Week 2, friends visit

After getting home from our neighbor's house, we got a call that some really good frinds were coming to stay for a few days. Courtney's step-dad's mom had passed away and the funeral was north of where we live. So, the family loaded up in the car and drove to our place for a few days.

Courtney and I rarely get to spend time together, but this time we did!!! On monday, we took the kids to the mall to shop... ahhh, shopping with three kids, every mom's dream!!!

The kids did great. We let them play in the mall's playland after we shopped and before lunch.

(posing but not smiling... good timing)

Ashton having fun at the playland Xander checking things out. Sweet Pea giving Ashton a hug... not sure that he actually wanted it :)

After the mall, lunch, and naps for everyone... we went to the neighborhood park to play. It was 78 degrees that day!!! I got to pull out some shorts for Sweet Pea to wear... and get some sun block out for the first time!!!

week 1, 4 kids :)

So, we've been MIA for three weeks... what have we been doing??

Week one was spent watching our neighbors (and good friends) three kids while then went to Colombia on a job interview. Three kids... yep, that makes a total of 4 kids for 4 days!!! Luckily, the two oldest are in school all day so it was just Sweet Pea, Sammy and I during the day. It was a great week, but boy was I tired!!! The first day, I was asleep on the couch at 9:05! They are really good boys though, we couldn't ask for an easier babysitting job.

One day, Sweet Pea, Sammy and I went to the zoo. It was a great day looking at the animals, seeing the fish (Sweet Pea's FAVORITE thing - she calls them "slippery fish"), watching the dolphin show, eating lunch and going home. Wow... I decided to try the day without a stroller, not the best decision I've ever made. I didn't want to spend the money renting a double stroller and the hand-me-down we have wasn't available when I left. The kids were troopers though. We all slept soundly THAT afternoon!

A loud sound distracted the pose...

Sweet Pea smiling!!! I try to get her before she smiles, sometimes I'm not so lucky.

On friday, we went to our neighborhood park when the boys got home from school. It was so WARM!!! Sweet Pea could walk up and down those stairs the entire time we're there. I think it makes her feel like a 'big person', so independant. She can't reach the railing most times so we either have to carry her or she climbs on her hands and knees.

Here are all of the boys, having fun climbing around...

chop sticks?

Sweet Pea and I met daddy for lunch on friday. We had 'Mongolian BBQ'... toooooo yummy. You go through a buffet line putting frozen meats, fresh veggies, noodles, rice, etc. into a bowl and then you take it to a guy with a really large, flat grill to cook it. They generally cook quite a few meals at a time and then give you back YOUR meal!

Sweet Pea wanted to use chop sticks just like daddy. It was too cute, eating her favorite food (noodles; any shape, any flavor) with sticks!

And the sex is.............

It's a BOY!!!

Amazing... we saw the parts on the screen with our own eyes. Hubby wanted the technician to print out the picture, but she said it was hospital policy, she wasn't allowed.

The sweet little thing was sucking his thumb. The lady was laughing, she rarely sees the thumb actually in the mouth. Sweet Pea must have taught him that!!!

Some of you might be thinking that you already know the name, since we've had a boy name picked out for YEARS... but somebody in this relationship wants to make sure. "maybe we should talk about it, just to make sure"... I'm not telling who the somebody is, but Sweet Pea doesn't speak in sentances longer than three words yet (and she says the baby's name is "baby" or "Sweet Pea" if you ask her), and Jake's not here :) Ahhhhh, the man who likes to think through every decision for such a long time. I figure we've had this name picked out for so long that we've had a long time to think over the decision... if anyone would like to drop a note to this 'somebody', he can be reached at firstname.lastname@company.com (you fill in the blanks - I'm assuming you know where he - I mean the somebody - works).

Really, everything is fine. They moved my due date to August 7th (I was hoping for sometime in July since I'm really not excited about being pregnant through most of the summer). I go to my mid-wife appointment tomorrow...

Take care, sweet pea and I are heading to the zoo tomorrow... I'll take the camera and post a few pics of her and the slippery fish!!!

It's booked!!!

Soooo, one set of Grandparents will be here visitng us during their spring break... that would be Monny and the boppy with the mustache (picture Sweet Pea rubbing her finger over her lips).

Since we'll luckily spend a WHOLE week (yeah!) with them, we didn't have to book as much time into our visit to the Buckeye State!!! We'll be there for just a week (4/10-4/17) to visit the other set of Grandparents... Monny and the boppy without the mustache (thank goodness, I still remember when I was younger and he had a mustache... eeww).

It'll be so nice to see the boppy's in a few weeks... she talks about them ALL of the time! We always want to call boppy and anytime we see someone that looks older than us or with any facial hair... they get called boppy.

Sooooo, come on over to the Buckeye State if you'd like to see Sweet Pea and my ever expanding middle... we'd love to meet for breakfast, lunch, and/or dinner!!! (thanks to my ever expanding middle).

Visiting Jake

We were up visiting my Aunt and Uncle on Saturday... and Jake too, of course. Sweet Pea is pretty apprehensive around him now (he has a cousin who's just as black and big as he is). She didn't want to give him a hug (seen above).

She was fine patting his head.

But, she gave him a kiss?!!! too cute!

Painting?

Sweet Pea and I were playing with our neighbor, Sammy, last week and he brough over some paints. We actually had a blast painting...

There are pictures of apples, bananas, mommy, daddy, baby, slippery fish, and a bear!!! I've labeled all of these on her original painting because you would never tell the difference between mommy and the banana!!!

The house you see, I painted (I got bored watching them paint)... so, no, we don't have a Picaso in our family!!!

Our little thumb sucker

Hubby was playing around with his camera while I was at church on Saturday..

I guess Sweet Pea was tired, b/c most of the pictures he took she was sucking her thumb. We try really hard and keeping her thumb out of her mouth when she's not in her crib (or carseat or stroller). We're somewhat successfull at it... as you can tell.

Anyway, I thought they were really sweet pictures of her so here they are!

It's a blizzard, folks!

So, it started snowing about 6:30 last night... took a break for awhile... then started sometime mid-morning. Schools started sending kids home early (not sure why they went at all), and companies started closing early.

Hubby came home early, shoveled for about 5 minutes, then a neighbor came over and lent him their snowblower. An hour shovel job (at least) ended up taking 20 minutes!!! Of course, the snow plows will bury us into our driveway and the snow just keeps on coming. He'll be shoveling again in a few hours!!! You know, winter isn't a bad time to be pregnant!!! I really can't help him! I've shoveled when it's just a lighter snow and not as heavy... but this stuff, no way! Maybe we'll have lots of kids and I'll only have to shovel every other year?!!