The Brandt Family

Week 11

We were able to get our cute little peanuts ultrasound done at 10 weeks and 5 days. The tech said everything looked good and heartbeat was normal. Praise God for that great news!!
For me, I have just been very, very, very tired. But luckily have been slightly nauseated in the mornings and at night but nothing compared to how I felt when I was pregnant with Janiece. So I think so far so good.
Here is just a quick pic of the bump at week 11. :)

Christmas

We had an extra special Christmas this year!! We found out the beginning of November that we would be adding another Brandt to the family!!!! Baby Brandt is expected to arrive sometime around July 6, 2013.

So to announce to our family and friends we took some family pics. It was so fun to be able to tell people in our Christmas cards that we are expecting! Especially since NO ONE expected that :)

A fun picture that I just had to do :)

And the picture for our Christmas card.

On December 23rd we had invited our parents and siblings over for dinner and the excuse was for Ciera's birthday and Christmas. When the real reason we wanted them over was to tell them the news!!

So we had a great dinner and then we sat down and had Ciera open her birthday presents and some of her Christmas presents, and my sister and sister in law also got to open their birthday presents, and then to end it I handed our parents little packages that contained the two pictures from above and also the ultrasound picture along with a personalized ornament. Soooo much fun although it took a good 5-10 mins for our mom's to get it. Oh well, it was still a good surprise :)

My mom couldn't leave out Janiece on the presents so she got her a plaque that says #1 Server Extraordinaire from her volleyball games

My moms expression after finally realizing what our packages said and waiting for Luke's mom to get it.

The personalized ornament that we had bought for our parents.

Then on Christmas Eve is when we get to do our presents together since we don't get to have Ciera on Christmas.

The girls opening their stockings

Ciera's gift from "Santa" (a jewelry box for all her new earrings)

and Janiece just got a bunch of clothes (that's all she wanted)

then we went to Christmas Eve Service at our church with all of Luke's family. And since we were at our church my aunt and uncle, my mom and Danny, and my grandparents were there too.

After Christmas Eve service we always head over to Luke's parents house for dinner and gifts.

The girls with their cousin Asher at Grammy's and papa's with their stockings.

Then if that's not enough we head over to my aunt and uncles house for our extended Christmas get together, complete with a white elephant gift exchange which is always fun! And we got to add in our special gift of telling my whole family that we are expecting!!

My family altogether :)

Then the guys go out with their cigars!

Then we call it a night and head to bed!!

Christmas morning is a great morning because we get up when we want and just take it easy until we head over to Luke's aunts and uncles for their extended family dinner, and that's when we told all of them also that we were expecting.

After that dinner we head over to my brother's house for just our family's gifts.

And after all of our family members were told the exciting news that's when we put the bun in the oven picture up on Facebook and told the rest of the world our great news :)

Catch up on fall 2012

Wow, just noticed it has been 6 months since I have been or updated our blog :( Its been a crazy couple of months.

Well since Luke's big 30th party, we have done a few things :)
Me, Luke, and Janiece went with my sister, my dad, and Laurie to South Dakota to visit my grandmother. I haven't been back there since Janiece was 2 years old (I think). So it was nice to finally take Luke back and introduce him to the Butenschoen side of the family :)

My dad, Luke, my sister, me, Laurie, my grandmother, and Janiece

Me and Janiece with my grandmother. Oh, I missed her sooooo much!! It was a tough time to say good-bye :(

And Luke found some Iowa geese!

Then we came back to a surprise Anniversay party that we put together for my other grandparents. It was their 60th Anniversary. I am truly blessed to have some sweet grandparents around!

"Surprise"

The cute cake pops that I made for the party

My amazing grandparents!! Love them :)

Then the girls went back to school in August. Janiece is in 7th grade at Greenfield Jr High and loving it!!

Ciera is now in 2nd grade at Patterson Elementary and loves her teacher!!

Then for the girls fall break, the Brandt's headed to San Diego for a couple of days!!

We went to San Diego Zoo, took a short cruise to Coronado Island and played at Balboa park. We had a blast!!

Dinner in San Diego

San Diego Zoo

Tram over the zoo

Our little monkeys

Of course had to have some churros

San Diego Bay

Cruise over to Coronado Island

Coronado Island

Balboa Park

and then some dinner with some friends in Old town San Diego before our trip back home.

Janiece played volleyball again for the fall season. We lucked out one the team that she got on, they were sooo good together. I think they won 7 games and only lost twice! We are praying to get the same coach for spring season!

Then we had our 2nd Annual Pumpkin Carving party. Such a blast to get together with friends and just carve away some pumpkins, always so cool to see who can be so creative.