Merry Christmas! Love, us.

 

The Otto family had a bright year in 2010!

Rick’s spirit was made bright as he started his third year of medical school. Rotations are much more fun than lectures! He is still very involved in intramural sports and the Youth and scouting programs in our church. He plays with and wrestles his two boys any spare minute he can find!

A bright spot of Page’s year was visiting and introducing Rick to her favorite place in the world:  Santiago, Chile. Page still enjoys running in the mornings (even 8 months pregnant!), doing craft projects, grading Spanish tests, and mothering her boys.

Carson (just turned 3) is our bright preschooler. He lives for his home-school preschool activities once a week. Carson’s memory and understanding continue to amaze us, and he loves helping mommy cook, sew, clean, etc.

Everett (20 months) brightens up our days with his sweet smile. He is such a fun, snuggly little boy and is often the family’s entertainer. Now that our boys share a room, hearing his sweet little voice talking to his brother at night is just so cute.

We will welcome another bright little spirit into our family in January. I am not sure how I will fit three little ones on my lap, but we are so excited!

We know that it is Jesus Christ, our Savior, who can make each of our spirits bright this holiday season. We are so grateful for His miraculous birth, His momentous life, His noble death, and His continued influence in our personal lives.  We pray that we can all look to our Savior to find true and lasting happiness.

May your spirits always be bright!

The tree.

Shopping for a real Christmas tree was a first for us this year. We love having it in our home!




 
As usual, Carson was "a little nervous" about a few things. Here, he was probably worried about the machine the farmers used to put the tree in the stand.



But this boy doesn't get nervous about much of anything!

This boy and his Pappy.

Everett associates two things with my dad: pick-up trucks and chandeliers. During my parents' last visit to our home, Pappy hung a chandelier in the new baby's room, and then there is his obvious ownership of a big white pick-up. Whenever we walk into a room with a chandelier, or whenever we spot a truck in the parking lot, you will for sure hear a cute little voice yelling, "PAPPY!! PAPPY!!"

Finished!

It felt so good to make the final purchase and put the finishing touches on our home-made gifts today. We are done! Tomorrow should be a beautifully peaceful day to turn our hearts towards the One we are celebrating.

Boy or Girl?

Does this look like a boy face or a girl face?? I have been pondering this all morning. Up until now, I haven't been tempted at all to find out the gender of this baby, but after my ultrasound today, I'm very curious!!

Here's the evidence, one way or the other:

• I'm carrying high, so it must be a girl.
• Carson is convinced he's getting another brother and won't even consider the alternative, so it must be a boy.
• This baby is very calm in utero, so it must be a sweet little girl.
• This is the first pregnancy where I felt at all nauseous during the first few weeks, but I can't remember if that means it's a boy or a girl.
• The ultrasound tech did look to see the gender at this appointment (while I covered my eyes), and it took her all of 10 seconds to say she was done checking out that part, so it must be a boy.
• I have bins full of boy clothes and 0 girl things, not even one outfit, so it must be a girl to allow me to do a little shopping!
• I would really, really, really like a daughter at some point, so it must be a boy to test my patience a little.

We will see in about a month! This delivery is going to be so exciting!!

Remember these leaves?

I'm always just behind enough on blog posts that the pictures seem like old news. All the leaves are gone now, but they were pretty a few weeks ago! The boys had a delightful time raking and playing one evening when Rick got home.

Everett loves our neighbor Barbara. He walked right over and knocked on her door all by himself the other day. She lets our kids watch TV and eat popcorn, so what's not to love?

He loves Richard Scarry.

And he is learning to love sharing a room with his brother.

I do not love having my boys start their day with me at 6 a.m. when they used to sleep in until at least 7 (Carson) and 8 (Everett). We will give this a week and see if it gets any better!

Thank you Central Library.

I am so glad that these two boys love story time. Although we haven't been able to do the weekly library storytime as religiously as we used to, whenever we do go I know it will be a relaxing time for me! Carson takes activities like this extremely seriously, following directions to a T, never smiling because this is really serious business. Everett is old enough now he will sit and participate for most of the time, so it really is nice for me and fun for them.

If you're happy and you know it...

Shout hurray!

Third year is not so bad.

During our first couple of rotations this year, I thought I hated third year of medical school. But there are totally some high points! Like radiology. And Rick's upcoming Family Medicine rotation, which is rumored to be called the Family Vacation rotation.

The boys really love having dad for a few minutes in the mornings. I feel like whether or not Everett sees his dad when he wakes up has a major impact on his overall emotional state during the day.

Here are two of the boys on one such morning when they got to eat breakfast together. Rick really gets a kick out of seeing how big Carson can open up his mouth.

Proof that I did try couponing.

I'm sorry, I know everyone is sick of these pictures, but I had to post it just this once!

I'm good at some things. I'm not good at other things. I am really really bad at couponing. I lose coupons (I have totally lost coupons in the store, when I just had them in my hand), I have trouble printing them, I get cranky about the amount of time I spent getting ready for and at the store, and I get emotional when the store is out of the item I need.

So I had to document the fact that I did have success last week with Harris Teeter's super doubles. The picture above was $3, I think, and I went back a few times for more of the same. One time the store ended up owing me 50 cents, and I got to pick out a candy bar!! That made me like couponing a little bit more, but I still cannot say I want to do it again any time soon. 

E is for Elephant.

I like documenting the little pre-schools we do, so here we go with letter E. (This is actually old...don't worry; all of Carson's Halloween shirts were quickly put away after the holiday!)

First we made the letter E with foam rectangles. For some reason the really liked doing this over and over again, switching colors, then racing for speed, etc.

Let's be honest: Olive has awesome penmanship, and Carson... well, he's working on it. They both did really well writing the letter E later. It is a fun one to write: first the daddy line, the three baby lines!




















Elephant puzzles. We did a few more activities like this that I didn't take pictures of.

E snack: Eggs on English muffins.

We did more, but I can't remember... an elephant cut-and-paste was one. Oh, for one activity, I just wrote up a bunch of words that start with E on the white board. We went through them, and they took turns trying to define each word. I think this is a great skill for them to have, and they were really good at it. My favorite was the word "elevator." Carson said, "it's something that digs!" Very close; that's excavator!

And Everett still loves being king of the playroom while brother is busy!

The latest visit from the grandparents.

We LOVE weekend visits from Grandmama and Pappy. Who wouldn't love a grandma who helps a boy stand on top of a pick up truck? (Little Everett wasn't brave enough, but now every time he sees a pick up truck, he says, "PAPPY!! PAPPY!!)

And who wouldn't love a Pappy who gets a whole month's list of to-do's DONE in one day??? I wasn't sure if I would ever actually get this chandelier up in the new baby's room, but here it is!!!

Both boys worked hard on the house... Pappy is hanging a mirror I also wasn't sure if I would ever get hung, and Rick winterized all the windows.

Grandmama helped me spray paint some frames, we discovered some cute stores downtown, and we ate delicious North Carolina BBQ. Come again soon!

He was a woad.

For the past month, it has been sort of painful listening to Carson respond to the typical question, "What are you going to be for Halloween?" When he would say, "I'm going to be a WOAD!!" people would just look sort of confused. So, we were all glad when finally he could show everyone what he was talking about.

Carson and Everett both had "road" costumes, but Everett is also in love with this monster get-up. The funny thing is, he thinks it's a bunny costume. And he pronounces bunny, "munny." So all day he ran around saying, "Munny! Munny!" They wore these costumes to a pre-school Halloween party.

Having a yummy lunch at the Halloween party.

 

We had to hide the "munny" costume on Saturday night, so Everett would agree to be a road with his brother. We did our church's trunk-or-treat. 

Handsome Rick got home from a Scouts camp-out just in time to join us. Carson and I had earlier decided that he would wear this piggy hat, and Rick actually had the idea to add the pink shirt.

The costume proved to be a very fitting one, because I think everyone else had stopped going back for more chili and cornbread for at least an hour at this point.

 

This lucky boy was given a lollipop. He stood right in the middle of all the trunk-or-treating chaos for a good 20 minutes, without a care in the world besides consuming that delicious sugar.

Yep, still there.

Still working on that lollipop.

 

And then our boys spent the rest of the evening playing at the water fountain and in their nursery classroom.

It was a delightful Halloween weekend, and on Sunday our boys didn't even know they missed anything!

the states song, plus some giggles.

Happy Fall, Y'all!

Lots of pumpkins at the Hawk's Farm patch.

Pick it up, Everett!

Cute fall family picture, except that Rick is still in his Saturday morning football playing get-up!

Cute candy corn banner made by my crafty friend Etta!

This year's "Fantel" (fall mantel).

Carson loved helping me put these bats up. We are ready for the Fall now!