Halloween 2013

We had lots of fun this Halloween season with visits to pumpkin patches, costume parties and trick-or-treating. Felicity decided to go as Pocahontas. She has been watching the movie lots lately and has really gotten into it. She sings all the songs...my favorite is when she sings the song, "Savages! Savages!" except she thinks they are saying, "Sandwiches! Sandwiches!" Love hearing her belt that out. :-) And sweet little Caroline Mae went as a ketchup packet. When I saw the costume I thought it was so funny, and just perfect for a little one that can't sit up yet. So into the little sack she went and she looked adorable.

First we attended Pumpkinville in our neighborhood. They have a cute pumpkin patch, craft activities, a hay maze, hayrides around the neighborhood, etc., so we headed up there for some fun one afternoon.

Ready for the hay ride...

Felicity has gotten a bit tall for the hay maze, so she walked around on top of the hay bales like they were the balance beam.

Sweet sister shots...

 And the whole gang...

 This was the giant "pumpkin pie" filled with tiny pumpkins. It's kind of hard to see in the picture, but it was so cute. Felicity is sitting in the giant spoon. Felicity picked out a medium sized pumpkin for herself and a tiny one for Caroline.

When Felicity stayed with my folks while Justin and I were in Idaho (more on that trip coming soon), she made a Felicity pumpkin, complete with lipstick and curly, blonde hair. So, after we got the tiny pumpkin for Caroline, we decorated one for her too. Here are the sister pumpkins. Felicity gave Caroline glitter for hair.

 Next one of Felicity's friends, Brynlie, had a costume party and it was so much fun. Here are the girls in their costumes before we left the house. Oh, how I adore these two. :-)

Little Miss Ketchup...it's hard to see, but I loved that it had "tear here"at the top corner.

Here is Felicity and one of her very best friends, Molly Wood. These two are inseparable. Pocahontas and Annie (minus her wig) never looked so cute! 

Here's a group shot of some of the kids at the party - total chaos, but so much fun. 

Felicity was such a good big sister holding Caroline for the pictures.

Next we headed to a pumpkin patch in Rowlett, near Justin's parents' house, so Nana joined us along with Aunt Erin. We had lots of fun posing for pictures, riding the train, hay rides and eating lunch; however, Felicity was not a fan of the petting zoo because of the smell.

Family shot minus Caroline...

Trying to squeeze in Caroline...

Posing with Nana and Papa...

Time for the hay ride! 

Aunt Erin and the girls...

Next up Felicity celebrated Halloween at her preschool, but they have to go as either animals from Noah's ark or Bible heroes, so mommy had to come up with another costume fast and cheap....so here is our little pink and white bunny!

And after all of that celebrating, Halloween actually arrived! We carved our pumpkins on Halloween Eve...

We went over to the Smith's house for dinner with friends and then all went trick-or-treating together in our neighborhood. Here's Felicity and Saber...

 and Felicity and Jack...

And the girls on the porch after we finished...

 Me and my littlest loves on the front porch...

 HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

Miss Caroline Mae - part 1

It's a GIRL! 

We have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of our littlest gift for nine months and on August 12, 2013 at 9:55 a.m. - SHE arrived! We waited to find out the sex of this baby, so it was so exciting to be surprised...and we couldn't be happier with her. She was delivered via c-section by Dr. Haldermann at Baylor McKinney and weighed 8 lbs. 6 oz. and was 21" long. 

So, I'll begin this birth story two days prior on our due date (Aug. 10), when I had a bit of an accident. It was Saturday morning and we had just gotten home from one of Felicity's friends birthday parties. Jack's construction party was so cute. 

Here's Felicity "driving" the bobcat.  

After we got home from the party, I was coming down the stairs and turned around to take something back to Felicity's room and then decided not to, so I turned back around to go down, somehow losing my balance. I tumbled down a few stairs and landed on my back in the corner of the landing - somehow managing to bust a pretty good size hole in the wall in the process. 

The doctor said we needed to go to the hospital and get everything checked out and monitor the baby for a while, so we were up at Baylor McKinney for about four hours that day. Big praises that everything looked just fine and we got to come home that evening. Nothing like a little pre-baby drama though...

Here's my belly and the hole I put in the wall. Lovely, huh? I'm still not sure how I managed to take a chunk out of the wall, but I think it was with my elbow, because both were scraped pretty bad. Who knows....but Mr. Non-Procrastinator Husband even had it fixed while I was in the hospital with Caroline, so it was all back to normal when we came home. Love that about him. :-)

The day of the fall, I was planning on going to get a mani/pedi, but since that never happened, I ended up going on Sunday, the day before delivery and decided to bring along my two favorite people. :-) Really, I thought Felicity would have fun getting a "real" mani/pedi and when I asked her if she wanted to come along, she was so excited. And Justin was dad-of-the-year for coming along to hold little miss while she got all fancy. At least he got a free glass of wine from it. Felicity, of course picked the two brightest shades for her nails and toenails. 

Can't you just sense her excitement?

Justin looks like he's losing steam here...

That night my parents came in town so they could be there to watch Felicity when we went to the hospital early the next morning for the birth. We enjoyed dinner together at Fireside Pies and then took some sweet shots of our family before four.

Then we enjoyed putting Felicity to bed together and savoring some sweet time just the three of us. I was so excited obviously about adding a member to our family, but I think there's always a small part of you that's sad to release the life you've known for three years. I feel blessed beyond measure that God chose Justin and me to be Felicity's parents  - she is a true joy and I love being her mom. And now I feel beyond blessed that he has given us another of His little girls to raise. 

Sleeping on her new princess pillow Grandma made her... I think kiddies snuggled up in bed are one of the sweetest scenes.

Adore.

Looks like Justin is passing along some wise life lessons...:-) 

Love her to pieces...

and couldn't be more excited to add another little life to our family.

Stay tuned for part 2 - CAROLINE MAE CLEVELAND ARRIVES!! 

Summertime happenings...

I am so far behind on here I don't know that I'll ever get caught up, but regardless, I'm moving forward. Here's quite a long post to recap how we've been spending our summer days.

Here's Felicity on her last day of school...taking gifts to her teachers, Mrs. Brenna and Mrs. Sarah. She had a wonderful year at CLC with great friends and great teachers and is already looking forward to next year.

For reference, here she is on her first day of school this year. I think she has lost a bit of that sweet baby face :-(, but the main difference is that her hair has grown...not longer, just bigger. 

Our neighborhood had a really fun start-to-summer bash complete with yummy food trucks and a Jimmy Buffett cover band. 

Felicity and her friends danced and danced until they dropped.

Felicity has always been and still is a great little shopping buddy. On one of our summer outings she picked out this pink heart scarf and probably the biggest headband/bow I've even seen. Loving her bold fashion sense...most days. :-) 

Not so sure about these shoes though...at least it doesn't look like she's a fan either.

She is also a big fan of trying all the lipstick samples at Ulta...

She also started taking gymnastics or "bynastics", as she calls it, this summer. This entailed getting her first leotard and also her first ponytail. She's having so much fun and was super pumped when she learned how to do a forward roll all by herself. She practiced and taught herself how to do it in her bed during "rest time". Naps are non-existent at this point, so at least she's being productive while she's confined to her bed! 

We've also visited the carousel at Stonebriar a few times which is always a big hit. 

She and I have both grown to adore Rachel Khoo. We have her cookbook and watch her show over and over. Felicity pretends to be whipping up French cuisine in her little kitchen and also really likes to help me cook. Its so hilarious to hear her using phrases like, "let's zest the lemon"..."we just need a pinch of salt"..."where's the olive oil?"  

And of course...always lots of art projects going on...

We went to a puppet show at the Frisco Library with some of her sweet friends from school...little cuties.

Justin has been playing on our church softball team, so if the games weren't too late (or sometimes even if they were) we were there cheering him on. They came in 2nd place overall!

Please note the massive gash on Justin's leg. This happened mid-way through the season, took weeks to heal and then the exact same injury happened again in the playoff game. Ugh...

And after a disgusting amount of indecisiveness on my part, we had the shutters repainted on the front of the house...and are very happy with the result!

Before                                  ::                               After 

 After 

Ants invaded the kitchen pantry, so that was a real treat. Here's a pic amidst the nightmare I had cleaning out everything...but after we sprayed this stuff we have not seen one! 

And just to make sure we're keeping it real here, we've had our fair share of lazy summer days, especially with pregnant mommy... complete with fast food and too much TV...

We also celebrated Father's Day...really I got no pictures of this event, but wanted to post one anyway. Here's Felicity bringing Justin his gifts - first thing in the morning, of course. 

We also spent part of Father's Day weekend with Justin's family...we went to lunch together and then came back to our house, went swimming at the neighborhood pool, to church and then to a Frisco Roughriders game. Unfortunately I didn't get many pictures of that either, but here's Felicity with Aunt Erin and Rachel enjoying her first taste of cotton candy!

The next weekend, my parents and brother, Ryan came up for a weekend before Ryan left for France this summer. For weeks, Felicity had been planning a huge birthday party for two of her stuffed animals - Teddy Bear, who turned 5 and Esther, who turned 2. She had organized decorations, presents, themes and more. It was quite elaborate and she was definitely running the show. 

Everyone had to bring presents for Teddy Bear and Esther and Felicity had made them some special gifts and wrapped them up herself.

Her artwork she made for them... 

Then, she went upstairs and came back down as Minnie Mouse - the special entertainment for the party. (Minnie Mouse made an appearance at Felicity's 3rd bday party this year, so she must think this is now what happens at every party...that could pose a problem in the future. :-) 

 Everyone had to pose with Minnie for individual photos. (She had dressed Mimi up too as Belle, so that's why my mom has that thing around her neck...just in case anyone is wondering.)

 Then for some reason we all had to go lay in our bed...never quite figured that one out. 

I made a peach galette for Teddy Bear and Esther and Felicity blew out their candles. Happy Birthday! 

Felicity has also been quite helpful in taking care of the flowers this summer.

We celebrated the 4th of July with our neighborhood parade and picnic at the pool. Felicity was so excited to ride in her wagon again. 

 I love how my belly is so big it's blocking Felicity's face. 

Later that evening our small group from church came over and we grilled out and had a great time. Here's a shot of the kiddos in our group. 

Felicity also completed swim lessons...she still can't swim by herself, but she had a fun time and made some good progress. Her favorite thing was riding on the magic cheese. 

And I was also proud of her for doing such a good job floating on her back. Last year at swim lessons this was the only thing that scared her to death.

And we finally got rid of the broken sleeper sofa in the media room and our new couch arrived!  The room is still a work in progress, but we've so been enjoying having somewhere big and comfy to hang out at night together.

Since our due date is August 10, our summer is winding down as we count the days until baby #2 arrives!