I recently discovered a really nice park that is walking distance from our house. I was so excited! It takes about a nice, brisk 20 minute walk to get there and the same back. So I get in 40 minutes of exercise and play with Brookie too! It's way better when we get to do it as a family, though. Family time is so precious but sadly, often rare. We had such a fun night the other night so I wanted to share some pictures!
Brooklynne has a cute little friend named Becca that I babysat the other day. Brooke went around the house saying, "Ecca! Ecca!" for days afterwards. Thankfully she gets to see her at church! :)
She graciously let me take her pictures, and since her Mom is the one teaching me a bit about photography, Becca is used to having her pictures taken! She did a great job!
We were all laughing hysterically at the Parrots! They were talking to us the entire time! They would say, "Hello,"
The lions and tigers were ROARING at each other SO loud. Brookie was terrified and started to cry.
She LOVES Becca! :) This was Brookie's first trip to the zoo and she loved it!
Beautiful Bengal tigers
The kids had a little trouble staying with us :p
Huge turtles
There were beautiful peacocks roaming everywhere!
We were there for about an hour when the kids (and me :) were starving so we stopped and ate. During that time it started pouring, thundering and the wind picked up so much that we had to leave. Thankfully they gave us free passes for next time since we weren't there very long!
It was my last day of nannying. :( A very sad day for me. I will miss my little buddy so much!***Sorry for those of you who couldn't see the post before. It posted it on accident when I wanted to save it because I wasn't quite done with it. For some reason it was still showing up!***
( I'm sorry this is another horrible picture....I had not done anything with myself and just took this with the self timer. )
JulieMom is hosting this great clean home carnival. I will admit, I have never commented on her blog and she doesn't even know me. I sort of know her as she is a missionary. I pulled the link for her blog off of Vicki;s blog. Anyway, April 1st is known to all of us as April Fools, and instead, she is encouraging us to be WISE woman and do something profitable around our house! You can read all the details here! I've been cleaning and organizing so hopefully by April first I will have all that de-cluttering DONE! If you are a daughter and don't have your own house, you can always start in your room--c'mon, whens the last time you looked under your bed? Or under the clothes in your closet?--and even offer to help your Mom with other areas in the house, like a counter or shelf that ends up being a throw-all, a messy closet, desk, or even the fridge!!! :) Let's all be wise woman in these next few weeks and on April First! Who's with me?
here, anyway, is spring! The weather isn't humid like it is throughout the entire 100+ degree summer and it's sunny and warm, in the 70's and 80's. At night it gets cooler, closer to the 50's. Last week it rained for about 4 days straight, so now everything is budding, flowering, green and luscious. It's a gorgeous time of year and we enjoy every minute of it! Around July we all start to hibernate inside until the end of September to stay out of the stifling heat.
So yes, we have our "bad" weather too....it's not winter--it's brutally hot and humid summer that makes you break a sweat just walking out your front door. (It's true)
Here are some pictures of us outside today. The sun picture if what I was sitting in for about an hour while I read my Bible and watched my little girl play in the dirt. :)
These pictures were taken back at the beginning of February, but I thought I would post them anyway. Chloe is the most darling little baby with beautiful blue eyes and a ton of dark hair! Brooke absolutely loves her!
Although she was ready for bed and not dressed for pictures, we decided to try to get some cute ones of her anyway. Here are the results. :)
Today I got to hear my teeny little precious baby's heartbeat. What a sweet sound! The few moments that they are searching for it with the Doppler seem like forever and I was just hoping that they would find it and nothing would be wrong. Praise the Lord, a few seconds later, there it was, slightly faint because it's so early, but fast and strong! I asked if I was going to be able to have an ultrasound, but they stopped doing the early ones and only do them at 20 weeks, unless there is some sort of medical problem of course. Well, later on when she felt my uterus, she said that it was larger than normal and she thinks I am farther along. Which means.....I get an ultrasound in 2 weeks! Yay! I honestly do not think that I'm farther than I am (10 weeks), but I told her that I would definitely NOT object! I made it for 8am so that Nate could come with me before work. If I am 12 weeks, it would explain my sudden bursts of energy and almost extinct nausea, but I'm not counting on it. :) She said it could also just be because I've had a baby before and my uterus is ready to go to work right away.
She looked through my charts and reminded me of my high blood pressure last time, protein in my urine, en flamed blood vessels, PUPPS rash and said I wasn't allowed to have any problems this time. Hopefully that will be the case! :)
My due date as of now is October 3rd. I guessed it to be September 30-Oct. 3, so I was pretty on. My weeks start on Fridays, so I was 10 weeks on Friday.
Needless to say, I'm happy to have had an appointment and so thankful for the little person inside of me who is healthy and well so far!
I am a huge salad fan! I love finding recipes for new salads with dressings that compliment the ingredients in the salad. This one is a gold mine. :)After you eat this salad once, you will crave it, which is what I was doing yesterday so I bought all the ingredients to make it for supper last night. I have eaten it for lunch again today. The flavor combination in it is outstanding and it makes a whole meal in itself!
A cool dad who rides a bike, loves God and isn't ashamed to tell ANYONE about it! What a Man!
This one (below) I LOVE!
I took A LOT of my brother Pat with his snowboard. :) Unfortunately, the snow was melting so we have grass in some of the pictures but we tried to make it look as "real" as possible. I haven't edited any of these yet, and I will probably do that and post them a different time. Here is a sampling of some of my favorites!
