4.07.2011

It's time for an update!

I cannot believe that it has been 2 months since I last blogged. That is a record for me...by a long shot! This pregnancy has seriously whipped my booty and has made EVERYTHING more challenging. I am so anxious to get my body and my life back. A small part of me feels like I will never feel the same again although I know that's not true. It's just after 9 months of feeling so shabby, you forget how you used to feel! I'm going to try hard not to complain anymore...I said I'll try!

Well winter here in Erie has been interesting! It gets beyond cold here...teens and twenties are an everyday occurrence. Snow after snow, after snow, after snow. You start to just expect that it's snowing outside...and it usually is! March and April have been even more dramatic. It'll be in the 40's and everything will melt and then the next day they'll be fresh snow. I can't even count how many times this has happened! We just keep thinking that we've seen the last snow and then BAM...there's some more!! It snowed yesterday...again...melted....again....and we will probably see more of it before summer sticks! This photo cracks me up because they are all playing gaming systems...which is not something that happens around here a whole lot. We are not a video game family...so this was rare. You get desperate when you can't go outside for months at a time!!
I never finished posting about Isabella's 4th birthday. Don't get too excited...the poor girl didn't get much of a celebration but I don't think she even noticed. I feel sorry for anyone who had a birthday within the time of me being pregnant...which was everyone except Hailey. Next years celebrations will hopefully be better! We let her pick out which restaurant she wanted to go to and she's pretty smart...she picked Chuck E Cheese's!  We bought her a big ole cake and she picked out her plates and napkins. I made party bags for the 3 kiddos and we had our own little party! It was a really fun night!
Happy as can be!!

I asked her who she wanted to invite to her birthday party and she said "Jandi's Family!" Jandi is our neighbor and my kids have all fallen deeply for her! She is easy to love!! Her sweet family consists of 3 great children and one awesome husband!! They were out of town for her birthday but we had them over for dinner as soon as they got home. I made the yummiest cupcakes...chocolate chip cream cheese filled with buttercream frosting dipped in chocolate. Yes...they could probably kill someone...but they were tasty!
Hailey's First Grade put on an adorable Valentine's Day program for the parents...she did great! John was able to take a break from work to watch her! We were then able to do crafts with her! I remember feeling so LARGELY pregnant when this photo was taken. It's funny how your perspective changes over time...I am certainly not near as large as I am today!
This was Hailey's 100 days of school project! We had a lot of fun doing this together and her class loved it!
This photo was taken at 10:31 one morning. And this next photo was taken the same day at:
10:35 in the morning. Seriously...weird! Bright blue skies!! Only 4 minutes later! Yeah...there's no road. We got used to that too. At one point we couldn't use our front door because there was inches of ice on our porch. It's not so bad when the sun is shining...it just rarely does that!!

Talon has become slightly obsessed with Dora the Explorer. He is the first of my children to actually get hooked onto one show. This is actually Diego...which is SOOOO not the same thing to him but sometimes it's the best I can do. We actually started recording them and now we have Dora coming out of our ears!! Lucky for us, he has decided that Agent Oso and Umi Zoomi are alright too. We needed a little variation. The other kids just moan and groan when Talon is watching TV because they are so sick of his usuals. We have probably been watching too much TV...also going to blame it on the winter weather!
Our children did not need MORE candy on Valentine's day so I went a little skimpy this year. Isabella got the fuzziest GREEN (her most favorite color) blanket for her birthday and the other kids loved it (John and I did too) so we decided to get them all one. Since Izzie already had one she got some special dress-ups. Hailey also got a shirt and both the girls got new sparkly shoes.

I have wanted to go back to Virginia Beach to visit all of our favorite people ever since we moved!! The timing just never worked out until February. We picked a week that John was super busy at work so that he wouldn't miss us quite so badly and I took Hailey out of school. I drove with all the kiddos the 10 hours and it was actually not bad at all. Talon watched Dora (the same one the entire drive) and the girls watched their own movies. We only stopped three times for about 10 minutes each stop. We emptied bladders...I changed Talons diaper...and then we'd be on the road again. I stayed with my favorite family The Burton's for the first half of the trip and stayed at the Village (our old apartment complex) with Natalie the second half. The picture above are some of my besties from highschool. We only saw them for about 20 minutes but still glad that we saw them!
I couldn't go to VB without getting our haircuts from Jill!! Talon totally fell asleep in the middle of his new do! He is usually screaming so it's pretty funny that he was able to relax enough to actually fall sleep. Nap times were thrown out the window on this trip so the kids just kind of crashed whenever they stopped moving! He already needs another haircut...it grows so fast! I love how the girls hair doesn't have to be cut constantly. It's one of those things about boys that is kind of a pain to me! If I knew how to do it myself, it wouldn't be a big deal...but I love it clean and I just can't keep up with it!

Poor Isabella didn't even have a chance to get comfortable before she zonked one afternoon!
We played a lot of Wii. Specifically Dance Wii. I don't even know what it's called, maybe Dance Revolution?
Really...we played a lot of it!! Hailey and Isabella totally loved it!
Natalie's birthday conveniently happened to be while we were staying with her. I was so glad to share this special day with her! Josh stayed at home while our babies all slept and we went out on the town to the Cheesecake Factory to celebrate her! There were about 10 of us there...it was so fun to get together with these girls. I miss them so much!!
We just laughed our heads off and ate until we were going to pop!!!
This guy was seriously singing his HEART out for Natalie. He had a table full of ladies to impress and he did awesome. I think it was a little embarrassing for Nat...but what a show! 
I didn't take near enough photos of this trip...and I have more to blog about it and promise to do it within the next few days. My goal is to get all caught up before the baby comes!!

Family Scripture Study at our house is always exciting. John's mom bought the two little ones their own tiny scriptures (with the cutest little cases) for different holidays and they LOVE them! They are snuggled up in Isabella's bed thoroughly enjoying themselves.
Hailey is a full on reader. She loves to read the scriptures and amazes us with the words she can pronounce! So proud of her!!! It's really been a funny thing as we have gone through the process of her learning to read. It was kind of a stressful thing to me (although it probably shouldn't have been since I have my degree in education and taught lots of kids how to read). Glad she's accomplished this huge thing and can't wait for all of the learning yet to come!!

So seriously...look for more posts soon. Maybe even tonight!!

1 comment:

The Huzzey's said...

Fun post! I wish I could have been in Va when you went for a visit! I bet you and the kids looved the weather! Gorgeous prego pictures! I can't wait so see pictures of this new little girl!