Birthday Boating

My brother, Tristan, turned 27 on Friday so we invited him and his family to come up for the weekend so we could celebrate him.  Jeremy and Tristan went to see The Dark Knight on Friday and then on Saturday we headed up to Lake Texoma on Saturday for some boating action. 

When we first got to the marina, we noticed a ton of turtles and these ginormous fish just waiting at the dock to be fed (they sold fish food (although I am pretty sure it was dog food) at the marina store for kids to feed them).  We thought the girls would love it so we made sure to point them out before we got on the boat.  So all was good and well and everyone was happy and excited to be on the boat.  We decided to stop for a bit to swim and eat lunch.  Shelby and Jeremy jumped in the water, and then I went to hand Joey- the one who is much braver in the water than Shelby- down to Jeremy, and she completely freaked out.  She would not even put her feet in the water.  She kept screaming, "Turtles get me!  Turtles get me!".  Poor child.  We tried to explain that we were no longer by the turtles, but that just wasn't good enough.  She never did get in the water the rest of the day...and the high was 108!  The rest of us had a good time cooling off in the water though.  I am normally kind of grossed out by lakes, but as hot as it was I really didn't think twice about it. 



Happy Birthday, Tristan!  Thanks for driving up here so we could celebrate with you!

Surprise! It's...

Monday night I felt like a kid on Christmas Eve.  I barely slept at all, and when Jeremy's alarm went off an hour before mine Tuesday morning I couldn't get back to sleep.  I was so excited to be going to the doctor!  My high risk doctor is awesome.  He and everyone in his office are so nice. 
With Joey, they were able to tell me she was a girl at 11.5 weeks.  In fact, I wasn't even expecting them to be able to tell me the gender, so Jeremy wasn't even at that appointment with me.  But this time I was prepared.  Jeremy and the girls stayed in the waiting room during the initial part of the ultrasound (it was like an hour long ultrasound, so I knew the girls wouldn't last in the room with me that long), and then when it was time to determine the gender of the baby they brought them all back in to the room with me.  Shelby thought it was awesome to see the baby.  Joey looked at the screen and said, "Baby fish!". 

Just as a quick note, if you are wondering how on Earth they can tell the gender of the baby so early,
the determination is made by studying the angle between the genital 'bump' and the direction of the lower portion of the spine.  Jeremy and I knew that if the "bump" is parallel to the spine, that indicates the baby is a girl.  If the "bump" is at an angle, the baby is a boy.  So as soon as the tech got a great shot of the bump/spine, we said, "IT'S A GIRL!".  (The tech and doctor confirmed.)

It was a shock to me because for some reason I really thought this baby was a boy.  Of course I would have been happy either way, but I am super thrilled we are having another girl!  I just don't think I am ready to get rid of all our pink stuff yet!

This picture is so blurry- I just took a picture of one of the ultrasound pictures with my phone because I am too lazy to actually scan the pictures.  I was going to try to upload part of the dvd as well, but again, I'm too lazy. 

Peachy-Keen

Baby #3 is now as big as a peach!  (Which is kind of weird to think about since I was just eating peaches yesterday.)  It always amazes me how quickly babies grow.  I can't wait to see him/her on Tuesday and hopefully find out if we will need to sell all our baby girl stuff.  I am feeling a little bit better now- at least the nausea isn't CONSTANT like it has been the past couple weeks.  I haven't gained any weight yet, but I am definitely getting doughier around the middle.  And I feel like my face is getting bigger too.  I always get bigger in my face first- hate that.  I really can't wait until I have a belly though.  The in-between phase is always hard because then it just looks like you are gaining weight, not that you are actually pregnant.  Haha!

Emotionally, I feel like this week has been tough.  I haven't been breaking down and crying or anything, but I know my hormones are crazy and because of a lot of stuff going on I can feel myself getting easily anxious, short-tempered, or upset.  On top of that, Jeremy just accepted a new job.  It all happened so fast.  He wasn't even looking- he was approached by someone on Monday.  He had a phone interview with him Monday night, a phone interview with the CEO on Tuesday, and got the job offer on Wednesday.  This is a move out of claims adjusting, which Jeremy ultimately wanted (though he will still be working with claims adjusters).  The hard part for us was that it is a salary + commission job.  So he is taking a cut in base salary with the potential of making more than he does now in commission.  It is just scary to me to not have the same paycheck coming in every two weeks like we are used to getting.  But I know that with as many contacts as he has he will do really well.  And the health insurance is better than what we have now, which is fantastic since as of the current plan, we would be paying over $8000 just to have this baby.  He will also be trying to build the company's New Orleans book of business, which works out well since I am supposed to be traveling to my office about every 6 weeks- we will just coordinate our trips!  Oh, and the really great part is that he will be working from home, except when he is out on appointments.  I guess we need to finally build that big desk in the office that we've been wanting to build!

Sleepy Time

Our awesome friends came up from Beaumont for the weekend. Jenny and I got to enjoy a relaxing mani/pedi (and I learned I love OPI "Thanks A Windmillion"), then we met up with the guys and kids at the mall for lunch and playing. I never thought I would be the kind of person to order a UFC fight on PPV, but that's sure enough what we did last night! We had fun picking our own fight songs, laughing at too tight shorts, and cheering on Silva. Haha!

Mike, Jenny, and Leia left this morning and we headed to church. I guess the weekend caught up with us because Joey let me take a 2 hour nap with her afterwards. That never happens! But I loved that she let us snuggle. The only bad part is that we just got up- its 7 pm. Don't think 7:30 bedtime is happening tonight!

My Country Tis of Thee

We had such a great 4th of July this year.  I usually hate when it falls in the middle of the week because then we only get the 4th off, but it was nice to have a day off in the middle of the week.  We started off the day bright and early cheering Jeremy on at his first ever 10k.  Jeremy has never been a runner or enjoyed running, but he has been running everyday at work during lunch for the past 6 months (at least).  He did so well and I was so glad we got to be at the finish line to cheer him on.

After the race we came home and headed down to the pool.  We met up with some friends and swam and visited for a few hours.  Then it was home for a nap for all of us.  That sun can sure drain you of your energy!

Once we were all refreshed it was time for dinner.  I made a brisket that I had cooked for 13 hours.  Talk about yum.  We also had hot dogs, corn on the cob, pasta salad, and trifle for dessert.  I ate way too much food.

Of course we let the girls stay up past their bedtime so that we could do some fireworks once it got dark.  I never thought I would see the day when we would actually spend money on fireworks.  (Marrying into Jeremy's family that imports and ships fireworks, and working for them was your summer job during college, you get sick of them REALLY fast.)  I guess that all changes once you have kids!  Of course we only did small things- snap n' pops, morning glories, some small fountains, etc.  We were actually really mad because we think the fireworks had gotten wet (then dried) and then sold to us, because none of them really worked right.  Anyway, our friends Phil and Julie (and Jazmin and Jaeda) pulled up to say goodbye (they moved today) just as we were about to light the fireworks, so they joined us for some flammable fun.

I look terrible- I was getting a migraine.


It was so sad to say goodbye to the Estes family.  I'm glad we were able to get in some pool time with them yesterday and to say goodbye last night.  Shelby is especially sad as this is her 4th friend to move in the last 2 weeks.  The good thing is that the Estes' are moving close to my parents, and his parents live down the street from us, so this will not be the end of it!

So even though we had our sad goodbye, all-in-all it was a great, laid back day.

FIVE!

Shelby turned 5 on Thursday!  Jeremy switched his work-from-home day so that he could be home on her birthday.  It was so nice to have him home so we could celebrate all day with her.  We started off with Funfetti pancakes with fruit and whipped cream and bacon for breakfast. 

She also got to open her birthday present - a new Merida doll (from Brave).  She knew we were going to see the movie and has been so excited about it.  

We asked Shelby where she wanted to eat for her birthday dinner.  We were rattling off places like Chuy's, Macaroni Grill, etc.  What did she want?  Golden Corral.  I started laughing so hard because Jeremy makes so much fun of me for liking Golden Corral.  I'm sorry, but salad bar, mashed potatoes, meatloaf...what's not to love?  Haha!  I said, "Well, she's definitely my daughter!".  So we headed off to Golden Corral, only to find out the one we went to had been closed for a while.  So we went to Cracker Barrel instead since it was right next door.  (By the way, I hate Cracker Barrel.  The food is about the same quality that you would get at, say, Golden Corral, and the portions are tiny.) 

After we got home we had cake.  I feel really, really bad about Shelby's birthday this year.  We had already explained to Shelby that between Girls Camp, Utah, and me being sick a lot that we weren't going to do a party this year.  Instead she got to invite a friend to see Brave with us, and she was fine with that.  But then I didn't even get her an actual birthday cake.  We had a Laurel activity the night before that I had gotten a cake for, and I still had about 3/4 of it left.  So I didn't want to go get whole other cake.  Shelby didn't care, it was totally one of those mom guilt things though.  That night she told all of us, "Thank you for being my family and loving me".  Sweet.

So, like I said, no party this year.  We woke up early this morning and picked up Shelby's friend, Sara, and headed to see Brave.  It was super cute.  I was even laughing a lot throughout it.  Afterwards we went to the Disney store and got each of the girls a cup from Brave to remember the day.  The girls also got to participate in a cute game they were playing to promote the movie.

Then it was off to Cheesecake Factory for lunch.  The girls had a fun time giggling their way through lunch. 

This picture is a little dark, but I loved the look on her face when we were singing to her.

 

Shelby is such a funny, sweet, and caring girl.  She and Joey have their spats now and then, but more and more I see them playing sweetly together.  Shelby is very protective of her and loves to show her how to do new things.  The other day I was on the phone and came out of the office to find Shelby changing Joey's diaper (just wet). 

Shelby loves to dance and do gymnastics.  She also loves to sing.  She makes up songs all day long.  She will often tell us she wants to be a rock star when she grows up. 

We just love Shelby so much.  Even though it wasn't everything I would have liked it to be, I hope she had a great birthday!