And the decision is...

After debating on a couple of names: Samuel Glenn and Ethan Glenn, Darin and I have decided to name our son Ethan Glenn Buscher. Ethan, appearing something like 8 times in the Bible means "strong, firm" in the Hebrew language. Glenn is Darin's middle name, something I'm proud to have our son share with his father.

We had debated between that name and Samuel. We'd also thought about using the name Isaiah, but that's just a difficult one to come up with a middle name for, and Glenn just didn't sound right. Samuel Glenn is what we decided to name Zoe had she surprised us in the delivery room with a different "part". But this time, I both of us were for some reason leaning towards Ethan. A lot of prayer went into this name, both from my husband and myself. It was important to us that God be a part of the naming of our children, and I'm assuming by the fact that we were both pretty set on Ethan that He was directing us that way. Darin places great importance on the meaning of the name. I actually think that if the hospital would let you walk out of their front doors without having named your baby yet, he would vote to do that and not name the baby until he was 8 days old...a traditional Jewish practice.

I remember before we even got married and talked about future children, the name Zoe was always what he wanted to name his daughter should he ever have one. Zoe means "life" in the Greek language, and wow does she live up to her name. Our sweet Zoe is nothing less than full of life, sharing her contagious spirit of happiness with anyone around her. The joy she's brought to us is immeasurable. She's our firstborn, our baby girl.

So, our little Ethan, our precious son, we look forward to that day a few months from now when we can hold you in our arms. On that day, our small family of three will instantly become a family of four. You will be loved by not just a mom and a dad, but a wonderful big sister too. Keep doing what you do best...grow big and strong. We have loved you from the first moment we knew you were going to be a part of our family. Until those first tender moments with you, we will wait.

Merry Christmas!!

For your listening pleasure as you read, sounds of I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas...baby style.



Well, this Christmas was much different than last...yes...MUCH DIFFERENT. Last Christmas, we were celebrating Christmas by hugging a toilet (most of us anyway). No food, no family gatherings, no tearing apart gifts, no food staying in the stomach (oops..probably too much info).

This Christmas, God heard all my pleas for a normal Christmas celebration without illness. Good to know God cares about even the little things. So we'll call this Zoe's first Christmas seeing as though she was one who was sick last year. Ahh the joys of Christmas at the Daniel household. Our Christmas usually pans out as follows:

Christmas Eve: Mom's family comes over for dinner and fellowship. We usually conclude the night with the Christmas eve church service and gift opening. Among the gifts that Zoe opened that night were a Noah's Ark stuffed boat (complete with Noah and a few animals inside) and some clothes from her Aunt Jan, a stuffed Winnie the Pooh from her Great Grandmother, and a snowman doll that wiggles while he sings (compliments of Darin and his great win during the Dirty Santa gift exchange). The best gift of all for the night? A bow and a box. Who knew???







Christmas Day: Shift gears and go visit Dad's side of the family for Christmas day lunch and gift opening. And the days following the festivities are filled with shopping and using $$ and gift cards, as well as stuffing our faces with left overs (especially the desserty left overs..those are my favorite). Though knowing I was pregnant and would easily put on those lovely pounds that would have to be shed following baby #2's birth, I watched very carefully how much of those desserty leftovers I stuffed. Gifts today include a couple of dolls from her Aunt Julie and some friends of mine, more clothes, lots of books from her Great Granny, a set of Veggie Tales DVD's from her Uncle Paul, and various other gifts like a V-Smile Baby and some blocks from her Grandma, and some cars, and a shape sorter box. This kid loaded up...literally! Although I still think she would have been happy just with that bow and box from the night before!

My husband's way of showing his Christmas belly - which he's having to force out to match mine.






And, this year had another special surprise. An acorn. Oh yes, lovely acorns. Falling from trees, scattering along the paths on the ground, finding their way underneath pregnant women's feet as they walk causing them to fall and hear a "snap" in her foot as she hit the ground with such a graceful thud. Oh...acorns. So that was the picture perfect ending of my Christmas Day. Walking to my car with my family to go to another gathering when all of a sudden, I hit the ground. I had stepped on one of those lovely little acorns, rolled my foot, and heard a snap in the foot as I went down. Being me, stubborn me, I got up, brushed tears from my eyes and continued walking, or rather limping now, to the car. About to drive off, Darin stopped me and reminded me of my stubborn ways and asked if I needed ice. "No", I replied..but as I took my shoe and sock off, what revealed was a different story. Already swollen and turning blue. Broken??? Torn ligament??? Just a sprain??? Who knew...but definitely painful. After ice and an ace bandage, we resumed on our journey. By day 3, I went and rummaged through the garage for some old crutches that I used when I tore a ligament in high school. Old and crumbly as they were, they kept pressure off my foot and allowed me the freedom to move a little faster than I was moving before. I knew it was something beyond a sprain. The bruising even today encompasses my entire left half of my foot from mid foot over and from my toes to my heel. Come to find out today, there's no break! Just a bad sprain and torn ligament. It will heal on its own with time and patience. It's already feeling better. Whew..just what I needed, entering into my third trimester with crutches and wearing a cast for who knows how long. Talk about an over exaggerated waddle. The doc actually thought it was broken when he saw the initial point of pain, so it's a great thing it's not cracked. Again...God cares about the little things. Oh, and no pictures or videos of that injury. I didn't exactly want to reenact that snap, crackle pop.

And last but definitely not least, the real reason for our celebrations...celebrating Jesus's birthday with a "Happy Birthday Jesus" cake. This will be something Darin and I will contine with our children even before any of the festivities my family. Since we're not planning on doing the Santa thing, we're trying to come up with some things that we can do along the lines of the story of the birth of Jesus. One of those things obviously is the cake. The other we've decided on (thanks to a mention of this in Amber's blog) is the whole three gift idea per child..representing the whole idea of three gifts being brought by the three wisemen). What a great lead in to the Christmas story. Then we'll also share the true story of St. Nicholas with them. I'm sure as the years pass, we'll develop many more traditions..these are just our first ones.

As promised...

For those of you who haven't read my "What do you think about the name Sue?" post yet, scroll down to read that first. Then come back to this one.

I finally got a chance to upload pics this morning. Our scanner is out of commision at the moment, so I had to take pictures of the pictures...sounds strange, I know.

Anyway, as promised, here are the pictures (minus the picture of the "boy parts"). But to put those of you who might be worried that we might be surprised on d-day with a little girl, I'll share with you this: It is unmistakeably a boy...trust me! I put arrows and words to them to make them a little easier to identify.


Profile picture: This picture took the longest to get...about 20 minutes. Reason?? STUBBORN BABY...already! The baby was turned head down yesterday, face either buried or turned to one side or the other with his bootie up in the air and knees pulled underneath him. Impossible posisition to get a profile picture from. The radiology technician said after just a couple of minutes of trying, "don't worry, I've never had a baby just not do anything if I jiggle them a little bit." Well, the little bit of jiggling turned into 15 minutes of poking, prodding, and jiggling, and another few minutes of me having to walk the halls to get him moving. I ended the walk with a minute or so of jumping up and down. She laughed and said, "well, after three years of doing this, I'll have to revise my previous statement. I've never had a baby this stubborn before". It would move, but the movements were more irritated kicks and jabs from being poked on...no rolling over. After the walking and jumping, I hopped back on the table and she tried again, this time successfully getting a profile picture.


Top of the face view...


Oh to be this limber...one of his feet is pressed up against his forehead in this picture.


I got a kick out of this last one. True boy for you...already showing off his bicep trying to prove how strong he is.

So our hospital has a really long ultrasound, sending us up to the radiology clinic to get it done. Routine procedure, no worries. They like to check all organs to make sure they're fully functioning, all major bones (femur, thigh bone, forearm, etc...) to make sure they're shaped right and measuring average growth patterns, all parts of the brain to check for function and growth, check for cleft lips, etc, etc, etc. It is a lot, but makes me feel better in the end. All looks good. Bones are growing at normal growth patterns. Healthy heart, kidneys, stomach, brain, etc. This one's going to be another tall one...his femur is measuring a week ahead of everything else.

So there you go...at 22 weeks along, I only have 18 weeks left. EDD is April 26th at this point.

What do you think about the name Sue?

So today was the big day!! And just an FYI, I would never name my baby Sue...oh yeah, and that would be a really inappropriate name for this baby anyway because IT'S A BOY!!!!! Pictures to come soon...sometime tomorrow when I can get the ultrasound pics scanned and uploaded.

Elf Yourself!

Too bad I can't dance this well in reality. Merry Christmas!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

We're Having....

Just kidding...you've got to wait three more days. I know...it's killing me waiting! We had our appointment to go do the ultrasound today. And of course the one night a year that we get ice and snow in central and southern Arkansas had to be last night! Roads were too treacherous and it just wasn't worth the risk to go. So we're rescheduled for Friday to find out the gender.

In the meantime, I'll dedicate this post to my baby girl's 17 month updates. Zoe's about 32 inches tall and weighs about 24 pounds. Getting big...almost too big for me to carry around in my pregnancy. She's hitting that time in her life where everything is about mimicking those around her...both actions and words.

This last month has been a big one for her mentally. She amazes me with how much she understands. For example, last week, she brought me an ornament w/o the top and the hook. My mind was elsewhere and I set it aside temporarily. Four hours later, I took the ornament to her and asked her to show me where she found this. She pointed me to the exact spot and I found the top and hook just under where her little finger was pointing to.

We're still potty training, although schedules have gotten off so much in the frenzy of Thanksgiving vacation and the two illnesses she's had since then that we're backtracking. We'll hit it hard again after Christmas. I'll probably spend about a week getting her to the point where we left off and then progress from there.

Her new fascinations this month are puzzles...wooden or the kind with the little knobs on them. She's gotten really good at picking out where they go and is still working on figuring out how to turn them just right to fit them in their space. She also enjoys her new memory game. We found a little memory game at a consignment shop that has cute pictures of every day items. At first, out of 36pairs, she knew at least half of them already. We've since learned the rest and she's learned to say the words to about half of them. We don't actually play it the way it's meant to be played. I'll throw about anywhere from half to all of the cards out on a table and ask her to find ______. She'll find one and I'll tell her to find the other one. She LOVES to play that game and to try to mimic my sounds. She's also found a love in playing with cars...doesn't matter what size as long as it rolls and she can crawl around and push it. We bought her some little cars that are in the shape of animals for Christmas...some that don't look too boyish. ;-) She'll love them.

She's finally learned to feed herself with a spoon successfully with relatively no mess. It took me several months to convince myself to let her try b/c I knew what a mess on the carpet it would make.

New words this month are too many to count. She's learning a couple a day lately. Her newest words that she says most often are "blanket" actually pronounced blanket, "happy", "Jeezzus" for Jesus, "Git Up" for get up, "Sit Down", "Dance", "Jump", "Mayamiut" for wait a minute, "jacket", "cold", "hot", "touchdown" - a result of watching Monday night football with daddy, "right back" in response to "I'll be right back", and her absolute favorite right now, "lights" in response to seeing Christmas lights. If you haven't noticed, we're starting to hear lots of two word sentences and phrases. That probably started a few weeks ago. She loves to mimic what we say..most often in the form of the last word or two that we say. She will do it both when we're talking to her and when we're reading her books. She's learned to say all body parts including knee and elbow and will poke your eyes out if you're not careful. She enjoys naming all kinds of animal sounds if you ask her what the _____ says. She's also learning basic shapes and a few numbers since we have a wooden shape and number puzzle that she puts together. She knows the "B", "D", "O", and "Z" from the alphabet...no rhyme or reason why she knows those.

We've learned recently that she LOVES to dance as I'm sure you saw from a video a few posts back. Her favorite Christmas song is "Rockin Around The Christmas Tree" and just about any other upbeat song. At church the other day, the children's choir sang a short Christmas program at a family fellowship. She wiggled out of Darin's arms and stood next to where he was sitting and just twirled around until she got dizzy. Guess what song it was to?

She's now running just about everywhere she goes. She likes to play hide-and-seek with Jedi (yes, he actually plays with her) and chase with mommy and daddy. She'll play hide-and-seek with us too, but it turns into a game of chase eventually. And climbing...oh goodness is this child a monkey! She tries to climb on everything...even the coffee table.

I guess that's about it on updates for the last month. Here are some fun pictures I took yesterday and today. Notice the hair and even more importantly the barrette in her hair! Yay for hair!!!!

"Jeezzus"

*One pre-lit Christmas tree...$80.
*One Winnie the pooh doll for your daughter who thinks every bear is "pooboo" (her word for pooh bear) - $15.
*The first time you hear the word "Jeezzus" (Jesus) come out of their little mouths - priceless!!!

So tonight, Brandi, our babysitter gave Zoe a Christmas gift - a popout book telling the Christmas story. What a precious book! She loved it...although she had absolutetly no idea what to do with the wrapped present. We had a Sunday School Christmas party tonight, and since Zoe had been sick with a cold, we decided to keep her home from the church nusery and asked Brandi to watch her. There's no telling how many times they read that book tonight, but apparently she said Jesus to everything on the page as they were reading and talking about it. As we were talking, Zoe started coughing which means one thing usually...she's laid down and gotten so stuffy from laying flat that she started coughing after trying to suck her thumb. Since it was still fairly early, I pulled a "mommy" and went in to give her some nose drops so she could breathe. Brandi followed me back and as I was getting the drops ready, she asked Zoe about Jesus. And then...sniff sniff...she repeated her, saying "Jeezzus". Music to a mother's ears.


OK...I'm off my pathetic emotional high. You can stop laughing now and rolling your eyes...really! But it really was a sweet moment. To hear a little voice so stopped up saying Jesus.

The Halfway Point!!!

I'm am now officially past the halfway point. It sort of sneaked up on me and crept past w/o me really giving it much thought. I'll actually be 21 weeks in a couple of days. We find out next Tuesday what we're having...with any luck of course. I'll be sure to guzzle a Dr. Pepper before we go in to make sure the baby's bouncing off the walls (not that he or she doesn't do that already anyway). Here's my 20 week picture. I seem to have finally slowed down on growth and now probably more resemble what I did when I was about this last pregnancy. Just for fun, I wore the same shirt that I did last time.



Actually, I don't know. I may have been bigger with Zoe by this point...definately carrying differently. What do you think? Here's the pic of me at 20 wks with Zoe. The different shirt throws it off quite a bit.

My Vaccuum Buddy

So this is what happens now when I vaccuum. She, not too long ago, was afraid of the vaccuum and I would have to do it while she was napping. Now, instead of running away from, she runs to and stands right in front of me saying "beep beep". I guess she picked that up one day when I said that trying to get her out of the way. FUnny what things they pick up on and remember. Not the best of videos b/c obviously I was trying to get the floor vaccuumed..but it was too funny of a moment to pass up.

Mommy look what I can wear!

A new stage of life...the stage of HAIR. A long awaited stage for a mom who looks into the future with dreams of playing with her little girl's hair. A stage that means absolutely nothing to a busy 17 month old. Over the last month, the new style that's been trying to come in over the last 3 months or so has finally come in...and I might add, finally laid down. For months, she's had sprouts of three inch long hair covering the crown of her head and extending over her head. And for months, it stood straight up. I couldn't keep it down. It's finally long enough that it's laying down, and on top of that, she's growing bangs.

So what's a mother to do but go out and buy a cute little set of bows? We tried the cheap clips from a dollar general store...but her hair's too fine and thin to keep them in. But last night, I bought some from someone who was inspired by her hairless wonder and now makes them to sell. They are the perfect size and they stay in! Yay for bows!!! And yay for the last of the comments I hear everytime I get her out (despite the pink shirt she's wearing), "Oh, what a cute little boy!".



As I was taking a picture this morning, she decided that she would check out what's under the Christmas tree...even though she's ignored it up to this point. And what did she find??? Presents!!! Apparently Christmas is coming early this year unless I can keep those nicely wrapped presents from being unrapped.

New Perspectives...

A new perspective of looking at your Christmas tree.

A Thanksgiving with the Buschers

18 hour roundtrip on the road - $100(thanks to $1.50/gal)
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A wonderful Thanksgiving meal prepared for 18 people - I have no clue b/c we didn't prepare it.
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A Thanksgiving holiday spent with the Buschers - PRICELESS.

Each Thanksgiving is spent with my husband's family. This year, we added another baby to the mix making a grand total of 10 grandkids (and two more on the way: expected to arrive in late April and late May). Darin has 4 brothers...those brothers have between them 8 boys...there's only two girls in the grandkid mix. So the testosterone in that house when we're all together is overwhelming...sometimes so much that you can smell it (ahh the sweet smell of sweat).

So what happens on a typical Thanksgiving day in the Buscher household? Let me show you...

A WHOLE LOT OF THIS...


A LOT OF THIS...


AND SOME OF THIS...BURR...


THE FAMILIES (minus one)

The grandkids...From left - Noah, Benjamin, Elizabeth, Silas, Caleb, Zoe, Jonah, Isaac, and Elijah (missing Luke)

Us...

Clockwise starting from top - Bobby, Jennifer, Jonah, Elizabeth, Benjamin, and Noah

Clockwise starting from top - David, Caleb, Isaac, Elijah, Silas, and Stephanie

And this is where the picture would be of Bruce, Neita, and Luke, but they were unable to join us this year.

Zoe learned a ton of new words while she was there...some good, some not so good (like "cookie"). She made up her own names for Grandpa and Grandma. For Grandma, it was "memaw". For Grandpa it was a variety, sometimes "pepaw, others poopah, and others I couldn't make out. She also learned to associate the word "cookie" with grandpa...Thanks Ernie! ;-).


All in all it was a great trip. Subtract out the 18 hours it takes to get there and back and you've got it made! Let me tell you...a 9 hour journey one way with a 16 month old who doesn't like to sit still was a scary one...but she did really well...Much better on the way up there than on the way back, but really well overall. Leaving at 8AM really helps make it seem like you still have a good portion of your day left after you arrive at your destination.

Another trip in the books......

At this moment...

At this moment, I'm trying to get packed for our trip to Illinois tomorrow. Since when is it ok for having a toddler to mean the amount of stuff you take is doubled? We're listening to a Christmas CD...Amy Grant's newest. Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree came on and Zoe has broken out into a full dance. She turns around and around and around, gets dizzy and sometimes falls, then gets right back up and turns around some more.

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree....

Christmas tree decorating about a week early this year. I wanted to have the tree up before we left for a long journey this week instead of putting it up when we got back, which is what we normally do. I think part of me was excited that this was Zoe's first Christmas where she would actually be involved in the decoration process.

She loved putting the ornaments on, though her idea of decorating was shoving Christmas balls in the tree as far as they would go and then putting all others in that same exact spot. Here are a few of her decorating and enjoying the tree.