What a fun and crazy weekend!!

Well, we made it through the crazy weekend! We were at Crystal & Richard's rehearsal & dinner Friday night, woke up to a beautiful Sat. morning so we went for a walk, got to my mom's place at 10 a.m. so she could do my hair, drove to the church at noon and left after all the festivities around 5:20, off to another wedding in Castroville and hit the pillow around 11 p.m.! Sunday it was off to church, a nice nap and then off to my end of the year recital for my voice students till about 6:30 p.m. It was so busy but fun and well worth my middle toe being numb because of my cute new shoes =)

These events are always nice reunions for our friends. Unfortunately, we don't all get together very often unless it's a big planned event. There were a number of us who were unable to be here this weekend because of distance and new babies so I wanted to post a slide show of the pictures I got. I have more on my mom's camera and Kate has some from the actual rehearsal but I was too excited to get something posted! I'll add those to my shutterfly account once I get them. The shutterfly address is at the top of my blog page if you'd like to see the pictures in that format. I was actually disappointed with the quality of my pictures. Not too sure why a lot of them turned out fuzzy but I turned a couple into black and white and it seemed to help a bit! Enjoy!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

I also got some great pics from the evening wedding for my awesome Northside family. It was for Emily McNabb which is the daughter of the wonderful couple that hosted our young married life group before we multiplied! It was BEAUTIFUL and the food was awesome!! Here are some pics from that as well.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Now I need to go veg out!! Let me know if you want any of the pictures sent to you separately so you can print them yourself. I'd be happy to do it for you!

Clothes, shoes and hats - oh my!!

So on top of getting ready for the wedding this weekend and my voice recital on Sunday, I decided to do some sorting of Claire's clothes and a laundry marathon today! Well, not only clothes but hats, shoes, hair bows and accessories, socks, tights, etc. What was I thinking? I just got a burst of energy that I haven't had in forever so I'm glad I put it to good use. I can't believe how many clothes Claire has - it's almost embarrassing! We were gifted so much and a sincere thank you to everyone who helped us accrue boxes of clothes. If we are having another girl, she is all set and I've even separated all the neutral clothes so if we have a baby boy he will have a few things. He might just have to wear pink pajamas! Anyway, I took some cute pics of Claire helping out. She LOVES to help in anyway but most of all, she loved to climb into the box of clothes!! Going through her closet we also pulled out her baby play mat with bird mobile. She couldn't get enough of it and I know she's going to have a fit when she realizes I put it away during nap time!! The pics were too cute not to share so here they are!

"I'm so cute aren't I mom!?"




Tower of shoes and such that I had already packed away!


Claire loving the bird again - oh, maybe she will be a little jealous when brother or sister is playing with this one!


Here are some cute random pics we've taken this week

Eating cheerios and hanging with daddy on Saturday morning


Coloring before church starts




Claire LOVES her Rollo! Almost too much sometimes! She loves to give her real hugs and Rollo is so patient with her... most the time

Sonogram pictures

A lot of you have asked how I'm feeling and I'm feeling pretty good besides being SO exhausted! I didn't know I could be this tired before the baby was here. I was tired with Claire but not like this. I've felt nauseous but haven't gotten sick yet. Seems to be every other day. It's a little more frequent then when I was pregnant before so who knows what that means. The only other pregnancy symptom I have that I didn't have with Claire is my new and improved sense of smell... I can smell everything 10 times better and that's not a good thing when it's stinky stuff! The smells really affect me and make me have more food aversions this time. Anyway, that's how I'm feeling! I'm 9 weeks and 2 days today and feeling more bloated than a week ago. I'm in a wedding this weekend and will be praying that the dress will fit as well as it did two weeks ago. We'll see! If not, I will be getting some help because I WILL wear this dress!

I finally got my sono pics scanned so here they are!! It's amazing how clear they look to me. you can really tell where the head is even though it's labeled for you!

Stories

I want to remember one of Claire's favorite things to do right now. She LOVES to hear us tell her stories about Princess Claire. It first started late March when we figured out that it kept her quiet because she listened so intently. Now she helps tell the stories that she knows!! This is how they always begin...

Us: "A long, long time a...."
Claire: "go..."
Us: "Far, Far a..."
Claire: "way..."
Us: "There lived a little girl named Princess..."
Claire: "Claire...me!"

It's the cutest thing ever! Her favorite story is one that Neil created about her saving three little bunnies from the mean wolves and she yells "Go away!" when they try to hurt them. One day she insisted that one bunny was yellow instead of brown so that's how we tell it now. We try to create stories to teach her things about character so hopefully she will pick up on that =)

Anyway, this blog is to let you all know what is going on in our lives but most of all it is a way for me to journal and keep track of what is going on ourselves. I look forward to going through my posts in a few years and remember everything!

We're expecting #2!!

Well, in case you've stumbled across our page and wanted more details, here they are!! We are SOO excited to be pregnant again and thank God for blessing us so quickly. I certainly don't take this for granted and know that a healthy pregnancy is such a miracle in itself!

We went to the doctor today and got some amazing sono pics of the little one! He/She was wiggling all around already which makes me think they're going to be just as active as their big sister, Claire! Due to all the movement the heart rate was up to 170 and the baby measured only 1.8 cm long... that just amazes me. The pictures are so clear already with arm and leg buds, a "big" round head and a stubby little bottom =) Seeing the heartbeat gave us a sigh of relief and we both had tears of joy in our eyes... sounds cheesy but it's true!

So everything checked out OK and I am so excited to be telling everyone now! I'll post sono pics as soon as I figure out who has a scanner and how I can do it. Please keep us in your prayers as we prepare to expand our family to 4! Claire is SUPER excited and already wants to kiss my tummy and help the baby with it's pacey, bottle and blanket. What a great big sister she's going to be!

Asking for Prayers & Advice

OK... we've probably just had the hardest three days with Claire and I'm so exhausted. Is this what they mean by terrible twos? I don't want to make excuses because I don't think they have to go through it but after today, maybe I'm convinced. I'm not sure who even reads this but if you have any advice on how to get a child to stop whining, it would be more than welcomed. We do time outs and they are really affective. We also do the ignoring tactic and we rarely, if ever, give in when she is whining for something in particular. The most frustrating thing is when she asks for something nicely, I give it to her and then she cries while saying "no"... what's that all about? As we're going through this we are also realizing that she is really growing out of a baby phase and with all the frustration I can't even feel sentimental about it!! This week she's stopped saying a lot of her baby words and now they sound so grown up. Goodbye to "wa-wa" (water), "ca" (bird), "ga-ga" (Grandma) and "ky-ky" (her cousin Kyle). Anyway, thank you for letting me vent if you got this far. I wanted to leave this post with a picture we took this evening right before bed... as soon as Neil took it he said "this doesn't even capture what we've been through" and he's right. She looks so cute doesn't she? Don't be fooled with that cheesy smile - she's probably brewing her plans for tomorrow =) Don't forget to leave your advice if you have any and we ask for prayers - patience and wisdom in raising Claire.

Our little girl

I hadn't posted in awhile and took the cutest picture tonight that I couldn't resist!! Claire wanted her toenails painted after she saw one of her friends from playgroup had her's painted. It was so cute!! Of course it's not so easy when she was wiggling around but I got her out on a walk to make sure they dried enough not to get on anything. She is getting so big the past few weeks. Her speech is really coming along but the best thing was when I was out of toilet paper the other day and she understood what I needed from her when I asked!! Now that's what I'm talking about! I tried that this morning after my shower when I realized that I forgot my towel but I guess we'll have to wait a little longer till she knows where to find those.



Claire in her dress that Aunt Barbara sent! What a funny girl!