19.5 Weeks

While we were dressed up for our "date" last night, I had Jake take a picture of my ever expanding belly. It seems a little surreal that Monday I will already be at week 20 - half way there!

Speaking of last night... Jake had a IES (lighting engineers) monthly meeting at our newly opened Crystal Bridges Musuem of American Art. It was for couples only (no kids) and they served supper (no cooking or dishes!) so I told Jake I was in. :) Even though our tour was given by the Facilities Manager and Site Engineer instead of traditional tour guides, we still got to tour the galleries. While all of the guys were looking up at lighting, I enjoyed looking at the beauitful art... truly a treasure to have here in NWA. Thanks to 2 generous donors that gave a combined $30 million, admission is free and plans to always be, and they also want to make sure every child in the area goes to the musuem regularly by providing transportation, substitue teachers etc... to encourage local schools and daycares to bring kids often. Something I found funny, was that at the end of the tour our "guides" asked if we wanted to see the mechanical room. I thought it was a joke and almost laughed out loud. They were serious, and this group of guys excitedly said "yes!" So literally we went down to the mechanical room to see the cooling/heating units and all kinds of things that I can't begin to explain, name or describe. A couple of them commented that "this was their kind of artwork." I guess I should have expected to get a tour of "how" the musuem was built, not "what" was in it! Either way, it was a fun break from unpacking and kids.

Park!

There is a park in our neighborhood just a few houses away from our new home, and the kids love going there in the evenings.

Apparently there's something really fun about swinging and letting gravity weigh down on your head. Also, if you look close you can see his teeth - working on tooth #16 right now. It's so nice not having to cut up his food anymore! 

Look at his long legs! At the doctor this week, Isaiah weighed 22 lbs, 10 oz. (He was 23 lbs. 4 oz six months ago!) Granted, he's been sick, but he's also definitely getting long and lean.. including his feet! He's now in size 7 shoe, but some 6 still fit him.

We've moved!

This post with pictures is long overdue, I know! After about 5 requests, I figured I might as well take the time to take pictures, regardless of how unsettled we are! We moved 1 week ago today and after a few bumps in the road (Isaiah getting really sick for 3-4 days, unexpectedly having new carpet put in) we are now starting to unpack and find a place for everything. Not that that's terribly hard since we have almost twice the space as our old house! I think it's safe to say that we all love our new home. After we bought this house, Jake and I joked about how your priorities change when you have a family. While we looked at many newer, nicer and larger homes, this is the one that felt like home, over and over... despite it needing some TLC in areas. We loved the layout. We love that it has 4 bedrooms and an office. I love that the kitchen is 3x larger than our old one. I love having a large laundry room and a pantry as well. We love that all of the bedrooms are plenty big to share.. in fact Emelyn's has 2 closets that she is ready to share with Isaiah any day now. (They've been wanting to share a room for a long time!) And while the yard may not seem big to our families living in rural areas, this "older" home has a much larger yard than any of the newer homes we looked at... something that we are very grateful for with little kids! In fact, one of our first purchases was a wooden swing set that has a little tree house in it... (it won't be put up for a while though since it says it takes 2 grown men 12-16 hrs to put together!)

The outside (I've weeded the right side of the sidewalk... hope to tackle the left/larger side this weekend!)

Kitchen: 

I now 1) have a place for my hutch and 2) can use it for serving dishes and not to store our dishes! The kitchen is plenty large for all of our dishes and I still have drawers and cabinets with nothing in them.... and those that do have literally 1-2 things in each.  

Dining room... sort of hard to see due to the time of day I took this. With all of the tress in our yard, we enjoy watching doves, robins and redbirds each morning while we eat breakfast AND there are two ornery squirrels that chase each other right outside the window that is quite entertaining!

Right side of back yard... this first tree is where the squirrels do flips: 

The middle: One neat thing we just discovered is that the raised "flower/tree bed" towards the back of the house has power outlets in it. 

Left side. The yard continues around the house and has a shed and mulberry tree back there. 

Master bedroom.

Pretty much every room in the house is a color we aren't crazy about, so painting will be in the near future. Once we do that we'll hang our tv/wall art/pictures. Until then, we get to enjoy all kinds of bright colors! 

Living room: 

Emelyn in her room: 

Her two closets... she's already claimed the right one and has been putting Isaiah's toys in the left one for him and told me I could "just put his clothes in the top, please."

One thing I didn't take a picture of is our bathroom. Nothing terribly exciting of course, but Emelyn thinks it's quite "cool." 1) She thinks we have a swimming pool (a large corner whirlpool tub - exciting to her, to me it's just more to clean!) and 2) she thinks it has a secret shower. The walk-in shower is in the corner, and the door to it is one large mirror. The first time she walked it our bathroom and was trying to find me in the shower she kept calling for me, and I'd answer and she couldn't figure out where I was. Quite hilarious to watch!

I think it's safe to say Isaiah's favorite part of the house is the yard. He stands at the window begging to go outside most of the day. And when I can't take it anymore, I put him on the patio and he sits there watching everything for hours while I watch him from inside.

I think that's about it! In other news, I'm almost 20 weeks and have an appointment tomorrow. We scheduled an ultrasound for May 17th and haven't decided if we want to know the gender, but it will be fun to see our little one again!

8:15pm

It's 8:15pm. Emelyn is hoarse from talking so much today. I have a headache from listening to her talk so much today. We're both exhausted and ready for bed. But it was a REALLY. FUN. DAY.

17 Weeks...

17 weeks:

And the other reason I'm exhausted at the end of each day?

My little monkey is constantly on the move - sometimes walking around literally on his hands and feet:

Many times flashing this melting smile because he just got into something: 

Or made a mess:

That and we're moving in 10 days... packing, organizing etc.. takes up any spare time this momma can find!

Easter 2012

I forgot to take pictures of the kiddos on Easter until 4pm after they woke from their naps. Isaiah wasn't quite awake yet. Oh well! Hope everyone had a beautiful Easter!

Easter is almost here!

Sealing the "tomb" after we put the resurrection cookies in the oven.

(We beat almonds to remember Christ was beaten, tasted and added vinegar to remember that's what Christ was given to drink, then added and tasted a little salt to remember the salty tears cried by His followers. Then we added egg whites to represent new life, sugar to remember that the story doesn't end bitter, then mixed until the mixture turned as white as snow and added the beaten nuts to make little rocks.)

Some rice krispies to eat tomorrow: 

John 16: 20-22 "Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy."

Picture Update

I downloaded pictures off of my camera today so below is a random assortment from our past week:

At an Easter Party with some friends:

While Isaiah didn't hunt any eggs, he enjoyed the yummy Easter foods and outside picnic! 

Emelyn had just as much fun playing with her friends as she did hunting eggs: 

Emelyn has been asking me for weeks if we could make juice. So last week we bought a bunch of oranges and juiced them to make orange juice one morning for breakfast. She added a couple of strawberries to hers to make a very yummy combo: 

No exaggerating... these two entertained themselves with this empty clothes basket for over an hour straight this week:

What you don't see and hear are the big teardrops and screaming in this picture.... this is a typical scene these days... Isaiah begging to be outside by sitting by the door and pointing at the door while waiving and saying bye bye. 

God's Not Dead!

During the past few weeks, this song has become one of our favorites. It started with Jake coming home from work one day saying he couldn't get this song out of his head, especially the part where they whisper "My God's Not Dead He's Surely Alive." Since then, we have found ourselves more than once jamming out, whispering God's not dead he's surely alive, followed by yelling "HE'S LIVING ON THE INSIDE ROARING LIKE A LION!" (And I'm sure you can only assume how "roaring like a lion" turns out.) Such a fun yet silly memory I don't want to forget! Here's the song if you haven't heard it:

http://youtu.be/ghC3gqNQJPQ

PS If you ask Emelyn what Easter's about, she just might whisper "God's not dead, He's surely alive"