Baby #3 Due October 30th

We feel so blessed to have this little miracle come so easy.  With both Allie and Sophie we tried for long periods of time to get them here when we wanted them here.  After having Sophie, it dawned on me that Heavenly Father is in control and has a plan for each of us.  I never realized, listened, or received any big "wow" answers when we were trying to conceive our girls.  It was more of the process of we would make a choice and feel right about it or vice versa. I received strong promptings before we knew we were expecting there was a baby that needed to come and join our family NOW.  You never know on Heavenly Father's time plan, but all you can do is be obedient and find quiet times in life to listen.  I am so blessed for this tender mercy and sweet bundle of joy we get to meet on October 30th.

I wanted to do something fun for the family to announce it, but Blake was just too excited that after our first appointment at 8 weeks, he sat Allie down and broke the news to her.  Anyone knows that after you tell a 5 year old the news of a new baby coming, everyone will know.  I grabbed a big shirt of Allie's and threw it on Sophie and whipped up a sign for Allie to hold and snapped some pictures.  We quickly texted our family before our buzzing  5 year old spread the news. 

At our  12 week appointment we decided to take the girls; Allie was really wanting to come and listen to the babies heart beat.  They were unable to find the heart beat with the doppler so they took us back to do an ultrasound.  The sweet baby was waving with their hand and Allie just ate up every moment we got to see the baby.  I am currently 14 weeks and still feel like CRAP, but we'll take it knowing it will all end with a sweet bundle of joy.  With both of my girls I felt different, had different cravings, different side effects but the one thing is my "puckishness" wore off at 12 weeks.  Not sure what to predict on this one, but my yucky stage is still looming. On June 11th we will be finding out if this little one is a girl or  boy, which Dad and Allie are hoping for.  

Zoo Days

We have enjoyed some sunny days around our rainy spring weather and have tried to hit up the zoo when we can.  Grandma Barb gave our family a zoo pass for Christmas, so we have tried to make it down at least once a month

The girls enjoying the straw hut

The carousel finally opened up in March and for $1 you can't beat the happiness it brings to your kids 

Sophie's 1st ride....although she doesn't look to thrilled, she shouted "MOR" when the ride stopped

We headed down to the zoo another time with some friends and the lions were right up by the windows.  The lions have a large grazing area, so you don't get to see them up close much, so this was a treat

Another fun thing we got to watch was a Wallaby carrying around it's 6 month old baby.  The baby had never been out of the mother's pouch and on the morning we were there, it kept poking it's feet out and putting them onto the ground.  The workers thought for sure it was going to climb out for the first time that day.

Sophie was more than excited to be riding the carousal again

Allie enjoying her ride on the elephant

Since it was the month of April, they had some HUGE rabbits out of their exhibit to pet.  They were by far the biggest I've ever seen.  So glad for all the fun things we have at our small town Boise zoo.

Easter

I'm beginning to LOVE this holiday more and more every year.  Along with the "fun" stuff there is to do I started pulling activities from a book I bought a couple of years ago, A Christ Centered Easter  and have had so much fun with the family learning so many new things about Christ and his life the week before Easter hits.  I'm so grateful for my Savior, for the Atonement, and for the many blessing I have been given

Our neighborhood did an egg hunt the weekend before Easter, which I actually LOVED because it got all the "fun" hype out of the way

Sophie was up first 

She wanted to start the race as soon as she saw all the eggs on the grass.  We have been having our own egg hunts in the back yard and we have no rules at that one, so she didn't think she had to wait around for some bell to tell her to go

As soon as the bell rang there was no stopping her, she was off filling her basket up with eggs.  

The funny thing is she just loved the eggs

Then, she discovered the chocolate inside and took a new liking to her eggs and wanted "cady" from every single one

She was content sitting and eating her chocolate while Allie hunted away

Next up was Allie's age group

Allie was more than ready; when the bell rang she sprinted off the line

Each kid was able to collect a dozen eggs which ended up being plenty

During the week we got together with some of my work friends to dye eggs and decorate sugar cookies. It's always a hit with all the kids, although we had 4 extra kids this time and it was a little crazy trying to help 12 kids dye eggs; don't know what we were thinking

Sophie was ready to be strapped up to the table to start eating some lunch

Kendall, Sophie, and Tenley; Sophie's little buddies  Kendall and Sophie share the same birthday and Tenley beats them both by just a few weeks.  

So fun having such good little buddies to hang out with

Allie ended up decorating every kind of sugar cookie shape that was possible

Another excitement during our weak was Allie having "egg-tails" again this year.  She requested them and I wasn't quite sure if she was going to have enough hair to get eggs in.  To both of our surprise, she got one egg in each piggy.  She was excited to wear them to her pre-school Easter party

Easter morning hit and during the night the bunny arrived as well as Max our cat.  The bunny leaves a trail of string to the baskets and Max discovered the string during the night and Allie quickly found her basket before I even had a chance to get out of bed; that was a first.

Sophie was most excited about her chocolate bunny.  She figured a way to get the bunny out of the package and ran around all morning with the ears in her mouth.  She almost downed the whole bunny that morning before I had to intervene and give her some real food

    Grandma Barb got the girls matching Easter dresses; we are so grateful she always thinks of the girls.  She received a new dress from her grandma every Easter growing up and says everyone should have a new dress for Easter Sunday.  The bunny brought dad a new hot pink tie which he willingly wore for Allie:)

Trying to snap some shots of my cute Easter girls.  I was so excited that Sophie's hair was long enough for me to take the curling iron to it and I gave her ringlets

We ended up with a beautiful sunny day.  Happy Easter!!!