The Big Ultrasound

Today it's cold and rainy outside, but we are loving it. It feels like fall and today is a day we have been looking forward to for weeks. We dropped Joshua off at Grandpa Bellinghausen's house and headed off to the hospital for our ultrasound appointment. Katelyn went with Ben and I and was semi-entertained by the live video of the baby. After 15 minutes of clicking and measuring, the sonographer finally asked if we wanted to know the gender of our little bean. Of course we did, so she wiggled around to find just the right picture and lo and behold... IT'S A BOY! The first thing Kate said was... "I wanted a sister...". We think she will learn the benefits of being the only girl besides mom. Anyhow, our second little man looks perfectly healthy and very handsome already. We can wait to meet him!

Isn't he so cute!

Baby feet and baby arms... so sweet.

Not shy at all!!

Pre-Halloween Festivities

As soon as the calendar turns to the month of October, we are ready for Halloween. We've spread out some really fun activities over the course of the month.

In early October, the kids got a really fun package in the mail from their Grandma Burgess. It was so cute. Grandma Burgess filled an empty soda bottle with Halloween Treats for the kids. One of the treats was a little bag of orange tic-tacs. Attached was a note that said "Heard you've been naughty, so here's the scoop... All you get is pumpkin poop!". Katelyn thought this was the funniest thing. Ever since then she has been repeating this poem to all of her friends. Thank you Grandma Burgess for such a neat treat!

Kate and the Halloween treats from Grandma Burgess

Next on our list of all things Fall was to make homemade applesauce. Kate, Josh and I headed out one morning to a local produce stand that was selling mountain grown apples for $.99/lb. At that price we bought 20 lbs! Katelyn and I spent the afternoon washing, peeling and cutting up apples. After simmering them on the stove, Kate mashed half of the apples while I blended the other half to make a perfectly chunky applesauce. Then we filled all of our pint size jars and Katelyn used the magnetic lid lifter to top each jar with a brand new lid, then we boiled them in the water bath canner. We ended up with over 13 wonderful pints of delicious applesauce. It was a great afternoon!

Apples galore!

Josh enjoying a delicious bowl of homemade applesauce

A few weeks ago, Michael's had all of their foam craft kits on sale. Katelyn picked out a spooky haunted house kit, and I promised her that we would put it together sometime in October. She was so excited about, she has asked nearly every day since them if we could make the haunted house. Finally, on Monday night for Family Home Evening we cracked open the kit and spent about an hour assembling, gluing and glittering. We haven't quite finished it yet. More pictures to come!

Ben and Kate building our haunted house

Homemade Applesauce
Makes 8 pints

12 lbs apples, peeled, cored, and quartered
Water
3 cups granulated sugar (We only used 1 cup, and it was PLENTY sweet)
4 Tbsp lemon juice
8 (16 oz) pint glass preserving jars with lids and bands

Directions:
1.) Prepare boiling water canner. Heat jars and lids in simmering water until ready for use. (We just ran ours through the dishwasher.) Do not boil. Set bands aside.

2.) Combine apples with just enough water to prevent sticking in a large stainless steel saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat and boil gently, stirring occasionally, for 5 to 20 minutes, until apples are tender (time will depend upon the variety of apple and their maturity). Remove from heat and let cool slightly, about 5 minutes.

3.) Transfer apples, working in batches, to a food mill or a food processor fitted with a metal blade and purée until smooth. (We only blended half of the apples until smooth. The other half we left in the pot and mashed by hand. Then we mixed the blended apples back in to make a perfectly chunky applesace.)

4.) Add sugar, if using, and lemon juice. (We also added cinnamon to half of our applesauce.) Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat, stirring frequently to prevent sticking. Maintain a gentle boil over low heat while filing jars.

5.) Ladle hot applesauce into hot jars leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Wipe rim. Center lid on jar. Apply band until fit is fingertip tight.

6.) Process jars in a boiling water canner for 20 minutes, adjusting for altitude. Remove jars and cool. Check lids for seal after 24 hours. Lid should not flex up and down when center is pressed.

The Little Man

He loves playdough!

It seems like Kate is always the one having all the fun, so I thought I should share some of the silly things that our Little Man Josh has been up to lately. He is 17 months old now, though everyone thinks he is older. He's a big kid. We can tell he always has a lot on his mind and he is very curious, but he has yet to put his thoughts into so many words. He says "MaMa and Dada" and everything else he says is a combination of one or the other. "Ma" usually means, "I want that right now!" and "Da" can also mean "doggy".

Being curious at Grandpa's house

A week or so ago, we headed over to my Dad's house for lunch on his patio. Josh was to curious to sit down and eat anything. This was such a cute photo of him peeking through the woodpile.

Grand Opening of Playdough Towers

We were playing playdough one afternoon and Josh was having a great time. After a few minutes, he got a hold of a few empty playdough containers and started stacking them on top of one another and then pointed at them very excitedly. So... we got out all of the playdough containers and started making towers. We had a great time. Our towers were as tall as Kate! Needless to say, I think Santa is going to bring Josh some blocks this year.

Cleaning the Floors with HIS Mop

If there is a mop, a broom, a stick, a light-saber, or anything of the like, Josh will find it and attempt to clean the floor with it. Maybe I am just a great example with all of the my mopping and sweeping (haha), or maybe this kid is obsessed with sticks, but he can keep himself entertained for quite a while. He was stealing my broom and coming way to close to wacking our big screen tv with the handle, eventually had to make him his own mop by shortening a spare Swiffer mop we had lying around. What a good helper.

So We Think She Can Dance... and Paint

Near the beginning of August, I started hunting for a dance class for Katelyn. I wanted something close to our house that wasn't focused on competition. Masterpiece Studios fit the bill. It's less than ten minutes away AND she gets to take dance and art, one right after the other. Friday mornings are so much fun. Katelyn gets all dressed up in her dance gear and we head to the studio. She does tap first, so we get her tap shoes on with all of other little girls. When Miss Jackie, her dance teacher, invites them into the studio, ten little girls stomp (not tap!) their way across the studio floor to hang up their backpacks and sit down for circle time. Miss Jackie calls the girls her "little angels".

Circle Time

Standing in her spot

After saying a prayer together, they all go stand in their spot, which is marked by a colored piece of tape on the floor, and they stretch out by doing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes".

"Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes"

Kate is still trying to get the hang of it all. She is usually about three steps behind. Its so cute to watch though! Next, the practice their "Mr. Sun" routine, which I have on video at the bottom. Josh and I usually have to leave after the first few minutes of her class. He wants to go in and be with Kate so bad. When they are done with tap, they all switch into their ballet shoes for the last half of the class.

Our little dancer

When dance is over, Miss Erin comes over to get Kate and take her to the art studio next door to the dance studio. In art class, they read a book, and then do a project based upon the book. Today they read "Where the Wild Things Are" and then drew their own monster on black paper and added googly eyes all over it. They looked like monster eyes peering through the dark. She loves her art class, which is totally different than her dance class in that there is just her and two other boys. It's so neat to see Kate experiencing new things!

Mr. Sun Routine

He's a Mean One..

It's the 28th of September, it's 81 degrees outside and what are we doing? Sitting on the couch watching Jim Carey's "The Grinch". Kate has loved this movie forever. Is it too early to encourage some Christmas Spirit?  :)

Myrtle Beach 2009

It has become a tradition since the summer Kate was born that we go to Myrtle Beach with my dad and his family. It's a lot of fun. We usually spend a week in a condo right on the beach (thank you, Dad!). The kids had a blast this year building sand castles with our awesome sand castle kit. This was the first time Josh could really enjoy being on the beach and his favorite things to do were digging holes with his shovel and throwing sand at every chance. Kate was a little braver in the water this year and she found some sweet shells on some early morning walks with her Nana Kim. It rained a bit while we were there, but it gave us a chance to do some shopping and see a movie. The girls went and saw "Julie & Julia". I LOVED it! Meryl Streep played the role of Julia Child wonderfully. This movie made me want to go home and cook. I highly recommend this movie. The boys spent an afternoon and evening playing at the NASCAR Speedpark, which is always cool. It was a great culmination to a great summer!

Waiting in line to drive the race cars!

Allentown, PA

We arrived home from Minnesota on a Tuesday evening, and three days later, on Friday, we packed up the car and made the 9 hour (12 hours in our case) drive to Allentown, PA, to spend a few days (which stretched into a week and a half) with Ben's brother Chris and his family. I don't have as many pictures as I would have liked, but we sure had a ton of fun. It was a jam packed visit, full of day trips here and there. Here's a quick run down:

Saturday :
After packing a picnic lunch, we made the two hour drive to Hershey, PA, to spend the day at Chocolate World. We took the trolley ride around Hershey, listened to story of Milton Hershey and got to see all the town's historical sites. Milton Hershey was a really cool guy, he helped lots of kids over the course of his life. We have a lot of respect for him. After our trolley ride, we were on to a chocolate tasting "class", where we all about different flavors of chocolate. It was delicious, needless to say. Then we saw a 3-D movie... it was silly, I can't really remember what it was about. Honestly, our favorite part of the whole day was probably the free "tour" of the chocolate factory. It was a neat little ride that went through all of the steps to making Hershey chocolate. We finished off the day with dinner at Red Robin and arrived home late that night.

Sunday:
Ben and Chris had tickets to the NASCAR race at Pocono Raceway (the race was called due to rain, and the ended up going back the next day). Anya, the kids and I spent the afternoon at Chuckee Cheese.

Monday:
While the boys were at the NASCAR race, Anya and I took Kaiy, Kate and Josh to Sesame Street World. It was a huge amusement park just for kiddos. It was mostly water rides, which was nice since it was such a hot day. Katelyn was braving than I have ever seen her. She rode on a roller coaster and the ride that takes you straight up and then drops. She did great and loved both of them!

Tuesday:
With Ben back in tow, we headed to the Crayola Factory for the day. It was really neat. They had craft stations set up over an entire floor. We got to paint a ceramic turtle, play with model magic, do some painting and of course some coloring. I think this was one of my top three stops on our vacation.

Wednesday:

This was by far our busiest day, and the coolest. After driving an hour to New Jersey, we parked the car at Summit Station and took an hour long train ride right into the heart of New York City. Our train let off right near Times Square and we walked from Times Square to Central Park over the course of the day. Our first stop was John's Pizzeria for some fantastic pepperoni pizza. It took as a while to find it, thank goodness Ben had my dad's GPS in his pocket. From there we headed over to Times Square. It was neat. Everything was so crazy busy, it was kind of hard to take it all in. Toys'R'Us is right there in the heart of Times Square, so we took the kids in for a look around. Our next big stop was Saint Patrick's Cathedral. It was beautiful, I really have no words. Then we walked down to Rockefeller Center and bought tickets to go to the "Top of the Rock". We stayed up there for nearly and hour taking in the whole city, it was awesome. We all sat down inside and just took it all in. After St. Patrick's we headed down 5th Avenue to Central Park. The plan was to take the kids to FAO Schwartz but it was already closed. Luckily, the brand new Apple store was right there, so we took the elevator down and spent some time playing with all the cool electronics. By this point, we were pretty exhausted. We had made it Central Park, but we were too tired to walk through it, so we decided to take the carriage ride through Central Park. It was my favorite part of the day. From there, we took the Subway back to the train station, ate some McDonald's, and quickly caught our train back to Summit Station. It was a whirlwind day, but we are sure glad we did it!

Thursday - Monday:
These days are kind of a blur! We were supposed to drive home on Thursday, but after all of our day trips the previous days, we were ready to just chill out, so we did. I think we went to Chuck E. Cheese again and rented some movies, but mostly we just hung out. One afternoon, Anya and I took the girls to an awesome outdoor mall that had a sweet slash pad for them to play on. It was very fun.

 

 

 

Ben and Chris got NASCAR ticket for Watkins Glen and spent Sunday and Monday driving back and forth to the race (It was rained out on Sunday! Two for two!)

Tuesday, we finally packed up and headed home. We had a great trip and made some WONDERFUL memories. Thanks for putting up with us for so long, Chris and Anya!

(I wish I had more pictures, but I forgot my camera on several of our day trips!)