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I found this great giveaway of a $250 gift card to Talbots! It is SO easy to enter! Just check out the G.R.I.T.S. blog for all the details! Best of luck to you! If I win, this purse just may be mine! I need a new one and this one looks super soft! To find out more about Talbots check out Red Chair Confessions!

Things they say and do

A few little heart melting moments to share with you.

The Genius colored a picture for her brother the other day. She even wrote "To Baby From Sissy". She went and laid it in his room!

The Hippie gave me a huge hug as we finished up home-school yesterday. She said, "If we went to regular school I wouldn't spend as much time with you huh Mommy? I am glad you teach us so I can be with you and hug you. I love you Mommy!"

Then as we were making granola I said, "I wish I had an apron so I had something to wipe my hands on." The Hippie said, "I know what I am getting you for Mother's Day and I can because of that card Ms. Debra gave us." (Remember the gift card they got at my baby shower?) It was the first time the girls have EVER gotten a gift card and they understood they could spend it however they wanted and she wanted to spend it on me. I got so choked up I had to hug her so she wouldn't see. She said, "You can let go now Mommy." Ha! When I told my husband about it he said that as soon as we got home from the baby shower, the Hippie told him she wanted to use her card to get me a Mother's day gift.

We have such great kids and they are such a blessing!

Look What I Won!!!!!

I won the necklace and the earrings!!!


I won them from a cool Etsy Shop called Mississippi Mud. I entered the contest through another blog I just started following called Serenity Now!. If you have a free minute you should check them out. It makes me hope that someday I will get to host a giveaway! Thanks Amanda for hosting it and thanks Sarita for giving me these great items! With a baby on the way I am very, very excited about trying out the Baby Momma Necklace!

My BIG Day!

Today was the day!!! My long awaited baby shower was today!! It was everything I had hoped it would be and then some!!! It was so wonderful to get together with friends, relax and celebrate our baby boy! It was an awesome reminder from God of just how blessed I am with so many incredible friends AND we are all sisters in Christ! PLUS my mom was able to drive down and be here too! I feel so special and spoiled now. The baby got so many things and we needed ALL of them! It was the perfect variety. Plus three different people got goodies for the girls. They were thrilled and completely not expecting that either! Thanks to everyone who came and the ladies who planned the shower for us. I love you all!

Our Mother's Day Tradition

When our oldest was just about 9 months old we started a Mother's Day tradition. My husband had asked me what I wanted for Mother's Day. I told him I would rather DO something as a family and not do gifts etc. So we came up with the zoo and every year around Mother's Day we all go to a zoo together. The girls are old enough now to remember the tradition and look forward to it. I love it because it always relaxing and fun and we build so many memories on those trips. Yesterday my husband surprised us by coming home early and announcing we were all going to zoo!!! It was one of the best zoo trips ever! We went in the afternoon and it seemed like every single animal was up and moving! We saw a Sumatrin Tiger and he walked along his fence about 5 feet in front of us! He was beautiful and so much smaller than the Siberian tigers. The penguins were swimming right in front of us! When we got to the gorillas a trainer was in there and she would show this HUGE gorilla a picture on her digital camera and he would do "tricks". He scratched his head and waved and did other tricks. The girls were very impressed! When we went into the Lorikeet exhibit the lady warned us that the birds were young and extra friendly. As soon as we walked in a Lorikeet landed ON TOP OF MY HUSBAND'S HEAD!!! The girls and I were laughing SOOOOO hard! The bird nibbled on his ear, tickled his neck, chewed on his sunglasses and then hopped onto his backpack! Eventually we had to get the lady to help get the bird off! Later when we got to the elephants their handlers were in their cage and making them get into their pool. There was a mommy, daddy and baby elephant. As they were walking to the pool we got to see the baby wrap it's trunk around the mommy's tail! Then they all got into the pool and they were absolutely adorable! They would go all the way under water, roll around, splash and play. We could have stood forever just watching them. It was a great trip and a wonderful surprise! To finish off the perfect day we all had ice cream on the way home!
Do any of you have Mother's Day traditions?

Free Jewelery!

I came across a neat give away on a blog I started following called Serenity Now.. Stop by and check it out! It is super easy to enter!
You can win some pretty free jewelery like this!

If you are having a rough day...

don't you find that your kids can make it all seem so much better? When the girls were smaller, if we got stressed, we would dance with them or tickle them and listen to their belly laughs! Now that they are older we get so much enjoyment just listening to them and watching them. Yesterday was a rough day for my husband and I. The girls cheered us up!
The Hippie picked me a huge vase full of weeds, oh, I mean beautiful flowers! =) Best part, she hands them to me with grubby, dirt covered hands and lisps, "These are for you Mommy. I will get you some water." Those weeds, er, flowers were the center piece for our table last night.
When the girls were out playing I asked what they were doing and they were building home for their "pet" worms.
We met some friends at McDonald's yesterday and my friend treated the kids to ice cream cones. While they were eating, I listened as our respective 5 year olds carried on a 5 minute conversation about how to eat an ice cream cone!
Moments like these are the best things in life!
Hope you have a great day!

Sibling Class

Today I took the girls to a class about being a sibling to a little baby. It was kinda simplistic, but also pretty cute! The girls had a great time though and they were glad we went. It really helped add to excitement about bringing home a baby. Neither girl can wait and the Genius really wants to help and feel needed.
Tonight at our local Chick-Fil-A, they had Super Hero Night! So instead of dinner here at home, the girls got dressed head-to-toe in Super Hero outfits and they dined for free! It was fun and very relaxing for all of us!

Re-entry

On April 30th my husband will re-enter into the world of civilians again! It will be interesting to see where God is leading us.
Today is Saturday though and the girls get to go to MOKI! They are very excited and we are looking forward to a few hours alone together. One week from today is my baby shower!!! I am so excited! It is hard to believe, but we are 29 weeks along and will meet our son within the next few months. This pregnancy has just flown by! The girls are really getting excited to meet their brother. On Monday they are going to a class for siblings and they get to learn about having a new baby in the house and what they can do to help etc. I think they will really enjoy it!
Well, I am going to go get the paper and look for some garage sales to hit today! Have a great Saturday and stay tuned to our blog to follow our adventures into the unknown!

Friday Night

Today is FRIDAY!! In our house every Friday night is Family Night. We pick up dinner from somewhere. Usually we let the girls pick. Most times it is either pizza or Taco Bell. Either is fine with me as long as Mommy gets the night off from cooking! On family nights we eat in the living room and we either watch some "Little House" or a family movie of some kind. It is really a fun evening for all of us! If we finish early we squeeze in a little Uno or monopoly and then have story time. Do any of you have traditions like that? If so, what do you do?

Surgery and Sweetness

Yesterday morning the Genius had her laser surgery. My husband was able to take her this time and he got to enjoy her silliness after she takes the "goofy juice". Afterwards he took her out for a special breakfast. The Hippie and I stayed home and had a special time together. She picked donuts for breakfast, we colored, took a walk/bike ride and made a quick trip to the store. None of us like surgery days, but yesterday was not too bad. We are all tired on surgery days because we have to get up so early. Both girls get nervous. The Genius wants her little sister to be with her and doesn't understand why she cannot come. The Hippie gets worried that something will happen to her Sissy. That makes my husband and I feel sad. After the surgery we are all still tired and the Genius is pretty low energy (since they put her totally under). All in all, it just makes for a long day. I would say yesterday was the exception though. One of the Genius' friends dropped off a balloon and HUGE goodie bag for both girls! The Genius said, "Wow! We sure are lucky to have friends like this!" Then they spent a few hours playing with the stuff inside. I even took a 30 minute nap! I had at least 4 friends and family members call and check on us. Plus we had a few emails just saying people were praying for her. It really made the day go much better. We even had a nice family dinner!!
The other sweetness happened at bedtime. We had hugged and kissed the girls and the Genius came running back to me. She hugged my tummy and said, "Goodnight Baby Brother!" It was soooo sweet!!! Then this morning she woke up and heard her daddy in the nursery. She went in and said, "You should set up the crib and surprise Mommy!" He said she should do it. After he left on his run she went upstairs and set up the baby's bassinet! We actually have a real crib to set up too, but still, it just doesn't get much sweeter than that!!!! A GREAT way to start off a Wednesday for sure!!!!

Third

Believe it or not, we are now in the THIRD trimester of this pregnancy! It sure feels like time is flying right on by! This past weekend we had a little garage sale and made a little money. We also started working on the getting the nursery ready. Prior to this, the third room had served as my husband's office/guest room for his sister. In fact, we all referred to it as "Aunt Trinka's Room". LOL! There is a lot of stuff to get cleared out in there but we are making some headway. I got the few clothes we have washed, folded and put away. I got his changing area set up and all the cloth diapers stuffed, folded, sorted, organized and put in the drawers so we are ready to roll. I must admit I still feel nervous when I look at the cloth diapers but we are committed to using them 100% of the time. I also know that we will find certain ones that work better and ones we prefer etc.... I know we will have some trial and error and that I will probably make some mistakes! LOL! But I have spent $200 and that should diaper our baby until he potty trains!
The rest of the weekend was busy. In between the garage sale and nursery stuff I did 7 loads of laundry, we cleaned, took a bunch of stuff to Goodwill, had church and then we took the girls to a birthday party. They had such a fun time! It was for a 7 year old boy. He had his party at a bowling alley. It was really a nice little party!
Tomorrow the Genius has her next laser surgery. After this she should just have one more and then they are taking a break til she is older. When she is older they will do another surgery where they go in and cut out all her scar tissue, sew it up and then treat that new scar with more laser treatments. I hate that she has to go through this but I am glad she is getting a break. Both girls get nervous about the surgeries. The Hippie worries about Sissy and Sissy gets scared and wants her little sister to be there with her. Plus the Genius hates that the surgeries turn her nose purple and lots of people ask what happened.
Back to some happy news...we have decided to plan our first real vacation in over TWO years!!! We are going to go to Hilton Head with my parents and sister!!! A whole week at the beach before the baby comes!!! I am so very excited for two reasons.
1. It's the beach and that is my absolute favorite kind of vacation!
2. I really wanted to do one more thing with the girls before their brother is born.
We have so many neat things coming up before our vacation too! We have a date in a few weeks, my baby shower!!!!!!!!, some swim lessons for the girls and I am sure some other stuff too.
For now I better get off and get our Monday going. Lots to do today!
Have a great day!!!

SOOOOO Many People

The Hippie comes up with some great questions and thoughts from time to time. Today she said, "There would be a huge problem if after our brother you had a baby girl. See, she could be a Mommy and have a girl and she could have a girl and everyone would just keep having babies and the whole place would just be crowded with Mommies and babies everywhere!"
She also wants to name her brother Bubba =).
Thankfully, we have our own list of names.

For Gampy =)

Cinnamon Scones

From the toy room

As my husband was checking up on the girls cleaning their room....this is what he heard....
The Hippie "And today, the weatherman is calling for beautiful sunshine and a day full of rainbows and joy!"

I don't think there is anything I can possibly add to make that any better!

Happy Easter 2010

I hope that everyone had a lovely Easter! We sure did! We had church and the girls were beautiful in the dresses from Nana and Gampy! After church we hit up Kroger and did our shopping for the week. We kept our lunch super simple! I made some homemade wheat bread. It was SOOOO good! We ate the entire loaf together! We all did some yard work and around dinner time several of our friends came over. We had 8 adults and 10 kids! It was crazy and fun! We had smores, hot dogs, grilled cheeses, chips and even some roasted peeps! Everyone had such a great time and it wore the girls out! We have such a nice group of friends too because all our friends and their kids pitched in and helped clean up before they all left. So 10 minutes after everyone had gone the girls were bathing and everything was back where it belonged. It was an incredible Easter!!!!

Will he match?

The other day the Hippie says, "Mommy, most people in most families have the same color skin but not every family is like that. So do you think our brother will match us or will he get the pretty brown skin?" What a cutie!!! I told her I was pretty sure he would match us =)
I got to hear his heartbeat at my appointment the other day. It was first appointment I had gone to alone in months! I went alone because they were doing the 1 hour glucose screening and I did not want the girls sitting in a lab for an hour. It was such a neat appointment though I was really bummed that none of my family was with me. They started talking to me about monitoring my fetal kick counts, what to do if I am in preterm labor and gave me info on getting a tour of labor and delivery! I was shocked! It makes it feel like he is so close to coming! To top it off when she listened to heartbeat he was laying sideways. She put the machine right over his little heart and it sounded kinda weird. It almost sounded like a clink. I asked her what it was and she said, "That is the sound of his tiny valves opening and closing just like they should." I was crying! It was such a special moment just laying there listening to our sons heart working that way! Then he started pummeling the machine and she had to stop! =)
I have some cleaning to get done because my husband and I have a date tonight! Have a great Saturday everyone!!!!!

April Fools Day

As we were getting their April calendars ready the girls asked me why there was a sticker on April 1st. I explained what April Fool's Day was. The Genius was absolutely disgusted! She said, "That is the worst holiday I have ever heard of! Why would people spend a whole day lying and tricking each other? I am not going to believe anyone today except you, Daddy and little sister and if Gampy calls I know everything he says will just be a trick!" Sometimes I just love their perspective! So enjoy the worst holiday ever! =)