Painting

Here are a few things that we have been doing to keep busy lately.Puffy microwave paints. I found this online and new that I had to try it with the girls. To say that they loved it is an understatement. You make this paint and put it on cardboard and then put in the microwave and watch it puff up. Pretty cool. Macie is making a house.
Addie is making a blob. She actually sat and did this for about 45 minutes. AMAZING, seeing as I cannot get her to do anything artsy for more than 10 minutes at the most. And she keeps asking when we can do it again.Addie's final picture after it had been in the microwave.Macie's final picture.Since starting school, Macie is really tired. We have found her asleep on the floor a few times. This night she was asleep on the sleeping bags with books all around her. Poor thing has so much she wants to try and do when she gets home, but can never find all of the time that she needs.Here is Addie.....Being goofy...and thinking that she is being silly. Funny little girl. She on the other hand, could stay up all night.

Addie starts school

Addie has a started going to a preschool one day a week. She LOVES it!! She loves having something special just for her. She has to pack a lunch and gets to do some gym time with it. I can't believe that she is big enough for this, but really needed something just for her. It is so cute to take her and pick her up and hear all about her day.

The Park

Now that the weather is cooling down a little bit, we feel as though we can actually go out and explore without getting heat stroke. Last Saturday we went to an area park to check it out. It was a really fun park. The girls were in heaven. I feel like I haven't been taking a whole lot of pictures of them lately, so I took the camera to capture them in the fun. Here are a few of my favorites.

Macie swinging. This summer she learned how to pump herself. Hallelujah!!! She is getting so big.Here is Addie. She is such a cheese ball. Still feels like she needs to sit in a baby swing.Macie at the top of the climber.Addie showing me her "really cool trick". Macie climbing the rock wall. She would go all the way around and thought that she was pretty cool. She could not get enough of this toy.

my man...observing the children and looking good if I do say so myself!!Addie in the tunnelMacie coming out of the slideLeaving the park.

Sea World

Over Labor Day Weekend, we decided to take advantage of the nice weather and the places we live close to and headed down to Austin and San Antonio for the weekend. On Friday we got into Austin just in time to head downtown to the congress bridge where over 1 million Mexican bats fly out at the same time every night. It was pretty cool/gross/neat to see so many of them. It takes them over 1/2 hour to fly out from under the bridge and a lot of people go there every night just to see it happen. Here is our picture of the bats. Awesome....I know.
On Saturday we headed down to San Antonio where we hit up Sea World. Geoff and I were pretty hesitant to go and do this with the girls being so young, but we are soooo glad that we did. It was definitely the highlight of the trip. We all had a blast and would probably do it again if we could. Here are a few pics of the adventure.Macie on the Merry go Round.Addie and Geoff on the Merry go Round.Here are the Sea Lions. They were hilarious. It was so fun to watch them. Geoff and I found it so fascinating how well they train these animals.Here they are waiting for the Sea Lion show to start. This was Macie's favorite show. This is all she would talk about. She thought that it was hilarious.This is what Macie and Addie were doing almost the entire show. Quite funny. She just could not believe what she was seeing!!And this Sea Lion was just Huge!! I am sure that it weighs a ton and it was actually quite ugly.Here are the girls and Geoff on another ride. I was pretty positive that Addie would NOT like this ride and I was right. But, she did alot better than I thought she would, however she chose not to go on it again.This is another show. It had the dolphins and the acrobats and some of these beautiful beluga whales. It was seriously so neat. Again, Geoff and I were left completely baffled at how they can do this type of thing with such animals.Here are the girls during this show. They are in their swim suits because we had just gotten done with the swim park there and we were still wet.And here are the dolphins.
On Sunday we headed to the Alamo and Riverwalk. It was interesting to see, but hard with 2 little girls that were completely exhausted from the day before. I mean, Macie was crying that she was tired after walking for only 5 minutes. So, we didn't last to long.The Alamo.The girls at a pond inside the Alamo. This was, naturally, their favorite part.Here we are on the Riverwalk in San Antonio. They are on a bridge over the river.The last thing that we did was take a boat ride through the riverwalk. It was very beautiful and interesting. After the boat ride, the girls were done, so we called it a day and headed home. It was a very fun trip and we had a great time.

Swimming Lessons

The girls have been doing a lot of swimming the past few months. They love it!! Macie especially has become quite the little swimmer. She does a really great job and can swim anywhere!! She is a fish! Addie is finally getting to the point of actually being brave enough to stick her face in the water! It is huge progress...trust me! Just getting into the pool. Macie will not hold still for any picture. Once she is in the water, she doesn't stop for anything. Addie showing me that she can hop on one foot.Addie putting her head in the fountain!Macie swimming.

The girls have also been in some swimming lessons. It has helped Addie become a little more brave and it has been fun for her to have some type of lesson that is just for her. Macie is so good that she doesn't want to go anymore "because they aren't teaching me anything new and I already know how to swim." Macie taking a breath before she starts.Just getting done with a longggg length of the pool swim.Addie learning how to use her arms while she swims.Addie learning how to kick.

A little update

Macie has been in school for a week now and it is going ok. The first few days were a little rough, for everyone!!! She came home from school the first day and when I asked her how school was she said "It was soooo boring!! We didn't learn anything. We didn't learn letters, we didn't learn numbers, we didn't even learn what equals means!!" She was actually really upset and it was all I could do to not laugh. I thought for sure that she wouldn't want to go back, but the next day she was up and ready to go. So, the second day got done and I asked her how school was, she said: "It was soooo boring!! All we did was sit around all day. It was so BORING!!!" She then asks what we did throughout the day and when she finds out, says that she doesn't want to go to school anymore. Luckily, the next few days were a little better and she didn't have to many complaints. She still says that it is boring, but I think that the first 2 weeks are a little slower due to testing and things. Anyways, it should be an interesting year!! Wish us luck!! HA!
Addie has been a wreck since Macie has been gone. She has to be entertained CONSTANTLY!!!! It is has been a big adjustment for both of us. Seriously. She is very needy and I think that it has been good for her to have to play by herself and fend for herself a little bit instead of always having Macie there to do things for her. She is going to be starting a little preschool class 2 days a week and is really excited for that. She is getting so big and loves to be able to things by herself.

Pregnancy

As many of you may have picked up on in a previous post, we are pregnant!!!! We have wanted this for a very long time and are soooo excited to finally be announcing this!! I am 21 weeks along and it is another girl!!!! The girls are sooo excited and talk about the baby all of the time. They can't wait until around Christmas time when the baby will come!!!
I have been keeping a little journal throughout our trying to get pregnant process and thought that I would share it. It is not something that I would normally do, but I had a cousin who did this same thing and posted it in the middle of my trying efforts and it helped me, so I think that this is just something that I need to do.

Jan. 18, 2011
Trying to get pregnant this time has been particularly hard. With Macie, I got pregnant right away. It was kind of a shocking experience to be honest, because we thought that it at least would take a few months. With Addie I got pregnant within 2 months of trying. With this one, it has taken us about 14 months. Which I realize is not a long time for some people, but for us, it was a very long time and a great learning experience.

Ever since I had Addie my body has not been normal. My periods come whenever they decide to and my weight has been crazy. About a year after I had Addie, I lost about 15 lbs. for no reason. We could not figure out why. I couldn't gain weight even though I was trying. I was eating all of the time and alot. I finally went to the Dr. about it and he ran some blood tests to find nothing wrong. So, I went about my life and started working out again and all of sudden I slowly started to gain weight and thought that maybe the possibility of becoming pregnant would be a little easier now that I was a normal weight (for me). But, alas, still no sign of pregnancy. There were at least 3 months where we were for sure that I was pregnant because my period was missed, but then it would show up at about week 6 or 7. Really disappointing. There were a lot of tears shed, especially during those months where I feel like I was teased with false hope. (With the first 2, a positive pregnancy test didn't show until I was 7 weeks along. So I really did think that I was prego a few times.) Even Geoff said one of the times that we thought I was prego and we weren't, "oh, how sad, I was getting so excited at the thought of another one."

I finally went to the Dr. after trying for 7 months and not getting pregnant. He put me on Clomid.

Macie asks all of time when we are going to have another baby. She has been asking on a daily basis for about 6 months now. To the point that she says: "mom, if I am a good girl, can we have another baby?" Sad.

Addie has been going around telling people that there is a baby in my tummy. Only for me to quickly turn around and assure whomever she told, that I was not pregnant.


March 2, 2011

Today I found out that I am pregnant!!! I am so excited!! I had tears in my eyes when I read the test! I just can't believe that I am actually pregnant. This is something that we have wanted for so long, that it almost seems surreal. I am 6 1/2 weeks along. I was on clomid with this one, so now I am just hoping that it is not twins!! haha!

The due date is October 31.


March 8, 2011

Miscarriage. Just a simple word until you live through it. Yesterday afternoon I started cramping a little bit. Not enough to make me think anything, just enough to make me notice. Then I started bleeding. Alot. I knew that it was not good. The cramping became so painful. I told Geoff that I thought that it was truly unfair to make me go through the physical pain of it when I am already having to deal with the emotional pain of it. Not fair. I was curled up in fetal position half of the night. (warning: if you don't like details, stop here)

At about 4 am I went to the bathroom, there was my little baby in the toilet. I wanted to pick it up and hold it, to say goodbye. It felt so wrong to just flush it down without even a second thought. I went to bed and cried. Saying goodbye to something you have longed for for so long is a very hard thing to do. I wanted that baby so bad. I wanted to get big and pregnant, to feel it move inside me, to see if we were going to be having a boy or girl, to tell the girls that they were finally getting a sibling!!! It would have been so fun.

I know that this happened for a reason and that it is a good thing. I just can't believe that I am going through this. That this is happening to me, to us. It is things like this that make you cherish every second that you have with your family and make you realize how truly blessed you are.

May 24, 2011
Today we got another positive test. I am so excited again, but don't want to think about it to much or get my hopes up. We just are hoping that this one is going to last and that this time we will be blessed with a little sweet baby in the end.

June 7, 2011
Went to the Dr. today. He said that the baby looks good and healthy this time with nothing wrong. I am 8 weeks along. He drew my blood today as well and told me that everything looked good and normal. He also told me that it looks like there is only 1 baby. (I was worried that it could be twins because I was on clomid again.) The due date is January 8, 2012.

July 18, 2011
We told the girls tonight that they are going to be big sisters. That we are having another baby!!! They were a little confused and then excited and then I think they forgot about it because we didn't mention it again! (We are going to Idaho tomorrow and told them not to tell anyone because we want to surprise them.)

July 21, 2011
I went and had an ultrasound done today by my friend here is Pocatello. I am 16 weeks along, so we were hoping that we would be able to tell what it is. We got a pretty good look and are pretty sure that it is another girl!!! So exciting. I think that it is just what we thought and kind of what we were expecting.

August 3, 2011
We just got from Idaho. Told the family that we were expecting!! They were all sooo excited! I had the girls go downstairs in pj's that said big sister on them. The reaction was great!! This is the first time that I have announced to them in person that I am expecting. So fun!

We basically can't wait for this little baby to come into our home. We are ALL sooooo ExciTed!!
The due date for this little girl is Jan. 8, 2012 and we can't wait to meet her!!!

First day of Kindergarten!!!

Today is Macie's first day of Kindergarten. SAD (for me and Addie, not her). She was sooooo excited and has been counting down the days for about a week now. I cannot believe that she is old enough to be going to school all day. It is so scary. She is still so little. I start to have all of these little thoughts like, "what if she can't open her juice box for lunch, or what if she can't find her backpack, etc." It is quite funny actually. I am just so worried for her, yet I know that she will be just fine and love it. I can't wait for her to come home so I can hear all about her day!!!
First day of kindergarten.Sisters!! Addie has no idea that her best buddy is about to leave her for the entire day!! Let's just say that it is going to be a LONG year!!! So cute! I love my girls!!Here is Macie in her classroom all ready to go. She is so happy and excited to be there.

Hot Air Balloons

On Saturday morning there was a hot air balloon launch and race. I had seen the signs for it and finally remembered to look it up Friday night (thanks to Geoff's reminder). It started at 6am and the balloons were supposed to be up in the air around 7:00. We debated on going, if it was worth waking up that early, and in the end decided to just do it. So we woke up bright and early, picked up some donuts on our way and headed out. We are so glad that we decided to go. It was so much fun and the girls loved it! There were about 15 balloons and we got there just in time for them to start blowing up. It was a nice relaxing morning as a family.
Eating our donuts.Here are the balloons getting ready.Starting to take off!Just hanging out...say cheese!Make a funny face!! Addie looks really excited doesn't she!In front of the Smokey the Bear hot air balloon.Then there was little beach right off of the park, so we went to check it out for a few minutes. We wish we would have brought swim suits, because even at 8:30 in the morning, it was hot enough that we could have gone for a swim!Addie posing for the camera!