Belated Father's Day Pictures

This is a very late posting, but I wanted to share our Father's Day weekend with you.  We were very blessed to have H1's dad (called Dad or Pop-pop) with us for that weekend.  He got in on Thursday, and we spent Friday at Busch Gardens.  Martin, Dad's exchange student from Sweden, wanted to go and check out the roller coasters.  It's a tradition for us to take the exchange students to BG at least one time before they go home. Pop-pop even rode some of the rides with H3!

The cast from one of the shows

Pop-pop with H3 and H1

I had to run a few errands on Saturday, so we stopped to have pizza and hot dogs at Sam's Club while we were out.

I wish I had thought to take pictures of our early Father's Day dinner. I treated H1 and Pop-pop (a.k.a. Dad) to dinner at Logan's, a favorite restaurant of H1 and we rarely get the opportunity to go. We had a nice time and the food was delicious!

Sunday morning, H3 wanted to get dressed up to celebrate "Daddy's Day".

The hair

On Father's Day, H1 had asked our pastor to play a special song at church, called "Lead Me".  I didn't know he was playing it and had never heard it, but listening to him share his heart and then sing had both his dad and I in tears.  If you haven't heard the song, you should listen.  Lead Me   After the service, our church celebrated Father's Day with a pig pickin'.  We stayed and enjoyed hanging out with our church family.  I think this was Dad's first pig pickin', or at least his first Southern style one.  He had a great time!  Again, no pictures.  I had my camera and forgot to pull it out!

Monday morning we said goodbye for now.  He's planning to come back and visit again after H4 is born. I am blessed with wonderful in-laws, and love seeing them every chance I get!

~H2

More Summertime Fun

Sunshine and summertime fun!

Another warm day equals another morning outside, making use of the sprinkler H1 bought on clearance. I brought out H3's old pool since H1 is planning to mow the lawn tonight and I didn't want to use a lot of water to fill up the bigger one.  She still had lots of fun, playing outside for an hour and a half.  It started getting a little toasty, so we came inside for a bit and will probably go out for another hour or so after lunch.

H3 has requested grilled cheese, which I'm getting ready to make for her. I'm still trying to decide if I'm hungry!  We had zucchini around the house and I made a couple loaves of bread with it this morning.  Of course, I have to taste whatever I make.....yeah, enough said about that.  The bread turned out quite yummy.   I just may not be hungry for lunch!

~H2

Look What We Found - End of School Year

As I've mentioned before, H1 is a public school teacher and specifically, a PE and Health teacher.  He's been teaching for 6 years now, and at the end of each school year, he's sometimes brought some kind of goodie home.  It's amazing what kids leave at the school and these things can go unclaimed for several years. I'm talking almost brand new shoes, clothing, i-pods (yes, a few years back, H1 had several of these go unclaimed for more than a year. If he can figure out who the owner is, he returns them, but a couple had no identification).  Usually, the school will send all the clothing stuff to Goodwill or a place similar.  This year, H1 saved out a jacket for H3 before the school sent off the box.  It's a black North Face polar fleece jacket in beautiful condition.  It looks hardly used.  It won't fit H3 for a year or two, but I don't mind waiting!

A lesson to all parents who send their children to school:  remind your kids to keep track of their valuables! They will often get donated at the end of the school year since schools aren't inclined to keep lost and found items for years on end!

~H2

Amusing Little Preggo Story

Just a quick post, since it's really early in the morning and I should be sleeping.  :)

Last week, my friend Robyn offered to have H3 over for a few days since I've been really tired and also trying to finish up some projects around the house.  H3 is very high energy and she's been a bit bored lately.  Our schedule has had us going out on weekends, but staying home during the week (no errands or anything to break up the day).  On Monday, I met Robyn in Williamsburg to drop off H3.  We met at a little ice cream shop, along with two of Robyn's daughters and another little girl.  Robyn's youngest, Julie, hadn't seen me in a while, or at least not since my belly really popped. She's 5. She stared at me for a while, and then said "Your tummy's really big."  I smiled and patted her hStiead because her mom and I were talking and I wasn't too focused on her at the moment.

I didn't think much more of it until I went to go pick H3 up on Wednesday afternoon. While we were standing in the kitchen, Julie came over and looked at my belly again, and then she said "Here let me help you," and started trying to push my tummy back in!  Robyn and I cracked up as I told her that she couldn't push my tummy back in because there is a baby in there.  Julie cocked her head and asked if she could push on my tummy to make the baby come out!  Robyn and I really lost it right then!  Poor Julie.  That will be one to tell her a few years from now.  :)  If only delivering a baby was that simple, right?

~H2

Quick Pregnancy Update

I went in for my 36 week check up on the 13th. Everything looks good with our baby girl and she is in the correct position (head down) so we're hoping that she stays that way. The GBS test was negative, so I will not need antibiotics during labor. This is a praise, since the test was positive when I was pregnant with Shannan and there was some trouble with the i.v. during my labor then. That's one less thing to worry about!

The check-ups will be weekly from here on out, and have been scheduled for June 19th, June 29th, and July 6th. The official due date is July 7th, but the baby could technically arrive at any time between now and as late as July 21st (though we really hope the latter is not the case). We are mostly in the waiting stage now, with everything pretty much ready!

There's really not much else to report, so I guess that's it!  Oh, and for the record, I finally found a decent watermelon.  I paid a bit more than I wanted to, but the craving was intense and I was so happy to get a big watermelon that it had to come home with me!

~H2

Lots of Pictures!

We've been very busy this month!  Today was H1's last day at the school for the summer!!!! We're very excited about that.  He will probably be working for the Parks and Rec Department over the summer, but that doesn't begin until June 25th, so we get to have him home for a little while.  Hurray!  I have a feeling that he has a lot of projects that he wants to get done, but I can't complain.  The house is looking wonderful, inside and out, thanks to his efforts.  

This month has been dotted with multiple trips to Busch Gardens, so a lot of our pictures are from there.  Last Sunday included a Chris Tomlin concert, which we thoroughly enjoyed.  H3 knows a lot of his songs, and she was singing at the top of her little lungs--so very cute.  What I enjoyed the most about that concert was that it was treated like a praise time, not as much like a regular concert.  There is just something amazingly cool about watching more than a thousand people singing praises to our King, recognizing that these are my family in Christ.

I have lots of pictures, so here's the first half of June!

I had fun one morning with H3's hair.

H1 and H3 are in the front of the car

H1 and H3

Airplane!

When it's in the mid 90s, the water sure feels good

It's kinda hard to tell from the picture, but there're fountains and pools of water everywhere she's playing.

With Auntie Amber (one of my college roommates)

We saw a little fairy tale show, and H3 got a couple pictures taken with the cast. It was really well done, with lots of gymnastics, dancing, and singing involved, all things H3 loves.

Roller coaster ride with Auntie Amber

During a bad storm, the roof and ceiling caved in on our church's nursery and one of the classrooms. We are in a rented building, and the owners are not going to fix it because they are trying to sell the property and I'm pretty sure the building is condemned anyways.  A group of men and women from our church spent an evening tearing out the nasty carpeting and relocating the nursery and children's classrooms.  H3 made the best of things with a tea party!

A current favorite activity is painting!  I've just been getting the cheap water color paints from the dollar store or Walmart, at least until she decides she's a bit more serious about it. I have a very nice set of water colors from when I used to paint, and when I replace them, I'll let H3 experiment with my old set.  Until then, she's perfectly content.

 She loves painting her hand....

And making hand prints!  She calls them "tiny hands" after one of her favorite songs from the Baby Signing Time series.

Yet a different BG trip.  This was H3's first time on the tea cup ride, and did she ever have a great time!  This was the night of the concert, last Sunday.

I think that covers most of my recent pictures.  I know I have a few more that I haven't pulled off my camera yet, so you'll just have to wait for those.

This weekend is Father's Day, and we are blessed to have my father-in-law here with us, along with his Swedish exchange student (Martin).  Our plans for the weekend are still pretty fluid, but Sunday will definitely involved a little American culture for Martin.  On many holidays our church will have a food-related event after the service. For Father's Day, we're having a pig pickin'.  Yes, that's how you spell it correctly.  We're not roasting it over a pit though, as a lot of folks around here do.  We're going to use a huge "grill" for it.  The "grill" used to be our pastor's old oil tank (same kind you would use for a house), and this last year a couple guys from our church converted it to a grill.  Church members sign up to bring side dishes...I'm bringing brownies!  I should have lots of pictures after the weekend, so be on the lookout next week!

~H2

Watermelon

Yes, these are stock photos I got from Google.  Basically, here's how it goes.  If I go to the store to buy a watermelon, this is the size that is offered to me from pretty much any area local grocery store for $5.00 or more.

This is a bit more of the size that I'm looking for.  If a watermelon doesn't weight at least 20lbs, I have a hard time justifying the purchase.  Yes, I eat a lot of watermelon at one time normally, and I have a feeling I'd eat more at the moment.  Have I mentioned that I have a watermelon craving?  It's pretty bad, let me tell you.  I'm looking at the picture of this watermelon and I'm reasonably sure I could eat most of it in one setting right about now.

Fighting the craving until I can find a worthy melon....

~H2