Everett's Birthday

To celebrate our nephew Everett's 2nd birthday we went to Six Flags to visit their new Thomas Town area for toddlers.  Everyone on my side of the family was there except Adam, Travis and the Hultzes (we missed you guys!)  Thomas Town wasn't exactly the most exciting thing, even to the toddlers in our group, but we had a ton of fun at Six Flags in general.  Hannah's favorite ride was the mini-Mine Train, now called Wile E Coyote's Canyon Blaster - check out her face in this picture taken just after she and Mark got off!

Here are all the pictures from that day on PhotoWorks.  Happy Birthday Everett - we love you!

Brittany's Wedding

Hannah had the honor of being the flower girl in our dear friend Brittany's wedding.  We know Brittany and Mike from the Doulos.  And as a huge perk, we got to host five friends from the Doulos at our home over the course of 10 days and saw several others at the wedding.  

The wedding was FABULOUS!  It was outside and the weather was perfect, crisp and cool, the service was beautiful and their vows were so moving.  We had a blast dancing our hearts out (especially Hannah!) at the reception.  I hope your marriage continues to be every bit as rich and wonderful, Britt and Mike!

There are too many good pictures to show here.  I'll post them in PhotoWorks and a few on FaceBook.  I'll post again with special notes about Hannah's walk down the aisle and some videos that are so cute you will not be able to stand it!

Laughter Therapy

Lately I've been feeling pretty yucky large parts of the day but a few things have kept me chuckling, and let me tell you, it doeth good to the soul!

1.  Hannah asking me if the knots on our wooden bookcase were prunes.

2.  Hannah asking me today if our friend who got married on Saturday is still dancing (we had to leave the wedding during the dancing)

3. Airborne's new promotion

4. Mark stumbled across this

5. My friend Mike's recent post 

Baby Update

Well, thankfully, I'm not looking like this yet! But my body seems to remember pregnancy well and eating frequently helps the nausea, so I'll probably be popping out pretty soon.

Yesterday we had our first doctor appointment. It was kind of fun because we've been overseas the first seven months of our first two pregnancies so this is my first time to get all the official prenatal stuff early on. They did an ultrasound to confirm the pregnancy and see how far along we are. I was really curious since this pregnancy was a (pleasant) surprise. We are, as of today, 8 weeks, 5 days and our due date is April 30. Since we know they usually like to schedule the c-section around 39 weeks, this will definitely be an April baby!

The baby looked amazing - big head, strong heart beat and little arms and legs developing. Seeing him reminded me that all these first trimester trials are well worth it!

Cut Out Hunger

One of my hobbies of late has been charity shopping.  It's been a lot of fun to resource and snag really good deals, many on things I wouldn't normally buy, and know that they will get passed on to someone in need.  I try to donate items once a month since we are short on space in the apartment.  Here's this month's:

These items went to Buckhead Christian Ministry.  For more info on charity shopping/reducing your personal grocery bill visit Cut Out Hunger / Coupon Mom , Money Saving Mom ... poke around a little while on those sites and you will find MANY more places where people are blogging about great deals in the grocery stores and drug stores.  

(For me personally this is my first time lining up my purchases on the kitchen table, taking pictures, and blogging about it - I feel a little silly but it really is amazing to see how it all adds up!)

We've got the blues

Blueberries, that is!  We LOVE eating frozen fruit around here - on waffles, in smoothies, or just a big ole bowl of frozen blueberries.  Here we are showing off our blue tongues:

New baby on the way!

Our family has some very good news to share: we found out this week that we are expecting another baby! While we are a *little* surprised by the timing, Mark and I had hoped for more children and are both delighted and humbled at the prospect of becoming parents again.

Please pray for us:

1. Thank God for His new creation!

2. I range from queazy to completely-loosing-my-cookies sick, and the latter can strike at any time of the day. It's hard for me to keep my blood sugar even and stay on my toes with the kids and household activities. Please pray I stay in good health and find creative ways to feed and care for my family. (By the way, the nausea reminds me a lot of my pregnancy with Hannah ... another girl?)

3. Please pray for peace of mind: adjusting to being pregnant again and preparing for raising three young children (Calling on the wisdom of all you parents of multiple kids!)

Here's the longer story of how we found out (if you have some time on your hands):

A few of us in the family have had colds the last two weeks and I thought this cold had just really taken the wind out of me. Then I thought maybe it was strep... or a stomach bug ... or food poisoning... Mark joked that maybe we were pregnant again and I just laughed and laughed... I reminded him, as I often do, that though I would gladly take another child (or two or three!) into our home right now, I am SO not ready to be pregnant again. I still have goals to reach: wearing my regular winter wardrobe for the first time in years, a daily exercise routine, complete systemization of our household, world peace, you get the idea. Then I started thinking... and calculating... oh my. I ran out for a pregnancy test, and I am telling you that red line jumped off the stick so fast I almost fell over. Actually that's just what I did; I went and just fell in Mark's arms and couldn't say anything. He gave me a huge smile and we both just smiled and hugged and couldn't say anything for the longest time. I am so glad he was there for that moment because a few hours later he was on the plane for Houston (business) and I needed a LOT of encouraging hugs before he left. All week long we called each other and giggled over this new and still somehow unbelievable news (though the intensifying nausea was pretty convincing). With Hannah and Adam, we waited several weeks to share our news with the world, but somehow (maybe because we're not on the other side of the world this time?) it felt like torture not to tell you all right away! So now you know our wonderful "secret" - and I'll be sure to keep you up on all the unfolding details here.

They're back!

Husband-extraordinaire Mark has just fixed the washing machine - so that means the cloth diapers are back!  Hooray!

Here's our "diaper station" by the couch:

We use Happy Heiny's one-size pocket diapers.  I love them because:

1. The initial investment has paid for itself and now they are pure savings over disposables

2. They are so soft (and cute) on baby's bottom

3. This style is super easy to use

4. I can take care of them right away - no more "stinkies" waiting by the door to go out

Here's a pic from back in the day when they were both diapered:

My cow cuties!

My Sweet New Shoes

With matching UT paraphernalia to make the picture look complete.  A consolation prize from my parents for turning 31.  Hook Em!

I post mostly about the kids so here's a photo of me for those who are curious:

Oh wait, this one was taken from a better angle:

Big Boy Car Seat

Adam has just upgraded from the infant carrier to the rear-facing toddler seat (Another awesome hand-me-down from Robert and Carolyn!).  As you can see, he is so excited.