Happy New Year!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Years! It's always so fun to get everyone's Christmas cards and see how families are growing and changing. We had a nice quiet Christmas here with just our family. The boys had fun opening their presents- Ethan of course tears right into it and starts jumping on all the bubble packaging while Joshua tears one tiny piece off at a time and places each piece on the table before tearing another piece off. Ethan & Joshua are obsessed with Thomas the Train and they each got a little portable track and trains from their cousins that they play with nonstop. They also got sleeping bags from their grandparents and Anthony and Ethan have already camped in the backyard twice. Anthony also got them the cutest little bathrobes, Joshua looks so adorable tromping around the house in it. I got some new photography gear and a new computer with a large screen so I can actually see the pictures when I'm editing them.

Grant is getting to be such a chunky monkey. My other boys were always below the 25th percentile for weight, not Grant. He's in the 95th! This little chunker weighs 13.8 pounds and he's only 2 months old. He's already starting to outgrown 0-3 month clothes. It's nice to finally have a baby with cute little fat rolls!

We're still getting unpacked, it's going to take me forever to get everything in it's place, and even longer to take pictures, but I did manage to get a picture of the living room- the only room that's 90% unpacked, and since we're getting ready to go to Disney World I'm sure it will be July before I get any other pics posted. Anyway...here are all the pics from December...

Sold!

It's official, We've sold our house! It was really a great first house and we're going to miss it- especially the view we had from our deck. We'll be moving into our new house tomorrow, it's in the same city just a few miles away. Kind of sad to see the walls bare and hear the rooms echo. I'll post pics of our new place once we get settled....back to packing!

It's been a while. We've been busy getting our house ready to sell, trying to find a new place to rent and just enjoying our boys. Grant is still such a good baby, it's been so much easier than I expected it would be. The boys are so good with him- Ethan loves to hold him and is always helping me. Joshua adores him and is always giving him kisses and if he cries he goes and gets his stuffed puppy dog and gives it to him. It's so sweet. I've even managed to go grocery shopping with all three boys- twice. Anthony's had a lot of time off work lately and we've had so much fun having him around. We spent Thanksgiving with Anthony's second cousins who we discovered live just 3 hours away from us and had a lot of fun. I've been taking tons of pictures of the boys but keep forgetting to upload, so I put a few of my favorites below.
*Sorry I should clarify- we are just moving across town. We thought we were leaving next summer but we're going to be here another year and a half (although it would be nice if we were going back to NH!) we've outgrown this house and a really nice couple put an offer on it so we couldn't very well back out. We are still finalizing everything but should be closing mid-December. More later!

more pictures of Grant...

Baby Grant

Grant Daniel Osborne was born Monday October 26, 2009 at 1:27pm. He weighs 7lbs 5oz and is 19 1/2 inches long.

He is such a good baby, he sleeps all the time and rarely cries. It's funny how huge Joshua seems now. Joshua doesn't have a clue what the baby is and doesn't care to go near him. Ethan is excited to have a baby brother and is taking it really well. This birth experience was so different from the first two. If you don't like birth stories- stop reading now...

I decided to be induced on my due date because I was already a 3 the week before and ready to have this baby and Anthony's parents were in town and I not only wanted them to see the baby but wanted them to stay with the boys while we were in the hospital. I had decided months before if I had back labor for the third time this would be my last baby. I was not going to experience that again. A week before my due date I started panicking realizing that I was about to have this baby and dreading the back labor that I knew was impending. I decided this time I would be open to medical intervention and started doing research on epidurals. I had my previous two babies naturally- I feared the procedure of an epidural and felt the drugs weren't good for the baby, and my first midwife said the epidural might not help back labor.

Anyway, we got to the hospital and they started me on pitocin around 9am, I was already at a 4 and had back labor for a good hour before I decided I've already tried it that way twice, might as well try something different this time. So after hounding the poor nurse about how bad the needle really would be and promising it would not slow my labor down, I finally decided to try the epidural.

There were a few scary moments when my blood pressure dropped, but aside from that it was much better than I anticipated. It was the funniest feeling I've ever had and I couldn't stop laughing at my legs, they were like jello and it felt so weird to touch them, it was like when you go to the dentist and have a fat lip or tongue. I was still only half expecting it to help back labor, so I was pretty surprised when I went completely numb and couldn't feel a thing. I couldn't even feel any of my contractions and two hours later they said I was complete and ready to push. It was the most relaxing day I've had in years and I couldn't believe I gave birth, I spent the whole time sleeping.

He was born at 1:27, so 4 1/2 hours from start to finish, just like the last two, only this time I was 100% pain free (aside from the first hour of back labor). It was a bit dissapointing at the end because it was so anti-climatic. I didn't have the adrenaline rush and overwhelming emotions that come from natural childbirth and the satisfaction that you just birthed a baby. Because I have such fast labors the epidural didn't have any time to wear off so it was still in full effect when he was born and I couldn't believe I'd just had a baby. If it were my first birth, I'd have been really dissapointed, but I've already had that twice, it was nice to have a relaxing experience this time. Plus it may make the difference as to whether we have another baby in the future.

Anyway, we're glad to have the little guy here, he's so sweet and so far such a good baby. It was really fun for Ethan & Joshua to spend so much time with their grandparents, they got totally spoiled and really miss them now that they're gone. I'll be posting lots more pictures later!

Food storage analyzer

Last winter when we had the huge ice storm it was a wake up call for us to get our food storage and preparedness gear in order. We have most of our long term storage and 90-day supply but we always wonder if it's enough, especially since most food storage calculators are based on adults rather than children. We don't want to have overkill but we want to make sure we've got enough to meet our family's needs. I just found out about Emergency Essentials new analyzer that helps with that. You plug in what you already have and what you anticipate buying in the near future and it lets you know how long your food storage will last your family (based on age and gender) and what nutritional value your food will give you so you can see what gaps need to be filled in. Check it out http://foodstorageanalyzer.com now is the perfect time to re-evaluate your storage options before the winter storms hit.

Three years old

A little late, but Ethan had his 3rd birthday on the 14th. It's hard to believe he's so grown up already! Anthony had Columbus Day off so we celebrated his birthday a few days early. His main gift was a bike and he had lots of fun helping put it together. Then we spent the afternoon at the park riding around and playing. Joshua loves to ride too. Anthony's parents came in town for a visit and the boys have had so much fun getting spoiled by them. They'll be back again this weekend and we hope to have a new baby by then...

Happy Fall!

I love fall, it's my favorite time of year. I love crisp coolness in the air and the leaves as they change. I love making fall desserts like apple crisp, pumpkin bars and sugar cookies. I really miss New Hampshire this time of year for the beautiful colors and the apple orchards. We don't have any apple orchards but we do have a few pumpkin patches and we took the boys to pick their own pumpkins. They had so much fun running through the hay maze and playing on the pumpkin carts. Anthony found these mr potato head type eyes, nose & ears for halloween and the boys had fun decorating their pumpkins.

We spent the week in Columbus, OH and got to visit our good friends on the way home, the Toronto's, who just moved a few hours from us. It was so fun to catch up with them and their 3 boys. It's going to be a blast getting together with all 6 boys.

Our zoo has a Halloween party and since I'm not sure if I'll be out of comission on Halloween or not (baby's due on the 26th), we took the boys up to go trick-or-treating. As soon as they got into costume they started running around like wild things and were bouncing off the walls. I was surprised how much attention we got though, people kept stopping us all night long to say how cute they were and would yell and wave at thing 1 & 2 (of course I thought they were cute, but didn't think we'd cause such a commotion). They had so much fun and Joshua actually kept his hat on the entire time. Kind of fun to celebrate Halloween all month long.

My angel...

I've always called him my angel because he never cried as a baby, slept through the night the first week and was just so easy to take care of. He turned into a whiner after he got teeth, but now he's settling down and is a little angel again. This is absolutely my favorite stage. Although he's really clingy and follows me around all day long like a little puppy, Joshua is so sweet and cuddly. He's started carrying his blanket around the house and loves to just sit on my lap and cuddle. Ethan never liked to cuddle much, so I'm really enjoying this and constantly think about how I'll miss him when he grows up...

Fall projects

Since I didn't have to buy anything new for this baby, I decided I'd attempt to be crafty and tackle some projects. I made a new nursing cover, decor for the boys room- although Michael's discontinued these wooden letters so I'm not sure how I'm going to finish it for the new baby, some burp cloths, baby hats, blanket and attempted my first- and last- quilt.

Most were pretty simple except the quilt- I've never done one before and have no desire to patchwork pieces together, and I hate the tie quilts because those fuzzy things always go up your nose. I thought it would be easy to hand stitch designs in the fabric. But after I started I realized the stitching looks terrible on the backside and couldn't figure out how to make it look good. So I decided to machine stitch it. I don't have a quilting machine and it took hours to try and go around each curve. I think I can safely say it was my first and last quilt. And I did go ahead and make another blanket with ties- I figured it's not my nose they'll be tickling.
For some reason I was feeling ambitious and decided to make Halloween costumes. Call it nesting, I call it a dose of reality- my last few weeks of semi-freedom. But I did manage to complete them all. The boys are going to be Thing 1 & Thing 2 and Anthony's the Cat in the Hat. It was actually kind of fun, I have gotten out of the sewing mode and it was nice to work on a few projects.

*new* articles of faith

I had this forwarded to me and got a good laugh so thought I'd share ;)

1. We believe in SUVs and minivans, as the form of transportation, and in knee length shorts, which are always nice, and in the multilevel marking.

2. We believe that church ball players should be punished for their own fouls, and not for unsportsmanlike aggression.

3. We believe that through bread crumbs, cheese, creamy soups, and rice all casseroles can be saved by obedience to ward cookbooks and creativity in the mixing bowl.

4. We believe that the first layers and ingredients of the Dip are: first, beans; second, cheese; third, chopped tomatoes; fourth, the gift of sour cream; fifth, olives; sixth, salsa; seventh, guacamole, that is, if you have it.

5. We believe that a Mormon should have a distinguished or a cute name, that it is appropriate to name a child after a church leader or a historical figure including an ancestor, that alternative spellings and French prefixes only add to a name, and that when referring to the names of General Authorities, middle initials should be a part thereof.

6. We believe in the same wall decor that exists in many Mormon homes, namely, framed family proclamations, vinyl lettering, inspirational word signs, family photos, pictures of temples and Jesus, and so forth.

7. We believe in the gift of the re-gift, church books, crafts, family photos, baked goods, emergency supply kits, and so forth.

8. We believe in sparkling grape juice so long as it is nonalcoholic; we also believe in bringing root beer and sprite to ward parties.

9. We believe in all that we have scrapbooked, all that we will now scrapbook, and we believe that we will yet scrapbook many great and important things pertaining to our family, friends, pets, and vacations.

10. We believe in the literal mixing of ketchup and mayo and in the generous application of ranch dressing; that CBAs (church-based acronyms) will be used to describe YM/YW, PEC, the Y, NCMO, and CTR; that Mitt Romney will get Mormons to vote for him any time he runs; and, that the Mormons will enjoy reading Twilight and The Work and the Glory.

11. We claim the privilege of trying to identify common acquaintances with any visitor at church, and allow all other people at church the same privilege, and let them name drop the names of Famous and general authorities how, where, or what they may.

12. We believe in being subject to scoutmasters, pampered chef hostesses, and the writers of the U.S. News and World Report Rankings for professional schools, and in obeying, honoring, and sustaining Glenn Beck.

13. We believe in being above average, good at crafts, optimistic, and being fifteen minutes late everywhere we go. Indeed, we may say that we follow BYU football. We believe rumors about famous people joining the church, we hope to meet the three Nephites, we have endured many pyramid schemes, and hope to be able to endure all pyramid schemes. If there is anything cheap, free, sold in bulk, or given away when somebody is moving, we seek after these things.

Indianapolis

Last weekend we went to Indianapolis and took the boys to the children's museum. They had so much fun and we didn't have to say "don't touch" a single time! Of course even though they have a train set at home, it was their favorite thing there. It was like little boy heaven, they even had sand, water and fake dirt to make messes with. The next day I got to hit the outlets, although I have to admit it's just not fun shopping when you're this pregnant. I did all my shopping in a record hour and didn't even want to depress myself by looking at pre(or post)-pregnancy clothes. I still have not found a newborn suit for this little boy though, I can find plenty of white suits, but I want a black one. Usually Burlington has them, but not around here. If anyone knows of a place to buy one (outside of Utah) please let me know...

Week of Giveaways!

Don't forget to check out Natalie's Sentiments for giveaways every day this week!

...the Holy Ghost did it...

Ethan's train set has a bunch of bridges and he plays so rough with it that he's always breaking them apart and I have to fix them every day. I threatened him if he breaks it again we're going to put it away and he won't be able to play with it anymore. The next morning he's in his room playing and yells "the Holy Gost did it!" Then he runs down stairs and says "the Holy Ghost broke my train set!" Oh what will we think of next?

Triathlon & Chicago/Great Lakes Vacation

Anthony's sister runs marathons and Anthony got the bug- so he signed up for the Disney marathon in January. He started training for it and realized running wasn't challenging enough he'd rather do triathlons. So my crazy husband hasn't even run his first marathon yet and he's already signed up for two or three triathlons AND the ironman in St. George next May. He tortures himself around 4:30 each morning and on Saturdays (as if he's not busy enough being an attorney, bishop and father of 2).

Anyway his first Triathlon was last Saturday, the Railsplitter in Illinois at the Lincoln's New Salem State Park. We were already planning a trip to Chicago so we decided to make it one long trip. The park is really beautiful with lots of trees and flowers. The village is a bunch of re-created cabins with working blacksmiths and artisans. The day of the race the boys and I waited in the village and watched the runners coming through and Ethan would clap for each one and say "yay! good job!" One runner was wearing a speedo and as he ran past Ethan pointed and said "Look! It's a Lamanite!" It was so funny. Anthony finished 2nd place for his age group, we were really proud of him. Most of the people there did he mini-tri, but he did the full one (1 mile swim, 36-mile bike ride and 7 mile run and he finished in 3 hours 46 minutes- not to mention it was probably 100 degrees and 100 percent humidity). Not bad for his first Triathlon!

Next we headed up to Illinois high point. The directions in the high point book were completely wrong. We weren't sure if we were at the right place and there was a gate, so Anthony got on his bike and took off. He made it but went several miles out of the way because the directions were wrong. He could have driven up to the top ;) Oh well.

Then we headed for Chicago.We stayed up in the navy lodge in North Chicago and took the boys to the beach. Ethan had been asking to go to the ocean for weeks now, so I told him we'd go to the beach in Chicago, that would have to be good enough. The water was like ice. It was colder than the ocean in NH. But they had fun burying themselves in the sand and he even splashed in the frigid waters. We went to the Shedd aquarium and the boys had fun splashing in the little pools, took the trolley tour and walked around town. We tried deep dish pizza at Gino's East- it was definiately different, I wasn't expecting the cornmeal crust.

The next time we came into the city we took the train, Ethan kept saying "I hear Thomas!" We spent the day at Navy Pier and let the boys play in the water fountains. Then up to Sears or I should say Willis Tower. They just built this crazy glass addition onto the sky deck so you walk out on a glass ledge and see 103 stories below. It freaked me out. Ethan ran right onto it and put his face on the ground to look down then went out on the edge and pressed his face up against the glass. I was about to have a heart attack. I'd be more brave if it were there for 20 years but since they just built it this summer I'm waiting for someone to fall through. It was pretty neat.

After our adventures in Chicago we moved on to Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota. Anthony is doing the high-pointers and we figured this may be the only time we'd have a reason to be that far North, so we spent the next few days driving to hit the high points. Wisconsin's wasn't too bad but Michigan's was a chore. It was out 26 miles on a mud road- it had been raining for 2 days and there were massive puddles covering the road. We got to a point where it looked like the road was flooded out so I told Anthony to get on his bike and ride the rest the way. We had been burning up the whole week and had no cold weather gear, it was freezing outside and raining. But he was a good sport. He rode for about 15 minutes and came back and hadn't found the high point. So we braved the puddle and found the sign about a block further than he'd ridden, but it was still 2 miles from there. We came to another bad part in the road so he again got on his bike and trekked the rest the way.

We got to Minnesota's high point around 9:30pm and he decided he would run it, since we had to be home in time for church on Sunday and were a good 15 hours away with only one day to drive home. The trail was 6 miles round trip and really rocky so it took an hour longer than he expected. The boys and I were sleeping in the car and I kept waking to check the time and around midnight I started to get worried, realizing there were probably bears and wolves out where we were. But I guess he didn't smell like good food because he made it back in one piece. And after a long night and day of driving we finally made it home again.

The high points make a regular vacation a bit more exciting. Plus we probably wouldn't have ever gone through those parts of the country. It sure was beautiful and the cool weather, blue sky and green trees made us miss New England.