#3

This is a picture of the inside of my belly that I got from my doctor yesterday. I know you cannot tell what anything is in this picture, so I'll help you figure it out. The black blob toward the bottom of the picture is a baby. Yes, we are pregnant with #3, and I'm due on March 9th.

Many of you may recall me telling you, "I'm not having any more kids until Rebecca starts school." You are not mistaken - I did say this many times to many different people. This definitely was the plan - MY plan, since I had such a hard time adjusting to two kids. But obviously this plan didn't work for the Higher Power because here we are having #3 in less than seven months, and Rebecca doesn't start school for two more years.

I don't mean to be insensitive. I know a few of you who read my blog would give your right arm to have a baby right now. I really am grateful for this upcoming little blessing. I'm just sorry that we're having accidents while you guys are trying so hard to have another baby (or your first baby) because you're ready for one, and it's not happening for you. (I still pray for you guys all of the time, and I hope you get what you want.)

So that's our news. I'll post any updates I get as soon as I get them.

Happy 28th Birthday, Kevin!

Today is Kevin's 28th birthday. To celebrate we invited his parents and brothers and sisters over for Kevin's favorite dinner and ice cream cake.

Kevin's parents brought him two cakes for his birthday - a mint chocolate chip cake and this cute Hannah Montana cake.

Rebecca got to help him blow out his candles, and as you can see, she was so excited to help out.

Here is a list of 28 things that Kevin loves (according to Emily and in no particular order).

1. eating (anything, especially steak)

2. his kids

3. playing hockey

4. camping at Mammoth

5. snowboarding

6. cooking

7. grilling

8. watching good movies

9. making good movies

10. the Gospel

11. playing tennis

12. classical music (his CD collection consists mainly of movie background music)

13. anything made by Apple

14. his family

15. swimming

16. working out

17. working hard

18. wrestling with his brother Bryan

19. teaching others about the Gospel

20. fontwons and beef noodles from Chinatown

21. hanging out with his friends from high school

22. helping others in need

23. being handy and building things

24. watching tennis

25. watching UFC

26. Lord of the Rings

27. surprising others

28. and of course his lovely wife Emily

Happy birthday, Kevin! I hope you had a great year!

I'll Have To Find A New Widget

I went to stepheniemeyer.com today and read this announcement:

Movie News Flash!

So, many of you have heard that the release of the sixth Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, has been moved from this Thanksgiving to next summer. First and foremost, please know that this schedule change has absolutely nothing to do with Twilight, me, or Summit Films (so enough with the imdb death wishes, okay?). This is Warner Bros. decision, and it was not motivated by anything Twilight-related.

Now for the good news! Though we're all sad to have to wait for Harry Potter, this open spot at the theater creates a cool opportunity. The good people at Summit were thrilled to let me know that now Twilight fans are going to get their movie three weeks earlier than scheduled. That's right—Twilight will be released in theaters November 21st! Let the merry-making commence!

--Stephenie

So I've removed my recently added movie countdown widget because it is wrong. I'll add a new one as soon as I can find one that's got the right countdown.

Here It Is

My countdown widget for the Twilight movie. Less than four months left until it comes out, and I can't wait.

My Kids Have Graduated

• Rebecca has graduated from our little joy school.

My friend called me at the end of last summer to do a joy school with a few other girls in the ward who had kids around Rebecca's age. We should have been done with it after 26 weeks since we planned to do a letter every week. But after skipping weeks here and there and people dropping out because they moved or got too busy, we are finally finished almost a year later.

Here are just a few of the fun things we did:

We built igloos for the letter I. We also taught the number that corresponded to the letter. I is the ninth letter of the alphabet, so our igloos were built using nine pieces of ice.

We made rabbit ears. Thanks for showing me the website for these, Kimi. I got some great ideas from this site after that.

We colored the different parts of a tiger and then put him together.

At Desere'e's house they made walrus masks and glued real watermelon seeds onto their paper watermelons.

I wish I got more pictures of some of the cute crafts people came up with. Desere'e especially had a lot of very fun ideas. For the letter S, she got pine cones and helped the kids glue feathers all over them to make swans. They turned out very cute.

It's so nice to finally be done, especially since I had to do a lesson every other week when Desere'e and I became the only two mothers left doing the joy school. Thanks for sticking it out with me, Des.

• William has graduated from using the binky.

Not because I am so on top of things as a mother, but because we lost the last two binkies we had last week, and I didn't feel like going to buy him anymore since I was planning to pull it from him at 18 months.

He's been without the binky since Saturday, and he's actually doing better than I thought he would.

Now if we could get the three-year-old to stop sucking her thumb...

I'm Back, Sooner Than I Thought I Would Be

By the way, this is my 50th post. It seems like a few blogs I look at have hit a milestone in the past week.

On Friday I got a call from my friend Lara asking me if I had received Breaking Dawn in the mail since I preordered it. I told her, "No. People shouldn't get them until tomorrow, right?" And she said, "I got mine this morning. I'm on page 100." OH MY GOSH! I wanted to drop the phone and run over to her house to steal her book from her. Then I looked online to see when my book had been shipped. It said "preparing to ship your order" and also that my estimated delivery date was August 6. WEDNESDAY! There was no way I was going to wait until Wednesday, so I decided to try to get a book at the release party I went to that night with Ashley at Barnes and Noble.

Do you like our shirts? They say, "Forks, WA - Makin' It Sprinkle So You Don't Sparkle." (Thanks for pointing this one out to me, Valerie.) The release party was crazy. There were a ton of people at Barnes and Noble. Ashley and I were two of the oldest people there, but it was a lot of fun. We did a scavenger hunt for trivia questions from the books that could get us a spot in the front of the line for a book. Since Ashley had her copy reserved, we did the contest for me. We didn't win. (Ashley, I saw something online today that said "Edward Anthony Masen Cullen". I was wrong.) But I still got a copy of Breaking Dawn by waiting in the stand by line.

I finished reading my book yesterday, and I have to say it's my favorite of the whole series. Stephenie Meyer ended it really well. It is full of crazy things that happen, and I love every part of it. I can't wait to read it again. I still haven't received my preordered copy. Kevin and I plan to give that copy to his little sister Melissa who just recently became a fan. Lucky girl. She didn't have to do any waiting for sequels.

I'm so glad I didn't wait. I would be going absolutely nuts by now. Now I can't wait to get caught up on all of your lives.

I'm Checking Out For A While

I wanted to let you all know that after today I won't be looking at your blogs until after I finish reading Breaking Dawn. You see, I ordered my copy online, so while almost everyone else will get their books on Saturday, I might not get mine until next week. I don't want to know ANYTHING about the book before I read it. I don't even want to know if Bella dyes her hair blonde and gets a tattoo. Therefore, I won't be reading any blogs where spoilers might get posted. (Wendy, I'll keep reading your blog since I'm sure you won't be reading this book.)

It will be hard for me to stay away, and I will miss you all, but I'll be back as soon as I'm done reading the book.