Withholding Information

Usually when someone announces she's pregnant, you can count 7 months or so down the calendar and determine when the baby is due. Nowadays it seems that a couple can receive a positive affirmation and announce even earlier than that.

Rebecca and Dallas kept all pregnancy #3 knowledge to themselves until right before Halloween. She decided to announce it to our family through an email with the following picture of her Halloween costume:

We did the countdown and came up with May or possibly even June--because girls these days seem to enjoy immediately sharing their news early. Imagine our shocked surprise when this daughter of ours told us the due date is March 21st, which made her almost halfway through her pregnancy at that point.

She was already scheduled for her ultrasound that would determine the gender of the baby.

The ultrasound happened last Tuesday--a whole week ago--but it seems that withholding information from parents for a long time is the theme of this pregnancy. Rebecca has been happily telling everyone, including her siblings, what she's having, but purposely kept us in suspense for these whole 7 extra days.

Dallas and Rebecca wanted to keep up the tradition of having a reveal dinner with their parents like they did with Brooke and again with Caroline and now with this baby. So, we fixed the food, Bob and Kathryn brought the most delicious fruit tart for dessert and then Dallas and Rebecca made their announcement.

They tried to throw us off by wearing pink shirts, but I wore the color of shirt that I was guessing and it just so happens that I guessed right. They're having a BOY!! How great is that!?!?!??

The other day when Rebecca was here, she saw the huge, ridiculously long countdown chain Glen had made to mark the return of Ben from his mission and she found her baby's due date (which happened to be about smack dab in the middle of the fireplace) and asked why we hadn't marked in big letters the significance of that day.

With that in mind, we decided to make up a new link for that particular date and printed the date on both pink and blue papers that we had all ready when the Goldens made their announcement. We then let them take out the white link and they stapled in the blue link to mark the date of their new baby's arrival.

Congratulations Dallas and Rebecca!! It's about time you get around to being able to use the boy name you've had picked out way back when you were sure Brooke was going to be a boy.

What's Glen Been Up To Lately?

When Ben wrote that his release date from his mission might very well be the end of July (and that's not even set in stone yet--and it's also a full 8+ months in the future), Glen got busy right away making a countdown chain to the big event. 

He so proudly draped the massively long chain all up and down and over and around the bookshelves and fireplace in the family room.

Each night he becomes giddy with glee when he anxiously skips (okay, maybe he just walks) over to the end of the chain to rip off another link, marking one less day of separation from his son.

It should be noted here that he was equally as anxious looking forward to the return of our two other sons from their missions.

Something else Glen's been up to lately is he's finally followed through with his threat of actually having a professional work on fixing his disgustingly, deformed big toenails.

This will thrill his children to know that the Thomas talon is no longer in existence.

After 14 years (that's absolutely no exaggeration) of self-mutilation trying to fix his own troublesome toenails, he finally sought medical help.

I'm sure we can all exclaim with enthusiasm--IT'S ABOUT TIME!!!

Happy Birthday To Me...and Cheryl

Oh, yes, it's happened again. I've turned another year older.

The day started out terrific when I walked into the kitchen and saw this sign put up by my very own husband. Impressive! What a guy!

I'm not the only one in this household having a birthday this month. Cheryl's birthday is just three days after mine--today to be exact.

Happy Birthday, Cheryl!!!

Halloween In Omaha

Who knew getting to Omaha in the middle of excellent autumn weather would be so difficult?

It proved to be a bit challenging for us when our 14-hour drive turned into much longer than that because of the freeway being closed in Wyoming.  We usually worry about that in winter, not when the forecast calls for sunny and mild temperatures.

But, close it did and wait we did until the traffic jam got re-routed off onto a side road.  It was reported an animal truck had tipped over and was the cause of the 4-hour roadblock.  Good thing we didn't leave our house 3 hours earlier.  Our hour-long delay was plenty enough for us.

But the wait didn't deter us from our destination--trunk-or-treat with Jacob's family at their church.  We quickly found the Thomas family's blue van where Clifford, the Big Red Dog (a/k/a Jacob), was holding a cute green frog (Logan) and giving out Halloween candy.  The costumed children going from trunk to trunk earned candy from this trunk after they threw some beanbags into the mouth of the cardboard dog.

Soon we leprechauns were surrounded by other cute characters like a smaller Clifford (Luke) and his owner Emily Elizabeth (Laurie), the tooth fairy (Natalie) and Madeline (Emma).  Laurie had worked hard on getting some great costumes made for their family.

They weren't the only ones who were in the dress-up spirit of Halloween. Abe and Klarissa were almost identical to the Barbie and Ken in Toy Story 3.

And what made it even better was when Emma saw them and announced that she has Barbie dolls that look just like Abe and Klarissa. Good job on your great costumes as well, Abe and Klarissa!

The pumpkin patch turned out to be a big hit with not only the kids, but the adults as well. Lots of fun and clever things to do and see.

AMEN to this advice!!!

The pig races were exceptionally entertaining.

Everyone loved playing and getting buried in the corn kernels.

I loved getting a hug from Emma while holding Logan.

Jacob was off duty for Sunday cooking because Abe and Klarissa were busy grilling up some steak and veggies.

Great idea, Abe, to spend Halloween in Omaha. Thanks to Jacob, Laurie and the kids for hosting the event.

It was super fun and we were glad we went.