Daniel and I have been working on taxes this week. No, we didn't get them done before Thomas arrived. Yes, we are now suffering the consequences! So we are determined to have them done before my parents arrive on Monday. I think we are almost there. The little guys gifted us with an early bedtime last night and that allowed us to get a whole lot of work done on them. Now we just need to cross check our deductions with the credit card statements, checkbook, and calendar. Nearly there!

My job has been to go through all of the receipts for the year and highlight any items that are tax deductible. This is a royal pain, especially when your husband works as a preacher and you live in a "parsonage". Anything that goes towards the furnishing/supplies for the parsonage (which is also heavily used for bible studies and entertaining) is tax deductible. Hand soap, toilet paper, lightbulbs, decorations... you name it. It's actually been kind of fun going through all of the receipts month by month. It's like a trip down memory lane (and also a reminder about the fact that we eat out too much and made a few foolish purchases).

Some of the highlights of the year... visit from the Raifs where we toured NYC... our trip to Guatemala (converting expenses from quetzalas! fun!)... Jack's febrile seizure (lots of receipts for ibuprofen!)... Bunting reunion in Tennessee (and Jack's bout with hand foot and mouth disease... poor kid was sick a LOT in the spring!)... visiting Minnesota (twice for Jack and I)... discovering little Thomas was on the way (grocery receipts show large amounts of fruit, salads, and tomato soup being consumed! Also lots more eating out as I had the sickies for a while)... all of the trips to visit our midwife (and Panera Bread receipts from lunch on the way home)... maternity clothes for me, dress clothes for Daniel... lost shoe reciepts... Halloween candy receipts (jack was such an adorable dragon!)... thanksgiving turkey and cranberries... food for Zimbabwe throughout the year...

Also reminds me how much we are blessed!

You MUST go to my husband's blog and watch the video there. It is AMAZING! Gotta love OkGo! (We saw them in concert while we were dating - they opened for TMBG. Fun, fun!)

(To get the full effect, open it up in You Tube and watch it on the full screen.)

21 inches 8 lbs.
this is Dan writing for Heather,
sorry it's not more detailed.
please look here for more.

Well, we're getting all of that snow that everyone south of us has been talking about! Pretty much everything has shut down around here, and I don't expect to have bible study tonight - although with Daniel and I living next door, we are here to walk right over in case anyone braves the storm. Daniel and Jack just went out to play in the snow before the wind picks up too much. They invited me to go, but I politely declined, saying that I didn't feel like doing very much romping these days. Mostly, I just feel like "rumping" - sitting around on mine anyways. ;) Not much to do around here. I have a few sewing projects to work on - I ALWAYS do, really, and we need to do taxes. :P Both of those things require the sleeping or absence of Jack though. I'm trying to mostly sleep when he sleeps so I can get extra rest while I can. So we're mostly just waiting for baby! It's getting hard to be patient.

Oh - here are some Jack funnies:
Jack now frequently requests his two favorite musical groups - CCR (Credence Clearwater Revival for the ignorant), and the Beatles. He also will tell you when he hears "Rock and Roll" and has become quite adept at noting when Bob Dylan goes into his later more rock-like genre as opposed to his earlier folk music. He is his Daddy's son!

He frequently pats my belly and says, "Baby out!" Oh if only that worked! :)

With the acquisition of more sophisticated verbal skills, Jack is now able to express his wishes and desires with much greater precision. Along with this has come the frustrating realization that he can't always have his way, no matter how wonderfully he tells us what he wants. We're working a lot on being "happy and content". The other day, he reminded me of little Maleia, praying to be a "happy 'tent". :) Anyway, he's a fun kid as always... keeps us very busy and amused!

I have chili in the crockpot for dinner. Yum! Perfect day for it.

Enjoy your snow day today if you have one!

We've been trying to keep busy around here. It's hard not to think about the one big event looming ahead. :) FIVE MORE DAYS! (more or less)


All of my wool sweaters were accidentally shrunk in the wash two years ago. Oops. Anyway, in an effort to salvage them, I felted the sweaters, and I'm making baby pants out of them! Here's the first pair! They were SUPER easy to make actually - these are entirely made out of the sleeves and they only took me 30 minutes to cut out and sew up. I want to make sure these fit the new little one first, but I think I'm going to make a matching pair for Jack out of the body part of the sweater. Wool pants are wonderful for babies/toddlers because you can lanolize them and make them waterproof! I'm excited to start cutting out the rest of the pants!


And this is what Daniel has been doing to stay busy! He finished his quilt for Thomas/Alice yesterday afternoon and it looks FANTASTIC! I'm super impressed! He's also a really fast quilt maker! Taking out the wait time on the walking foot for the sewing machine we had to order, it only took him 1 1/2 weeks to make it.

Ok little one... we're waiting!