Update

Hi!

I have a little time tonight, so I thought I'd do a little catch up!!

Well as most of you know, my grandmother passed away a few weeks ago. It still doesn't really seem real to me. I guess as time goes on and she's not at all the family get togethers, it'll sink in, but it's still hard to even imagine. I haven't lost anyone close like this before and it's all so new to me. My grandmother had been sick for awhile and I'm so relieved to know she's in a place where she's no longer sick and her body has been made perfect and whole. I do take comfort in that, but I still miss her. I do feel so blessed though to have gone 30 years of my life with both sets of grandparents. I don't think that happens often and for some reason, I've been blessed with that gift and for that I'm so grateful.

Well I should probably move on, because it's still a little raw talking about that and still a bit hard for me to put into words.

So for something on a different note: I will be 20 weeks pregnant this Friday! I can't believe I'm about to hit the halfway point. That's just crazy! I've gotten a pretty good pregnant belly going now. I've moved into my maternity clothes pretty exclusively. I am able to feel the baby move now, which is so nice. I love those little reassurances!! We have our ultrasound schedule for 6/1. We will not be finding out the sex as we have done with our other 2 babies. There really is nothing in this world like hearing the Dr. say "it's a...." right as the baby is delievered. I feel like it's so worth waiting for and something to help you get through the labor. We still have not decided officially on names. We've added a few choices to out other list, and I still can't for the life of me make a decision. Hopefully it'll come to me soon!

Our furniture for the babys' room will be here in a few weeks. I have a lot to do in the meantime. We are changing the upstairs playroom into the baby's room and that means I have to move the playroom downstairs to the room we currently call the classroom. We haven't used it as a classroom for awhile now as we find it much nicer to just sit around the kitchen table doing our lessons (or outside, or together on the couch, wherever!!), so that's not a big sacrifice. I just have to do a lot of condensing because the classroom is much smaller than the current playroom. Then after the baby's room is empty, I need to do a little painting. I am only changing two colors. The room is made up of 4 colors already: green, yellow, purple and red and I want to change the purple to blue and the red to a more raspberry red color to match the bedding we bought. You can see the paint treatment on the walls in this post, I'm keeping the hard work I did on the block wall, again just changing the purple to blue and the red to raspberry. Then I'll finally be ready for the furniture!!

We're going to Gatlinburg this week. We leave Thursday. We're going with my parents, my brothers family, my grandparents, two aunts, two uncles and two cousins. We're all staying in a 3 story cabin together! I'm excited about it. I love spending time with my family. I can't wait to get down there!

Our next Disney trip will most likely be in December. We're still waiting to decide for sure. We're waiting for any news of deals for that time. We've already gotten emailed codes for the end of November, so we're hoping the December ones will come soon. I can't wait to take a new little one there and sort of start over with them and the whole Disney experience. After that trip we may wait a little bit before going again because we're in the early planning stages for a 10th anniversary trip to our honeymoon destination of Maui. We want to take our kids with us this time and stop in California for a few days in Disneyland and a stop in La Jolla. Noah and Abby both had their very first beach experience at La Jolla beach (near San Diego) and we want to do the same for the new baby. Noah's was in 2001 and Abby's was in 2006 and the new baby's will be in 2011!! I just realized that's like every 5 years! We hoping to go during the humpback whale season on Maui. The kids are very excited about that. So sometime in February 2011 is our goal (our anniversay is actually November 2010, but we'll wait for the peak whale season!!).

Well we now have 2 Reds games planned for this summer. The first is the one we just found out about today. Abby won the Step Up to the Mike contest with Skyline and she will be announcing the first batter up for the Reds in the 3rd inning. They will have her on the big screen in the stadium and her name will be up there. It's very exciting!! We entered both kids and I think Noah was a little disappointed he didn't win, but he's been a great sport and very gracious to his sister. He's really a good boy! So we get 4 free tickets to see the game and to see her and that should be alot of fun!! We're also going to a game with my parents and brothers family in June. Both of these are night games and I'm so relieved because it gets so hot sitting in the stands during a regular game!! The sun just bares down on you sometimes and it's really hot!

Abby's dance recital is the same weekend of her big game debut, so she's got a crazy weekend to look forward to!! It should be a lot of fun though.

We don't have a lot else planned for the summer because we're going to be schooling through most of the summer to be able to be off in the fall when the baby arrives. We are taking 3 weeks off at the end of June and beginning of July to prepare for the new curriculum to start and take just a little break. I think it'll be exactly what we need to get through the summer. I'm excited to start the new curriculum.

One last thing, my Mother's Day was very nice. It was actually a Mother's weekend as Friday Abby and I attended a mother/daughter tea at Steve's Mom's church. Then Saturday morning we took his Mom to the Zoo (something she's wanted to do for awhile now) and then out to lunch and Saturday night Abby and I went to a mother/daughter banquet at my Grandmother's ( Dad's mom, not the one who passed away) church. All of those were very nice events. My mama came to the last one and she had a hard time because she's missing her mom so much. I felt really bad for her. Then Sunday my babies gave me my gifts, they each chose something: Noah chose a small outdoor table because I lost both of my dining tables to the crazy winds last year and this one is made of wood so it won't shatter!! Abby chose a very beautiful and soft blue pillow for me to rest on! I always love so much what they choose for me. Then we went to church, then out to lunch and then we spent a few hours at my Mom and Dad's house. Then we went home, I clipped coupons (there were a ton of good deals at Meijer this week!!), we went out to dinner at Olive Garden (my favorite, other than Outback!!) and then we went to Meijer to get some of the great deals. It was a wondderful day! I felt so blessed the whole weekend to be surrounded by such wonderful mothers, grandmothers, aunts, daughters. It was just so nice!!

Well that's all!! How's that for an update! And now a few photos!!

This is Abby in her dance costume for this year. We got her dressed for picture day. She's standing on the edge of our bed!

This is from one of our days homeschooling. Noah was learning about Michigan and how it's home to two major cereal companies: Kelloggs and Post. So we made a little recipe with Corn Flakes called Peanut Butter Crunchies. It was yummy!!



And here he's doing his Math lesson. These are actually new books that we got at convention. We love them!! They're Horizon Math. Our other books moved so slowly and with so much repetition. These have just enough repetition and review, but also move along at a much quicker pace. The kids both do well in Math, so this is a great fit for us!





And here's Abby doing her lesson. Aren't they cute when they concentrate!! I feel such a love inside when I realize how blessed I am to be able to be there and see them learning and be a part of it. I love homeschooling them!

This is from our first field trip with our new homeschool group. We visited a park in Dayton and learned about native Ohio mammals. Here Abby is holding the pelt of a red fox!!

This is also from the field trip. Noah is investigating a skull and trying to figure out what animal it is by the chart.



This is the kids working on our little container gardens we started this Spring. Here they're planting a few carrots and cucumbers!




And these two pics are from our trip to the zoo with Grammy. Here's Noah, Grammy and a giraffe and below is Abby is waving to the big silverback gorilla. It was a great day!

Well that's it for now! Thanks for stopping by and have a great week!!