Merry Christmas......oh, and were having a...

Boy!!
I know, I can't believe it. I was totally convincing myself that we would have another girl, and they could be best friends and go shopping together, etc, etc. But apparently Annalise knew all along....It's a Boy! Many people have already asked....does that mean you are going to name him Oscar........only time will tell. Maybe we will have to do another baby naming bracket, because Kev and I have a hard time agreeing on boy names.

Well I wanted to say Merry Christmas to everyone!!
It has been an exciting year for us as we moved to Ohio for Kevin to begin school again, and now we are getting ready to welcome a new baby into our family.

This week we got to celebrate Christmas with both of our families, and it has been very, very busy. My brothers wife had her baby a week ago (the 17th), at 9 lbs 4 oz, 21 inches. And the amazing thing is that Lauren is only 4'11'', so Greyson was a huge baby compared to her.

Matt was able to bless the baby in their home on Sunday with everybody there, Grayson is already loved by many people. My mom had to take advantage of having all of her grandbabies together, so we took pictures with all of them (as seen above). The 1 year olds were not happy about it, but I think it is a cute picture.

Kevin was in Nicaragua last week doing a project for school. He had a great time in the warm weather, and it was a huge shock when he flew into Salt Lake with freezing temperatures and snow covered ground. I asked him if he wanted me to write anything about his trip, and he says "It was indescribable."

I hope you all had a wonderful year, and that you have enjoyed celebrating Christmas, and the birth of our Savior.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

The Spirit of Christ

As the holiday season is quickly coming upon us I am becoming more frantic getting my house cleaned, presents purchase, and bags packed. I have created a long to-do list that I have emailed to myself, so I can be ready to fly out on Wednesday and enjoy my time with my family friends. I have been preparing for traveling and social time with my family,however, this year I have been trying to refocus my Christmas on Christ.

As many of you have experienced before, being a poor student around Christmas time can be a struggle. Even though I generally make homemade gifts, they still cost money and this is something we don't have this year.So I have been thinking long and hard about the gifts for family and friends. I haven't come to a conclusion for all of my gifts this year, but as I was pondering why I am going to all of this trouble I couldn't help think of why I am celebrating Christmas.

For those of you who know my family, we have had one tradition that has held out strong over the years.......Christmas caroling. Yes, if you know the Stott Family you know we like to sing, and I looked forward to it every year growing up. It may not be much, a couple of traditional Christmas songs,........ and probably "Santa Your'e Too Fat"  (a family favorite), with a warm ball of caramel corn;  But it was a good reminder to me to take the time to focus on Christ, and take the time to love others as He has done for us.

So this Christmas season I hope we can all remember why we celebrate Christmas, and bring the Spirit of Christ into our homes.

This video inspired me to remember what Christmas is all about......enjoy!:

It's a ........

Still going to be a surprise. However we had our ultrasound yesterday and it was so good to see my baby. I really wanted to bring Annalise to the ultrasound so she could see "baby Oscar",  I know she would have loved it, but the hospital is not allowing any children under the age of 16 to visit because of flu season. I was sad, but it was Annalise's nap time anyway, so it worked out just fine. I am to lazy to decide which pictures to show you, so I just made a video describing all the pictures.  I hope you can see them okay!



We had the ultrasound tech write down the sex of the baby and put it in an envelope for us, so we will open it on Christmas and let you all know!!

The adventures of potty training part II

So I thought it would be a good idea to give an update on our potty training adventure. First off, thank you all for your suggestions (and sympathy.) I tried the sticker chart, which worked well for about three days, but then Annalise decided that she didn't like me telling her when to go potty.......she is way too independent to have any one telling her what to do. So at that point I had enough of our two heads butting together and decided to take a little break. I put her back in diapers for two weeks, and in the meantime got her a little princess potty throne, and some children's books about the potty from the library.

We borrowed "Everybody Poops", and "A Potty For Me" which Annalise loved. I ran out of diapers last week and decided there is no time like now! So we tried our "big kid underwear" again, and apparently it worked. The first day she had two accidents, a few days later she had one accident on Thanksgiving (but it was kind of hectic and she didn't know where to find me before it was too late.) Now she is sleeping and running around diaper free.
It is funny the little things you get excited about, but the second day she came to me and told me that she needed to pee, it was the happiest moment of my day. Now she is a pro.....and I don't have to buy diapers anymore (well at least for another 4 months or so.)

Speaking of more diapers, my ultrasound is coming up on the 10th! And.....I finally convinced Kevin to let me find out if we are having another little girl, or a whole new world of boy. The deal is, we are going to ask the tech to write down the sex for us, and we are going to put it in an envelope and open it on Christmas. What a great Christmas present!! (So hopefully we can tell if it is a boy or girl in the ultrasound.) It is amazing how fast the first half of pregnancy has gone, but that is easy to say now that I am out of my first trimester and feeling human again.

Well, while I am rambling on I might as well tell you how close Kevin is to the end of his first quarter of school at OSU. All he has left are finals, and then I get my husband back on Wednesday......Yay! Then he is heading to Nicaragua next Saturday to party (well work) for a week with some of his peers from school.

Sorry for no pictures, but we are getting a new camera soon and then I can finally fit my camera in my purse! TTFN