Baby Testers

We no longer have Riley to test out all of the baby equipment so the girls use their dolls instead. I am sure Riley is looking down from doggie heaven and smiling...grateful she is no longer around to be used for such silly jobs;)

Cravings

My pregnancy cravings got the best of me and I was about to order a $56 King Cake straight from New Orleans as Fat Tuesday approached when I thought about the local grocery store here and I remembered seeing them there years ago. We trekked out in the rain just to hunt for one. Luckily, my memory is still pretty awesome and the store had a few left. Don't ask me why I only bought ONE. It was gone before the end of the night. I am not ashamed though. I did share a little bit. 

 

Picture Wall

Even though we only have a few months left here, I couldn't take looking at the empty wall above our antique table. It drove me insane on a daily basis. I hate the feeling of not being "settled". I know we will never truly be "settled" until Tom retires from the Army, but I made a promise to myself that with each place we move to I want it to be as much of a home as possible. Hence, my need for hanging things up on the wall. Now, in a normal house this is probably an easy task. But not in a 100+yr old home whose walls have been painted over 100x and probably layers and layers of plaster just keep on adding to it. We needed hammers, drills, velcro...it was a task. But we love it:) That's our last name at the top as well. My mom made it for us as a Christmas present this year. Each letter represents something from our lives or family i.e the P is a photo from my Grandma's front porch railing that my Uncle Glenn took for my mom. The last I is from the Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany where we visited a few times while living there. I cried when I opened it. Such a meaningful present!

I love how they just watch and learn. I think I told them to put the earmuffs on from all of the cursing we were probably doing while completing this project;)

Forgotten January

I don't know how January came and went and I forgot to post about the little happenings in our lives. I am really envious of my other blogger mom friends who post almost daily. I used to be like that. Maybe I will be like that once we move and live in a more interesting place. But for now, I am sure there are only so many pictures of my kids eating cookies, playing at the park or hanging out at home that you can handle. ;)  I just finished uploading some more photos of January that I had taken, but forgot to include on here. To summarize:

Ella's hand family. But not our family. She drew my best friend Bridget's family. 

Usually sleep is peaceful for these two, but I happened to check on them and they looked a mess! 

Nesting. Tons of nesting. And early spring cleaning. Apparently this was clean out the girl's closet day.

Now this is a peaceful sleep. Right on mama. It's rare, but I always relish it when it happens.

28ish weeks here? 

The girls were missing their Uncle Bud who always made them S'mores when they lived at home. I decided we would make our own:)

And it's a messy, messy treat. So messy. 

The girls love eating those Cuties (clementines) and they decided to decorate my belly with a face from the peels. 

Tom put up with going to an endless amount of stores to begin the clothes shopping for our sweet boy. I never knew I would love shopping for a boy as much as I did!

Ella wanted to take everything out of the bags and "set it up" to take a picture. 

Ella said this is our family portrait. Including her baby brother. Boys on one side, girls on the other. 

She has had a slight obsession with drawing Disney Characters lately!

Oh dress up again! She called herself the Princess Witch (that's Ella's old witch Halloween costume from when she was 2.)

Just wanted to end with a sisterly love picture. They melt my heart!

Mornings...

on the weekends are generally pretty lazy around here. Can you tell by the number of cups that are starting to build up on the window sill?

Playtime

Quiet playtime...can you imagine it? So quiet that I had to go on a hunt to find them. There they were just sitting quietly on Ella's bed playing Lalaloopsy dolls. No fighting, no hitting. Just two sisters and their pretend play. I took one picture before I was caught. Then once I looked at the picture, I realized poor Madeline still hadn't had her hair combed for the day. What is UP with her wild wig? It's always crazy, but completely fits her personality.

Tea for Two

These girls can't get enough tea parties. To say they are girly girls is an understatement. I have a feeling their little brother will have to endure endless hours of plastic crumpets and fake drinks before he is old enough to put his foot down and declare trains and cars are more fun. This particular tea party though was anything but fake. We baked cookies for it and made real hot tea. We have to fill these cold winter days doing something indoors:)

It was messy, but hey...that's life. The smiles and giggles were worth it. 

Ummmm...

This morning Ella asked to play with the plastic glasses that we have way up in the cabinet that I forgot we even had in the house. (Don't worry Mom. I didn't stretch too much for them. I used a stool.) Anyway, after a few minutes she calls me into the playroom and there's an audience set up. It's 8 o'clock in the morning and Ella has her dolls and stuffed animals drinking wine. Her exact words "What? They all wanted a drink before the dance recital started." I replied with "Ella, this is not ok. You shouldn't have wine until at least 5pm. Make it lemonade next time, alright?" I definitely laughed though looking around the room to see Doc McStuffins and the Lalaloopsy dolls enjoying their vino. I bet it's the most fun those dolls have ever had. 

Sleep

You all know how much I love posting photos of the girls when they are asleep. Like I have said before...it could be one of my favorite times of the day. But especially night time sleep photos. When I check on them before I fall asleep and see them all snuggled in, I think to myself "So sweet...hope you stay in there all night!" Haha no, really. What I really think is "I'm blessed, but damn I am tired." Or if it was a really good day I think "I love those angels of mine."

But with this picture of Madeline my first thought was "I need a pillow pet." She had the right idea for how a pregnant lady should sleep! So secretly after they fall asleep at night I have been stealing...errrr borrowing their pillow pets. For the first time in months I think I slept for 6 hours straight. I didn't even budge. Who needs one of those expensive pregnancy pillows??? Not me. :)

Falling in love

My sweet friend and ADPi sis, Caroline, from Simply Smithwick asked in her blog this morning "Is there anything you have fallen in love with this week?"  My immediate thought went to material items. And the answer was a definite "nope!". But when I started to really think about the question I realized I have fallen in love this week. Completely, absolutely smitten...with my growing belly and the baby inside of it.  From the moment I found out I was pregnant with my third child I was thrilled. Albeit, hesitant to deal with morning sickness while chasing two children around, but nonetheless thrilled to be able to bring another baby into our lives.

I try not to look in the mirror all that often anymore. I feel like I spot entirely too many new wrinkles or my face getting fatter or my way too long hair looking frazzled. But just yesterday as I was getting dressed, I caught a glimpse of my belly in our bedroom mirror. How could I avoid it? It's growing so big, but for some reason, for one of the first times this pregnancy I looked at my belly in a whole new light. I wasn't searching with a magnifying glass for upcoming stretchmarks. I wasn't trying to push my protruding belly button back in or grabbing the extra layer of fat on my hips (which Ella asked the other day...is this your hip or your butt mom? Niiiceee). I was simply looking at all of the beauty this belly encompasses. I am growing a baby inside of me. A miracle. Our son. No matter how much he physically changes my body forever, nothing can compare to the love he has brought to my heart. And that love can grow ALL it wants to. Afterall, the heart doesn't get stretchmarks;)

About 10 more weeks...

29 week belly