Just a quick little chuckle

Hannah spent most of her day today taking off her clothes and running around the house naked. I must have put her clothes on close to 2 dozen times. Each time she would take them off with a sly little smile and then RUN yelling "I'm Nekkin!!!!!"

We definitely have some modesty issues to work on.

When to wear Maternity

Ok. I just spent a good 20 minutes searching the web for some new maternity clothes. I still have some from my other pregnancies, but I sold some... mostly in the size that I would need now. Ugh.

When did you start wearing maternity clothes? (read, how far along were you? Obviously you started wearing them when you were pregnant!) I think with each pregnancy I try to hold off a little longer and each pregnancy I find myself needing to wear them earlier and earlier. With Joseph I was excited to sport that panel belly and long shirts that made a bump out of nothing. And while I am very excited about the baby that is growing in my belly, I am not as excited about my belly growing. The first trimester is such an awkward time. When we announced to friends that we are expecting, I can't even tell you how many people immediately turned their eyes towards my stomach. It makes me feel SO self conscious. And while I have not gained a single pound I have noticed growth. I know, the baby is the size of a bean, but my belly, it is not.

So, if you see me wearing some panel belly jeans and a long shirt don't feel the need to touch my belly and feel for the baby. It's still a bean. And in another 7 weeks when I will most likely look like I'm going to give birth any day, don't say anything. If you must, just compliment my panel jeans and not so long anymore shirt.

Hannah's Birthday ~ Part 3

I'll start with the cake this time. It's not my favorite. I've decided that until I am able to make my icing perfectly smooth on the cake, I'll use fondant. It would have looked so much better if it was smoooooth. Oh well. Pablo was recognizable, so thats all that matters, right?

Pablo is a frozen buttercream transfer for any cake people out there that might be curious. My first attempt (the headless Pablo) was a cookie with fondant accents. It did look cute, but um, he needed a head.
I don't have any pictures of Hannah blowing out her candle. I didn't think it through when I set up the tables... they are blocking the stairs to the basement. Thats good, but it meant that I couldn't get any pictures of her. My dad however decided to balance himself all crazy like on the teeny tiny piece of falling apart cement dividing my house from the neighbors. Any good pictures Dad?


Hannah's Birthday Party.... pictures are sadly out of order.

This was a gift from my parents. My mom says she thought they were cute. I'm pretty sure it's some kind of parental payback. Roger's reaction to these dolls was "I'm glad I go to work" Yes, they are cute but they talk to each other. And they say things like "Boys are gross". Thanks Mom.
This tent is so cool. Thank you Onzelle! All of the kids love it but Hannah makes sure the boys know that it is HER tent.
Hannah was supposed to be sporting this cute little tutu at her Birthday party, but she wouldn't put it on... until the last guest left. Then she wanted to wear it. stinker.
My parents also got this stroller to go with the dolls. Hannah is very particular about who can touch this new stroller. It's simple really. It's hers. Don't touch it. She will stop whatever she is doing and run across the room screaming "No!!!! My strolly!!!!" (I guess we need to work on sharing)
Oh. This. This is the icing on the cake. Rogers brother and fiance bought Hannah an Eagles jacket. Doesn't Hannah look thrilled? Yeah. Um, we are Cowboys fans in this house. No amount of pink is going to make it ok to wear something with the Eagles on it. Know what? Rogers brother knew that we were Cowboys fans and STILL bought the jacket. umm hmm. This is going back.
Party fun. Joseph decided to be the game organizer for the afternoon.
Our little trampoline proved to be much fun for the younger crowd.

My cousin Paul sharing a chair with Joseph. Yes, that is any empty chair next to them. I don't know.
I thought this was so cute. This is Onzelle's daughter (on the left) and our niece having fun jumping together.

We had some tuckered out kids by the end of the day. Thank you everyone who came and celebrated Hannah's Birthday with us. Even though you gave a sad, sad gift Jon, we are glad you came. Don't forget to give me the receipt though, k?

Hannah's Birthday ~ Part 2

After getting her ears pierced we all headed to Chuck E Cheeses. It has become a Birthday tradition to spend birthdays there. A tradition that the kids won't let us brake if we tried. :)


I was hanging out with Nehemiah and when I looked up I saw Hannah across the room riding the horse! I was so surprised that she got on that thing! Roger said she was horrible at the game, but boy did she have fun!
Joseph had a turn after Hannah. I'm pretty sure he beat her score.
Oh, the lure of the water game.
A break from all of the fun. Re-fueling on some mediocre pizza (that Joseph insists is the best pizza he has EVER tasted!) and salad (which Roger and I actually do like. Is it bad when you crave a Chuck E Cheese salad?) Nehemiah is covering his ears because the volume level was darn near insane. There were 2 birthday parties going on. (not us, we were just there for fun) They had cranked up the music, then the party hostess yelled over the music about the parties, then Chuck E himself came out. It was crazy.
Hannah liked to pump the machines full of money, then watch Roger play the game. She would then proudly collect the tickets at the end of the game.
I don't think she liked that this guy had his arm around her. :)
Thats the "I need more tokens" face
Nehemiah ran from game to game....
until he found this. I can't even tell you how many tokens were spent on this thing. To say he loved it would be an understatement.

And our Chuck E Cheese evening ended. Some tears were shed. We didn't trade in our tickets. We were saving them for another day. I forgot to bring my other tickets from last time and I knew we had hundreds more. It didn't seem right to cash all of our winnings in for a lollipop. The kids survived the lack of prizes.
I think Hannah had a great time. She is officially 2. I really need to stop calling her baby.

I interupt Hannah's Birthday pictures to bring you a very important question.

Ok, so I stayed up WAY to late last night. I was hooked on a blog. Pioneerwoman.com. She's one of the "popular bloggers" so maybe you have heard of her. I had come across her blog before, but never bookmarked it. Well, last night... it was bookmarked. And added to Google reader and anything else I could do to make sure I didn't lose that womans blog. Why my sudden obsession with Pioneerwoman? She has written her love story. How she met and fell in love with her husband. Oh how I am a sucker for romance. And it just so happens she is a city girl who fell for a cowboy. Oh. How sappy is that? I love it. It reminds me of my favorite movie (was a good book too) of all time, The Notebook. City girl meets country bumpkin. Romance. Love. I was so hooked on reading their story (which she isn't done writing yet, I am rather impatiently waiting for the next installment) that I didn't go to bed until 1:00am. By the way, I'm tired.
BUT, that brings me to my question to you. WHAT IS YOUR LOVE STORY? Cuz honestly for a split second I was jealous of her. But then I thought of my own story and I wasn't jealous anymore. When Roger and I met we knew (almost) instantly that this was it. We dated for 3 weeks before a proposal, and I wondered what took him so long. :) So, what is your story? Where did you meet? How long did you date? How did you know that he was the one? Was there a romantic proposal or was it just sweet and simple? Do tell. Either leave me a comment or post on your blog and let me know in the comments that you posted.
I just love me a love story. :)

And if you find yourself with nothing else to do, go visit Pioneerwoman and read all about her falling head over heals for a cowboy.

Hannah's Birthday ~ Part 1

My little girl turned 2. Roger and I talked about how quickly the past two years have gone by. She has added so much to our family. I can't imagine a day without her.



For Hannah's Birthday we decided to get her ears pierced. I wasn't even sure I wanted to go through with it as I was signing the papers to do it. I kept looking at Roger "Are we doing the right thing?" "Are we going to regret this later??"



Hannah isn't the most outgoing kid around. She is loud and can talk up a storm... at home. She is very quiet and bashful around strangers. This did not help with the whole ear piercing thing. It is in fact, a stranger who pierces ears. From the minute the lady started talking to Hannah she started to cry. She moved fast though and tried to comfort her with a lolipop.

In the end, Hannah did great. She cried for just a minute. As soon as we left the ear piercing booth she stopped crying. By the time we were at the car she was laughing. And when we got home later that evening she was giddy over the new holes in her head. :)

Cake Catastrophy

No pictures. Just me. Screaming. Into the computer. "Cake Central!!! Why do you have such adorable cakes with no one to HELP ME MAKE THEM?!"

Roger and I spent the past 2 hours making some wicked cute cake topper stuff for Hannah's Birthday cake. (Her Birthday is tomorrow!) It was a flop. She wanted a Backyardigans party. We were working on this crazy Pablo and Uniqua thing. Looooong story short... Pablo's head fell off.
I'm tired. I'm tired of looking at the Backyardigans. I'm tired of working with fondant. I'm just tired. The cake isn't even baked yet.
Oh how I could go on and on. I won't though. Because the truth is I love doing this for the kids. I love having something more than a Wally world cake. I might be up for hours Friday night trying to finish this thing for her party on Saturday, but I will finish it. And it will be so much cuter than anything Wally world has to offer.

And then I will post a picture of it on Cake Central with a full tutorial so any other frazzled mother that needs a Backyardigans cake 24 hours before their childs birthday can find a lovely cake with just enough time to make it in! *breathe*

Ok. Tackling Nehemiah to bed now. Then off to stare at my headless Pablo to see where I went wrong.

My latest cake

I've wanted to try this one for awhile... but had no reason to.

Until now.


Baby #4, coming May 2009.


:)

Surprised? We are.

25th Anniversary

I don't think I mentioned anything about our church and the BIG sha-bang they held for their 25th anniversary.

It was a grand ol' time. :)

The kids THOROUGHLY enjoyed the dunk tank. After the pastors were all dunked there was a line of kids wanting to get dunked too. :) Joseph missed, so he ran up and pushed the button.
Nehemiah needed to get a bit closer... but that person went in!
I have couldn't hit it if I was as close as Nehemiah was. I probably should have just let Hannah throw by herself.
pony rides!
We decided not to wait in line all night. I was afraid that a 30 minute wait would only result in "nooo!!!!! I don't want to!!!" So we watched others ride for a few minutes and moved on.
There was a reptile show. Joseph really got into that. This man is not in pain, he just has a snake crawling through his shirt. That was not planned. :)
Hannah liked the bounce castle.
And once we convinced Nehemiah to give it a try he loved it too.
A bubble blower proved to be great entertainment for the younger crowd.
As did the sprinkler.

It was a great night, the kids played hard. Everything was free (can't beat that!) and we got to hang out with my sister and her kids, along with some friends from church.

Our church picnic is coming up... that means another helicopter candy drop. and train rides. and oh, the food! Sometimes it is great being a part of a big church! :)

A little laughter

Hannah:
We have a box of cereal with a picture of a frog on it. Hannah doesn't like the frog. She likes the cereal, not the frog. We were sitting at the table eating breakfast when suddenly she spies the frog. Covering her eyes she calls out "Oh no Mommy! Da frog is wooking at me!" I turned the box around and breakfast was saved. :) (sidenote: our cereal is kept on a bakers rack in our kitchen. When the frog box gets put away we have to make sure the frog faces the wall. Otherwise at some point in the day we are sure to hear "Ahhh! The frog!! It's gonna get me!")

Joseph:
He was asking me questions about Spanish words. He was trying to count to ten, but he always and forever skips #9. I counted to 3o for him (he asked me to) and he looked at me in awe. "Mommy did you watch a lot of Dora when you were little!?" No. :) I went to school.


Nehemiah has been making me laugh too. He is talking so much more. I can't remember his silliness right now though. It's written down... somewhere. (My home organization binder perhaps?) Poor middle child.

I'm losing my mind

Does it say anything about my ability to organize my home when I lose my home organization binder?

Yeah, I thought so.

If only I knew

If only I knew that all it would take for Nehemiah to use the potty was a new pack of Go Diego Go and a pack of Dinosaur underwear... I would have invested long ago. Though he's had a few accidents, none of them were major and happened, for the most part, on the way to the potty. There is hope that he will be potty trained by his 4th birthday people! There is hope!

Yard Sale Eve

It is Yard Sale Eve
and all through the house
everything has a price tag
even my spouse

The toys were all placed
on the table with care
in hopes that yard salers would soon be there

The children were nestled all snug in their beds
while visions of yard sale toys danced in their heads
While Roger was snoring, and I (needing a shower)
we rested our bodies for the coming morning hours
Out on the lawn, there is such a clutter
I want to go to bed, and think about it later


Ok, thats all I got. That hurt my brain to come up with that much.


Now... onto what I really wanted to say........

First off, thank you Lord for this beautiful weather! Not a single drop of rain in the forecast. That makes things A LOT easier for setting things up this evening.

Our backyard looks like Toys R Us is having a sidewalk sale. We should have some pretty happy yard salers tomorrow morning.

Clothes. Though I always think we have too many clothes when I am washing them, I never felt like we had to many while wearing them (does that make sense?) Seeing how many bins of clothing we have is insane. I have 3 buckets of maternity clothes! Some of it is the most awful looking stuff you have ever seen in your life. It was given to me by a daycare mom when I was pregnant with Joseph. I just never parted with it. And for some reason I felt the need to carry it with me on 4 moves.
I found an entire box (!) of Hannah clothes that weren't even priced from previous yard sales. Once the house is asleep I should really get out there and work on that. I think I might need to make a quick trip for some Diet Pepsi first though.

Actually, Hannah's box reminded me that I have a whole box - somewhere- of baby boy items that I was saving. I had every intention of making a quilt with some of the precious outfits the kids wore in their first year. Things that I just couldn't part with at a yard sale.

I lost the box.

I think I just sorted Hannah's box in the backyard.

Now, do I re-sort that which I love, and save it for the quilt? Or do I let go and sell that adorable OshKosh denim miniskirt for $3?

Ahh, the stress of Yard Sale Eve. It's good to know that I can at least wake up to donuts and a diet pepsi. (what? It's a perfectly acceptable "meal" for a yard sale morning!)

Family Night

Olympics!

This was week 2 of an Olympic family night. Last week the kids weren't feeling very well so we kept it small.

For dinner we had homemade Chinese (fried rice and stir fry, the kids had chicken nuggets) and we had red, white and blue jello for dessert. (red jello, cool whip, blue jello)

The kids and I made a banner for the yard to show off our Olympic spirit.

Together we came up with some sports to play. You might not find them in the real Olympics, but we had fun!
Don't laugh at my stick people. ;)
Each game we handed out a "metal" to the winner. I printed some metals off the internet and we colored them and added glitter.







And apparently I hadn't thought of everything. What summer Olympic games are complete without water sports?!



We had a lot of fun. I think this was one of the kids favorite family nights so far.