Iris

Ben planted me some iris's last year more towards the end of the season, and this year so far one of my plants is starting to come up and produce flowers. They are so pretty, a lovely variegated purple and white. I can hardly wait to see what else comes up. We are patiently awaiting our garden and flower bed. The flower bed has lots of green leaves but we don't know what they are to produce. We really hope they are not weeds. The garden is planted and the kids are ready to pull out their veggies and fruit. Isabelle asked about the peach tree, since the peach "just fell right into her hand," last year. Hopefully I will have lots more lovely pictures to come of my beautiful flowers and veggies.

It's a . . .

Healthy baby, boy! That's right we are going to be blessed with one more boy. I informed Ben that I would need lots of Mommy vacations ASAP. I think we are both still adjusting to the idea of another boy, Ben was really thinking that this one was going to be a girl, plus I really think he really liked the name he picked out. No I'm not going to share just in case. I case of what, no one knows but hey crazier things have happened.

So here is our still story of how we found out the sex of the baby. We went for our ultrasound, and asked the tech to make us some pictures but not refer to the sex out loud and to have us turn away to make sure we were still surprised. So she took all the measurements and found out the sex for us and placed our "pictures" in an envelop.


We took said envelop to go shopping. What girl does not like to go shopping. We let me tell you our choices were limited for stores and time, but we finally found a boy and girl outfit we could both live with at Ross. I know, but they do have really good deals. After getting the clerk to understand what we were wanting to do, we left of "picture" some money and the two outfits with her and looked around the store whie she purchased our choice.

Then we took our new found object to lunch where Ben let me open the pacakge to reveal a baby boy is in our horzion. I know I said I would put him up for adoption but really I was just kidding. I guess I'll have to keep him. At least now I can get rid of some clothes. I have so many from when all the kids were babies. As you can imagine I have more girl stuff than boy stuff, even though I only have one.


Here is a look at what baby will be coming home in and the outfit we choose for him. Very cute but hard to find. I guess I need to hit a Carter's store for more little goodies. We will of course be accepting little boy clothes as gifts, or any kind of cute cloth diapers, since we will go that route again.

Oh yea, everything looks great. The baby seems right on track for size and growth, and even did some wild and crazy moves while we were there for our ultrasound. A little wave, he turned his face towards the "camera" and even changed positions fully.

Everything is where it should be, the placenta is in the right place, and my cervix is plenty long enough so that we don't have to worry about pre-term labor. As is going very well. We just have twenty (20) more weeks to wait to see what this baby looks like. I guess now we can pray really hard for red hair.

Ben's project

Ben and I have been talking about putting a cover on the playgroud for while, and we finally got that completed. He even built a fort for the kids to play in as well. I think they are going to have so much fun in there this spring and summer. The cover looks great and as Isabelle pointed out, "it's Baylor colors, Mom." Like that was planned, I just think they did not have any purple and gold options or burnt orange. Either way I guess I should take the little victories. The kids seem please with the fort and cover, at least it will provide some shade and is not nearly as noisy as the tarps we had on before.

New "Toy"

I finally was able to get purchase a new camera. No it's not really a toy since I use it for work and maybe a little play. But it is very nice and I can hardly wait to put it to the test this weekend. I am very excited about my new camera and hope to help create some wonderful memories and images with this camera. Maybe I will capture some of your memories.

Jam or Jelly

At long last we have homemade jelly in the house. I know this would not seem like a big deal to most people, but we use a lot of jelly. I let my kids be independent and make their own sandwiches when they need or want a snack so we use this stuff up pretty fast. And the added benefits, of knowing where your jelly came from and what is put into it, far out weight the purchasing of store bought jelly. Plus the cost savings is amazing.


Plus the kids this time around got to have tons of fun, helping Grandma Nana make the jelly. She does freezer jelly so there is no cooking involved except for sterilizing the jars. Pretty cool stuff right. Since the last time some how to jelly they kids helped to make made it's way to another state. So we are not giving up our jelly at all.


Now I just need to find a place to put the jelly in my freezer. That is always the challenge. Ben has been asking for a freezer to put in the garage for years and I keep telling him, where are we going to put it? We have no room in our garage. But hopefully that will change soon, or at least a little. Some of our stuff will get shifted around, it will be great.


Either way, the kids had a blast helping Nana and I think that Nana really enjoyed her time with them as well. Better yet I did not have to do a thing except buy the supplies. I'm pretty sure we will need more jelly by April but hey at least the kids have the experience and can help me make some when we run out.

Hair

I know that there has been a lot about hair recently but hey I guess that is what is exciting and going on in our world right now. I know silly! Well I made the choice to donate my hair to Locks of Love. That was the only way I think I could have possibly cut my hair as much as I did. I gave a full 10 inches, and I still am having a hard time believing how short it really is. I know it will eventually grow back but hey, I'm glad for the change. Now I will say the first picture looks blurry because I later found a finger print on the lens of Isa's camera, but you get the idea.

At least I will be nice and cool during the summer. I'm not sure if I will stay with this style or try to grow it out to something different. I have not decided but since it is still so new I figure I have some time. It has been so long since my hair has been this short I'm not sure what to do with it. My stylist suggested a hair straightener for those moments when your hair does not want to cooperated, I would agree since my hair does not ever want to do what I want it to do. Oh well. Off to new and exciting things.

A new "do"

Isabelle is growing up so fast, I can hardly believe it. Her most recent move towards Independence has been a new hair cut. I took her in to get a trim and asked if she wanted to do something different and she said yes. So we asked the stylist to set us up with some books to look through and she found a very cute bob for her new "do." She looks adorable, and fortunately I think I will still be able to pull it back every once in a while for soccer or just a change of pace. So far so good she loves it, and kept asking people if they knew who she was with her hair cut. Too funny!

"Snow Day"

We are into our fourth "snow day" with at last some snow. Before we really just had ice. Believe it or not the people who live in this part of Texas are not prepared for these type of conditions. Not to mention that the Super Bowl is coming to town this weekend. I'm sure the football commission is really kicking itself in the butt for that one. But since they did not have a magic ball to predict that a freak snow storm was going to come to town they should really give that some consideration.

I'm sure Jerry land will be very upset if they are not able to host the Super Bowl again in five years, since he pretty much built the stadium for that single purpose in mind. Oh well on to bigger and better things.


Speaking of bigger, that is what I am getting. That's right the fourth and last child is on its way. Growing everyday and already starting to make his/her appearance known, since I have been stretched out three times before it gets harder and harder to hide each time. So far things are good and we are expecting our newest bundle of joy to arrive sometime in the first few days of August. So instead of complaining about the cold, I will be wailing on about the heat.


Enough of that, back to our snow day. The kids were all very excited about the snow and could hardly wait to go outside. So after a quick breakfast, they were getting dressed and racing out the door. Cooper discovered he does not like the snow to touch his gloves. Now I'm not sure if that is a function of his gloves being too small and not fittng well so he got snow down his sleeve a little or if that is because he hands got too cold. Either way it was pretty funny.

Isabelle decided to revamp snow angles and do them face first. Bear followed suit but did not like it as much as she did. I think she would have played outside longer if her brothers did not want to come in early. I was able to sweep the drive way off so that there was not as much snow covering the ice that is still there, but that was just silliness since it started to snow some more. Somehow I missed the report that told us it was going to snow. Crazy! (that person was driving too fast).


My four season garden just might be toast after this weekend. Since the cover is not on because two of the poles are missing in the neighbors yard. She is either:
1. Too lazy to go outside and toss them back over
2. Never goes in the back yard and does not know they are there
3. Has a different schedule than us so we have not had the chance to ask for them back


I should have just gone over during the day and gotten them from her yard. Oh well, we'll see how things go. After all we just planted some stuff anyway that would not be covered so it will be interesting to see what comes up when the weather changes.


Hopefully the kids will want to go play in the snow some more this afternoon. It's too bad they can't make a very good snowman. The snow is too dry. Makes for easy sweeping though. On the plus side, being home so much has really helped Cooper and I get over some of our potty training issues. Now for number 2 and we will be in good and pretty much done. I'm ready!

Two at last

That's right Cooper is now offically a todler, and is here to make sure you all know it. He is so much fun, we just love to have him around he makes the day all worth while. Although he is trying to grow up too fast, becasue he really wants to hang with the big kids, so cute.


We just had a small party to celbrate his birthday, and I think he really enjoyed all the attention and friends who came to play. I made him a lego cake for his special day. I'm not sure why I decide I can do these things when obviously my talents lie elsewhere. Oh well for my crap job of icing a cake it came out pretty well. I really should get some cake icing spatuals I think that would help. And maybe a larger freezer. Either way it tasted good and it was all gone by the end of passing out the cake.



These are what I think some of Cooper's goals will be for this year:

1. Ride a bike/run bike
2. Potty Train
3. Learn Colors
4. Learn Shapes
5. Grow up more quickly than what Mom would like

Here are a few more images from his big day, as celebrated with friends and family.

Cookie Time

That's right people it is time for Girl Scout cookies. Isabelle is so excited to be selling cookies this year she can hardly wait to get out on the mean streets and sell away. Now if the weather would work out a little better we might actually be able to get that done.


We waited in line for what seemed like hours to pick up cookies. No more pre-orders here, we get cookies now. I'm not sure if I like this plan because you get 12 cases of cookies and they are the same as everyone else, no substitutions.


We just need to be able to go out and sell, sell, sell. So if you or anybody you know would like to purchase some delicious girl scout cookies please let us know.

The Project

One of the many projects that I wanted to have completed during the holiday break was cleaning out my closet under the stairs. With Ben's help, ok so mostly Ben, we managed to get it cleaned up and organized. I can now get in there and not have to step over fourty-five items to find the game I am looking for.


It is so nice to have a place for everything, I can hardly tell you. And let me tell you there was a lot of crap in the this closet, considering how big it is, I was amazed.

All of my photography props are put away nicely and are easy to get to. The games are well organized and you can actually see their names. Plus you can even walk into the closet without having to step over one item, so nice.


Now to finish work on my garden I will be all set.

The Ride

We took a carriage ride around down town San Antonio this year. It was pretty cool. Our "driver" could have started telling us about the area a little sooner but hey it all works out right. I think the kids had lots of fun, and the carriage was huge. I guess I never really paid that close attention to see what size they are, because we all fit in one.

Christmas Day

We spent Chritmas in San Antonio this year at my parents house. It was nice to get away for a few days and have the kids spend some time with Oma and Grandpa Don. My brother even had the chance to take a few days off and come down to spend some time together with everyone, which is really nice. The kids really like Uncle Adam a lot, and just think he is too funny.

This year Isabelle was pretty excited because she got a new camera for Christmas, and just loves it. She can take pictures and videos. I think most of them are of her but hey who cares. At least if she so desires to print some of these pictures out they won't be crap.


Bear's was pretty excited to get his own Leapster, and the nice thing about his, is that he has a stylist so it makes it easier to use. He managed to cut Isa's off, but they still use both and love to play with them.


Cooper was just excited to open presents and be able to play with the siblings. I would have to say he played the most with his new building blocks. The lincon logs were a big hit with the other two but Cooper liked this legos the best.


Adam went all out and purchased Mom and Dad a river cruise vacation for ten (10) in Europe. They were so happy, mom could hardly keep from crying. I'm so envious, I think they will have a really good time. I told her to make sure they take lots of pictures, or figure out a way to hire a photographer to come along and take pictures as well. I'm sure I know of one that would go for to price of the trip. Hint, hint. No just kidding. I hope they have lots of fun, my real request was to have them bring back some wine.


Ben and I got a new kitchen table for Christmas. We have been looking for one for about eight years, and finally found the one we like. It is a bar stool heighth table, that can go from a sqaure to a circle, with a lazy susan in the middle. So exciting. I just love. That makes two furiture purchases in one year, we better slow down.

I hope you all enjoyed your holiday season and that it was filled with love and joy.

Happy Birthday Isa

Isabelle is offically 6 years old. She wanted to have a flower cake with a monkey coming out of it. I had originally planed to use her little pet shop monkey but forgot to bring it along so I had to use a paper monkey instead.


She loved it and that is all that mattered. Plus since it was a smaller cake there was not too much let over. Which is always nice, since we do a small family party on her birthday.


This year should be great, I'm not sure what all her goals will be but I do think that selling a lot of Girl Scout cookies will be one, learning to read better, and helping out around the house should be a few. We'll just have to wait and see what the year brings.

Friends Party

Isabelle had her first sleep over party with multiple friends as her birthday party this past weekend. She was so excited to do some girly stuff and spend time with her friends.
We had four little girls total and they all had a great time. It was a blast. They decorated cupcakes, watched movies, played with her toys and painted their toe nails. Cooper loved this and tried to get in on the action. Maybe next time little man.

Santa Letters

The kids were so excited to get Santa Letters in the mail from Santa himself. They could hardly believe how special they were and how Santa knew so much about what was going on in their lives. It was a real treat for them. Too bad, Mom, messed up on the information and forgot to tell Santa that we will be in San Antonio, I think they still bought it though.