Photos and Life

It's been a while, as usual.  So much has gone on, yet so little time to actually type things out.  I wish I could find a way to blog from the tablet, it would make blog life much easier.

Expect MAJOR DIY renovation updates within the next few months.  I am converting a garage into a bedroom, painting my kitchen cabinets white, along with a list of other things that I can't wait to reveal. This should be good.  I finally took more photos of my children, so I'll share those.  Danny is now 10 months old, he's still in his DOC BAND, and I am loving the results!

Only two more weeks left and then it's a thing of the past.  He has 3 teeth, crawls and drools on everything. MiMi broke her wrist skating with a friend, and Ethan, well, he's a typical little almost 8 year old boy. He loves gaming and getting dirty.

(12 in March)

 (8 in April)

Baby's First Easter...10 months at time of photo.

Broken Wrist

Danny visited Kure Beach for all of 10 minutes.

I some how still find time to put on makeup when I leave the house.

My little Doc Band baby

Ethan continually gets A honor roll, and acts shy for a photo op

But, he still likes transformers..

 Danny tries to get into everything.

Danny's first snow was at a Cranial Technologies 

appointment - Stephen held him so I could snap a photo.

Stephen and I have yet to kill each other.

The kids stay busy, and I stay sane.  With Stephen's firefight schedule, most nights I am alone while he works.  The truth is, it's a good day if I actually put on my makeup or take my hair out of a bun. I'm sure the days I get done up, Stephen appreciates it, because the rest of the time I'm rocking the "tired mama bags under the eyes".  We went ahead and bought this shed, and we are waiting on the company to contact us to build it on site.

They told us it could take up to 3 weeks. Once that's done, we can move all the garage contents into it and begin on the garage room conversion and I can share with you all a cheap way to do it on a budget. Wish us luck!

My BIG Move and BIGGER News..

I haven't had access to a computer in a while, and I didn't feel I had the patience to update from my phone. (You know, the whole fat fingers typo syndrome - and let's face it, I'm not the best writer to begin with). :)

July 28th was my last day at my former job, and as soon as I got off work, we loaded the U Haul to move closer to Wilmington.  It's been a wonderful transition. Of course, I miss my old house and my old city that I lived in for close to 20 year, but this new move was inevitable, and I love it.

The kids enjoy school much more here. It seems the teachers put a lot more effort into the children and enjoy (or pretend to) enjoy their jobs. THANK YOU for that!

But onto our big news! I can literally say this was a move in conception baby! uhm, happy new house/baby?! haha.  I literally knew 6 days after I moved in, but knew that if I took a test it would be negative at that point - and it was.

August 13th, I took a test and SURPRISE!  The baby we both wanted was in the making.  We both decided that with our past we would wait to annuonce to anyone until the first trimester...

 

I had my first ultrasound in September at 10 weeks:

 

At that point I felt it was okay to let a few people know.  A few days later I started bleeding. BAD. I was sure I was miscarrying. Only, I wasn't, at the ER they found a subchorionic hematoma. It was small though, and within a few days the bleeding subsided and by my 14 week appointment, the hematoma had resolved.

Speaking of 14 week appointment, here are a couple of photos from that:

 

 

My NT scan number wasn't so great (3.5) but the tech said the baby wouldn't move into a good position to get a good reading. We did the basic blood test and that came back with less than 1 in 1000 chance for down syndrome and trisomy 18, so I haven't much worried. - After all - every child is a blessing, right?

 

That week I took a few photos of the kids to announce the fact butter bean was on the way:

 

So, there ya have it - another April baby - and due on it's daddies birthday at that! (April 19th). Of course, those of us who have had multiple c sections know the drill - the baby will be scheduled a week earlier (which should put us at the 12th). And the nerd in me can't help but smile. I have 3 kids whose birthdays will be the 10th, 11th and 12th. I don't know why that fascinates me so much, but it does. TRULY.

I haven't been in a mega need to know the gender, but my anatomy scan is the 1st of December, and God willing we'll know then.  It hasn't been a hard pregnancy. No morning sickness (I take that back, just a few times).  And this pregnancy has made me develop a new found allergy to my eyeshadow (so my eyes puff up and itch and get gross). So I'll be skipping it until it goes back to normal.

Besides all the lovely bun in the oven news....

Here are a few pictures from the kids' first day of school (5th and 1st grade):

I've also made over the kids bathroom:

 

 

 

I'll add more eventually, I've had my hands a slight bit full here recently. Hopefully everyone in blog land has been well. God Bless.