropping off two ecstatic secret keeping kids I asked Dave - so what's the big secret. To which he replied, "I promised the kids we would make you a Valentine tonight." Makes total sense, my kids are way into those types of the things.

Then Wednesday night Dave and I leave work and there is a card on my seat in the car. Dave's says to wait and open it until we have the kids. However, he doesn't turn to pick up the kids. So I ask, are we not getting the kids tonight? And my now hugely smiling husband says, nope, open the card. The card says that we are having a date night and he hopes I am hungry. Awesome. Now he points out all the things I have missed, like, car seats. I didn't even notice. We proceed to drive past every place I think he could possibly have planned a dinner at and keep going. Eventually we drive up to the Yorke Arms. We park next to a Bentley and a Porsche, our dirty Hyundai Santa Fe looked so out of place. We go inside and they ask if we are ready to check in, to which Dave replies "Yes". What a fabulous surprise! An overnight kidnapping, midweek. I was completely and totally surprised, I hadn't caught on to a thing. And Dave was so thrilled to have completely surprised me that he couldn't stop grinning.

The Yorke Arms is definitely worth writing about. It is a Michelin starred restaurant and the room was very comfortable. The food was exquisite. Dave had a packed a fancy black dress for me, that luckily still fit, and we went down to dinner in style. We had drinks in the lounge by the fire before they sat us. An English couple joined us in the lounge and told us about their trips to the States. I think they drove the Bentley. They told us that last summer they spent two weeks in that place outside of Boston, you know, the place the Kennedy's always go to.... The canapes were enough to get us really excited for dinner. Then there was a palate cleansing amuse bouche (all you Top Chef fans know what I am talking about) of creamy Leek soup with a red beet dollop. I had a pear, avocado, something else delicious salad and for dinner the Yorkshire fillet of beef. Dave ate something equally scrumptious for his appetizer and then tuna for dinner. But the desserts were the winning dish. Dave's was 4 or 5 marshmallow inspired dishes in interesting shapes, textures and flavors. Mine had a caramel thick ice cream type center with mango, limes, thin cookies and other yummy things surrounding it.

Then we went back to a quiet, cozy hotel room without the kids. It was the first night in weeks where we were not woken up in the middle of the night, and could wake up by the alarm clock instead of kids. We got up and ate breakfast there before leaving. Again, it was delicious.

There are many things I love about Dave, but this has to be one of the biggest. He does such amazing things for me, just because he likes to see how happy they make me. I can't believe that he pulled off all of the logistics without giving away a thing. Oh, wait, I can, because he really is that amazing. And yes, we are definitely planning on doing this again!

Snow Days part 2

The snow is essentially gone, but I had a few more pictures to post, so here you go:

Family Portrait

Who knows when we will get a "formal" family portrait done, so this will serve nicely. Enoch made a family portrait badge at daycare last week. He was so excited to wear it around and show it to us. Although it is quite obvious, I will let you know that I am the large green person on the left with Dave in front of me in orange. To the right you see Hilde in a lovely shade of blue and in front of her Enoch, also in orange and showing his typical whirlwind of energy.

Snow Days

We benefited from the biggest snow storm in 19 years in the UK last week. Everything is beautiful and covered in snow, which is a rarity here. Hilde's school opened on time each day, so we played hooky for a while Tuesday morning so we could all go out and make snow angels and have a snowball fight. The snow was so dry and powdery the snowballs were balls of puff and we couldn't build a snowman, but it was still fun.

Tropical World

It has been cold, snowy and windy here so we finally broke down and took the kids to Tropical World. Enoch had gone on a field trip there with daycare and had been begging to go ever since. It was better than we feared, with several rooms and themes. We took our time going through it, because the best of all was that it was 90 degrees inside. We hadn't felt that type of heat since the summer before last, and it was NICE.
Our budding photographer.

My Girl

Getting ready for karate in the first pic and then coloring a picture in the second. She gets a little prettier everyday.

Self Esteem.....it's complicated.

About 4 years ago a group of my best girlfriends and I spent a girls weekend at the Crowley Beach House. It was awesome and I have a ton of memories from there. We walked, talked, watched movies, sang songs, did dance routines, flew kites, spent time in the hot tub, did all sorts of girl things. Man, just writing about it makes me want to do it again, too bad I am so far away from everyone....

During one of our discussions the topic of self esteem came up. Many of us had very young daughters and we were talking about how to instill positive self esteem in them. Then slowly it came out that virtually every one in that group, who I would describe as smart, beautiful, creative, extremely talented, witty and spiritual had struggles or struggled with self esteem. I was a little shocked, but it made sense. People from all situations struggle with this, but I think as women we are even more prone to it. Good self esteem is so incredibly important in my estimation. Low self esteem can cause us to make poor decisions or to have a lack of decision making abilities at all. Depression, bad relationships, eating disorders, a myriad of potential affects come to mind. And those are just the big ones...

So how do you foster good self esteem in those around you, especially your daughters, girl friends, wives? How do you strike a healthy balance between positive self esteem and pride? How do you maintain your own self esteem? I am thankful that I haven't been afflicted with poor self esteem in a long time, but I can't describe how I got here. All I do know is that every day we try and remind Hilde how much we love her, how talented she is even if those talents are not developed yet, how smart she is and how proud we are of her. And we pray fervently that it will sink in, that she'll know she is as special as we know she is. And I hope the same for all of you, that for a moment, you don't compare yourself to anyone else and recognize all that is amazing and special in you. I know I am in awe of you everyday.

Hilde's First Primary Talk

Here is Hilde's first primary talk. She dictated to me what she wanted to say and I added my editorial requirements to make it in line with the topic - families. When it was time, she walked up and read her talk all by herself into the microphone in front of about 60 kids and adults. I was at the back of the room cheering her on, very proud.

"I have four people in my family. The littlest in our family is Enoch. He is three years old. I am 5. I love my mommy and daddy. Heavenly Father loves us all. I know that I am a child of God and the he created the earth and families. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

Short but sweet and entirely hers.