My Giant

On Friday we say goodbye to the Durango and hello to MY GIANT. The Durango was in need of some major repairs, not to mention the air conditioning that would need to be repaired (at least once based on history) next summer so we cut our losses and traded it in for a Nissan Armada. With our growing family, we had two options: minivan or full size SUV. We opted for the SUV. It's huge and I'm sure I'm going to have to park in the back of parking lots for at least a year before I feel comfortable getting into a spot between two cars, but it will easily hold three car seats and all the stuff that comes along with three kids. I posted some of the dealership pictures below for a sneak peak.

Tag - You're It

I have been tagged by Sarah.
1. Link to the person who tagged you
2. Post the rules on your blog
3. List 6 random facts about yourself
4. Tag 6 people at the end of your post
5. Let each person know they've been tagged by commenting on their blog
6. Let the tagger know the entry is posted on your blog

Six Facts
1. For a long time I have wanted to learn how to pilot a helicopter.

2. My dream job is to be a meteorologist on TV with the name Autumn Deigh (pronounced "day").

3. When I was little I had a recurring dream that gremlins broke into our house and were chasing my dad and me. There was an adult gremlin and a child gremlin. The rule was that only I could defeat the adult gremlin and only my dad could defeat the child gremlin. I would always run into my room, hide on the side of my dresser and then jump out to attack the gremlin when he came near.

4. I once had one of those bloated-belly goldfish and I named it Oprah.

5. I really want a pink cell phone.

6. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Karaoke!!

I am tagging:
Lorie at Life in North Minneapolis, Lisa at Life with the Websters and Sarah at The GreeneHouse. (Sorry - I don't have three more).

Birthday Bash

It seems like the only milestones I ever post about are for the kids, but last Saturday evening we celebrated an important milestone for Sean...his 30th birthday! In honor of his long lasting love of video games, we had a Guitar Hero tournament complete with stage and costumed participants. Thanks again to everyone who attended and to all the good sports who come in full Rock Star garb. Below are a few pictures.

Lisa & John played the first round.
Sarah & Shannon...rock queens.
Brian & Scott...obviously concentrating very hard.
Heidi & Lorie...um.
Heidi & Sean...the final round.
Joel...scary.

Lisa...scarier.

Ribbit

We spent Labor Day weekend at the lake - probably our last visit until Memorial Day weekend. One of these years I'd like to spend some fall weekends up there. I remember that being one of my favorite times of year at the cabin when I was growing up (except for the hours and hours and hours of raking leaves). We had a full house...15 of us! We spent a lot of time just hanging out with the kids. We had a bonfire Saturday night that Jack got to stay up for. Wesley pretty much stayed on his normal schedule so he had to miss the fire.

One afternoon, my mom found a tree frog on one of the deck chairs and pointed it out to Jack.

He got to take a really close look at it.

Then he touched it. "It's sticky," he said.

Then it jumped on him.

He was telling my dad about it later and said that the frog jumped right on his coat...his boat coat.

What's in a name?

In an effort to find the perfect name for our little girl - and by perfect I mean unique, traditional, but slightly trendy and common, but not too common - I have experimented with drawing inspiration from the "Baby Name Inventor" on babyzone.com. Below are a few of my favorites:

Nindenda: if Sean was a bigger Super Mario fan, I think he'd be pushing for this one; all it takes is two letter changes to get Nintendo (maybe that's the male version).

Tyanannan: reminds me of an enormous flying dinosaur; not exactly the image I want associated with my daughter.

Rexatan: sounds like the prescription I'll be picking up for the next case of "bug bites" my kids come down with.

Dec: let's hope she's not more than two days late.

Garage: really?

Lynelamar: I think this may be a monkey-like animal only found in the Outback...g'day mate.

Zeseerch: maybe if I was Freud...or Sherlock Holmes...

Hanaure
Manar: these two appeared together and all I saw was "manure"...again, no.

Resicola: I have visions of German men in Lederhosen blowing into long horns on a commercial for Pepsi.

So far nothing has met the aforementioned criteria so I guess we'll keep looking.

My Favorite Session Yet

We spent a stressful Saturday morning at Flash Portraits in Burnsville Center taking pictures and then choosing the actual prints to order, but I think it was worth the effort. These pictures are my favorite of all of them that we've done there. Below are a few of both boys. If you would like to see them all online, email me and I'll tell you how.

New Names

It seems we'll be searching for two new names; one for our blog and one for the daughter we'll welcome at the end of December (okay, how many of you thought I was going to announce twins?). At our ultrasound today everything with the baby seemed to be right on track (measurements indicate she weighs 10 ounces) and she appears to be healthy. We are praising God for His wonderful gifts and divine providence.

Thank you to everyone who participated in our baby poll and congratulations to all those who guessed girl. You don't win anything. Just be happy you were right.

Oh - and we're open to suggestions on names for the blog or the baby.