Our Summer in Pictures....so far!!

Well we've had a fun and eventful summer so far and it's just begun!! I just thought I'd take time to do a sort of pictorial of the fun we've had so far.

These are Noah and Abby playing at our local park with a splash pad. So refreshing in the heat!!

Noah was baptised a few weeks ago. We're very happy with his decision to devote himself to the Lord.

These two are from the Taste of Cincinnati. We met a talking Hot Pocket!! And enjoyed some yummy pizza from Balboa's. We also pet the police horses and ate some other yummy treats. It was lots of fun.

These two pics were from our latest field trip with our homeschool group. We went on a bird watching expedition. It was really cool because Josh, the naturalist, had this special hand held thing that could imitate bird calls and the birds would actually come close to us to see who was invading their area!! It was really cool. The top picture shows the kids on top of a tree trunk that had fallen from a tree that was over 300 years old!

We're still working on our lessons this summer. And these two pictures are experiments Noah did one day when he was studying rocks. The first was to show how sedimentary rocks are formed and the second shows that only limestone bubbles when vinegar is applied to it. He's very much into geology and mining right now. He loved this study.

This was from our big family trip to Gatlinburg. We went with all of my Dad's family including his parents, his sister and her family (husband and son), his brother and his family (wife and daughter), my family and my brothers family. We all stayed together in one gigantic cabin in the mountains. I really loved it. It was so much fun to be with everyone.

This is Noah, Abby and Riley eyeing an exhibit at the big aquarium in Gatlinburg. That is the coolest aquarium I've ever been to!!

Noah and Riley goofing around in the cabin!!
This is Abby standing on one of the three balconies our cabin had and you can see our view. It was awesome!!

These are go-kart pictures from Gatlinburg. Most of my family including my grandpa raced those go-karts!!! It was so cool to see them all out there!!

These 3 photos are from the past weekend when went to the grand opening of the Lego store. The kids made bricks to help the brick master complete an 8 foot tall R2-D2. The 3rd picture shows Noah's hero, the brick master!! We then waited in line for 2 hours to get the limited edition lego set for our store. It was worth it, he was so happy!!

This is Abby in her dance costume outside at our house. I thought it looked so cute when she looked through the leaves. You can see one of my peaches growing on the tree too!!

These pictures are from Abby's dance recital. She did wondeful and her whole class looked just beautiful up doing their ballet. I loved it!!! The last one shows the bouquet of flowers she got from her family!

These 3 pics are from the Reds game where Abby announced the lead off batter for the 3rd inning. I can't show the pictures of the scoreboard because it has her full name and city she lives in. But you can see the picture of her in front of the big camera! It was so cute because the crowd was shouting things like "great job Abby" and stuff like that. She didn't want to take the Skyline hat off because that's how people recognized her when we went to the restroom or something!!

The picture of Noah is him eating peanuts. The kids LOVE to eat peanuts during the games. We bring our own to save a few bucks, but they are just as happy as can be cracking open those peanuts!!

On Fathers Day we went fishing at my aunts house. She has an awesome stocked pond and everyone caught several fish. Mainly blue gills were caught, but Noah caught a bass and then Abby caught the biggest fish of all, another bass!! She caught it with a tiny Dora fishing pole. Daddy thought the pole was going to break!!

This is from the Reds game we went to with my parents and my brothers family. It was the Civil Rights game and they had a ceremony at the beginning honoring Hank Aaron, Muhammed Ali and Bill Cosby. It was really neat to see them. This picture shows Bill Cosby going around the stadium.

And finally we have Abby practicing her letter writing skills (language arts!!) by mailing a letter to Mamaw!!!

An update date on Poppy's preparations!!

It's baby post time!

Right now I am 24 weeks and 4 days pregnant. I will be 25 weeks on Friday!! So far I've only gained 2 pounds. I'm apparently only gaining the actual baby weight and using up my "reserves" for anything else I need!! Trust me, I've been eating, but I suppose my metabolism has been boosted or something!! My doctor thinks it's fine as long as I'm not losing any weight and the baby is growing as it should and both of those are being met, so she's happy!

We had the ultrasound two weeks ago and everything looked perfect! I almost forgot to tell the tech that we didn't want to know the sex, but luckily I remembered in time!! It was so nice for all of us to see the baby. We saw all the important parts: spine, skull, arms, legs, heart, etc... and both the tech and the doctor said everything seemed great. That's such a relief. My next appointment is in two weeks and I have to do the yucky glucose test. Hopefully that'll all turn out great as well.

Poppy's looking at us!!!

I've gotten pretty big now. Not much in my normal wardrobe fits except for a few shirts and elastic waisted skirts or pants. I haven't bought a ton of maternity clothes yet, I'm just trying to get by with the few things I have. Everyone has felt the baby move now. That's always fun. After the ultrasound and feeling it move, all of this just feels so much more real. Although there isn't a day that goes by when I question if it's real! I wanted so long to experience this again, and sometimes I just can't believe I'm blessed enough to get to do it again.




We have done a lot of the "getting ready" things that need to be done, but we still have a lot to do. We moved the kids playroom downstairs to clear out the last bedroom upstairs for the baby's room. I'm still working on organizing and purging the stuff in the new playroom. We've gotten rid of a lot of stuff already, but we still have so much. I just can't deal with the piles and piles of stuff anymore. So that room is still in a disarray.

We painted two of the walls in the baby room. I like the new colors, it's much brighter than it was before. We also installed a closet system and the furniture my parents bought us is now set up in there. I love it all!! I keep walking by the room and peering in at the crib. I was sure I'd never see a crib in my house again.










I organized all my diapers and wipes in the closet and took an inventory. As of right now, I have :


120 Newborn Diapers
257 Size 1 Diapers
256 Size 1-2 Diapers
312 Size 2 Diapers
520 Size 3 Diapers
346 Size 4 Diapers
52 Pull-Ups
82 Packages of Wipes

I feel pretty good about our amount of diapers up to size 3 and then I think we need to add more to the size 3, 4 and 5's.



Oh and names. We STILL can't decide on names. Boy or Girl. It's driving me crazy. I really want to get this settled and for some reason no one can agree!! Aaargh!! Maybe we'll just end up calling them Poppy since that's what we've called them all along!!

And I'll finish with just a few pics of the cute little clothes I've gotten for Poppy already. Their so cute!!

I bought these at Meijer a long time ago. I just thought they were so cute!!

I got these all on clearance at Target. All set with Disney shirts for Poppy's first trip this December!!!

The middle one is not new. It's one both Noah and Abby wore. Riley even wore it too! It means a lot. The other two are new. I think they're so cute. Even though we buy gender neutral ahead of time, I still think they're really cute!

This is one is really for a boy, but I thought it was so cute, I thought I'd take the chance!! I just loved it!!

Well that's it for now. I'll try and update in a few weeks!! We're almost ready for you Poppy!!!

Hi

We have a big weekend planned.  It's recital weekend, as well as Abby's debut at the Red's Game!  We also have our nephew Aaron's Birthday party too!  I have a lot of little things to do to get ready for all  of that (shop for gift, charge cameras, iron necessary clothes, pack up Abby's dance stuff, etc..).  We're also VERY busy getting our house ready for baby!!  The furniture we ordered for the baby's room is in, and my parents would love to bring it here and set it up (they bought it for us), so I've been working day and night moving the playroom downstairs and the classroom out to other parts of the house.  We also got new furniture for our family room, so we had to move out all the old furniture.  I'm very tired, but now that things are starting to look finished, I"m excited!!  

I'm planning a big baby post sometime soon.  Sort of a checklist for myself, a journal entry and something to share if anyone is interested.  So look for that soon!

Well I better get back to work.

Memorial Day

The cemetary was beautiful today. So many colors of flowers and so many American flags. If it wasn't a cemetary, I'd love to spend the day there! Maybe even have a picnic! We arrived just as the Memorial Day parade had ended with a walk through this particular cemetary and they had lined the streets with big flags that we got to drive through. It was so moving. My grandmother's headstone is in. It was so hard to see her name on it. The kids were so sweet. They hugged me and just stood there quietly with me for a few minutes. That was nice. We brought two little arrangements of yellow roses for her. Each kid chose where to put one. She loved yellow roses the best. There were already some there. There were lots of other really pretty arrangements too. It was very beautiful.

We visited family also today. It was a nice day. I'm very blessed.

The picture is of Abby and my Grandma this past Christmas. I really miss her.

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!!

I want to post. I really do. But I just can't do it right now. I have a lot to talk about. My grandmother, the baby, our first field trip with our new homeschool group, the ginormous list of things I need to do before baby's arrival, our plans for the rest of spring and summer, our new homeschool choices, etc... Hopefully I will post about all of this soon, even just for my own journal if no one else reads it.

Tomorrow we're hoping to start our container gardening. Praying that goes well and in a few weeks we'll have some sprouts!