Overdue Updates

I just realized that I last posted when I was 18 weeks pregnant, so since I'm now 29 1/2 weeks, that's a really long lag time between posts! Oops! In my defense, it has been an awfully busy time around here. I can't believe how fast this pregnancy is going by, seems to be much quicker than when I was pregnant with Isabel. The doctors and ultrasound techs all tell us that we're having another girl. Lucky Jason to be surrounded by so many females, right? :) He was a little overwhelmed at the thought at first, but he has rapidly adjusted and is thrilled. Isabel is totally excited about being a big sister and she hugs and kisses my belly all the time. Strangely enough, the one thing she mentions over and over again is that she wants to help change baby sister's stinky diapers. Huh, weird kid, right? But I'm all for that idea!
Easter has come and gone and Spring is supposedly here, although we've seen only a few days so far that seem at all Spring-like. I've managed to get my garden raked out and ready to be rototilled and I should have a few things planted by the end of the month. Although this year I am going to go a bit easier on the tomatoes and try for veggies that don't require a lot of work. I'm counting on Isabel being super excited about helping out in that area as well, as I'm sure finding the time to care for the garden will be a little tougher once baby #2 arrives.
Another reason that so much time has passed since I've done a blog update is that we've been hit hard this season with colds and illnesses. I think I've had about 3 colds this winter and I'm just now getting over a sinus infection with the help of some antibiotics. Isabel has had the sniffles off and on for most of the winter, and I don't think that my sister's household has seen a single day where they were all healthy all winter long! I'm definitely looking forward to warmer weather and the end of cold season!
Last week on Monday my sister and I decided to take the kiddos to Look Park in Northampton; it was one of the warmer days we'd seen yet. We had a wonderful time on the playground, but on our way back to Sarah's house with our lunch we were in a car accident. It wasn't Sarah's fault, a guy cut us off at an intersection causing us to crash right into his car. It was definitely scary though - both of us pregnant with all 3 of our kiddos in the car. Oh yeah, did I mention before that Sarah is pregnant too? Due 7 weeks after I am. :) Back to the accident: ambulance rides for all of us, a few hours at the ER, and we all escaped with only a few bruises and a lot of paperwork. All the kids were fine, Isabel had some scratches on her neck from her car seat and Rowan and Sophia had not a mark on either of them. But it was definitely a scary time and something I'd rather never repeat again.
So on a happier note, here's a few pics from Easter:The night before Easter we decorated a dozen eggs together. I asked Isabel to wear her apron to not get her shirt dirty, and she asked to wear her chef's hat too. :) Such concentration! The look of pride at her handiwork. :)

She then decorated every egg with many, many stickers. You can see how she really concentrated on making sure each egg was perfectly covered with the right number of stickers too. :) She had a blast picking out which colors to eat the next morning too.
I think the pics from our Easter morning egg hunt are still on the camera. If I think of it I'll add those on here later. She had a blast though searching the living room for eggs filled with either pennies or chocolate. One funny story: that afternoon she asked Jason if she could bring her basket upstairs during her naptime and he, without thinking, said yes. He had filled her basket with the green plastic fake grass stuff, and a few chocolate eggs and some other goodies. She never slept that day, just played in her room, and came down a couple hours later telling her daddy, "Daddy, I only ate 3 pieces of chocolate." Then I went in her room and discovered that she had spread plastic grass on every available surface in her room: every inch of the floor, her table, her bed, everywhere. When I asked her about it she told me, "Mommy, I was making a beautiful forest." That's one mess she didn't get in trouble for since we figured that it was mostly Jason's fault for letting her take the basket in there in the first place. She did get the rest of the grass taken away though and Jason had some fun vacuuming up the forest in her room. :)

Here's Isabel and Rowan at my Gramma's house after Easter dinner. They both look so grown-up to me!
And finally, a prego pic of me. :)

I'll try not to let so much time go by before I update here again. Happy Spring everyone! :

Surprise!!

Here are the first photos of Isabel's baby sister or brother. Yup, I'm pregnant! I'm 18 weeks tomorrow, due July 2nd. It looks like another girl, according to the ultrasound tech, but it was a little early, so she wasn't 100% sure. Isabel has been convinced all along that it's a baby sister. I'm doing pretty well, although I'm super tired. And I'm in pregnant clothes a lot sooner this time! Amazing how your body just remembers how to be pregnant.;) I guess I'll have to change the name of the blog when it's no longer mostly about Isabel! ;) Enjoy the pics of the little alien child. :) 2 little feet.
Right in the middle is a hand and arm.

And here is the alien baby profile shot. :)

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, all a bit late...

Well I've been a bit lax about my blog updates as of late, sorry about that. The day after Christmas Jason and I both got hit hard with a horrible cold, one of the worst I've ever had, and we were pretty much out of commission for most of the next week. Now we're all recovered and so far Isabel hasn't managed to catch it, so all is well again. Jason and I, with help from my parents, bought a new camera for Christmas and took a million pictures. I'm only including a small selection here. We had a lovely Christmas this year, Isabel and my niece and nephew are just the right age to really enjoy it all. The week before Christmas Jason and I took Isabel to Yankee Candle to meet Santa there. Isabel was excited about it, and then a bit intimidated when she actually saw him. It took 2 tries, but right before we left she actually talked to him and told him her Christmas wish list. He was a great Santa, one of the best I've seen, I wish we could've gotten better pictures of her with him, but below is one where at least she is facing him. ;)
Christmas morning was quite eventful. We had gone to the candlelight Christmas Eve service the night at my parents' church with them and my sister and her kids, then stayed up late assembling gifts and wrapping presents. It was all worth it the next morning though. Isabel loved the dollhouse that Jason had spent hours assembling. She woke up at 7:30 and came in to our room asking if Santa had brought her any presents. She didn't even see the dollhouse at first when we went downstairs, but the next picture captures her response when she saw it: I just love that enraptured look on her face, such excitement. 3 year olds are awfully fun on Christmas. :)She got a bunch of rather girly gifts this year, we got her a tea set as well as the dollhouse. I do love that in the above picture she is serving tea to her Lightning McQueen car. That's my girl.

She doesn't wear dresses very often, so she was very excited about wearing this one and looking so pretty. I just love how she's holding her chin up and looking so proud of herself as she prances around the living room. She looks so grown-up to me in this picture too.

I just love this close-up that Jason got of her at my parents' house on Christmas morning. After we did our presents at our house it was off to my mom and dad's for brunch and more gifts. My sister and brother-in-law and Rowan and Sophia were there as well.

Rowan and Isabel pulled out their rocking chairs to sit in while checking out their stockings, so cute. After opening many more gifts there we headed off to my Gramma's house for lunch and even more gifts for the little ones. It was a very busy day! When we got home it was naptime for all of us.

Isabel got her first set of cross-country skis from my parents. I think that was my favorite of all her gifts. We had snow before Christmas, but it rained on Christmas day and didn't snow again till the following Wednesday. That morning Isabel woke us up saying "It's snowing out, can I go skiing?" We managed to wait a few hours and then took her out. The above picture is her practicing in the living room, I wanted to make sure she could stand in them before sticking her out in the snow on them. I am so proud of her! As soon as we went outside she headed straight for the hill down our backyard! She did great, fell a bunch, but never got frustrated and really loved it. The skis are really the cutest things ever, my parents got them from LL Bean and they're a whole lot nicer than the yellow plastic ones I had at her age. ;) I'm just so happy that my little girl loves the snow and skiing so much. I kept saying to Jason "This is one of the proudest days of my life". He thought I was crazy. ;)
Doesn't she look so cute on her skis? I wish I'd gotten a pic of her headed down the hill, but I wasn't thinking ahead enough to have the camera out right away.

So a late Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you! It was a crazy busy season for us, but a very enjoyable one. I hope you all had wonderful holidays as well. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. This year we hosted my family at our place for Thanksgiving dinner. (actually lunch since Mark, my sister's husband, had to be at work by 3pm) I was lucky enough to win a turkey through a raffle at work; super exciting as I never win anything! It was a fresh turkey from Whole Foods, a 26 pound turkey!! I had never seen a bigger turkey, it barely fit in the roasting pan! It was so yummy too. Of course since we had to eat at 12:30 and that turkey took a whole lot of time in the oven, that meant that I had to wake up at 4:30 to turn the oven on to have it in the oven by 5:00am. I did manage to go back to bed for a little bit when Jason got up, but I was definitely ready for a nap in the afternoon. ;) It was worth it though, that was one of the yummiest turkeys I'd ever had. I forgot to take pics of the rest of the meal, got too distracted with eating to even think of the camera, but we had all the fixins: mashed potatoes, squash, green bean casserole, gravy, stuffing, 2 kinds of cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, etc. It was wonderful. Here I am posing proudly behind my giant turkey. :)
Jason looking at me completely exasperated. Doesn't his expression just say: "Enough pics already, can I just carve this thing already?"

The post-meal football watching, which rather quickly turned into the post-meal snoozing on the couch. ;)
It was also my sister's 30th birthday that day, so she got candles in a pumpkin pie, which the kiddos all wanted to help blow out, of course. We managed to let them help without letting them spit all over the pie, somehow. ;)
And this pic I just thought was cute. I think this was a couple of days later, Isabel wanted me to take her pic making her best grumpy face. She was actually in a great mood, she just wanted to make faces for the camera so she could see what she looked like. Already a little actress, she definitely gets that dramatic streak from her Daddy.:)

Happy Halloween

We had a great time on Friday night trick or treating with Rowan and Sophia. I managed to get out of work at 3pm so as not to miss a minute of it. :) Isabel was a beautiful, very pink, fairy. She is a huge fan of pink lately, not my influence, I swear! But as long as she still loves to dig in the dirt I can handle all the pink.;) Rowan was a pirate and Sophia was an adorable little bumblebee. We went to my parent's neighbors houses, then up the street a ways where the houses are thick and the candy is plentiful. The kids had a great time, even Sophia who managed to be carried most of the time. Isabel caught sight of a huge leaf pile in one yard on our way back and with all of us yelling for her to stop, she ran straight for it and jumped right in the middle. She has really loved playing in leaf piles lately, and I guess she just didn't understand why other people might not want small children jumping in theirs. It was pretty cute seeing this small pink fairy barrel into the pile though. It was a fun time and I'm glad I was able to be there for all of it instead of at work. This is before heading out, they were so excited it was hard to keep them still for a pic. It was a pretty cool night, so Isabel has thick fleece pants and a fleece top on under her costume, she's a rather fluffy fairy. ;)
You can see that Rowan was very proud to be a pirate.
Here they are, all ready to go. :)

They were much more cooperative after trick or treating, they were tired and Isabel and Rowan were happy to sit and eat a lollipop each. Surprisingly Isabel has had no problem observing the "one piece of candy a day" rule and she looks forward to picking out her one piece each day. Call me stingy if you want, but I'm the one here with her and I can't deal with a sugar-crazed child! And she really doesn't seem to mind at all. :)These are our pumpkins that Jason carved for us this year, mommy, daddy, and little girl pumpkins, of course. ;)

Our evening entertainment

I thought I'd share a little sample of what life looks like in our house most evenings. Isabel is a very creative little tyke, and a huge devotee of method acting. ;) Once she chooses a character to portray she stays with it for hours on end. Tonight Jason decided to make her wings out of construction paper and some origami baby birds. She quickly became Mommy Birdie and took good care of her baby birdies in their nest on the floor. I grabbed the camera and took a couple of videos of her. Enjoy!

Birthday girl pics

Everyone managed to get healthy enough to have Isabel's birthday party on Sunday night, yay! We also lucked out with the weather, it was raining that morning, but it cleared up by noon and by the time everyone showed up at 5:30pm it was nice enough to eat out on the deck. Jason grilled up lots of hot dogs and hamburgers and we had some wonderful fresh corn on the cob and plenty of other food. Isabel helped me make the birthday cupcakes that morning and was in agony all day waiting to have one. We had about a dozen people here, including us, not a huge party, but definitely enough people for our rather small place. Isabel had a blast and got lots of great presents. This first pic is from earlier on in the day. A customer upon finding out that Jason had an almost 3 year old gave him this for her: A giraffe costume! We had hidden it in our closet, waiting to give it to her, and she found it that morning. Of course she wanted to put it on immediately. I think she makes a very cute little giraffe, don't you? :)
Almost as soon as Rowan arrived Isabel stole his army hat and became Cowboy Isabel. Her Pooh train became her horse and she rode around saying "yeehaw" for the next hour.
Isabel turned into an excited little whirlwind when it was present time. I think she was a bit overwhelmed by all the loot. She ripped through the bags, tossing clothes and toys in every direction. Here she was mesmerized, for a minute, by a cute new pair of shoes. My kid absolutely loves shoes!
Rowan and Isabel were both quite excited by this Play-Doh ice cream maker. Isabel had a bit of a meltdown later that night when she was told she'd have to wait till the next day to try it out.
Here she is in the midst of the mess she created. In the background is my friend Shelah, and on the floor are Rowan, Sophia, and of course Jason. :) When Shelah showed up and I hugged her Isabel yelled at me, telling me "Mommy, I told you Shelah is my friend now, not yours!" :)
Blowing out the candles on her pink cupcake, she requested the pink frosting.
I think this was her favorite present of all, a Cinderella dress from Auntie Sarah. She even wanted to wear it to bed and she insisted that I call her Cinderella for the rest of the evening.Rowan plopped himself down on the couch next to our friend Josh and said to him, "Give her to me", asking to hold baby Aliyah. He did a pretty good job, and all the kids decided to cuddle up together, although never looking at the camera at the same time, of course.
Isabel and Rowan were both big fans of the pretty baby girl and she was a pretty good sport about it too. :)
The next day Isabel got all decked out in her new apron and chef's hat and made her daddy and I some wonderful ice cream cones with her new
Play-Doh set. She has played with it every day since. She also got lots of new clothes, which we requested as she didn't have much for Fall, and some new books. Have I mentioned before how much Isabel loves books? I'm so happy that she takes after me in that area. She usually has about 10-15 books in bed with her and she lies there and "reads" them to herself and her animal friends before and after naptime and bedtime. She usually remembers most of the story after only one reading of it by Jason or I. I love to turn on the monitor and listen to her "reading" stories alone in her bed, so cute!!
I still can't believe my baby is a big (okay not so big, she's still a tiny tyke) 3 year old. Now I just have to find time for all those thank you notes!

Isabel is 3!

My baby is a big 3 year old as of yesterday! We had plans to celebrate with a bbq/party tonight, but then Isabel caught a really miserable cold, so we're pushing it off until tomorrow night instead. I ended up having to call in to work yesterday and spend Isabel's birthday at home watching movies with her and trying to keep her as comfy as possible. She is just like her Daddy when she gets sick, extremely dramatic. ;) We gave her two of her presents yesterday, and have a couple more small things to give her at her party. One thing we got was a drawing "desk", sort of a lapdesk with a space for holding her paper and markers. She really loves drawing pictures and has drawn us about 20 since we gave it to her yesterday. The rest of her day was spent watching movies, as she really had no energy at all. We bought The Little Mermaid for her, one of my all-time favorites. She seemed to like that one a lot and of course we had to watch her favorite movie, Cars, for the millionth time. She knows all the lines now and sometimes recites them along with the movie. Luckily I like it too and don't get too sick of watching it, I guess I should appreciate that my kid has good taste. ;)
I will post some pics of her party once we have it and some more recent pics soon. I just can't believe that my baby is 3 now.

Happy Birthday Sophia!

My adorable little neice, Sophia, turned 1 this past saturday! Happy Birthday little girl!Sophia, one year ago And here she is at her birthday party, opening up her new farm from Gramma and Grampa.
Birthday cake
It took her a little while to figure out what to do with the cake, then she got the hang of it and definitely enjoyed it.
Quite the cute little mess.
My sis and a super cute, cake-covered Sophia.

Harvest

I had to share a couple of pics of the harvest from my vegetable garden. Isabel and I spent about an hour out there this morning picking tons of tomatoes, yellow squash, and zucchini. My tomato plants are bigger than I've ever seen and are taking over my garden. It's a bit of a jungle as it's been raining most days since we got back from Maine and I haven't had much chance to weed or pick anything. Today is an absolutely gorgeous and sunny day, so finally we had a chance to attack the garden. Isabel was a great help, without her I'd still be out there picking tomatoes. :) She loves to eat them too, cherry tomatoes by the bowl full is one of her favorite snacks. I have cherry and roma tomatoes, green onions, carrots, beets, lettuce, broccoli, mint, sage, basil, thyme, chives, oregano, and eventually I will have pumpkins and maybe some sunflowers. I was a little ambitious this year, but now we're reaping the benefits and they are yummy!! Today's harvest, anyone need some cherry tomatoes?
A very proud, and a little over-heated, Isabel with all the veggies.

Even more vacation pics

So I got ahold of my dad's two cameras and downloaded some more pics and I just had to share them. :) The second night that we were there the menfolk went out to buy some seafood for dinner and came back with 7 lobsters, 3 pounds of steamers, and some awesome asiago bread. Add some yummy roasted potatoes and a veggie and it was a feast! There were nine of us there, 6 adults and 3 kids, so that worked out to one lobster apiece for the adults, one for Isabel and Rowan, and a pound of steamers per family group. Sophia was still considered too little for shellfish, lucky for the rest of us! ;) Isabel and Rowan wanted to see the lobsters before we cooked them, but that turned Isabel off wanting to eat any, she thought the were rather scary. So that just meant more lobster for the rest of us. She did love the steamers though and ate plenty of those. Here's all of us digging in to our feast!
Closer up view of Uncle Mark breaking open his lobster. Yumm!
Three little cutie-pies, all lined up by height on the train.

This next picture needs a little explanation. In my previous post I included a cute pic of Rowan and Sophia posed on the train steps. What I didn't share then was that Rowan neglected to hold onto his sister and the result was this:
It's a blurry action shot, but it ends up looking like Rowan is shoving his little sister off of the train with a big smile on his face. She caught herself and was just fine, she's a tough little girl. Any ideas for a great caption? Sophia fell asleep in the pack on the hike down the mountain. Doesn't that just look so uncomfortable? I love how little kids can just fall asleep anywhere.
Here's the posed group shot of us all at the summit.
On Friday we went on a treasure hunt. My parents learned of a mineral collecting site where you could dig for smoky quartz crystals. It was a quick 1 mile hike to the site, although the mosquitoes attacking me made it seem a little longer. Isabel loves digging in the dirt, and what kid doesn't love the idea of looking for treasure, so it was a big hit with her. We found some cool crystals and lots of pretty sparkly rocks, so it was a pretty good time. Isabel did get super tired and I had to carry her on my shoulders most of the way out, thank God she's so little! (Jason had to carry her most of the way in, so it was my turn on the return trip)
Just another pic of Isabel and I digging for treasure.
It was a really great trip, I hope you all enjoyed all the pics, I got a bit camera-happy on this trip. ;)