Knauss Family Adventures and Everyday Life: September 2010

G's Visit

It felt like it took forever for G's visit to finally arrive! A few months ago I noticed Southwest had a Ding! fare for $99 from TPA-CRP for travel in the month of September. I sent her an email with a link to the deal saying maybe she could come out and visit as a birthday present. The Ding! fares are only good for a certain time (usually less than 24 hours). Late that night I got a call from my Dad. For some reason they were having difficulty booking the flight so I did it for her, yay! I wasn't about to tell the boys then...I would have been asked 7,264 times a day for over 2 months when G was coming. I ended up telling them shortly before leaving to go to the airport to get her.

G was actually here over her birthday.
Landon kept telling me he wanted to get her a puzzle (and red lipstick)
for her birthday present.

Well it was perfect timing to spill the beans about #3!
I had a photo of the boys in their "big bro" shirts made into a puzzle.
Of course I couldn't wait after she got here for her to do it,
so it was the first thing we did once we got back to the house.

It took a minute for her to figure it out once the puzzle was together
(I didn't include the pic of what it was)
This was the reaction once she got confirmation that yes,
it meant what she was thinking!

Here is the puzzle

Even with G visiting Landon still had school,
here is his on the bus heading off in the morning!
{well...we did let him play hookie on her last day here,
his teacher said she would do the same!}

After saying by to Landon, we headed back inside.
G and Logan sat down to have some coffee
{yuck}
This is Logan showing his was all gone
[it was a splash of coffee with a way more milk]

Finally! We had some nice weather!

We never get pics of us!
It's not the best but hey, I'll take it.

We went on a family bike ride
Mommy & Logan, Daddy, Landon.

One afternoon G, Dan, and the boys headed down to the pier
(#3 has sucked my energy dry, I was napping!)

There were a lot of people out fishing,
here the boys were checking out a bait bucket.

All hermit crabs!

G and the boys made these cards for us!

As I mentioned earlier,
G's birthday was while she was in town!
We bought a cake from HEB instead of making one,
the boys decorated it with candles.

They were very proud of their masterpiece!

Singing to G.

Umm...who needs a fork?

Well, if Logan didn't use a fork then Landon shouldn't either...right?

It was GREAT having G here! Visits always go way too quickly. Landon was sobbing when we dropped her off (partially due to us never getting her the red lipstick he wanted to buy her, it's on the list to get and ship...and hope it doesn't melt too much!). Not sure when we will get to visit again but we hope it isn't too long! We hope Grumpa can come next time too!

Open House

On September 21st Landon's school had Open House night. They told the students that anyone could come, Landon was pretty upset that none of his grandparents would be here to be able to check it out. So I told him I would bring the camera and take a lot of pictures to share with everyone.

Logan being Mr. Cool before heading into class

This is outside the classroom.
Favorite color: red
Favorite food: chicken and fries from McDonalds
I like to play with: bikes outside with my best buddy Rylan

Sitting at his desk

Every day they say the Pledge of Allegiance.
Landon has it memorized now and recites it perfectly!
They also say the Texas Pledge. (what...yes.)

They do a little project for every letter of the alphabet.
E is for eat.
Landon likes to eat at McDonalds
(no shocker there!)

F is for family.
He drew the 4 of us and the kitties!
There is a 5th figure there.
I think it is a 3rd animal based on it's limbs going downwards
(at first I thought maybe he drew the baby in there),
my guess is he drew Grumman.
It's been over 7 months now
but he will still talk about how he misses Grumman :(

"My family is the best because...
they take me to good places like Chuck E. Cheese's"
Ha! We've only ever gone twice!

One of the projects on the wall.
Landon's art skills are really great compared to his classmates.
Most of them just had shapes slapped on and said they were something,
although they looked like nothing.
We were quite impressed with his rocket ship!
"I made a rocket ship launching into space with an engine
that doesn't need gas or to be charged up or
to be refueled."

Landon (and Rylan) playing with the SmartBoard.
The SmartBoard is one of his favorite things about school.
He was excited to be able to show us how it works.

Remember back during "Meet the teacher" day
Landon drew Ms. Miller a picture?
It is still hanging up!

Just some shots around the room.

This is the chart they use to see
who has what job for the day.
There are 2 classes up there,
the morning and afternoon session.

It was great to be able to go in and see what all he has been working on for the past few weeks! He loves school, I hope that continues! He's very bright and soaks up everything. Most days Ms. Miller will tell me she tried to wear him out but doesn't think she was successful, and she's usually right!

The Oven is Back in Use!

I think most of you know by now, but if not...Baby Knauss #3 is on the way!!! We went back and forth for a while on having a 3rd or not. We then decided to go for it and once that decision was made it just felt so right!

I had shirts made for the boys from etsy, they were stashed away in my room hoping Dan didn't come across them! (I plan on having a lil bro(or sis) shirt made for this one to match and have pis done of the trio come May!) I went to the Dr to have a blood test and within the hour they told me it was positive. So I put the shirts on the boys and they waited anxiously for Daddy to come home from work!

The Big Bro and Big Bro in the making!

Landon was actually all about
having his pic taken that day!

The boys were waiting not so patiently.
They were looking out the window just
anticipating Daddy's truck pulling in.
Finally I heard, "Daddy is home!!"

Landon ran up to Dan first.

Then Logan did, and that is when it hit Dan!
His first reaction was to accuse me of lying to him.
It was a Wednesday, I told him I wasn't planning on testing until Friday.
Well...I'm not the most patient person!

Right now we're just a little over 6 weeks, feels like an eternity to go! Due date is May 21st. I've already gotten a lot of questions about pregnancy for me since having WLS, I will address that in my other blog here shortly (need to finish getting this updated then I'll hop over there and update more). We've also received a lot of comments/questions about gender preference, so let me just lay it out now. Yes, we'd love a girl. However, another boy would be great too! Did we decide to have a 3rd in hopes of having a girl? No! Statistically there are 51% males and 49% females born in the US. Those odds are certainly not anything that we would chance something as big as adding to our family in the hopes that we have a girl. Having 2 boys already we are only about 2% higher chance of having a 3rd boy than anyone else. If it is another boy we are totally fine with that! Our boys are so amazing we wouldn't change them for anything, I'm sure whatever gender this little bean is will be just as amazing as they are. If it is a girl I'm not really sure where we'd fit in pink and princess things among all the super heroes!

We are really excited that soon we will grow into a family of 5. The boys are so excited too! They keep talking about the baby in my belly. Logan will sometimes tickle me then tell me that he has to stop because he's waking the baby up. Landon has actually been praying for month for a baby sister. We've finally gotten him to come around to the idea that it could be another brother though. The other night he was saying the blessing before dinner and here is how it went:

Dear God, Please make the baby hatch soon.
Thank you, Amen.

I couldn't help but chuckle at this. Earlier that same day we had a talk about how he was missing G. Then it somehow came up that when this baby is born G would most likely be there to watch him and Logan, like she watched him when Logan was born. I assumed he wanted the baby to "hatch" soon so he would get to see G, but I asked, "Landon, why do you want the baby to be born soon?" His response, "So I can see if it is a baby girl like I want!" I then explained to him that the Doctor has a special camera they can look inside mommy's belly and tell us if it is a boy or a girl and we should actually be able to do that right around Christmas or his birthday. He got very excited about that and asked if he could come with us. Will keep you posted on what that special camera reveals!

Another day at the park

Well, in the previous post I guess I lied. There was once we stopped at the park with the playground. Didn't get a chance to go on it though. We had a quick lunch sitting there instead of in the car before heading on to whatever it was we were going to that day.

This is part of the playground area. It's HUGE!

Logan enjoying a "Pri Sun"

Trying to scare away the birds who were watching us
(err...begging for food!)

Landon was hard pressed for pics that day,
but I did manage to get this one!

Our audience.

Doddridge Park

Ok, ok...go ahead and throw the stones. I know it's been too long since I've posted. Life has been pretty hectic around here lately.

It seems like we are on the go a lot. Landon has speech on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The time block he has isn't the greatest, but we make it work. If we were to come home for lunch after school, we'd have about 15-20 min before going out the door on the way to speech. With my boys I just don't think that would be possible most days, too many distractions at home. So I've started making lunch for the boys and having them eat it on the way as long as the weather is nice. The road we take all the way from base into town is Ocean Dr/Shoreline Dr...and it is just that, a road along the ocean's shoreline. It is really neat because along the way there is an awesome kid's playground and several areas where you can pull over and park, most have picnic tables at them. I don't go to the playground one because I know I'd never get the boys to leave, but we will pull over at different places and let the boys run around.