It's a Girl!

Yes, it's true. Another sweet little girl. Somehow I feel like people will be bored with the news, as if we should be venturing into new territory by now, but I'm sure that's not the case, and we are both very excited to welcome another baby girl into our family. :)

Yesterday was a whirlwind of events surrounding the ultrasound (which is why I can't find the CD of images that we received at our appointment -- none of them were really good anyway, but when I find it I'll post some pics). It seems like we have been waiting forever to find out what this baby is, and as our technician measured a zillion little things at the appointment,she wasn't cutting to the chase. Finally, after about 45 minutes of fuzzy things on the screen that we couldn't decipher, Russ asked if she knew what the sex was yet and was just saving the news until the end or something. She said that she hadn't been able to see yet and that it was kind of driving her crazy. It was driving me crazy too. Actually, she was driving me crazy. I was a little concerned when I saw pictures of cats all over her bulletin board by her desk. But the fact that she was taking so long and didn't seem to be that concerned about the gender was really irritating me. I just wanted to know!

Then she leaned me up in the chair! She forgot to go back and look! Russ was like, "are you going to check and see if we can see what the baby is?" She said she forgot. What?! Get a life lady! You obviously don't have kids and don't realize how important this is!!! So, back down I went (full bladder, might I add). Later she sounded a bit more decisive about the sex, but her initial communication to us that "she was going out on a limb and saying it was a girl" was not very solid to me. There was nothing on the screen that we could identify as being a boy or a girl. When she left the room I bursted into tears, not wanting to leave without knowing what we were having after anticipating this day for so long. I was quite put off by our tech. The baby wasn't in a good position for the cute 3-D pictures either, so that was also very upsetting to me. I didn't feel like we had any good pictures to take home with us, and with the other two girls, I had so many cute ones that I would look at all the time until they came. What a dumb appointment.

A few minutes went by and she peaked her head in saying that she was waiting for the doctor. Russ asked if it were possible to just try and double check to confirm what she thought she saw (after all, she did it in about 30 seconds -so it shouldn't take that long). With the door still cracked, she looked down the hall and was like, "there's the doctor, I gotta go" and quickly shut the door! This totally felt insensitive, and actually kind of immature to me, and it made me cry all over again. And the doctor wasn't right there as we waited for another 15 minutes before he came in.

When he came in, all he wanted to talk about was my diabetes. As if I haven't talked about it enough with every doctor I ever encounter. I didn't want to talk about it. I wanted to know the sex of my baby! He went on and on about talking to my doctor, blah, blah, blah, even though he was happy with my A1C of 6.4 (pretty good). Do these people think I don't hear this every week? I'm so over it. Anyway, he left the room without talking about anything else other than that everything checked out. (I don't want to minimize that BIG BLESSING by letting you in on the rest of the story - we are very grateful that the baby is healthy.)

We got up to leave and on the way out the tech told us that the doctor also felt that it was a girl by looking at the picture. That was that. It was a tad bit inconclusive to me, which upset me more than I realized it would. It is way less fun to tell people with a looming doubt in the back of my mind. We got home after picking up the girls and realized we were locked out of the house. Russ had to leave for a meeting about 20 minutes after we finally got in the house. It wasn't the fun day I had anticipated. Russ and I didn't really have any time to talk about the thought of having another girl.

But, with all that said, we both felt it was a girl, so we're on the hunt for girl names. And if it's a boy rather than a girl, I guess we'll just run out and buy some blue sheets or something... as it is, we're going all pink! :) Either way, we praise our Father for the beautiful gift of life and can't wait to meet this sweet baby girl.

Pictures to come.

Boy or Girl?

Alright. Here's your chance to let us know what you think! Ultrasound is on Thursday.

Do we have a boy in the mix?

Or are we destined for a house full of sweet girls?

Side note: Russ couldn't take the pictures of the "real" boy & girl - too grossed out - so I changed it. Those were weird dolls!! Anyway, I was looking for more footprints for the boy, but all I could find was a girly pin with charms on it. If we have a boy he will never wear a pin like this, but I might start.

My vote is: I DON'T KNOW! How boring is that?! This week I have thought girl though - so we'll keep it at that. I have been wrong many, many times... :)

We'll be sure to let you know come Thursday!

Grammy Visits! t

But first... Here's our sweet Babers with her favorite new buddy, Snoopy! Nanny & Pappy gave him to her for her birthday and she loves to cuddle with him. Unfortunately, right after this picture, she was sick for a week and threw up all over him. Poor Snoopy. He's still drying out in the garage (yes - with throw up on him - does anyone else do things like that and not get back to them, or is it just us?).

We found out that Mom had never been to a hibachi (sp?) restaurant, so we decided to go to Miyabi's one night. What fun!! Noa and Ruthie loved the fire and we had a great chef (what are they called?) who did all kinds of tricks for us. I think Mom loved it too.

Mom was great about playing with the girls constantly. I had a little break for a few days! And the girls are still asking where Grammy's bed went (had one set up in Ruthie's room for her), so they definitely miss their Grammy!

On a weird side note. Look at all these blue pens I found in our junk drawer! Many of you may remember my post about Russ a few years back about how he has little "collections" of things without realizing it. I HATE these pens. I HATE THEM! He brings them home from his office and now they are barfing out of our drawers! They're going back tomorrow!

Other than that, the girls have been busy watching their Sweetpea Beauty DVD that my parents sent them. We watch it every day and know all the words! Ugh. Ruthie is close to walking - finally. She's been standing up by herself for a few seconds (then falling), so I'm hoping that she wants to walk really soon. We're going this Thursday for Baby #3's ultrasound. We really have no idea what we think the baby is. We change our minds every week - so it will be exciting to finally know, especially since all of my pregnant friends who are about a month or two behind me have already found out what they're having. Anyway... until then!

Charlotte Trip

Last Sunday and Monday night, Nana & Pops were nice enough to watch the girls while Russ and I went to Charlotte for a get-away! I've never been away from either of the girls longer than one night, so as silly as it sounds, I was a little anxious about the trip. But, it was such a great time and a much needed break. We enjoyed just spending time together and reconnecting since lately we feel like all we do is get the girls dinner and baths and diapers and all of those things...

Russ had flowers waiting for me when we arrived at our suite!

We weren't totally alone, though. Here we are at Pottery Barn Kids (the perfect back-drop for a picture, with all of the things I desperately "need" for the new baby :). Baby #3 is about 18 weeks in this picture. Belly looks a little strange because of my pants, but anyway, there you have it.

We also went to one of our favorite restaurants (the only one that Charleston doesn't have - which is probably good for our wallet) P.F. Changs! We actually went twice! I have some pictures, but it is really too dark to see anything but a weird chinese statue in the corner - so why post those?

When we came home on Tuesday, we hit the ground running. The girls were their "full-of-energy" selves and we loved being able to squeeze them again!

Here's Noa with some little pig tails. She kept calling them her "little ponies." I chased her all over the house to get a picture until I finally cornered her by the toilet. Nice.

Cool Dude!

On Saturday we went down to the Farmer's Market downtown. The girls loved looking at all the people and their dogs and jumping in the big jump castles.

We were only a block away from the Children's Museum, so we decided to cool off inside for about an hour. Ruthie is finally getting old enough to enjoy some of the things they have there - which makes the trip a lot more fun.

Noa in the "Water Room"

What a great week! I wish Russ and I could dash off to some place every week!! We've gotta do it as much as possible before this next little one comes. Our ultrasound to find out what we're having (and more) is scheduled for September 30th - so less than a month and we'll know whether we're destined for a whole lot of girls, or if a sweet boy will break up the mix. We could care less - which I guess is a good thing since it is already determined anyway... :)

Go Lions!

The JICS football team had their first home game on Friday night, so we decided to take the girls and cheer them on. So glad we went because it was loads of fun. Ruthie was a little bit pooped (o.k. A LOT pooped - way past their bedtime), but we did get to stay for a good bit of the game and you know, us girls don't really watch the game anyway, so it was the perfect amount of time.

We ended up losing (we were playing the best team and this was our first year for football), but the fact that our guys even scored on this team was a pretty big deal. So, we were proud.

Noa decided to root for Tyler (#8) who baby sat her once. Since then she's had a crush on him, thinking every guy with shaggy, brown hair is Tyler. He came up and said 'hi' to her before the game started, but had his helmet on so she got scared. Funny. But all during the game she said, "Go Tywer! Go Tywer!"

Ruthie was rooting for Andrew (#21) the quarterback, who is also a PK. :) She wouldn't really let me get the 21 on her face so I knew that trying to write "Go Lions" wouldn't work at all. This was pretty much her face the whole game - tired little Babers!

Noa hung out with Gracie the whole time. They chased each other around, waved their pom poms and watched the little girl cheerleaders. So precious.

At one point, the cheerleaders were doing a cheer and Noa couldn't take her eyes off of them. As soon as they were finished, she turned to the crowd and started swaying back and forth to the ABC's while clapping, as if this was her own version of the cheer! She sang the whole song (loudly) and even got some applause when she was finished! She also had a tiny megaphone and kept picking it up yelling, "Go Wions! Go Wions!" It was the cutes thing I've ever seen. So of course, now we HAVE to get her a little cheerleading outfit! :)

All in all, it was a great time. Lots of friends, lots of fun, and it kept the girls entertained for a long time! Go Lions!

4:30 a.m.

Here's what happens when you're up at 4:30 a.m. with nothing to do... Find cute pictures of your kids!!! Yeah, this morning I was just so hungry (Baby #3 must be going through a growth spurt) I decided to get up and eat! Hopefully, I can go back to sleep very, very soon. But in the mean-time...

Here's Chicks with her new favorite thing - Daddy's IPod. Cute, but so annoying. The ear things are too big for her ears, so she's always whining to us about helping her get them in correctly. Not fun. Find another toy Chicks!

This is Babers new favorite thing - Chicks pushing her around in the highchair. Actually, they both like it. I know we're probably irritating everyone in Chick-fil-a, but it keeps them busy for a while and they haven't told us to stop yet!

Look at Babers' face!

Here's hoping Baby #3 (can we PLEASE hurry up and figure out if you're a boy or a girl?!) is as beautiful as this sweet little baby... :) Just kidding - that's me. But we are READY to know what this new baby is!!! Probably another month though. Ugh.

Cookie Face

I always said I wouldn't have kids with messy faces and snotty noses, but I guess it is just a constant reality now. :)

But sometimes we give them baths... Either way they are incredibly beautiful, don't you think?!

Wanted to give Lukie (Russ' great uncle) a shout out. He turned 80 the other day and we took the girls to his party. They both ate their fair share of cake and Lukie smiled, so it was definitely worth it!