the 3D ultrasound and 30 week appointment

i haven't ever done one of these before, but decided to do one with baby girl. partly because i wanted to make sure there was a baby girl in there and partly because i wanted to see how they would turn out.

yes, there is still a baby girl in there! and she is an active little thing. the doctor had a hard time capturing lots of pictures because she kept moving around. she even had her little foot up by her face. by the end she was tired of all the pictures and poking a prodding though because she brought both of her hands and one of her feet up by her face in an effort to hide.

the craziest thing was when we got a picture with her eye open...too freaky to share here! and then when we watch on the live view and could see her eyes opening and closing. that was just crazy!

my appointment went well and everything is progressing along normally. i am now up to appointments every 2 weeks! i can't believe it has gone by so quickly. i am very excited to meet her, but not ready for my pregnancy to be over quite yet...but i bet by 9 months i'll be ready!

maryland trip wrap-up

i needed to get this done before it was too long past our trip! but last week was crazy with one thing or another and it just didn't happen.

i don't dress ethan in girl clothes or jammies, but the weather was so warm when we visited that we ran out of clothes for ethan to wear...for some reason i brought more short-sleeve items for miles than i did for ethan. and he had to go a night in butterfly jammies. he (and both the girls) thought it was too fun. lance did not.

the boys did really well on the plane ride. neither napped either trip, but they didn't scream the whole time either. though miles tried to :) i ended up having to break out the emergency jelly beans that my sister sent with me at the end of our flight back otherwise i think the guy in front of us might have lost it. he kept looking back at us...maybe wondering why i was making my child scream as loudly as he was, i'm not sure. maybe he thought the power of his glare would silence miles. little did he know, miles is a stubborn thing and it takes a lot more than a glare to silence him. i've actually found a glare to rile him up more. but realistically it was a reasonable flight and the flight attendants on that particular flight were very helpful, which isn't always the case.

the guinea pigs were a big hit again with the boys. the girls take them around in their shopping carts and strollers and ethan and miles thought this was great! you can see just a hint of a guinea pig in the blanket in ethan's stroller. :)

they had a great time visiting with the east coast family and the kids played very well together the whole trip. miles has started in on his incisor teeth, which seem to be the worst ones teething-wise (for both him and ethan), so i learned about the magic powers of baby motrin (why have i never used this before?!?) and how it calmed and helped with sleep. tylenol apparently has nothing on motrin! we even got in a swimming pool visit at the hotel pool where my parents stayed and miles LOVED it!! had a blast. ethan was calmer and preferred to stay on the steps, but still had a good time. poor guy unfortunately had to wear a pink floaty-suit thing, but luckily he took it in stride.

the weather was wonderful so we were able to do so many things outside, including our nightly golf cart rides. the kids LOVE that and it takes up some time in that all too long space between dinner and bedtime. :) we also did a little easter egg hunt in the backyard and got 3 out of 4 kids to wear bunny ears...pretty successful!

foodie friday: easter cake balls

i made the chick cake pops from bakerella last year and loved them, but they were very time consuming. this year my sister and i decided to try the cake balls instead. quick and easy and they turned out really cute! i still think i'll do the chick pops for easter for the boys, but at least now i don't feel like i have to since i've already done one easter treat for the year.

we followed this recipe and used boxed red velvet cake mix and canned cream cheese frosting. emily was our little helper! we dipped the cake balls in white chocolate candiquick (since that was what we could find at wal-mart on short notice) and it worked really well. i think it would have been fun to have some of the chocolate be pink or another springy color, but we didn't have any way to change it since you have to use special candy coloring. we decorated with sprinkles and they were done!

construction update: week 3

here is our progress after 3 weeks of building! i am so excited with how well it is moving along. even after sitting on this house plan (and making MANY changes) for over a year, we found there were a few more to be made during framing. i was away visiting my family, so lance and i talked over the phone and we decided to add a bonus room upstairs...there was just too much good attic space to let it go to waste. plus in our current house we have an attic area that we can walk right into and it is wonderful for storing things in, no small, steep ladder to navigate with large boxes, so our the new bonus room is allowing us to do that here as well.

so over the past few weeks, we've finished framing, started plumbing, sheathed the house, started electrical and started roofing the house. unfortunately the windows have been held up, so we have to wait until those arrive before we can start bricking, but that isn't really holding anything up inside since the house has been dried in.

it was very exciting to come back after a week away and see how much got done!

hard to really tell in these pictures, but this is a view into the living room. there will be a large window into the backyard and covered porch.

this is the covered porch. i am sooo excited about it! we have a very small porch right now and i am looking forward to having one big enough to put a table and chairs on. we'll be able to walk out onto it from the kitchen and master bedroom.

this week, lance and i walked the house with the electrician and laid out all our lighting. i forget how much there is to think about with electrical and lighting! and i'll be picking out our light fixtures and plumbing fixtures. i also found a GREAT deal on the 1x1 mosaic tile for the kitchen backsplash...i've really wanted this, but it is just so expensive. one of the local building supply stores just got some in. it isn't glass, but it has a very similar look and doesn't have the crazy price tag!

on schedule for the coming weeks: finish roofing, windows, cornice, framing modifications, continue with plumbing and electrical and install fireplace box. i love the early stages of building since things move so quickly!

egg dyeing!

as soon as i got the april martha stewart living issue i knew i wanted to try the eggs from the front cover. i checked out the how-to section and they actually looked doable. yay! i brought the supplies to make the stickers with me when we left for our maryland trip so we could do them with all the kids. we started by using the little punches to cut out some sheet vinyl, the girls definitely enjoyed helping with that. we did butterflies, cornflowers and little leaves, but there are tons of different punches to choose from.

after we got all the eggs ready, we took the kids out front and had them dye their eggs. definitely fun, but stressful with all the colors and kids. plus ethan insisted on standing up on the sloped lawn and i was so afraid he was going to lose his balance and land right in the middle of all the dye. they definitely had fun!

we kept a few eggs back so my mom, sister and i could work on some after the kids had done theirs. we got some really neat results experiementing with using the different dyes and stickers. this is definitely and easter craft that i'll be doing again!

HAPPY SPRING!!!

ethan and painting

ethan doesn't normally like to get his hands dirty, but while my nieces have all these great painting supplies and i guess it looked fun to ethan. he didn't paint for too long, but was very excited to show off his hands when he got inside...you have to look pretty hard to see the paint on them though :)

mee-maw & grampies!

the boys are enjoying visiting with their cousins and mee-maw and grampies!