And the baby is.....

ANOTHER BOY!

I just knew it! I'd hoped and felt it was a girl up until the day I went in for my cerclage. For some reason that day I just KNEW it was a boy. And yep, it's a boy!

So far things are going incredibly well & the baby looks great. Measuring just as I should & this has definitely been the easiest pregnancy out of the three. Oh man I hope that is an indicator of what's to come, lol.

C-A-T

I think about where we were this time last year & life was just SO frustrating. Frustrating because Little Man's expressive communication was SO minimal. We had to use mostly yes/no questions & we just had no way of knowing what was going on in his little head.

He has come SO far in just the past 9 months.

Honestly, he's my first child so I have no idea what to expect, what they are or aren't supposed to know etc. I can tell you he's a sponge & he's in constant 'seek & soak' mode, lol.

A few weeks ago he brought me his magnadoodle & drew a line & informed me it was a 1. YAY! Of course the natural thing to do was ask him if he wanted to learn to write/draw a 2! He did.

Today he can write most of the letters of the alphabet, all the numbers 0-9 & he knows the sounds that each & every one of them make. It just tickles me to death to hear his little voice make an 'X' sound. Yes he can still be incredibly difficult to understand but much of it is so cute!

Last week he came to me with the magnadoodle again, this time with a Z on it. I congratulated him on how correct his Z was & asked him he wanted to learn to spell 'cat.' He looked at me & said, "C-A-T."

Holy Crap! My first response, "YAY! Yeah that's right, that's cat!!!!" Followed up by, "Where in the WORLD did you learn that?!?!"

So now he's learning to spell a few basic words.

I have been trying to get a picture of him next to his magnadoodle or easel with "CAT" written on it but haven't found a memory card. I do not know why I can't find one though, considering we own like 4 of them. Grrrr....

Scratch that Change #2

So after consulting a realtor & really number crunching we've decided we are NOT moving.

Initially we were crushed. Oh I am SO in love with that house & the thought of having more space, being closer to shopping, doctors, etc. There are about 100 reasons straight off the top of my head that moving would have been wonderful!

On the flip side we have picked a school out here for Little Man that is going to be perfect for him. He came to me in the past couple of weeks with his magnadoodle & drew a line & informed me it was a "1." That lead to, "Do you want to learn how to write a 2?" He did. He can now write the letters L,I,O,C,J,W,U,H,B,V...shoot...just about any letter you ask him. He knows all the sounds that all of the letters make & identifies every single letter of the alphabet every single time. The preschool he's likely to attend in the fall has the type of curriculum that he needs. It also has the teacher he needs.

I guess if it were meant to happen it would have happened without some of these hurdles we'd have to face. Eventually it will be meant to happen but until then we'll just be thankful that we have a roof over our heads & food in our belly's.

Change #2

We are moving out of the sticks!

WAHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Okay we knew when we bought this house that it was a starter home for us. This house is just too small now, we've outgrown it & need some more space. When we moved in here we didn't realize the exact issues that Little Man had. If we'd of had even an inkling of what was to come, we'd of NEVER moved out here. We live in the middle of NOWHERE. Town of about 4,000 people. Not even a McDonald's here! lol. Of course like every small town in Texas, we DO have a Dairy Queen. For those of you from the north our DQ's serve YUMMY food, not just desserts.

Anyhow, living out here in incredibly inconvenient. Little Man's private speech is almost a full hour away...ONE WAY. The neurologist & neurosurgeon for the boys is over an hour away...one way. Our schools here aren't horrible but they are not what I want for our children. We want options for them. If they want to participate in a sport, we want more than one team or league to choose from. Things like that.

The bad part about all of this is that we do actually LOVE LOVE LOVE the speech therapist at the school & our town has a FANTASTIC private school here that we were planning on using. The good news is that we are moving into a district that is known for its great schools. We have known for some time now that homeschooling could potentially be the best option for Little Man. He's so smart but it's easy to not realize it because his communication can be so difficult to understand. We don't want him to fall through the cracks.

That said, he doesn't start Kindergarten until 2011 so we have lots of time & I guarantee his speech today will not be the same as then. Thank goodness for his late birthday huh? LOL.

The house is being built so we aren't expecting to move in until October. Hopefully we'll have our place on the market in the next week. We are cleaning things out like crazy. We have 2 piles in our garage right now; sale & storage. We know we'll have to put some stuff in storage to make this place showable but that's not a huge deal.

We knew we wanted to move next summer but rates are SO LOW right now. They are creeping back up as Obama prints all this freakin' money so who knows what they'll be by next summer if he doesn't stop. Grrrr...but that's a whole other blog, lol.

This is what our house will look like when it's done. Colors will be different but you get the idea.

Man I can't wait!

:)

Changes!!!!

So very much is going on in our lives right now that this computer has been the last place I've been for some time now.

I have two HUGE updates for the moment.

One: We are expecting baby #3!! This is so exciting for us. Yes...we are super excited!!!! Please, if you have rude comments & thoughts, keep them to yourselves. For those of you who think that we weren't thinking when we got pregnant, please keep your ignorance to yourself. Especially when that exact thought makes YOU the hypocrite.

Please do not come to us asking if this means that Little Man won't be getting what he needs in some way. Are you kidding me? This one might be more insulting than the above mentioned ignorance. Never in the past 3.5 years has ANYONE been able to come to us wondering if we've had any of our children's best interest in mind so why in the world would that change now?

Please do not concern yourself as to whether or not I/we have too much on our plate. We don't. There is (sometimes unfortunately) always room for more. We have been through more with our 2 children than some people have with their entire brood. We know that. But you know what else we know...we have never sat around sulking about it. There have certainly been days where some things seem overwhelming but I know that I have it easy compared to what some people have to go through with/for their children.

Now. About this pregnancy. Due Date is around Nov 9 or 10. Doc's office is telling me Nov 14, but I KNOW that's not it. And while I realize 4-5 days for most people would make zero difference, I am not most people when it comes to pregnancy.

Biggest reason I haven't been on lately is the lack of energy. I'm using all of my energy taking care of the boys and there is nothing left right now, lol. I have been SOOOOO tired. That appears to be getting a little better at least.

Blood Pressure. It's doing better this time around than it did with Peanut. Thank Goodness! I'm getting to go 3 weeks between most appts now & with Peanut I only got that luxury ONCE, lol.

Cerclage. I had a cerclage done a few weeks ago so hopefully this baby will stay put longer than my first 2. (That's where they stitch the cervix shut)

Overall this pregnancy has been going so much better than my last one & I'm incredibly thankful for that.

Boy or Girl. We don't really know yet. They tried to take a peek at my last ultrasound (I've had like 4 already) but baby wasn't cooperative. I was convinced early on that I was having a girl. The day I went in for my cerclage I switched teams and I am now convinced I'm having a boy. I have no idea why. We should be able to find out next week.

This got so long that I will post Change #2 in a separate posting.

:)

Peanut's Birthday!!!

I cannot believe he's already 1. It doesn't feel like a year yet. That might be because he's been home with us for 11 months, lol.

April 25, 2008:

April 28, 2008:

April 25, 2009 (Waiting for cake!)

The Cake!!

MORE TO COME!!!!!!

Easter Pictures!!!!!

Better late than never, right?

Oh the cuteness!!

He's so excited! Getting ready to color eggs!!! (Yes, he's still obsessed with eggs.)

Like father, like son? Yep. :) (Except that he was upset because he broke an egg.)

He didn't think it was too cool that he got the dye on his finger.

There's the broken egg!

So Sad!

Once he discovered the (paper) grass...nothing else mattered!

He liked the real grass too. :)

A Quiet Moment

It's almost bedtime here so 'a quiet moment' is not exactly what I have. It's more like what I long for. I realize I haven't been posting much lately & I'd like to say I'll see that changing soon, but I'm just not so sure of that. Things are absolutely chaotic here. I have appointments as do Little Man & Peanut. Things are going to get crazier before they calm down at the end of July. Then in mid to late Aug it's going to be sheer chaos again.

I find myself saying, "when things get back to normal" more often than I should. I think it's time to come to terms with the fact that our life is crazy & crazy busy! In light of that I've been trying to get things cleaned up & better organized around here. That's where my "spare" moments are going. We've been trying to get rid of the things we don't use & make better use of the things we do. Tuesday is going to see a ton of garbage at the street as did Friday.

This week we only have 6 or 7 appointments. (Last week it was 8 or 9). Then this Saturday (25th) is Peanut's first birthday & his party!! I'm SOOOO excited for that. Time really flies!

I'm really bummed because a very close friend had her 30th birthday party last night and we weren't able to go. Between lack of a sitter & 14 or so inches of rain, it just didn't work out. That would have been a really nice time.

Hopefully tonight or tomorrow I can finally get those Easter pics up!

FINALLY! The Bluebonnet pictures!

Okay folks, I've been extra tired lately. More on that in another post. Anyhow I have FINALLY gone through the pictures, edited most of them and here are some of the highlights. Warning, it's pic heavy!! It was SO bright outside that it was really hard to get good pictures. That & the fact that toddlers would rather play than sit for pictures anyway, lol.

She was smelling the flowers, so he had to as well. ;)

He was ready to take off. He really liked the flowers & was fascinated by everything. So no, it's not a 'good' shot but with a baby that won't sit still, I'll take what I can get.

We couldn't get Little Man to look up from his flower, but thankfully my sister did manage to click when he finally did for that nano-second. (I still need to crop this one)

Little Man really struggles to hold that wiggling baby there, lol.

I totally screwed up on sizing this picture & am too lazy right now to go back & fix it. But you can see we named her Diva for a reason, hahaha!!

Ugh, I thought I uploaded the on with that leg cropped OUT of the picture. You get the idea, lol.

First he wanted a hug and Diva didn't approve.

When she finally wanted one, he thought it was more fun to make her chase him. LOL.

And there you have it. Bluebonnets & the kiddos!

Not a Happy Camper!

Yesterday morning after looking at the preschool that Little Man is going to go to in the fall, we headed out for the nearly 4 hour trek to Garner State Park. The plan was to spend a relaxing weekend in preparation for the next 5 weekends, which will not be so relaxing because we have so many plans for them.

On the way there, it became incredibly obvious that little man was experiencing an allergic reaction to the antibiotic he was nearly done with taking. OMG...that's it's own story but here are the pictures that just don't do it any justice.

We finally make it to Garner, between phone calls with the nurse & stopping for much needed things. After the 3rd attempt to pick a site, we finally decide on one and set up camp. It really wasn't THAT busy Fri night & of course the park is massive. There is nobody in the 10+ sites near us. As I laid there pondering how in the world we were going to stay warm that night, I hear Hubby say, "Look who's moving into the neighborhood." I look and think to myself, 'OMG' but instead say, "It might not be so bad."

Unfortunately these people fit every single stereotype you could think of. It was AWFUL. And they weren't drunk yet!!! They had clearly picked those spots due to the close proximity of the restrooms since there were so many children with them. Oh yes...and several of the ladies were pregnant, lol. Once they crank up the music I hear him say, "Oh Hell No!" And the rest is history.

We also had a little issue with the tent. The canpoy that is supposed to go over it is missing and neither of us realized it. That meant that even though we'd taken a heater with us, that warm air was going to go out as fast as it was coming out of the heater.

With all of these issues going on, we decided it was time to go. We packed up and got home about 1:30 this morning.

We're headed out now to a park closer to the house. Maybe this time I'll have good and "fun" pictures to share. :)