Hello!!

So this is totally or third baby – we have only taken one picture of me so far (and it’s not a great one!). 😉 I think by this point, I’d been taking weekly (if not daily) pictures of me with Nathan for about a month. Poor sweet third baby. Considering how easy it is to take pictures of babies who sit still, I don’t think this will be the case after he/she’s born, but we will have to change things during their time in the womb!!

On to the details! 🙂

Baby is doing great! I just had a doctor appointment this morning and baby sounded great when she finally found the heartbeat. For the first five minutes or so, all we could hear was the baby kicking around in there. She made a comment about how active he/she was and it didn’t give me much hope that maybe our third child would be more calm than the first two. 😉 ha! Heartbeat has been in the 140s to 160s.

We find out August 19th if it’s a boy or girl! I’m so excited but I’m about 99.98% sure this is Boy #3 we are about to be looking at here. 😉 I’ll be so happy either way! I’m ready to start calling him or her by him or her! 😉

As far as names go, we don’t really have much!! With both boys, we had ideas by this point but I’m at a complete loss this time around. We have the girl names we liked with both boys still and I have a few other boy names that we like, but nothing definite yet (suggestions anyone??). 😉

All in all, this has been a wonderful pregnancy so far! I haven’t been sick hardly at all and other than just being more tired than usual, I’ve been feeling really good. I’ve had a lot of headaches, but I think I’ve finally figured out how to manage them for the most part (a big glass of sweet iced tea seems to help prevent them!) and as long as I’m eating and drinking a lot, I’m feeling great. Hoping to be more consistent with the working out this week!

Thank you guys again for your prayers – we are so grateful! Continuing to pray for you all!!

Lots of love,

The days are FLYING, I swear. I wake up, barely have time to blink and suddenly it’s time to put the kids to bed that night. It’s a crazy season of life and the blog is obviously suffering for it, but I’m hoping to get back in a good routine here soon.

In the meantime, here’s what we’ve been up to! 🙂

On July 7th, my precious little nephew Gabriel Douglas was born!! He was and is absolutely perfect and we are so thankful for his little presence!! He’s just the tiniest little thing – I swear neither of my boys was ever this little. 😉 And Gabriel makes Parker look HUGE! 🙁

Hanging out in the hospital with his auntie and uncle. 🙂

Bryant and Nicole are doing fantastic with him and it is SO fun to watch them becoming parents! They are so sweet. Gabriel is a very blessed little man.

And I mean, seriously…he’s just so cute!!! Love him!!

Two days before Nathan’s birthday, we had a little family birthday party for him at Gammy and Pops’ house. It was, of course, superhero themed. 😉

I just love this kid!!

Everyone in their superhero shirts. 😉

We had a weekend of birthday fun! The day before his birthday, we took him to Chuck E. Cheese because it’s apparently now a birthday tradition. 😉 As is Texas Roadhouse, so we went there after naps.

Love this picture!! Someone VERY much enjoys getting to sit on the saddle and then be yelled at by the whole restaurant before getting his birthday ice cream. 😉

Sweetness. 🙂

Happy birthday Nathan!! 🙂

Playing with his new birthday presents. They were quite the hit. 😉

He’s just never happy. Not sure what to do about that. 😉

He is EXACTLY five years old in this picture!! Nathan was born at 12:34pm. 🙂 My little lunch time baby.

Nathan started his week of VBS the night of his birthday, so we had an early dinner and dessert. He requested Oreo Smush. My boy, right there!

Cow Appreciation Day always falls around his birthday and this year, it was the day after. Always so much fun!! Since VBS took up all our nights, we headed to CFA for lunch and met Joel and Julia and Miss Jamie there. 🙂

Sweet little baby cow!!!

These two were a mess by this point. And they both got little baby cows, now known as “Cowie” and “Moo”. 😉

Oh this day!! This day was so so precious. Nathan and Parker got to meet baby Gabriel! Nathan was the first one in the house, scrubbed his hands and plopped down on the couch – he was SO excited!!

Such a proud big cousin!! He was so sweet and gentle!

Parker wasn’t quite sure what this little thing was at first. 😉

Gabriel started making some noise and Parker was like, “Hey! It talks!”

Parker decided he was pretty neat after all. 😉 I LOVE this!! Their sweet faces just melt my heart! Love Parker’s smile and Nathan’s protectiveness.

July is birthday season for the Lunch Bunchers – we celebrated Joel’s birthday last Saturday with a Star Wars bash that Nathan adored!

And then the next day, we went to a Frozen birthday party for sweet miss Gracie!! Oh how we love all these precious faces!!

The week after VBS is always a little bit of a down week just so we can all recover and so this week was when Parker decided to finally cut that fourth tooth. That final tooth has been causing so many problems! Poor sweet baby has a terrible, terrible diaper rash, he’s been drooling so much he’s soaking all of his shirts and he’s just miserable. We’ve been living on baby ibuprofen and lavender oil. I saw part of the tooth finally poking out in there yesterday. We are praying we are on the tail end of it!!

Tomorrow, I’ll update on Baby #3!!

My precious boy,

Today, you are five.

FIVE.

Five years of so much love, so much happiness, so much exhaustion, so much JOY. I honestly cannot imagine my life without you and it’s sometimes hard for me to remember life before you. You gave me my current identity in life – Mama – and it’s the best thing ever.

This year was such a fun year for you!! We started the year with this little boy and we packed to the brim with activities so that time flew by so fast that I’m still catching my breath. 😉

You played soccer and baseball and LOVED them (though Dad and I both agreed that we were never again doubling up on sports in the same year)! It was so fun to watch you grow and change as you learned the game.

If possible, you have become even more social than you’ve ever been. You love to talk, you love to tell jokes and you love to be surrounded by people. You are my little social butterfly. I love when we are going someplace new and you get so excited about all the new friends you might meet. God has totally given you the gift of friendliness and I can’t wait to see what He will do with it!

You are still totally set on the idea of being a firefighter when you grow up and I’m still doing my best to convince you that a nice, safe desk job is the way to go. 😉 You adore firefighters and policemen and it makes your whole week when one stops to wave or say hello.

You adore your brother. You guys are the bestest of friends and I just love to watch you two together!! You guys fight and bicker but when I try to separate you two, you both complain until you can play together again. It’s the most frustrating thing. Ha! I just love the bond you two have!!

I love your enthusiasm! You get excited about anything and everything and nothing is too small to be totally pumped over. You are infectious, my sweet boy. You make me laugh so hard! You say the cutest things and you are so curious – I love hearing your thought processes!

You are just my most favorite five year old in this entire world and I cannot put into words how much I love you and how precious you are to me and Dad!!

We need to figure out how to get time to start slowing down.

I love you so much, my sweet Nathan!! Happy birthday!!

Love,
Mama 🙂

Thank you all so much for your sweet comments on my last post!! We are so excited, overwhelmed, nervous and more excited. 😉 Cannot wait to see what this new little love is!! We find out the gender on August 19th. 🙂

We started this month with a bang – Parker has been cutting FOUR back teeth for the last few weeks and they finally started popping through the gums this last week. Oh my goodness – the diapers, the tummy issues, the sadness. We have had a rough time! He woke up really yucky on July 4th so we spent the day in our jammies. Nathan was kind of blegh feeling too so we did all of our firework celebrations early and got both kids in bed by 7pm.

Sweet baby. He stayed like this for about .09 seconds, but it was sweet while it lasted. 😉

A little snack always makes a certain someone feel a lot better. 🙂

I love getting pictures of the boys all the time, but especially on holidays. These ones just made me smile! 🙂

They are bestest buds. Just adore them!! 🙂

And just to make me sad…

This is from July 4th last year. They have gotten so big so fast!!

Parker did NOT like the sparklers I got. At all! This was about how close he could stand to be to one without freaking out. Ha! Maybe next year. 😉

Love this boy!!

Since there was the chance of having a new baby cousin born any time the first half of this month, we squeezed a few things around and decided to celebrate Nathan’s friend party on July 5th. At the last minute, he decided he wanted a Lego swim party to we did our best to accommodate. 😉

Happy almost birthday!! I cannot believe my baby is almost FIVE!! Where does the time go??

Some of the kids chowing down – we served all of Nathan’s favorite foods. Hot dogs, corn on the cob, baked beans, macaroni and cheese and watermelon. 😉

The kids got to swim for a bit and then it started raining right as everyone was getting out (such a bummer!), but at least it held off until after the swimming!! Our friends spoiled him rotten with their gifts – so thankful for such dear, sweet friends!

Our birthday boy and his Lego donuts. I asked him if he was sure that he didn’t want a cake for his party and he said, “Mom!! It’s a birthday party, we have to have donuts!” Ha! Donuts it is. 🙂

Five days until he turns five! Time is going by way too fast. 🙁

YES. We are expecting our third little love this coming January….and we could not be more shocked or excited!! 🙂

Most of you know the story of Parker, but to sum it up, we tried for two and a half years, including about five months of fertility treatments, and still didn’t get pregnant until we miraculously did two days before Nathan’s third birthday. So, I was pretty much convinced that Parker was my last pregnancy.

We had started talking adoption before Parker was conceived and continued talking about it off and on for the next few years and finally, in April, we were praying about it and decided it was the time to start. We have such a HUGE heart for adoption!! We sent in our pre-approval application and found out that we qualified for the waiting child program in China.

And the very next day, I woke up and just knew. So I took a test and this showed up:

Needless to say, we were both completely, overwhelmingly shocked!! As were our close friends and family, since they all knew we were hoping to start the adoption process this summer. What a way for God to change our plans. 😉

So, Parker and this little one will be 21.5 months apart. It’s going to be a little more nuts around here than it already is. And we can’t wait!

Things have been SO different this time around – I have barely been sick at all and I was fairly sick with Nathan and REALLY sick with Parker, so I am so thankful this time! I have been pretty hungry and super tired but part of me wonders how much of the tiredness is from just chasing two VERY busy boys around all the time. Anytime I sit down, the odds are really good that I will be asleep before I even realize I’ve laid down. 😉

We had a scare during our first ultrasound – we weren’t able see the baby (completely and horribly terrifying!). But then four days later, our little one popped up immediately on the screen with a fantastic heartbeat and measuring exactly seven weeks and one day. Such relief!! We are so thankful to our Jesus!!

We had another ultrasound a week and a half later just to double check again and our little bean was just happy as can be in there, still growing great and the heartbeat was again perfect. Such a blessing!

And today, we saw our sweet little love once more…growing right on schedule. So thankful!

I am almost 13 weeks and it is already flying past. I remember the first trimester seeming like ten years with Nathan and especially with Parker but this time around, the days have just disappeared.
I know I will blink and they will be handing this precious baby to me – what a wonderful day that will be!! 🙂 Nathan is campaigning hard for a little sister but I’m pretty convinced we are about to be looking at Baby Boy #3. 😉

We are so excited and so in love with this precious little one already! Will you please join us in praying for him or her? 🙂 Thank you all so much from the bottom of our hearts for your prayers for my sweet family over the years!

To my precious friends who are waiting for their miracle – be it in the form of a child or a husband – please know that I am and will continue to be praying for you. Jesus knows. Love and more love to you.