So, the Longhorns really mussed it up big time for the OU game. Yuk! We are rebounding from the game and hubby has pretty much written them off for the next two seasons.

I've had a bit of time to reflect on our activities from last month up to now and it's more than I had thought it was. We've been so sick for so long that it really didn't seem like we'd done much of anything. So, in this post I'll post one photo from each playdate we've had recently. Here we go...

Our back to school neighborhood playdate. I made these stickers and put them on mini M&M packs.

The arboretum has their huge pumpkin patch open. We had a picnic.

My attempt at getting 2 kids in 1 photo.

Getting friendly at a hot air balloon festival.

We went to the international airport to an outdoors plaza to watch the incoming planes. VERY cool!

A make your own ice cream playdate. Yes, another one!

We were invited to a local high school football game. Dominic loved the noise and we stayed for the halftime show.

We checked out the zoo.

Did the Oktoberfest thing...

Visited the state fair.

And started soccer lessons!!!

All of these activities was with friends and/or playgroups. Pretty busy despite pneumonia, huh??

It's no Blue Bell, but it'll do...

This past week we were BUSY!!

Since Dominic enjoyed camp so much, we decided to pony up and enroll him in another two week session, which started last Tuesday. This time around there were 12 kids in his group! I am assuming they have combined two groups since there are 2 counselors in there.

When we weren't at camp, we were at playgroups. Monday we hosted a playgroup at our house. Kids were invited to make homemade ice cream, which actually turned out to be quite delicious!

Fattening, but delicious! While we waited for the ice cream to freeze we moved out front and ran through the sprinkler!

Our new church friends joined us for this one. She is due with baby girl #3 anyday now. Note to self: I should check in on her since I didn't see them at church yesterday.

The next day we had AM and M over for some ice cream and playtime.

The next two days I was saddled down with creating the neighborhood playgroup's newsletter. Big doings!! This took approximately 3 days to get all together but the third day was simply copy-paste'ing.

Friday we had a full day all to ourselves. Until I remembered that I had to buy my hubby a birthday present! So it was off to the golf store to pick up a fashionable golfing outfit, complete with golfing belt. I never knew such a thing existed, but trust me it does.

Friday afternoon we were invited over to H and E's house for indoor play. It was just nice to get out of the house after the whole newsletter stress. I even managed to get a photo of myself with BOTH babies!! As I've said in previous posts, photos of me with the kids is rare as I'm usually the one taking the photo. I just love this one, too!!

Saturday Daddy turned "4-4" and Jillian turned 2 months old!

Jillian is HOME!

I went in to have my routine u/s with the specialist on Monday and they found that the fluid level had dropped quite drastically. Jillian's projected weight was right at 6lbs and I was 38 weeks along so the doctor suggested an induction that day. I was caught off guard, as D was 4 days late and we waited him out, but decided it was safer to have her here early rather than wait and let complications arise.

So I told DH to come home from work and finish packing his bag. D, Jillian and I had been packed for weeks! He rushed home and we called the Grands to let them know to assemble. The troops met us at the hospital shortly after we arrived at 10am.

I was taken to triage to be monitored and checked. I still hadn't been checked since my dr and I agreed we would wait until 39 weeks to do so. Surprisingly to most everyone involved, I was already dilated to 4, 50% effaced and -3 station! All on my own!! And I was having contrax!

I was thrilled. That meant no cervadil, only pitocin. My dr knew I wanted to try med-free again so he said to watch me and see if hte contrax picked up on their own or if we should administer pit. I was also waiting for an L&D room to open up. Apparently the storm system convinced a lot of babies to be born that day

Four hours later we were given a room in L&D. They started pitocin at the lowest setting and the contrax picked up but were bearable. Pit was upped to 4 and they got stronger but still not close enough. They let me stay at 4 for a while so I could catch my breath before upping to a 6.

That really got things going. I hadn't been rechecked and was dying to know if I'd progressed at all. With the contrax one minute apart and as intense as they were I assumed I had. The nurse checked me at 6pm and said I was still at 4cm so I called for an epi. That's when the contrax really got bad!

The epi was in at 6:29pm and I waited for it to kick in. The shift change is at 7 so the new nurse came in and asked when I was last checked. My current nurse said just before the epi. She suggested we check again to check if I'd progressed at all. Surprisingly I was now complete! Only 45 minutes after being checked!! My bag of water was bulging and she could feel the head. They called my dr and he rushed in.

He snipped the bag with scissors (it was hanging out of me), I pushed twice and she was here! Tiny little thing so no tears or stitches needed. The NICU team was called since she is so tiny. After observing her for 30 minutes they determined that she was healthy enough to stay in the regular nursery.

We are home now and doing our best to adjust. Thank heavens for meal lists! We've already had one meal delivered and will get another one tonight. Yay!

Baskets and Butterflies

This morning we had our neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt. I'm so glad it was this weekend and not NEXT Saturday as we'll be on vacay starting Monday.

Here are a couple of photos of our little man from today's festivities:


I call this one "Basketcase".



And, as promised, here is a photo of our caterpillar in his cocoon:


I wish I had a way to take a photo of the caterpillar while we are away. I guess it's time to google the incubation period for a caterpillar, huh?
ETA: I did a quick google search and the consensus is that the caterpillar will be in the chrysallis stage for anywhere from 9-14 days. So we may miss it's great, beautiful reveal!!!! Let's hope this one needs a little longer to cook.

And just because I have your attention, here's a random cute shot:

One year later...

Well, as of April 6th I have had a blog for one full year!! Can't believe I have kept it up as I have. It definitely helps that this helps keep the out of town family included in our happenings.

This post is a mish-mash of sorts. I want to start with a report card of sorts for my yearly progress at making friends. So, in true SAHM fashion I created a report card for myself to fill out.

In thinking back over the past year and all the cool playdates, events, and friendships we've made, I tried to find a way to document the coolest. So I ranked the top 10 highlights of the year. Here they are:

10. Fall camp


9. BUNCO nights

8. Mardi Gras parade


7. Van Gogh painting


6. Arboretum picnics


5. Halloween costume parade


4. Spring camp


3. Summer camp


2. Second baby booms!!


1. Yo Gabba Birthday Party


Each of these highlights was a super special time spent with friends. I am thinking of making a mini-scrapbook of photos from these special times. It'll make a great book to read at bedtime, don't you think??

I am so lucky to have wonderful mom friends to experience such great moments with!!

Spring Camp: Day Five (and my 101st post!!)

Wow, didn't realize that I'd hit 100 posts! And I'm coming up on my 1 year anniversary of blogging. I should plan an update post just so we can see how far I've come in one year of my friendship odyssey.

Anyway, our last day of camp was yesterday and it was bittersweet. It is a lot of work to coordinate and plan a week-long camp, I won't lie. But it is so fulfilling when I see the little ones having a good time and giving the moms a chance to interact with other moms makes it all worthwhile.

Friday we had 4 campers and one had to leave early as he was not quite ready to listen to mommy. :(

We:
*Sang our welcome song.
*Read 10 Little Monkeys.
*Sang "The Itsy Bitsy Monkey".
*Read What do you say when a monkey acts this way?
*Sang "Five Little Monkeys".
*Our first craft required the kids to recall the last story we read. (They had to put three pictures from the story into the correct order. In reality this craft was still a little over their heads, but I did test it out on D beforehand orally and he aced it. I guess the photo part was too much.)
*Our second craft was to decorate a jointed, cardstock monkey with their name, stickers, glitter, colors, etc.
*Then I gave out their awards (everyone got an original one) and their bags with all of their crafts and songsheets from the week. I found the bags in the dollar spot at Target and thought they'd be PERFECT:


I didn't get many photos from Friday. It seemed to be a busy day even though there were only 3 of us there, ultimately. Here's a photo of most of the books we read this week. **Not all are represented.


I did put together a slideshow of the week and have them burned to discs ready to deliver this coming week. I did this for the first camp and got many thank yous and even one sweet compliment, "You made me cry!". Course I set it to music and that always makes the slideshow a bit more sentimental.

I have a really fun mommy playdate on Wednesday with my neighborhood group. We are attending a home tour/auction in the morning and it's a Derby theme! I bought a hat at Target this afternoon and still have to try it with my dress. I have to drag out my maternity dresses and see what I've got!

Spring Camp: Day Four

Technically, day four was yesterday but I was all alone all day yesterday and had little to no time to update. I am having a bout of pregnancy induced insomnia tonight so this will have to do.

Today we had 4 campers and D was the only boy. Lucky kid! Again, we had a great day.

Today we:
Sang the welcome song.
Read "Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do you hear".
Sang a song.
Read "At the Zoo", a cute little book I found at Half Price Books.
I sang a song all by myself, since no one has ever heard "The Animal Fair".
Did our craft. Created a circus train using a square paper plate, yarn and an animal cut-out. CUTE!
Had our snack.

Here are some photos from this afternoon:


Busy at work coloring his elephant.


So proud of his creation!!


All 4 circus cars.

Check back tomorrow for the last day of camp. So sad it's over. Since Miss Jillian is on her way in just 60 days now, I'm pretty certain we won't have another camp for at least another 6 months. And even THAT is iffy!

Spring Camp: Day Three

Another successful camp day under our belt! We had a minor hiccup in the schedule, though.

I was made aware that 3 of our 6 campers could not make the zoo field trip on Friday, so I made alternate plans for a field trip and polled the moms to see what day would work best for them. The consensus? Today!

So...today we had our field trip to a local farm where we were able to feed some animals, took a hayride around the farm, got to see some HUGE horses and had a picnic under a big shade tree. What a pleasure!

Here are some photos from today's big adventure:


"Mommy, see big wheel?"


What does that sign say???


Just a couple of ol' cowpokes!

Spring Camp: Day Two

Today was an awesome camp day! All 6 campers showed up, ready to go! They all wore their shirts and we took the cutest group photo outside beneath the big oak tree in the front yard. Miraculously we were able to catch some shots of all 6 kiddos looking in the same direction at the same time!!

Today we:

Sang our welcome song.
Read "Who's in the Jungle".
Danced to the song, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight".
Read "Rumble in the Jungle".
Craft #1: make a lion face on a paper plate.
Craft #2: put the spots on the giraffe. (The kids LOVED this craft!!)
Took our photo.
Had our snack.

Here's a few photos of our day:


Working on our giraffe's.


Working on our lion faces.


The complete lion faces.

Check back tomorrow for Day 3!!

Spring Camp: Day One

Today was the first day of our Spring Camp. It was a short-handed beginning as only 3of the 6 enrolled campers were able to make it today. G is in school on Mondays so I knew he would be out, G has afternoon swim lessons on Monday so she was out and A had to stay home b/c they are having hardwoods installed and the job has taken longer than the quoted time.

That's okay, we had a great time, just the 3 (6) of us!

Today we:

Sang our welcome song.
Read Maisy Goes to the Farm.
Sang a finger play song.
Read Click Clack ABC.
Sang a sing-along song.
Did our crafts; shape animals and coloring book fun.
Had our snack; cereal bar and yogurt with fruit juice.


Eating a snack.


Our crafts abandoned as we take a snack break.


Check back tomorrow for another update of camp.

Chillin' at BRU

This morning we had a busy day. Trip to Babies R Us and a playdate all before noon!

We picked up a few essentials for sister's room (wall shelf, changing pad cover, bed sheet) and even managed to get D some new boat shoes for Easter! He's going to look all spiffy in his Easter wear.

We met up with about 8 moms at the neighborhood playdate at K and P's. They have a WONDERFUL backyard with ample space for a growing boy (or 8 toddlers) to romp and explore! I sometimes wish we didn't have a swimming pool just so that D and I could go outside and run around and play on nice days like today.

Note to self: hound David about getting a pool gate set up!!!

And really, what good is a post with no pictures???

Enjoy this little gem I snapped in the BRU parking lot:



***I just wanted to stress that we were totally on our way in the store, car turned off, hence the little bugger not strapped in to his seat. No tots were harmed in the snapping of this photo. ;)

And to ashes you will return...

Today is Ash Wednesday. 40 days until Easter (give or take). This year is already flying by.

Yesterday we celebrated Mardi Gras in a rated G fashion: with a stroller parade!! The moms brought their strollers over and we decorated them in yellow, green and purple. Then it was off to parade through town. Unfortunately, the neighborhood newsletter has yet to come out door-to-door so we didn't have anyone to parade for. :(

But, it did make for some cute photos!!


all of us on our parade


my little Mardi Gras reveler!!

For Lent this year I tried to think of something more meaningful to do. I came across the 40-day Love Dare Challenge and decided to try it out. Since it's 40 days it works nicely with Lent. It is supposed to help you re-focus on your relationships. With baby girl on the way I have a feeling my time with David will be seriously cut.

Day 1 challenge: refrain from saying anything negative to your spouse.

In friendship news, we have a date this Saturday to meet L and A for breakfast and then we'll watch the big St.Patty's parade through downtown!!! Always a great time!!

Happy Birthday, Dr.Seuss!!

Today we hosted a playgroup to celebrate Dr.Seuss' birthday. D just loves the book, The Cat in the Hat, so I was more than happy to indulge him in some birthday cake. Anyway, the teacher in me really wanted to celebrate with the school children!!

There were 6 of us scheduled to attend, but only 3 of us were able to make it. Boo! Oh well, more cake for us!!! HA! Here's some of the fun we had:


Our colored hat creations.


An inside view of the Cat in the Hat birthday cake.


The cake table.


The cake all ready to cut in to!!


I asked the kids to wear something red in honor of the Cat. We read the The Cat in the Hat(well, most of it), colored our own hats and sang Happy Birthday!

All in all, a great playdate.