Round Three

we're ready to pass along some news:
it's.... a....

As I've told family and friends the last few months, it seems I'm more surprised about this than anyone! Not that it was a surprise pregnancy. More like one day I was declaring my intention to wait another year and the next day everything changed and I felt strongly that it was time. Ready or not...he will be here early April!


I took the girls out tonight to take pictures with blue balloons and as my eyes filled with tears, I just couldn't keep it secret from them anymore. Justin started teaching the girls the word 'boy', and, well, that was one very excited little girl.





And one littler girl who cared more about the balloons.

Sugar and Costumes

The last stop on our trip last week was our old stomping ground, St Louis. We have great friends we met there and many friends who have moved there since. Such a shame we weren't there together. My cousin, Melissa, moved in shortly after we left, and we met up with her in St Charles so the kids could load up on ice cream and run in circles. :)

I love this area and it was fun to visit the little shops I've been missing. Goldilocks and Bella Ballerina obviously had a great time getting to know Hermione (she's so cute!) Melissa was getting some pictures and asked her to cast a spell, and Chloe paused then sweetly said something fancy, like "Wingardium Leviosa". ok, ok, i totally had to google that. i know very little about ol' potter.

I was so excited about Hayden being Goldilocks. It is her favorite story and, really, she IS Goldilocks. I wanted to get pictures of her in all her curly, goldy, locky glory. No such luck. She's hard to catch these days. And Abbey wasn't giving me much either:

For a while she wanted to be Miss Mary Mack. I've been teaching her the hand clapping and rhymes and she LOVES Miss Mary Mack. I was so excited about that idea...all dressed in black, silver buttons up her back. And Hayden would be the elephant! Then she changed and insisted on 'ballerina'. Hmph. She did look really cute though despite showing me no camera love.

But wait...then she thought about it. A chance to show off her moves? She lives to show off her moves!

Ha! She's never taken a dance class (as evidenced by the funky chicken move) in her life so when she pulled that pose, I was delighted. What a ham.

last night

last night.

i was snuggling you after reading stories. actually, not reading stories because you had a tantrum when hayden counted your fairies and you lost your book time. boy, you were mad. and sad. but still wanted your snuggling time.

i caught the faint scent of chlorine still in your hair from swimming lessons today. i thought about you jumping in. without me. braving the deep end. without me. i love that you have little fear taking on this world without me. which is probably why i really love these snuggle times. i started a ten minute timer for snuggling time earlier this week but you know i won't stick to that. and dad is on the phone so he hasn't come searching for me yet. so ten minutes turns into thirty...forty. how funny that all three of us often fall asleep in one little twin bed.

hayden is still holding my hand. when i start singing the Beatle's 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand', both of you grab my hands. she still hasn't let go and is completely asleep. when i started to wiggle out of bed, you curled in even more, in a way that made me stay. but not twenty seconds later, you are snoring and i'm out of there. i need more hours in the day. or to get by on less sleep.

i walked into the office to find dad and noticed this picture on the desk, waiting to be framed. what a pretty little girl i have.

Post Halloween Daze

-still working a little sugar out of our systems-