Calder adores Bryce. As soon as he can hear Bryce opening the door when he comes home from work, Calder runs over to him yelling, “Daddy! Daddy!” and telling him some bit of news. Lately it’s been all about informing Bryce that the Christmas tree lights have been turned on. He loves to play blocks with his daddy, read books with his daddy, and get tickled by his daddy.

See?

Getting a ride on Bryce's foot. "Hello, up there!"

Thrilled to have his daddy home to play with.

Here’s what Amelie’s been up to recently:

Making things. She told us this was the Leaning Tower of Pisa--doesn't it look like it? And the other day she was drawing and told me she was drawing "an abstract." And she was! It was very abstract. I wish I could say she learned these things from me, but she actually learned both things from some cute t.v. shows.

Snoozing. Later in the day when I was talking to her about her little cat nap, she told me that she wasn't actually sleeping. "Just resting." Right...

Dancing. Here she is learning their Christmas dance. I love that she loves dance class.

I think their teacher was telling them to pull their tummies in. The little girl two ahead of Amelie in line (hair in a bun, no sleeves on her leotard) is actually one of Amelie's best friends from church. It's been fun to have them in class together.

From their little Christmas dance to "Sleigh Ride." Sorry about all the boxes in the background--I couldn't get my computer to crop the picture right this morning for some reason. This dance was cute and hilarious--nothing more entertaining than watching a bunch of 3 and 4 year-old girls try to remember a routine! It was just precious.

As you can see, this little girl has been pretty busy. Another big milestone that she’s been working on is learning to read. We bring home readers from school, work on them together, and then she trades them in once she’s shown her teacher what she’s learned. She’s reading things like, “Mag is a dog,” “Dot has a hat,” “Jig is a pig,” etc. She’s done so well that I took her to the bookstore and let her pick out her very own brand new book (she picked a cute one about cupcake girls) to bring home.

And she just gets sweeter every day. Amelie loves to give hugs and kisses and has a very tender way about her. What a joy she is!

Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Haymond, Calder is now the proud owner of some very snazzy Sunday clothes. Check out our handsome fella:

Hi, cute boy! And, yes, that's a real tie and everything.

Serious face.

Not so serious face.

He was so proud of his new outfit and I thought the whole ensemble was pretty darn cute. So, thanks, Grandma and Grandpa!

Truly, there’s not much to say about this past Halloween. Now that Amelie is old enough to know what she wants to be for Halloween, it’s harder to plan a family theme. She wanted to be Ariel, the little mermaid, this year and I just couldn’t quite get my act together. Maybe there just wasn’t enough incentive for me, since I’d basically have to be Ursula. So, the kids each did their own thing and Bryce and I threw on our pj’s, robes, and slippers as we headed out the door on Saturday to go to our friends’ annual party and then our ward trunk-or-treat.

We didn't even carve pumpkins! I figured balloons made less mess. Left to right: Calder's, mine, and Amelie's. Maybe next year we'll go for the real deal...

Bob the Builder and a pretty little mermaid. Hey, Calder--the camera's this way!

Great smile, Calder, but you're still looking the wrong way! Honestly, I think the goggles distort his vision a bit. But he loves them.

So, there you have it. Halloween 2010. Oh, and we got rained in, too! The trunk-or-treat ended up in the hallways of our church building because of the downpour. Amelie and Calder didn’t seem to mind. They ended up with plenty of candy and seemed to have a lot of fun.

Well, it’s a BOY!! We are all very excited. I am thrilled that Calder will have a brother to do fun boy things with and I know Amelie is going to be just a lovely big sister to this little one. The imaging center where we had the ultrasound done was kind enough to give us a DVD of the ultrasound and a CD of all the still images the technician took, so here are some pictures from last night:

See? I told you it was a boy 🙂 Imagine he's sitting on a glass table and we're looking up at his bum and legs...

Waving, "hello." Isn't that a sweet little hand?

Cute profile shot.

Already has long legs like his daddy.

The did some 3D stuff, too, which was pretty neat. We've never had that done before. It's kind of hard to make out, but this is a profile shot of his head facing right with a hand (or two?) tucked up under his jaw.

So, there’s our sweet boy! He was measuring about a week ahead of schedule, so either he’s a big baby (totally possible), or I’m due a little earlier (also possible, I guess). The 20 week ultrasound always makes things more real for me and, I have to say, it was love at first sight for me. I am so excited to meet this little one in the Spring!