It's official

I'm horrible at blogging. There's always something else that "needs" to be done. I tell myself that I can stick to this and post something once a week. And then something comes up or pregnancy exhaustion kicks in and that's all she wrote. I won't even fool myself into thinking it will get better after the baby gets here, because HAHAHAHAHA! I think we all know that's a crazy thought.

So anyway, I honestly can't even remember if anything terribly noteworthy has happened since last time. I'll just go with what I know.

Ainsley's Pre-K classes recently memorized well-known nursery rhymes. Hers was Little Bo Peep. They each drew up a poster board with their rhyme and at the end of the week they held a little performance in the school library. I pretty much wrote that off as something that would fall into the "Never Gonna Happen with Ainsley" category, but we did still practice her rhyme each evening. I tried to get her excited about it while at the same time trying to not send her into complete freak out mode. If you know Ainsley, then you know what a touchy area that can be. The kids all rehearsed in the library. Except Ainsley. She cried, and cried, and cried. Her teachers said she freaked out and wouldn't do it. So on Friday Jeremy and I went up to the school for the performances but had little expectations to see Ainsley do anything other than cry. Let me tell you, we were SHOCKED! That kid is so unpredictable. She got up there in front of everyone and said that nursery rhyme like it was the most fun thing she'd ever done. And I would put the video on here for you to see for yourselves, except I can't find the cord to connect my video camera to the laptop. If there's anything I can do well, it's misplace things! For now here are a few pictures.

Getting all set to recite...

So PROUD of herself for doing it!!

And getting a big hug from quite possibly the most precious teacher ever!!!

Proudly showing off her poster. I have to say, she did this artwork and writing herself. I wrote it out on a sheet of paper so she could see how to spell everything, but the rest she did on her own. Does anyone else find it a teensy bit annoying when the teacher says parents can "help" but the work mostly needs to be done by the child, yet a lot of the other work you see was most definitely not the work of a 4-5 year old? Is it just me?

Collin recently started playing his first season of flag football through UpWard sports. We have loved UpWard since Collin first started with soccer. He has since tried basketball and now the football. I think his favorite is by far the soccer, but it's fun to try them all without all of the pressure that usually comes with playing team sports. The UpWard program fits our family well. Not many pictures to share, but here are a few.

The pre-K classes took a field trip to the local children's museum yesterday morning. They had such a good time playing dress up, painting, building, etc. The trip ended with a picnic lunch across the street on the lawn of the public library. What a gorgeous day we were blessed with!

Today the kids got to have pajama day at school. It was no trouble getting them up this morning. They were so excited about wearing pj's all day!

Oh boy!

After waiting an eternity, we finally got to have our "big" ultrasound yesterday, at 23 weeks. For some reason I was much more nervous going in for it with this pregnancy than with Collin & Ainsley. I guess with them I was more excited. Now that I'm older the stakes are higher and that brings about a lot of anxiety for me. And for some reason it seems like it's been much harder to eat right and take more care of myself this time, so I worry that I'm not getting the foods I need, or I'm eating/drinking all the wrong things, yada...yada...yada... BUT everything looked perfect! And we are pleased to tell you that we will be having our second baby boy sometime around the end of December and beginning of January. Here are a few of baby's first pictures.

Profile

Face

Foot

You may be wondering where the one picture is that confirms baby's gender. Call me strange, but I still feel like giving him a certain amount of privacy and don't feel like putting it all out there for everyone to see. You will just have to trust me that this is most certainly a boy :)

Big Changes!

If I had just waited for 3 more months, it would have been an entire year since I last blogged. I'm not even sure what happened. I just wasn't motivated to do it. With Facebook, it's so much easier to share daily quips and pictures. But, I truly do want to get back to this!

So many changes since my last post, waaaay back in November. Today was the first day back to school...for BOTH kids this time. Collin has already been in "real" school for 2 years and is now in 2nd grade. But the only school Ainsley has ever known was her beloved MDO program. I mean, she was there from the time she was 4 months old until this last May. She practically grew up there! Today was a big day for her, and she was so excited to put on that BCS uniform for the first time. Let's see how she feels about it in a few years ;)

You never know how Ainsley's demeanor will be from one day to the next. Heck, I guess it's more like one minute to the next. She is a sweetie, but she is also very strong-willed (aka STUBBORN) and overly dramatic. But this morning she couldn't have been happier. She was all smiles from the time she got out of bed and was still happy when we left her classroom.

Collin has been anticipating this school year, but his is more of a mixture of excitement to be back with his friends, along with anxiety over school in general. He had some struggles last year that took a while to get sorted out. School does not come easily for him, but he tries his little heart out and is so eager to please and do what is right. He has the sweetest heart and I am sure he will go so far in life with his disposition.

It was harder than I thought it would be to leave them at school today. I guess it was expected with Ainsley since it's her first official day of "real" school, but it was even hard to leave Collin. But we put on our brave faces for them and waited to break down in tears until we were home!

The other big news in our household is that we are expecting our 3rd baby at the end of this year! That is probably not new news to most of you who actually might read this blog. But it is certainly new news to the blog! My due date is at the beginning of January, but with my history of early babies I expect him/her to be here no later than December. I don't have a fabulous ultrasound picture like many women do at this point. I'm 19 weeks today but won't have my big ultrasound for another 4 weeks. For now, this is the only picture I have to share of the little one, taken 3 months ago today. Don't ask me what's what, because I have no idea.

Well, I guess that's about all for now. Hopefully I'll have some time to catch up on stuff I missed posting over the last months...at least until baby gets here!

Christmas Cards

I don't know about you, but I LOVE to send and receive Christmas cards. It's so refreshing to go to the mailbox and find a greeting card waiting for me, rather than a bill! I prefer to send photo cards because they have such a personal touch. So, when I discovered through a blog that I follow, that Shutterfly is giving away 50 FREE Christmas cards to bloggers, I was beyond excited! I have ordered from Shutterfly in the past, and have always found their quality to be wonderful. I have looked through all of the different styles and am going to have a hard time choosing! Here are some of my favorites:




Can you tell I'm fond of the red, green and brown color combination? :)

I also love their party invitations. One day when I'm all grown up, I would like to have a Christmas party at my house and send out fun invitations! I like this one...


Would you like to grab some free Christmas cards for yourself? If so, go here! There is no restriction on blog size. Happy shopping!

Summer Randoms

So, what did we do this summer? Lots of things! But here are some of the most memorable.

Said goodbye to good friends...

Played on the Kemah Boardwalk with family...

Helped daddy "mow" the yard...

Played catch in the back yard....

Attended Sports Camp...

Graduated from Firegator Camp...

Snuggled up with sister...

Cooled off at the splash pad...

Took a day trip to Austin and met back up with the good friends we said goodbye to a couple months earlier...


Stopped for cupcakes at Hey Cupcake, thanks to a recommendation from Melissa...

Played at the Austin Children's Museum...

Enjoyed a Bombers baseball game...

Turned the back yard into our own little waterpark...

Met Nana's new dog, Mattie...

Swam in Nana's pool...