Thing 3 loves his big brother and sister

All my things :)

James is seriously such a happy baby he is always smiling and talking! 

Jenna loves reading to her brother! It is now part of our nightly routine before bed!

 Jenna can't wait for James to be able to talk to her, so she spends lots of time just talking to him :)

I love how protective she already is of him... the second he cries she is by his side!

These pictures were taking at 4 1/2 weeks old, and my strong boy is already holding his head up! 

 I wasn't sure how Kade would be once the baby is born, but it has been wonderful!

He is so enamored with him, and when he is here staring at his brother is his favorite thing to do!

My adorable boys make me so happy! I can not wait to see how close they are as they grow!

Kade says his favorite thing to do his hold his brother, and that he is going to coach his football team someday!

Thing 1 and Thing 2 Play Basketball

So as much as this mommy likes talking about our new addition I wont ever be less proud of my older babies! This was Kade's 2nd year and Jenna's 3rd year of basketball, and look how much they have grown since season 1 :)

They each had a great season for different reasons, and both grew so much! It is such a rewarding thing as a mom to watch your kids get better at something you love! 

Luckily they are still silly little monkeys, and are not to big to play at the park together yet! 

Telling Thing 1 and 2

We decided that the 1st people who should know should be the kids. We weighed the pros and cons to telling them now or later, and decided that telling them now was best for our family for some of the following reasons. 

• We know that "people" say telling kids before the end of the 1st trimester is not safe, but we know people who have lost babies all the way up to birth. We would rather tell them now, and be honest with them about how I am feeling, what is going on, and tell them like all life this baby is in God's hands to decide if it comes to earth or stays with him.
• Jenna and I are really close, and she knows when something is wrong with me. We felt like it was best to keep ahead of her questions or worry. 
• We didn't want me to start showing or have someone else tell them, and leave them feeling left out. 
• This is such an exciting time, and we want them to get to be as much apart of it as possible. 
• We really try to make Kade feel as much apart of our family as possible, but with us only having him every other weekend that doesn't always work. We didn't want him to find out after Jenna, or because someone else told him. We feel like he may struggle the most with a new baby, and wanted him to know he is just as much the baby's family as anyone!

Seeing it is Christmas Season we decided to play that into how we told them. We have a yearly tradition to get the kids an ornament and new pj's on our "Christmas eve" with Kade. 

We sat them down, and told them they have one last ornament to hang. 

I asked, "Jenna what year is it"? "2013", she said.  
Then I asked, "Kade what year will next Christmas be"? "2014", he said. 

Then Michael handed them this

They read it... 

And then their eyes got big, and they danced!

Safe to say they were pretty excited! Jenna wants a girl to play dolls with and Kade wants a brother to wrestle. Jenna kept asking questions about the babies name, and Kade was more interested in what the baby was making me feel like! It was such great thing to get to see their faces get excited for our future baby!
I am glad they get to be apart of this!