Changing Focus

Okay, I deleted last short post in favor of the positive. I remember having it in my mind to have this blog for the positive and not the "sandpaper" things.

I'm so thankful for a wonderful day on Tuesday with my beloved family. It started with a dr. appt that went long, but that's okay. We ended it with a little/delightful swim.

Our baby furniture is coming in piece by piece. The crib came yesterday. We are waiting to put it together because of refinishing the floor in that room. The dresser is ordered since it went on sale AND had free shipping. The only "major" thing left is the mattress. Kinda boring purchase if you ask me. The bedding came this week and I love it. I love even more that I paid less than half of what it cost at PBK by purchasing on ebay.

We are now working on finding a good portion of Aliyah's homeschool books on ebay. I have found a few--yay.

Normal posts to be back soon. Have a great weekend everyone! Happy Father's Day!

this is fun

We are having or at least I am having fun picking out and finding good deals on the baby gear we need. The list is easy starting with all F's: furniture, formula, and flowers. Making strides toward all three. I ordered the crib yesterday after finding it cheaper than anywhere else plus free shipping. My college friend who we saw last week gave me some formula & coupons so we could begin stocking up. As for flowers..that's just room decs. I got the PBK bedding. That I wanted off ebay. So yay!
Waiting for a sale on the chest of drawers plus free shipping...
Doing all of this while baby girl jumps around is even more thrilling!

livin'

Celebrating 10 amazing years with my soulmate on vacation! Soakin up sun, swimmin in the pool, enjoying thensouth, and today we get to see one of my best friends from college. It has been 10 years since I saw her.
Breakfasts ever morning at our hotel have been amazing. We eat so much! The baby loves it too! She has literally been jumping around and serves as my floatie beach ball.
Oh yeah, we have decided on her first name, but are still debating the 2 middle names. We got all 3. Girls a Cinderella glass slipper with their name engraved on it.
The only things I'm not liking so much is the humidity and the over the top red shirt people.
Palm trees and Florida sun-how I've missed you. its also enjoyable to be in the hospitable, sweet south. Rain comes and goes and then out comes the ever-warming sun. Oh yeah, love the resort too!

Bye for now...my tan is awaiting.

Checkin In

Happy Memorial Day! Summer weather and activities are in full swing in every way!

I just realized it has been 2 weeks since I posted. I check internet mostly on the phone since the computer is dying a terrible death =). This may turn out to be long if the computer allows.

We completed our annual garage sale. Whew,they are lots of work but the end result is a cleaned out house and extra ca$h. For motivation, I pick something that the $$ will fund. This one was especially fun because it is going to the out of pocket doctor bill for baby girl. We sold a lot of stuff and my house is happy because all of the closets are all purged and cleaned out.

I have been to the doctor since I last posted for my glucose screening and a regular appt. Last time around, I had diabetes with Keirah. I haven't heard anything so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it is okay. My blood pressure has been slightly up there on the last few visits. Not huge...but they want to do some extra monitoring. They told me to take it on my own. Since I have family members with blood pressure cuffs, we have taken it several times since the dr. appt. Every time we have taken it, it has been perfect. We have taken it on two different cuffs that have been checked at dr. offices for accuracy. Maybe I have been nervous or something at the last appts.

Kiki got her ears pierced today. She is a little diva and loves all things girly. Aliyah had informed her many times of the pain involved with it. She decided that she would do it, but we could tell she was nervous in the chair. Luckily, there were two people to get it done and over with. She chose pink. They did it and instead of a scream, she simply looked down and then a few tears fell. I picked her up and she quietly cried for a short time. This was totally different from her sister's experience.

The pool opened this weekend and we paid a visit. It was super-duper fun. The girls loved it as you might imagine.

This is a big week for us as J is on vacation and completing a smaller project. He is putting porcelain tile in our main floor bath. We celebrate our 10th anniversary later this week!! It has flown by, but when you spend every day with your best friend...time flies. We are excited.

I think we have decided on furniture for baby girl. It is fun to figure these things out. We have been stocking up on diapers pretty often. If only I had some formula coupons...I'm hoping they start sending them out soon. One of my favorite things is to watch/feel my stomach jump as she is wiggling quite often.

Well, I'm sure I've left many things out. One thing is for certain...life is busy!!

Saturday Morning Addictions

Since last summer, I have become addicted to going to garage sales. I'm very choosy as to where we go and tend to stick with nice subdivisions in neighboring cities or nice neighborhoods if I stick in town. Lately, we've had great luck at subdivision sales. The prices have been great and I typically will pick one sub and then that's all we go to. Usually, we take less than an hour (we are fast).

Today's sales were in a smaller sub in a neighboring city with ginormous/gorgeous all brick/stone homes. Prior to today, I didn't know this sub existed. We found it easily and I must confess, we do curb shop to decide where to go first. The first one we walked up to, the lady said "I have stuff for you". You never know really =). Turns out...she sure did. The sales was rather disorganized, but the stuff smelled good and was nice. When I say disorganized I mean no prices and in piles or boxes. She quickly showed us where everything was located and I began piling items into Josh's arms. Again...having no idea of prices.

I was happy to find a lot of maternity clothes (ones she just wore last summer). Since fewer and fewer stores around here carry them, I was thrilled (and they were cute). They were $1.00 each...WOW what a deal! Everything I needed to get me through summer. I was excited because I have hundreds of dollars of stuff here (I just went to the store these came from 2 days ago...so I know).

We went to a few more and found various clothes and stuff for the girls (Gymboree) etc... the last sale we stopped at was a "man's sale". It had all things guy from golf clubs to technology to racks and racks of men's clothes. Josh found a few DVD's and then I looked at the clothes. They were bigger guy clothes which wouldn't work for Josh, but for my brother. He is hard to purchase clothes for since stores never carry his size. This guy had boatloads of clothes in every type you could want from dress slacks to athletic shorts. Everything was neatly folded or still on the dry cleaning hangers and perfectly wrinkle free. I spent $22.75 and got 4 bags of stuff as well as some more stuff on dry clean hangers. Again, cheap cheap prices...and so much fun. The guy was so happy to sell the stuff. I told Josh that at times when you purchase things at a garage sale you feel somewhat guilty b/c the prices are so low and we know how much a lot of this stuff costs. The guy asked if he could keep his regular hangers (well of course) was my reply.

All around a super-duper deal day. Even though the clothes smelled great, my washer is going. This is why I have my Saturday morning addiction.

This reminds me...I need to get my sale together...so much work, but I need to get rid of the stuff. I think I would rather go to sales than have my own =).

My oh my!

It gets longer and longer between posts. Truth is, I don't get on the computer often so...no post.

Not for lack of things going on though...so many things we are busy doing.

Baby girl is moving a lot and growing. We have a few names picked out which will remain a secret, but we haven't decided quite yet. We have been slowly picking out things. The baby seat arrived last week after only 3 days even though they told us 3 weeks. It is aqua and brown. I like aqua...reminds me of those sugar white beaches and aqua water that I used to enjoy.

On Sunday, we had to stop by Target for just a couple of things. I decided to walk by the baby department on our way through. Every now and then they have clearance items that are good for stocking up. Well, that day was a definite hit. I found some onesies for 75% off and even better...the bottom shelf had 3 Britax carseats. They were 50% off!! I couldn't believe it. I loved the pattern that we got and the deal that it was. When we got to the register the cashier had trouble scanning it and the customer service lady came over and informed us that the carseats had all been ordered online and returned by her sister in law. Nothing wrong with them, Target just doesn't stock those particular seats. She then asked if that was a good deal...umm yes!!!

Mother's Day was wonderful. I was served breakfast in bed. Aliyah took my order and couldn't wait to give me my gifts. She gave me a little TY dog that she named Cinnamon and added a collar. He sits on my bed. They also made me some cute little animals. We celebrated grandma's birthday by eating at Texas Roadhouse. It was soo good and soo much food. The day was gorgeous and we spent the day outdoors. Josh's dad got to visit for a bit in the afternoon.

I think we have decided on a color for baby furniture. It was between white (french white) and espresso. We still like both, but decided on the french white because it will match the other girls furniture if they want to switch places eventually. Josh got the item he had been wanting for the baby. It is really cool diaper bag that fits across your body. The boutique we went to today had one and it was girl colors mostly brown with a bit of pink trim =).

Oh yeah, we have been to a few garage sales here and there. We found some awesome ones last week in a neighboring city. The prices were so cheap!! I found a Gymboree outfit 3 pieces for the price of .30! Better yet, I found all kinds of textbooks (the kind we use) for kindergarten and 2nd grade. It will be great for Keirah. They were "expensive" also at .05 each!!! Aliyah has now taken it upon herself to use the kindergarten readers that we purchased at that sale to teach Keirah to read. Yep, she's 3, but they are working on it.
Keirah surprised me the other day by taking a piece of paper and beginning to write letters on it. I was shocked because in K3, they don't learn to write the letters. I have no idea where it came from, but boy oh boy it was cool!

Well, that's enough for now...see ya later!

Exciting Week

Things haven't slowed down and they probably won't. I love this weather and all of the extra excitement it brings. Working outside, sitting on the porch, enjoying the views, hearing the girls laughter as they play, and the list goes on.

The week started out busy and with much anticipation as we counted down the days until G-day (gender day). I was nervous, but not Josh or the girls. A lot of me feels like that excited, anxious, eager child on Christmas Eve who is full of anticipation. Some of me feels somewhat unknown. If you know me, you know I like to know that I am a planner and a list maker. Unknown things make me nervous I guess. That is, unknown things that I would need to think about. In the last few years, I have read my fair share of blogs and even known several people personally who have experienced more than their share of heartache when it comes to babies. There are those who adore children and would love to have some of their own and struggle. Then there are others who get a poor diagnosis with a less than happy outcome. I know that even in announcing a new baby to some it brings that sting. We have some friends who found out they were expecting shortly after we knew. We weren't telling anyone, however when they told us of the loss, we tried to be sensitive and not shout...well we're pregnant. We gave it several weeks so that it wouldn't seem like we were rubbing it in (that would never be our intention). So, all of that to say we don't take new life for granted and have felt so blessed by those who said they are praying. One cannot ever have to many prayers spoken on their behalf. We pray, our children pray.

The girls are so sweet and cute. They pray that the baby will be healthy and strong and they even put the little part in that they would like a sister. I wholeheartedly believe that Jesus takes special interest and gives special attention to the prayers of the little ones. The Bible mentions so much of this and we want our children to learn this from as early as possible.

By Wednesday, I would not be thinking about it and then somehow remember and then be nervous. With the nerves I would pray. We enjoyed a lot of family time on Wednesday since Josh was off that evening. We even re-arranged the girls' bedroom.

Thursday came and we had a few things to do before our afternoon appointment. We did everything that we needed to do (it was a WINDY day). It was like the day was moving along slowly (unlike most days). We ate lunch, and then headed out to our appointment. The girls had their dolls with them and Aliyah was hoping for twins (even though we already knew it was only one). I knew that my blood pressure would be up from all of the extra anticipation and excitement (more on that later). They called me in (first stop--weight check). Isn't that everyone's favorite part?? haha Well, I lost almost 3 lbs. Yes, I know...I do the opposite of typical. That's 3 lbs. with just having lunch and with my shoes on. I'm sure most of that is due to the Flupocalypse that we experienced last week.

I continued to be nervous. The sonographer who was very nice and kind asked us if we wanted to find out what we are having. ABSOLUTELY! We like suprises, but remember what I said about that planning thing earlier. Yep, I'm a planner. She then noted that she saw a couple of pink shirts and wondered if that meant anything. I think we said mmhmm, but I don't know. She informed us that she would look right away.

Still nervous...she begins and comments about how active this baby is...yes I've been feeling this for MANY MANY weeks now. The baby was moving everywhere. So much that I couldn't even get a look very well. She then asked us if we were ready? YES! She said, "you're having a baby.........................................(insert more nervousness in here)............GIRL". At that point, my cheerleading days returned as I put both arms up in a high V and shouted "YES". Aliyah and Keirah were excited and Aliyah told me that now I could relax.

The sonographer was smiling and laughing. I don't know if we amused her or if she loves what she does or loves giving good news or maybe all of the above. One of the first things she looked at was the brain. Her comment was, "that is a good looking brain". I LOVE to hear that. She continued showing us things like kidneys, the heart, and we took a listen (156), the stomach, legs and so on. She was doing measurements. I caught many of them, but there is so much going on that I didn't catch them all. The head measured 20w3d (I was 20w2d), the stomach was 20w5d, and some of the other things measured 21 and above. SHE weighs 12 ounces (right on track). The sweet little one kept on moving like crazy! Her legs were over her head in pike position and she was grabbing her feet. A couple of items I noted: she has that same leg shape as our other two as well as the same nose. We saw a pair of feet, ears, hands you name it. The sonographer at certain times would push a button that would change it into 3D/4D. We haven't ever had that type of sono before, but WOWOWO the clarity was amazing! She looks just like the girls (so cute). The sonographer told us as we went along how awesome and wonderful everything looked which was such a blessing. She finished by checking again and said, "Yep, it's still a girl, even though I was sure the first time". We were sure as well as she has the photo and showed us a still shot.

We left the room euphoric. It was like one of those days that goes right in with the best days of your life. There is nothing like seeing a sweet little life as it grows and then the blessing of health. We feel overjoyed and blessed beyond imagination.

The doctor came in and re-iterated how well everything looked and measured me (right on track as well). We then scheduled our 24 week appointment. That's the diabetes test one. Please pray that this time around that can be avoided.

We left with plans to purchase pink cupcakes to share the news. It was so fun to share the news with family and friends. It was a whirlwind day, but one of the best!

The sweet little pumpkin decided to continue the party at 3:30 am until right before 6 am. I love parties and I'm glad I was invited, but WOW I was on the tired side the next morning. She was busy in there moving around. Josh has even gotten to feel her move now.

Friday was work for both of us, and then I went shopping. Maybe more on that purchase later.

Now, I am working on finding the things we need for baby. Our stroller had a wheel that always had to be pumped so that was my first order of business. They are $50 each on the site, however I found 2 of them on ebay for $34 including shipping. That part is taken care of =) yay! Today, I went to Toys/Babies 'R Us to look for a baby seat, however they had a grand total of 2! You heard right...2! Well, I'm guessing I will order it since they have so many more choices online. While there, I checked on the cribs. We had kind of decided on white or off-white, but the espresso color was pretty as well. I'll have to think about that some more. I had hoped that I could find a nice used one at a sale. I haven't seen any cribs at garage sales this year though. Yes, we sold ours because it would be 8 years old. Unlike days of old, a lot of this stuff like car seats and cribs expire. I had purchased the bedding at PBK, however I noticed that I could get the same one on ebay much cheaper. The PBK bedding was returned. We plan to strip and stain the floor a dark color. It will look great. Our former neighbors did this in their house and I love it!
So, on the hunt I am!

This post is EXTRAORDINARILY long so I will close! It's a GIRL!