Lucy knows the answer...

... to a very important question:

Little One #2

Get ready for a pregnancy update on our new Little One. We are half way done with this pregnancy - so strange! It seems like time has FLOWN by! I'm so looking forward to this next half of the process because the baby's movements will be much more noticeable to me and to those "on the outside" (daddy's excited to feel kicks!). Officially, for those who are interested, we are in our 20th week of pregnancy.

I have once again,  been really healthy during this pregnancy and have only noticed a few differences this time around (comparing it with Lucy's pregnancy). I did have about 2-3 weeks of on-and-off morning sickness, I've been a bit more achy than I remember being last time and I think I am carrying this baby a bit higher than I did Lucy (but I don't know for sure). Here is a picture of my baby "bump:"

 19 weeks - it's windy here!

We had our 20 week ultrasound today! Here are some of my favorite pictures that were captured: 

Face and right arm/hand (head is on the right)

 Two adorable feet! 

 

The spine - such a miracle. 

We also discovered that IT'S A BOY!!! Yep!! The Kidder name doesn't have to die! We will have a son to carry on the legacy. :) We are so excited. Thrilled. 

(We do have a VERY GOOD picture that let's us know that the baby is, indeed, a boy. But daddy Brad has requested we save his son's manhood and not publish the picture online. :) ) 

And I know many of you are wondering about the name:

Michael Bradley Kidder

Michael is a Hebrew name meaning, "Who resembles God?" and Bradley (named after his daddy) is an English name meaning, "From the broad meadow."  There is a tradition in Brad's family to use the father's name as the firstborn son's middle name. We are excited and honored to carry on the tradition. :) Plus I love substantial and strong male names and both Michael and Bradley fit the bill perfectly. 

We were right on with the due date, our calculations said December 11th and little Michael's measurements line up with a December 12th due date. :) Plus the Chinese Gender Calculator was correct (for the second time! It guessed Lucy's gender too!) in guessing a boy - pretty fun!

Well, this little one doesn't know what's coming...

...but I'm sure she'll make a great big sister. Plus she can remain my "favorite little girl" for a bit longer. That makes this mamma's heart happy.

I stand in awe today at how God has designed life to begin. SUCH a miracle. I am so blessed.

Reality Check

**This blog post is more for me than you, the reader. But I wanted to keep you in-the-loop as to my thoughts on blogging at this point in my life.

Dear Blog,

I love you.

I love that you help me keep family up-to-date on the happenings of our household. I love that I can look back on past years entries and see memories that have been recorded. I love that you motivate me to get things done in my house. And I love that you have inspired me to learn how to better edit pictures.

But I have grown annoyed with you.

I realized the other day that you had become another thing on my to do list and not a hobby that I enjoy (as much as I used to). I feel weighted down with posts I have swimming around in my head. I become guilty when I think of the posts I did during my first pregnancy, and the fact that my pregnancy related blogging has been next to non-existant with this baby.

So I am making a few changes.

I will no longer feel the need to update you three times a week. I read once that regular blogging was something that would help me one day be able to make money off of my blog - but then reality hit and I realized.... As much as I love blogging and as much as I would love to be able to make money off of this hobby - it is not going to happen. Because of this change, I will most likely, once again, go on blogging "binges" (as my husband affectionately calls them) - in which I post a lot in a day or week's time and then possibly go for 2-3 weeks without new content.

I will learn to be ok with this. It is going to be hard for me at first - but I will not be tied to you.

Blog, I want you to be a fun hobby once again. Not something I have to do but something I get to do.

I hope you understand.

With love,

Sarah

The 4th of July

Happy 4th of July to you and your family! 

To celebrate the holiday, we bought matching shirts at Wal-Mart this morning (does that make us red-necks, hopefully not).

4th of July, 2011

(Side note: my baby belly has made an appearance - I'm 17 wks)

For some comparison, here we are a year ago:

4th of July, 2010

So much has changed!

Our little baby is now a little girl! :)

Here is our holiday table centerpiece - we are having some friends from small group over tonight, there will be 11 of us total. Hamburgers, brats, watermelon, chips, veggie tray and brownies - I can't wait!!!!

Hope you are having a great day! Happy Independence Day!

Fixin' Up Friday: The Front Flowerbed

Is "flowerbed" a word? I guess so, there isn't a squigly red line showing up underneath it. Kinda funny though....

Anywho, it's Friday, Friday, (haha - just got that song stuck in your head didn't I?) and I'm in a funny mood if you haven't noticed. :) Maybe because my dishwasher is unloaded, or my bed is made, or because Lucy is taking a nap, or perhaps it's because I have a pretty flowerbed out front now! Any or all of the above may be contributing to my good (although a bit goofy) mood. :)

Here is what our flowerbed looked like a few weeks ago:

 AUGH!!! Yucky. 

I've been thinking - if someone could find or invent, if need be, a type of weed that looks like grass - that would be awesome. I'd plant weeds on purpose in my lawn. 

 Something had to be done - so we borrowed a rototiller from a friend and after I had pulled the big weeds out, Brad loosened the soil with the amazing power tool. This action alone helped a lot! But there was more to be done.  

We had received a gift certificate to a local green house from some friends (thanks Read/Topper/Downs Family!!!) and so we went and got a bunch of flowers and some mulch to freshen up our front space. 

Here is the after:

Whoot whoot! So much better! 

 This little space needed some TLC, and because of the new plants in the flowerbed I was able to move my hanging plant to this little patch of earth (the hanging plant was to the left of the front "porch" initially). My mom always told me to water hanging plants until the water starts to come out the bottom, that way you can ensure you gave the roots a good drink. So that's what I do and the grass under the plant has been saying "Thank you!" - Seriously, look at how much it has grown and greened up! Wow. Now it needs to be mowed! 

 Moving to the opposite end of the yard, starting at the left side of the flowerbed. We planted six begonias (to the right in the picture) - which haven't been doing so well. I think it is our extreme heat - these plants get sun half the day around 2pm the shade from the house covers them, but even so the begonia's are not thriving. Oh well, live and learn - we know better for next year. :) The other bushes were already established, so we decided to leave them alone this year - the watering is helping them a lot too!

 In the middle of our flowerbed we have an array of flowers in patriotic colors. :) To be honest, I threw away the tag thingies for these before I read the names (stink!), but the front flowers are petunias. I will remember what the nameless flowers look like because they have done great! They love the sun and are taking the heat really well so we will definitely be getting them again!

That black hose in the picture above is our "weeping hose" we turn it on for about 10-15 minutes a day and it waters the plants really well! We have learned our lesson and set a timer the moment we come in the house to remind us to turn it off. Let's just say that it has stayed on overnight once or twice. The hose works efficiently because it waters under the mulch, meaning Mr. Sun can't evaporate the water away! Plus it has been keeping the soil nice and moist - the perfect growing environment for our plants (and the grass! Check out the picture below - second one to the end - the grass three feet out from the flowerbed is GREEN!)

 Meet Mrs. Hibiscus (hahaha - I just named her!), our one perennial flowering plant that we splurged on. :) Apparently, she will get really tall and (hopefully) cover up that unsightly vent in the brick. If we are remembering correctly, she will produce pink flowers - but we may be wrong. There are about 5 buds on the top, so I'll keep you updated on her coloring. :) 

 There used to be 5 rock circles in this area, we took out the two that were broken apart and crumbly and left three of them (there is one more to the left of this picture) - I am liking the less-is-more look, plus it only takes three small steps to get to the hose, not five! Oh and see that stump? That stump is the vain of our existence. We have tried cutting it out with three different saws and it is not moving. So Brad had the idea to buy ivy - the goal is that the ivy will cover the stump in a year or two, or we will build a wooden porch over it and forget it ever existed. Problem solved. :)

 So there is our newly improved flowerbed! We love it and since we don't park our car in the garage right now (details on why next week) we use the front door for all our coming and going we get to enjoy our new flowerbed more than our guests do! :) 

****Happy 4th of July!****

Have a wonderful holiday weekend celebrating freedom with family and friends! Please enjoy fireworks for us, because we won't be seeing any this year because we haven't had enough rain - they aren't even selling them in our area! We are having our small group over for a BBQ on Monday so our day is not void of fun - plus I bought Lucy the cutest headband ever for the 4th. 

I'll share pictures next week. :)

Touring around the Panhandle

When my family comes to visit (and my dad joins the party) we like to go and see and do. :) My parents have always been good at taking day trips to historical places or interesting sights that are within a few hours of our home and their visit inspired us to go to a few of the attractions within an hour of our house that were FREE (love adventures that are free!).

But before we get to the adventures, here is a picture of three of my favorite little girls snuggling on the couch watching the Wonder Pets:

Aren't they cutie pies?

Our first stop on Monday, aka The-Day-Of-Adventure, was Groom Texas - home of the largest cross in the northern hemisphere. This cross is big, and I mean BIG. You can even see it from space!

The picture on the right gives some perspective - those statues around the base of the cross are almost lifelike in size! 

Lucy had fun chilling in her car seat and Laura and Anna got to run off some energy after sitting in the car for 30 minutes and before sitting in the car for another 30-40 minutes as we made our way to our next destination. They also had a neat "replica" of the EMPTY tomb at the cross (pictured above on the lower left).

Next stop: The Amarillo Zoo - which happens to be free on Mondays (very convenient for our family since our daddy/husband is a Pastor)

I had very low expectations of the zoo since I hadn't heard much about it but I was pleasantly surprised! There are a good number of animals there - including monkeys (top left), bears (the girls are looking at them in the top, middle picture) and a whole array of farm animals, donkey's included (upper right - poor donkey was "hot and tired" at least we hoped so).

There were also long horns (Top middle - Anna promptly tried to teach Lucy to "Hook'em!" haha), peacocks (lower left) and lions. I have never been so close to a lion in my life - so cool. The zoo also had buffalo, but they weren't looking that pretty - I guess it is molting season? We were so pleased with our little Amarillo Zoo, a perfect place to walk around for an hour and let Lucy learn while getting some energy out! :) 

By this time we were really hungry, so we went to Ruby Tequila's for lunch - best fajitas you will ever have. Ever.

Waiting on our table to get set up and playing "This little piggy..."

 

What a fun day! Full of everything I love: family, laughter and food (including Starbucks after lunch - best.day.ever). 

We haven't seen everything the panhandle has to offer - Mom and Dad there is a really cool state park up here that I have heard is great to hike in, so come visit again soon (preferably when the weather is a bit cooler!)!!! We loved having you.  

Lucy's Birthday: Twelve Months

Part 3 of 3, this is the last installment of birthday posts.

A whole year has gone by and my baby girl has grown into a little girl full of spunk, energy and contagious happiness. I love this child. 

This month's accomplishments:

• Kissing Noises, often made by a "fishy face" being released. :) 
• First Word, "Ellie" it sounds a bit more like "Allie" but she says it more than mama and dada! She is also saying "dat" ("that") and pointing to what she wants/needs.
• Whispering, when asked to speak quietly and whisper, Lu says, "habahaba" in a hushed tone. (Cutest thing ever.)
• Drinking out of a Straw, this happened for the first time at Chipotle in Chicago - very appropriate. 
• Down the Stair, I didn't even know she could do this, until one day she was in the living room when I had put her in the dining room - so I put her up on the step and she scooted her feet around and went down feet first. She can also dismount the couch now - meaning mom and dad don't have to watch her like a hawk when she is up there. 
• All by Herself, Lu can get on her bike and put on her necklaces all by herself. What a big girl. 
• "Hmmmm," when Lucy is hungry, or is really enjoying the food you have prepared for her she makes a "Hmmmmm" sound - I translate it as "Thanks for this amazing food!" or "I think it is time to eat."

And here is the monthly photo collage.

 

Well, this is the last installment of Lucy's monthly pictures (tears may or may not be coming to my eyes). I am going to have to figure out a new way of keeping track/sharing what she is learning and accomplishing. I keep a running list on my phone of fun things Lucy has done, so maybe I'll just keep posting that with less formal pictures.

I keep reminding myself, there will be monthly pictures to record again soon.... very soon. :)