Showers and The Lake

a delicious cupcake

My church shower-unfortunately I only thought to get a picture of the food. I had my priorities. I love this shower. Our church collects a cash gift and then we get together, eat, another mom shares some words of encouragement, the prego mom shares some prayer requests, then the women just cover you in prayer. Its the most wonderful thing. I always feel a great sense of relief and peace after these showers.

Our wonderful aunts in T-town threw us a family shower. Madeline liked helping me open gifts, but she was disappointed that they weren't for her.

Our cousin Ashley made this incredible cake! Too bad Lance didn't take a better picture. It was absolutely delicious too. She is so talented and will be making all my cakes in the future.

M sitting in her daddy's chair eating breakfast and watching a show. Just love her expression and hand in this picture.

We were invited to Smith Lake this past weekend with our friends Seth and Mary and their 4 children. Her parents have a great house with a dock with two slides and a boat! This was M's first time on a small boat. She was not a fan, especially since I didn't come with her. Sadly, I didn't even get in the lake. Next time.




2 weeks to go (hoping for less) until Paxton arrives!

Funny Things

Some funny things that have come out of Madeline's mouth lately. We were walking out of Walmart yesterday and there was a car parked next to us with a rather heavy bass blaring. I didn't say anything, but as we approached M says, "Whoa, that is some serious music."

She has been into making things disappear. I asked her the other day where something went to which she responded "A magician never reveals their secrets." Where do they learn these things?

We have to re-enforce that mommy and daddy are in charge. She often repeats that we are in charge as well. M came in the other morning to snuggle and said "Mommy, you're in charge, and I'm unplugged." I think she was associating that you charge a phone and plug it in to do so. One of those funny things that has a double meaning but they still can't quite associate them separately. She also will use bigger words in sentences but they don't quite fit. I can't think of a specific example right now of this.

Madeline asked how I would get the baby out. I told her I would push her out like when you go to the potty (which is the best way I could think to describe the birth process without getting too graphic). M said "oh, I thought they would cut your belly to get her out." I thought this was pretty smart of her to be thinking through how babies would come out. I came into the living room this morning and M showed me her bear who was covered up on the chair. I asked if she was asleep, M said "no, she's having a baby." She then proceeded to use the play hand vacuum on her. I asked what she was doing and she said she was getting the baby out.

4th Fun and McWane

At McWane Science Center



Our friends from T-town came up with their kids. This is Savannah who Madeline kept calling "Hope." Funny thing is that her friend Hope calls M "Kate."

They are having a whole Mr. Potato Head exhibit. M tried to pull his nose off!



reading the comics, though she didnt quite get the jokes yet.

Lance built this desk to go on top of our treadmill so he would walk while working. We call it the "tread desk." He's so cool, I know.





Our delicious and very patriotic spread of desserts for our after church swim party with our Sunday School class

Swimming in T-town with cousins

They have a great slide as well!

We had a great 4th of July weekend. We started out Saturday at the zoo where we got to brush a rhinoceros. What a beautiful weekend it was to be outside so much. Unlike the heatwave that's hit this week. After the zoo Saturday we headed down to be with the family in Tuscaloosa, Sunday we had a pool party with friends from church, and Monday was a bit lazy due to the pool activity the previous two days, which was great! I did make time to see Eclipse with a friend and Lance played tennis twice as well as finishing his "tread desk!"

What's Updog and Late Father's Day

My extremely handsome husband in his new suit, with his extremely beautiful daughter on Father's Day

Watching TV in my bed while eating some breakfast. We've done a lot of this lately. I feel like a bad mom, but I'm so thankful to be able to sleep a little longer since I am not sleeping well.

Lance's dad joined us for brunch at "The Club" on Father's Day

Went to a Big sister class at our hospital. Kind of lame-o in my opinion. Not like what some others described at their hospitals. M did carry her baby back to the teacher by the ankles. Wish I would have had the camera ready for that.

Can you see how pink those cheeks are and how completely drenched the other two are?

completely over it!

Us fair haired/skinned people turn bright pink when overheated!

We went blueberry picking just south of town last Friday with friends. What a mistake (mostly due to the heat and my almost 8 month prego'ness). We arrived at 8:05am and made it to about 9:20am, though the kids were done in about 5 minutes. Sadly we only got about a gallon in that time. M and my buckets both turned over at some point too. It felt like an exercise in futility. It was still 90 degrees that early with the sun beating down. I must say, blueberries freshly picked are extremely delicious, but incredibly tedious to pick. Not like strawberries and far too late into a hot Bama summer to go outside and pick. I'll pay someone else to pick them for me from now on.

Oh the things kids say...
So I've mentioned that M is a bit sassy. She is extremely sweet and mostly compliant, but she will tell you her desires/thoughts freely. Examples of this are as follows:
The other day, I stopped to get M an Icee (a favorite treat of ours). The gas station showed the real sign for Icees but it turned out to be an off brand that had some gross flavors. I settled on what I thought was a cherry, but it tasted more like a watermelon jolly rancher. Very strong. When I gave it to M, her first reaction was "Wow, this tastes like a sucker I had." But by the second and third sips I hear her muttering to herself in the backseat (a direct quote), "Agh, this is disgusting. I can't believe you picked this."
Another funny quote from her was last week at nursery, a worker was reading her a book about a kid in a bubble bath. She asked Madeline if she took bubble baths, and M said, "Yeah, but not too many 'cause they hurt my 'gyna." If you have little girls you know that too many irritate their privates. This poor high school girl was like "what?" Thankfully another mom was in there and explained what she meant. We all had a good laugh at that one.
I'm sorry I have really stunk it up at blogging lately. I wish I could say with 5 weeks (hopefully less-M was a week early) that the nursery was ready, but alas, it is not. I think with a second of the same sex I've just had the attitude, well I'll pull "it" (insert whatever it is I find I need) out when I need it. The room is painted, the furniture is in, some clothes are out, washed and put away, the rest will fall into place I'm sure. Have I mentioned how hot it is here? I made it much longer this time without a lot of pain, but my sciatic has really been bothering me lately on one side while my heal/foot has been hurting on the other. Walking can be a little tricky. Im really done with pregnancy, so the month of July could not pass any sooner for me.

Another new post below.

The Beach

Lance's dad joined us for a day to play golf





we had a bunk area outside our bedroom. Madeline referred to this as "her room" and insisted on sleeping on the top bunk. I thought, why not. She did great getting up and down by herself too. I have a big girl.

A small clearing of the algae

We headed on down to Panama City (or PCB as I like to call it) in mid-June. I was so sad to be prego and not be able to wear my favorite confederate flag string bikini, as PCB is the perfect place to dawn one of these. j/k This was my first real time to stay in PCB. I hear that its much nicer than before, but I still prefer Destin and Gulf Shores/Orange Beach to there. My parents flew down and met us for a week. No oil while we were there thankfully, but the water was quite green most days with algae. It felt like swimming through fur and your bathing suit would be full of it too. I've never really experienced this in the gulf. Good times...We stayed at a great condo with 3 pools, a lazy river, and 2 kids splash pads. I have no pictures of the really big one with the giant bucket that would dump water every few minutes. Overall I was a pretty poor picture taker. It was also in the upper 90's every day we were there too. Thank goodness for the ocean breeze. We had a great time, but vacation always goes far too fast!