A Whole Lot of Normal

I am still struggling to get back to my regular Blog schedule I had. I loved it. It worked. Hopefully I can get back to it soon. I have a weeks worth of pictures and it seems a lot. I usually download every night but that has not happened. I did it all this morning. Then Photoshop decided not to work and well I had to start over! Oh well it happens.

Last week Eli got his first magazine in the mail. I signed him up for the Lego Club. His magazine came and he was sooo excited!!

That magazine has become a treasured thing.

He got a Mator Lego toy that shoots a dart. The kid loves to play with that and pretend he is shooting the windows or whatever. It is funny to watch and he gets so excited when he hits whatever target he is after.


Speaking of Target! I adore that store. It looks like we are getting a Super Target. I am rather excited about that.



I figured it was coming when I was in there last week looking for some certain paper for some special pictures. More to come on those later. The whole store was being remodeled. Then we got the brochure in the mail. I got some pretty cool wrapping paper though! Eli got to mess it all up when I was done with it. He loved it.


I am realizing as I go through pictures this post is going to be going through all sorts of Random. Finally February 1st I got my calendar for the year! Pure proctrastination and being busy doing other stuff. It came back wonderful! I went for a lot simpler this year and just focused on my pictures.


I still love my Creative Memories program!! I wish I had time to get all the kids scrapbooks done but sadly I am struggling to keep up!

Eli has been having trouble eating dinner. He is so picky and just won't eat. So if he eats now he gets a special treat before bed. He got ice cream the other night. He got to eat it on the floor watching a movie.  Little Sister was all over it! She kept bothering him. Thankfully he was a good big brother and shared one bite with her.


This week has brought some cleaning out of things too. Since we are having a boy to make room I am getting rid of Lilliana's clothes. I just don't have the space to keep everything right now. I feel like I am drowning and as of right now we are done with kids!! Ari will be the last unless God has different plans like he did with Ari. All these clothes will be going to Miss Berkeley. Some of these dresses have gone through all the girl granddaughters on my side since some of them came from my sister.

It is nice we can share clothes like this!!

It has also brought a huge mess. I was doing laundry and went to take the diapers outside when I saw blue all over the laundry room floor. I about died. The laundry soap fell and broke open. It was the biggest container of Tide I could buy and almost every single bit of it spilled out. It was brand new so there went $17.00 worth of soap that probably would have lasted me 6 months. Needless to say cleaning up laundry soap is a challenge. Nevermind the fact I am a clumsy fool these days being pregnant. I slipped only once but it took me a good 2 hours to finally get it all cleaned up between taking care of them and dealing with the mess. The shirt and towel is there to stop the mess from flowing. It also knocked my trash can over so there was trash all soaked with soap. Oh it was just a lovely morning.



Last night Eli and I did something special. We made some Valentine's. I got out my Cricut and Eli got to use it. He thought that was so cool. He had fun and I think we will be doing more Cricut projects in the future.


Lilliana must be ready for crafts too. She got into my craft cupboard the other day and had a blast. She got so angry when I told her she could not do that.


She normally is not into stuff. She is my easy going kid that goes straight for her toys and just plays. It is nice!!


These are the little things I find when they both play together. Silly kids. They line everything up and just play.


The other things they have been playing a lot is rolling the balls back and forth to each other or us. They carry these around all day and just play.

Lilliana especially loves to play the balls. She gets so excited when they come rolling towards her.

She says, "ball" a lot. It is really cute.

She has been saying, "bath" "thank you." The new one today was "Cheese" when I was taking her picture.


The kids were pretty fun today. It was a sad morning for me as I finished the last of the 15 pound bag of grapefruit. I have been living off grapefruit and Greek yogurt. I guess I will need to get more tomorrow.

Kenya thought she needed to share my grapefruit.



Eli is still not in the mood to take pictures. Apparantly he thinks he needs to be the photographer instead. As we speak he has his Cars camera directing Anthony where to sit and what to do so he can take his pictures. I did capture a few of him today.


I caught him reading Lilliana's Bible. He told me he wanted to read the Bible and got hers. Why he didn't get his I don't know. He began to tell the story of Jonah to everybody out loud. It was so cute. I took pictures and he caught me and was not thrilled but oh well. I love that he wants to read the Bible. We read every night before bed but many times throughout the day he reads it on his own.


I went to get the mail today and the sun was beautiful. I also noticed my daffodils and tulips are starting to come up! It was a welcome sign! SPRING IS ON ITS WAY!! There was also a reminder of Winter but its only February so I can't complain.



I decided to take advantage of the sun and go for a walk to the park this afternoon. Sadly I paid no attention to the temperature! It was nice and bright but it was oh so cold. I forgot a hat and my ears hurt. Eli refused to keep gloves on or his coat zipped so I just cut our trip short. Lilliana loved it though. She got to explore in the bark and swing. Eli insisted on eating his snack at the picnic table so he wasted his 10 minutes of play time. It was good to get out though!

She also got to wear shoes I bought last fall. She is not walking so I have not had her use them much but since we needed something with a hard sole she got to wear my $1.50 steal on shoes.



Eli did enjoy the slide but ate mostly. Gotta love the crooked hat he kept putting that way! Silly boy!



All in all it has been a good week!! We have done a lot and I am glad. I can't wait for Spring! Until then I am keeping busy planning the kid's birthdays.

It's a BOY!

We will be welcoming another little boy into our house. I guess I should be prepared for more crazy! Miss Lilliana is going to be spoiled as ever. The ultra sound went great. We really had a hard time seeing as much of this little boy as we did with the other two. We didn't know what to expect when we went in because of my uterus measurements. It was a relief to only find one. Usually our ultra sounds are done 20-22 weeks. This one was done at 18. It really is amazing what does grow in that two week time. So our pictures are not as defined. He was so small. It was obvious! She measured his little feet and they were 2 cm. He actually is measuring a little behind so everything is right on schedule for the due date. We also are mixing up everything this time and telling the name. So Little Ari Joseph will be arriving sometime around July Fourth....Mommy's favorite holiday.

We usually don't tell the name as we can never decided until the week before the kids are born. Usually Anthony does not want to talk about it so it just gets forgotten until we get close. This time I had downloaded a baby naming App to my kindle. He was using it and started going through names. I didn't even think to much about it. He asked me about Ari. I thought about it and loved it. It just fit. As a parent I have found when you just know the name. It really just fit and I knew it. We talked about other names but nothing really fit like this. Yesterday even when we were at the ultra sound it just fit. It is an old name. It is pronounced AHR-ee. It is Hebrew as well as Scandinavian. It means Lion or Eagle from what we have found. Joseph has always been on the list of names so it just fit for middle names.

Eli is excited about it. Although up until yesterday he insisted he only wanted another sister. He loves his sister. When we told him he was ok with it. He has been talking about it since so hopefully he has gotten over the fact he is not getting another sister.

Once again the pictures are not that great but it is what we got so that is ok.


Me at 18.1 Weeks

Finding Balance

Its February!! So much is happening this month! It is the LOVE month. We get to celebrate LOVE more this month than the average as it is our anniversary month also Lilliana was born in Febraury and we will find out the gender of our third baby. It is exciting. We also woke up to wonderful weather today which makes it feel like spring!

I am really struggling to find balance lately. Our schedules have been all messed up with Anthony home then out of town. The kids and I are struggling to get back in the groove. Thankfully it seems to be getting easier. It is getting easier just as pregnancy is kicking me in the butt. I am losing energy fast and struggling to do simple tasks of bending over all day long to pick up toys. It seems early for such things to be occuring....more to come on that later. Suffice to say somethings have had to be sacrificed lately. This has included blogging, picture taking, and general creative outlets. I am not complaining. I am tired so some things just have needed to not be there. The other thing is Eli has been a bit well crazy the past couple weeks. People are not kidding when they say watch out for the age 3! Needless to say he is exhausting. Thankfully he seems to be doing better and yesterday for the most part was has been today so far.

Last friday I had my 17and a 1/2 week appointment. It had been four weeks since my last appointment. My uterus had measured normal the last appointment. I knew my stomach had gotten bigger. I felt huge, but I think being pregnant you always feel that way. My blood pressure was great which was good news. I laid down so my midwife could check my uterus measurement and listen to baby's hearbeat. She is feeling way above my belly button. I asked her if it was my uterus she said yes. An average normal pregnancy the uterus measures at the belly button at 20 weeks the halfway mark. There can be some difference but that is average. I have always been average with both kids. With Eli I was spot on every time. With Lilliana I measured around two weeks ahead but she was 2 weeks early so it made sense. This time I had grown a lot. Not a normal amount. I went from between my pubic bone and belly button to 3 fingers above my belly button measuring around 22-24 weeks instead of the 17/18 weeks that I was. So we discusess some options and decided to schedule an ultra sound as soon as possible instead of a month away. It is more to see what is going on and see if my date is off, maybe more than one, or everything is just normal. We will see. Our ultra sound is scheduled for tomorrow so more to come tomorrow regarding this.  We might get to find out the gender too at this appointment. We will see. I will be updating.

Friday also brought another surprise as my sister and brother in law Holli and Jake welcomed their first little girl into the world. Berkeley Ryann was born in the late afternoon. Thankfully her labor was very unenventful. Berkely was healthy and doing well. She was a couple weeks early but that is all. I talked to my sister last night and she is doing well. I know Berkeley was a huge answer to prayer for them. We are thrilled for them. I unfortunately won't be able to get my hands on this little girl until possibly this Christmas. Until then pictures are just going to have to work. It is one of the downfalls from living across the country from family. Friday was an exciting day for us!

I have taken a lot of pictures but going through them they have been junk to me. They have been of nothing in particular and I think that has been why. I did begin taking pictures of the kids a few days ago. I should say I have been taking pictures of Lilliana. Eli is still in his please don't take pictures of me mood.


The horses and Legos have been the toys of the week. Eli gets so intense when he "rides" his horse.




Miss Lilliana has been beyond happy and expressive. She has many faces lately.


She loves to throw her head back and laugh hysterically.

Notice all those teeth. All her molars have finally popped through. I see an end in site for teeth! Thank goodness.

Her other favorite game is Peek-A-Boo. She uses clothes, blankets, chairs etc to play.

Yes she is doing the splits.



She is just silly. Her and Eli spend a lot of time in his room playing. We were playing blocks yesterday and I put some glasses on her. She surprisingly was ok with it and left them on.


Eli was taking pictures too. Lilliana would look at him when he asked. It was pretty cute.


His last request was for me to take a picture of his fish. If you throw it on things it sticks. He loves it. He really wanted me to take a picture of it. I have no idea why but he did.


Sunday I went and took some engagement photos. I no longer will be posting my business photos on this blog as I have launched a blog for my business. You can find it here. I am also giving away a free photo session this month for local clients. You won't want to miss it so go over and read the details. Enagement photos will also be added from this weekends session within the week.

It has been a busy and exciting week since my last post. A lot has happened and hopefully through it all I am finding balance. Tomorrow will answer a lot of questions and we will get to see our baby for the first time. It will be an exciting day. Stay tune for the details tomorrow! Have a wonderful rest of the week.