Okay, so we have no idea where our camera is, it just upped and disappeared one day. We keep thinking everytime we do a deep clean/organization of our house that we'll find it, but no such luck and it's been months. Brian has a few blurry pictures on his blackberry of the kids, but he hasn't uploaded them yet. So what has been new with us?
Well, Ben started pre-school again after a much too long summer break. He's had some trouble waking up in the morning and has decided that he has the "option" to say no to everything we ask him to do. Just putting him in time out wasn't working anymore because he either wouldn't stay in it, or he'd prefer to stay in time out instead of doing what he was asked to do. Now we put Thomas the train in time out if he does something wrong, so far it's working pretty well. :) He can get him back if he does something good like going pee pee in the potty or picking up his toys.
Jeffrey has decided that he no longer needs a diaper. Seriously. He won't keep one on, he can take off any pair of pants we put over his diaper. He was doing things like taking off his diaper and then peeing on the floor, this kid does not like messy pants! As a result he has insisted on us putting big boy undies on him and has started going pee pee in the potty all by himself! Yay! Two (almost) down and one to go! My grocery budget is rapidly increasing without having to buy diapers for all 3 kids! He's talking quite a bit more and has been sitting through church without throwing his usual "screaming so loudly that everyone can hear him even when we take him out in the hall" tantrums. We're very proud of his progress! He seems to being growing out of his terrible two's a little, much to the relief of the nursery workers at church I'm sure!
Megan is our little mobile girl! She crawls everywhere and can nearly make herself stand on her own. Her favorite thing to do right now is wait until the boys are asleep and then wake up for some one on one daddy time before she goes back to bed. Everytime Brian walks through the door she immediately reaches her arms up and screams until he picks her up (which he ALWAYS does). I don't think I've ever seen a bond as close as theirs! She loves playing with her daddy's beard. This morning I told her to give Ben kisses and sure enough she gave him the most slobbery kiss I've seen on his forhead. She's such a quick learner and loves her brothers so much! So far she's mostly become attatched to Jeffrey and follows about 2 feet behind him at all times. She loves Ben, but he's not so nice when it comes to sharing his trains.
Brian is a week or so into his second rotation for school. His first one was for 6 weeks where he focused on internal medicine. Right now he is doing Family medicine and has about another month of that. I believe his 3rd year rotations go in this order: Internal Medicine, Family Medicine, OB, Psychiatry, Surgery, then Pediatrics next summer. They're all about 6 weeks long. He's doing great and is loving this part of medical school. He also bought a gun for his birthday and has been working to obtain his concealed weapons permit, with any luck he'll have met all of the requirements by this weekend, yay! You'll have to e-mail him if you want details about what type of gun etc... that he got.
As for me, I decided that this semester was not a great time to start school again, I think I will try again in the spring after Megan is a year old. Right now I'm enjoying seeing the kids learn and grow and have become quite the chef/baker! We've been hosting the missionaries now for the last week and a half and I have loved experimenting on them! I'm making things I've never made before and can't believe that I haven't tried making these things before! I think I'm going to start taking pictures of my creations, or at least listing them and the recipes I used. My specialty this last week has been cabbage soup. I followed a simiple Sweet Russian Cabbage Soup recipe for one of the days and just created my on concoction a few days later. We had a lot of cabbage given to us so I've been trying to use it all up before it goes bad. As for baking I've made pumpkin bread, peanut butter cookies and snicker doodles for the first time, as well as two killer banana cream pies. Let's just say the missionaries haven't been complaining!
Well there you have it, that is our update. Hopefully we'll figure out the whole camera situation soon. One last thing, we took a mini vacation a couple of weeks ago to Gatlinburg to see Ripley's Aquarium and it was AMAZING, they had the coolest shark tank and we couldn't hardly drag Ben out of there! Brian took a couple of pictures of it with his blackberry and will hopefully be posting them soon.
Love,
Shelly
Benjamin and Jeffrey get out in the garden with their new little shovel and hoe. They're helping Mommy dig a spot for planting onion bulbs.
Heave ho boys. Put your backs into it!
Mommy shows off her new short hair cut.
Benjamin and Jeffrey love wearing their mommy and daddy's hats for snack time.
Ben shows off his pirate outfit while Mommy gets Megan into her monkey costume.
Megan is a cute little monkey.
Benjamin the pirate puts on his war face.
The daring pirate duos have discovered the hidden treasure at the bottom of the stairs. Arggh!
Let's count the booty!
The super-secret treasure map they followed.
Megan is not one to miss out on the action. She is armed and dangerous.
BEFORE
AFTER
Ben is bundled up for the weather. It's COLD outside; about 40 degrees. But that won't stop him from riding his bike.
It also won't stop Jeffrey from going out on the porch butt naked! 
Daddy consoles Megan about her pretty hat and nice warm winter clothes that she didn't want to put on.
