I am backdating some posts because I have been terribly behind on
here thanks to a deadline and company coming and a few other things that
have been going on! But I didn’t want to miss writing about our super
fun fall!

This year was Parker’s second Balloon
Fiesta (and Nathan’s SIXTH – what is happening??!). It was SO much fun!
They loved it! And we had absolutely perfect weather for it, which never
happens.

 We usually try to go sometime the first
weekend, but this year we waited and went the second weekend. We did go
chase balloons that first weekend though!

 Me and my balloon chasing crew. I love these mornings! They are some of my very favorite fall traditions.

Jon’s
aunt and uncle came into town for the Fiesta and we chased down their
balloon one morning. Nathan got to stand in the basket! He was so
excited!

We were nuts this year. We went to a special
shape Balloon Glow on Friday night and then were totally crazy and got
up the next morning at 4AM (after not even leaving the park until after
9PM the night before!) and went to the Mass Ascension. Not sure we will
do that again, but we made it work with the help of lots of Krispy Kreme
donuts. 😉

Friday night, we went with Bryant, Nicole and sweet little Gabriel. So much fun! We love their sweet little family!

Nathan’s all-time favorite balloon – Spider-Pig!! We always have to find him and pose just like this. 😉

And my favorite balloons – the Bee family! Love these balloons! I make my family take a picture in front of them every year. 😉

This kid. He makes me laugh, he makes me crazy, he is just the funniest little stinker I know.

Parker was still in awe of the balloons at this point because they hadn’t really been too loud yet. 😉

Us and our crazy boys!!

Love
this – this doggy balloon was Parker’s favorite! He talked nonstop the
whole next week about the doggy with the blue hat who didn’t say “woof”.
😉

 Sweet boys. 🙂

Parker
loved everything before the actual glow started but he did NOT
appreciate the sound of the propane tanks. He spent most of the glow
like this. Sweet boy. Jon and I were soaking in the snuggles though. 😉

We
watched the fireworks, got the kids changed into their jammies in the
car and both boys were out by the time we got through traffic and got
home. Jon and I got stuff ready for the next morning and then we were
both up at 4AM to leave by 4:30 and get to the park before the traffic
got terrible again.

 Donut
picnic before the sun comes up – I’m pretty sure the boys thought we’d
never left the park since they went to sleep in the car and woke up the
next morning back in the car. 😉

Dawn
patrol! These balloons inflate and rise first to make sure the winds
are good up higher. Love that they send up the flag and play the Star
Spangled Banner. 🙂

Next to a balloon!

And we found Spider-Pig again! Told you about the pose. 😉

We met this cute girl there – we love Aunt Cayce!! So excited that she came with us!

Love this girl so much!

I’m pretty fond of this guy too. 😉

I love this picture.

Parker is a big fan of Auntie Kiki. 😉

This baby is huge now – I can’t believe how big he’s gotten even in the past few months!

We
had such a wonderful time at the Fiesta this year!! The weather was
absolutely perfect and we loved going with our family. 🙂 Love that my
kids are growing up with this tradition just like I did. 🙂

I have no idea how this happened, but somehow, we are 25 weeks along with this sweet little love.

All in all, things are going great! According to the books, she is about one and a half pounds now. We’ve also passed the “age of viability” of 24 weeks – so thankful! She is not super active during the day but as soon as I get the boys in bed and sit down, she starts wiggling around in there. 😉 I’ve also wondered if she is active when they are up and I just am so distracted with the boys that I don’t notice. I don’t sit too often when they are up but that is about to change – I’ve been getting so tired lately! I also still carry my twenty-five pound Parker often (and he now has to sit on top of the bump) and that’s going to have to not happen as frequently either – I am just achy at the end of the day.

Since we have the same cord issue that we had with Parker, I am going to be doing more frequent ultrasounds again and so our next one is in two weeks. So excited to see that sweet face again!

I still haven’t been sick (SO thankful!) but I’ve been having heartburn the last two weeks and my poor ligaments are just done. Third child is painful! I am too old for this now. 😉 I have been loving all things sweet and baked lately and really loving milkshakes again. Just another reason that I’m gaining more weight again. 🙂

I’ve been pinning all kinds of baby girl things on Pinterest and I started working on her baby blanket this week during the evenings. 

So thankful for this precious girl! There are still mornings where I wake up in shock over this sweet baby. I’m so blessed with my boys and now this little one. So grateful! Jesus is good.

Good morning and happy fall!! 🙂

Life lately here has been pretty much set in routine and it’s been wonderful. We are finally figuring out what the weeks are going to look like this fall and it’s just been glorious. The weather is getting cooler, the days are getting shorter and it’s just been perfect here. 😉

And hey, speaking of fall, guess what is now available for pre-order?? So excited for you guys to meet Katie! (And side note, it says 52 pages on the Amazon page, but it is actually a full-length book. Attempting to fix that!!) Katie in Waiting releases on November 20th!

This little love has been a sleeping machine lately. So thankful, because he’s also cutting his top two eye teeth and he has been just miserable a few days this week. 🙁 We have have had a couple of days of living on baby ibuprofen, Mama snuggles and the most annoying Mickey Mouse DVD in the entire world. This baby loves his “MeMo”. And potato soup and “bwead”. 😉

Jon listed his first house this past weekend! So proud of my extremely hard working man – he’s never been one to sit still. 😉 Praying that God blesses this new venture of his. And I think his helper is about the cutest real estate assistant in the world. Anyone need a house? 😉

Parker can still fit into most 12 month clothes (proof that he’s a lot shorter than Nathan ever was – by this point, Nathan was mostly in 24 month!), but his pants were getting pretty short on him, so I pulled out all the 18 month clothes and washed them and got them in his room this week. He found Nathan’s old Halloween costume and has barely taken it off. Poor kid has been sweating to death in it, but he’s just so cute! He poked the fluffy tummy, looked at me and grinned and said, “Baby!” Ha!

Nathan started running a 101 fever Monday night when he went to bed, so we stayed home from school on Tuesday and had a movie day instead. He didn’t run a fever the whole day and was basically back to normal Tuesday night, so I’m not sure what was going on, but Tuesday was nice and rainy and it was a good day to just be sick and lay around.

And that’s been our life lately!! Loving this time with these crazy boys!!

This year, we went to the State Fair two days in a row… we were all exhausted afterward! 🙂 The first day, we went with Gammy, Pops and Aunt Cayce as part of Nathan’s school, so we all got to go for free. So fun! And the second day, we took Jon back and did a few different things.

The first day we went was September 11th and Firefighter Day. So thankful for these heroes who sacrifice so much so we can live the way we do.

They had all kinds of firefighter demonstrations set up for the kids to do – Nathan was SO serious about them! He has wanted to grow up to be a firefighter his whole life, so this day was totally made for him. 😉

“Excuse me, but can I please take a picture with you guys?” They were so kind to oblige him. 😉

Smokey the Bear was there! Parker wanted nothing to do with him. We asked if he wanted to go see Smokey and he said, “No. No, no no no.” Ha!

Both of the boys LOVED the baby animals! They both got to pet a baby chicken and a baby duck. 😉

Hot and tired. 😉

Nathan was totally in awe of this firefighter who was all decked out in his gear. He thought he was about the coolest thing in the whole world. He didn’t stop talking about it the whole way home. 🙂

Back at the fair with Daddy!! Saturday was quite a bit more crowded than Friday morning, but we still had a great time. We watched a diving show and the boys practiced some archery.

We hit up the petting zoo on this day and Parker LOVED the animals! Oh my goodness, he loved them.

He found a brush to brush the animals with and went to town.

Then Parker discovered that all of the animals were right at the right height to hug:

Ha! He went a little bit HUG ALL THE THINGS, but he had a great time. Can’t speak for the animals, however.

 Hot, sweaty and tired, but we had a great time!

The boys were out before we even made it out of the parking lot. 😉

How we eat when Mom is kind enough to provide a bowl. 😉

This week has been fairly busy. We had a couple of make up swim lessons since we missed them during the fair, we’ve cleaned out closets and we’ve been working on school and Sparky verses and mountains of laundry.

These guys went to Talk Like a Pirate day at Krispy Kreme on Saturday before Jon and I headed out to one of my friend’s weddings. A fun but busy weekend to end a fun and busy week!! Ready for a normally scheduled week this week. 🙂

I have so much to catch up on still, but yesterday, my sweet Parker Bear turned 18 months old.

Seriously, I have no idea where the time is going. We were looking back at old pictures this weekend and I swear he was just born last week. And it scares me because I know it will just go faster and faster like it has with Nathan.

So, since I haven’t done a monthly update on him since he turned a year, I thought today would be a good day to have a post that is all about our little Parker love. 🙂

Parker is SO happy. All the time. Unless he is hungry, teething or tired and then he is very, very mad. He has two extremes, this child. When he is happy, he is uncontrollably happy and dancing and hopping and running as fast as he can to keep up with Nathan. And when he is mad, he is usually screaming and crying and not letting go of my leg. 😉 Thankfully, those times are usually pretty rare!

He has become a great sleeper, which is something I never thought I would say about this kid! Ha! He takes a great 2.5 to 3 hour nap every day and then sleeps at least 12 if not 13 (or even 14!!) hours at night. He is super attached to his pacifier (Nathan got him to call it a baba), his Mickey Mouse (“MeMo”), his Pooh Bear and his blanket.

Parker loves to talk. LOVES. TO. TALK. He talks or yells all day long. I’ve lost count of how many words he says, but his favorite ones are Naynen, Baba, MeMo, Mama, Daddy, Dodo (Kody), EAT, Ice (which means water, I finally figured out), No, Mine, Nack (snack), Play, Jump, Ball, FOOT-ball and watch. He’s started putting two and three words together so he’ll say, “Play Naynen” and “Want nack” and “Mama hold please”. He is VERY good about saying please and thank you and he will sometimes burst out in the Roll Call from the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

He loves to watch anything Mickey Mouse but especially loves a sing-along movie I have from the 80s of all the characters and a bunch of kids singing Disney songs in Disneyland. He has become fairly demanding about it: “WATCH MEMO. MOTE? MOTE?” (asking for the remote) 😉 He loves to play with cars and will drive them around the house. He loves anything and everything that Nathan is doing because Nathan is his bestest buddy in the whole world.

He can jump and get both feet off the floor and he does a fantastic somersault. He laughs with his whole entire body and his little cheesy smile is my favorite thing in the whole world. He has the best cheeks for kissing and he loves to snuggle, especially at night or first thing when he wakes up. He is incredibly loud. His new favorite night is Thursdays when Nathan is gone at Awana because then he gets mine and Jon’s total attention. He has been known to hit when he is not happy, but he’s pretty good about saying “I sowwy” and giving hugs later.

We just adore our little Parker Bear! He has completely transformed our family and I cannot imagine it without him. Love my little man!

So sorry for the lack of consistent posting lately!! If I have a spare minute to sit down when I’m not falling asleep, I’m working my hardest on Katie in Waiting (official release date coming soon!!), so I haven’t had a lot of time to write on here!

We spent a fantastic Labor Day weekend in Durango with our dear friends Jen and Greg and their kids Noah and Emma. 🙂 Noah is six months older than Nathan and Emma is one month exactly younger than Parker, so it was perfect ages! We rented a little cabin in the middle of nowhere down the LONGEST dirt road ever and had the absolute BEST time!

These two were together all the time. Constantly. Parker was NOT a fan of Noah by the time we left because he stole his bestest buddy. 😉 They played so well together! We surprised Nathan with the trip, so he was SO excited to see Noah and play with him!

Parker and Emma in the gazebo by the cabin. 🙂 These two had a love/hate relationship. Emma finally warmed up to us only to get beat up on by Parker for coming close to “MY DADDY” or “MY MAMA”. Oy. We have some possessiveness to work out before January comes. 😉

The five of us. 😉

There was a huge meadow by our cabin, so the dads took the big boys out and taught them both how to use a BB gun. Noah was a total natural!

Me and my little buddy. 🙂

The dads and big boys went for a walk to spot some wildlife, so we kept the little ones at home. A chipmunk kept coming up on the deck, so we put little pieces of a Nutri-grain bar and cheetos on the deck to lure him up there for the kids to watch. Parker was completely fascinated! It’s all he talked about. 😉 And thanks to Nathan singing “Let It Go” the whole hike, we saw more wildlife than they did. Ha!

The whole gang!! Love these people!

We walked through town and saw a couple of horses pulling a wagon, so we had to stop and get a picture with the “hee-ya” like Parker calls it. 😉

More hee-yas! Parker tried so hard to fit in with the big boys. 😉 Love how he says “hee-ya” instead of “yee-ha”. 😉

Jen and Greg gave the boys these awesome lego construction sets that they worked super hard on. So sweet. I know Nathan loves that he has something that matches Noah now. 😉

The buds in bed. This is the first time Nathan has slept in the same room with someone who isn’t me or Jon and he did pretty good! The first night they were up SO early, so we laid down the ground rules and they behaved a lot better after that.

Our last dinner before heading home. Love my sweet family.

Such a wonderful trip!! My favorite parts were when the babies would be napping and Jen and I would get a cup of coffee and just talk. Love my friend. Loved our time together!! Already excited for next year. 🙂

 Such a fun first day of school!
 
Monday night, we put a very excited Nathan in bed after he’d laid out his school clothes and gotten all of the things he needed in his backpack. He looked up at us and said, “Mom, how do you sleep?” I said, “On my side, usually. Why?” He said, “Because I start school tomorrow, so I’m a big kid now. I have to start sleeping like a big person too.” Cue the tears. I cried Monday night but held it together for my sweet boy on the big day! I just can’t believe he’s already starting school!

I got up early Tuesday morning to make a good breakfast for Nathan that we could eat with Jon before he left for work. When I went in to get Nathan out of bed, he was wearing his school clothes instead of his pajamas. 😉 ha! He was SO excited!!

We had a Happy First Day of School breakfast of blueberry muffins, bacon and eggs. A feast considering the typical breakfasts around here. 😉

Parker woke up with CRAZY hair but we had to take a picture of the brothers on the first day of school anyway. 🙂 It doesn’t matter what I use to try and get it to lay down, it doesn’t work. It just eventually settles down on it’s own. He still has fluffy baby hair. 😉

Hugs for Dad before he left! I love how excited Nathan is in every single picture!

At the campus!!

LOVE this of the two boys walking inside together. Parker gets to come as well, though he goes to a nursery for the little guys. But, he is SO proud of his backpack that matches his big brother’s!

Me and my first baby. 🙂

 When we first got inside, we went in his class to put his backpack away and all the other kids were running around and he pulled out a notebook and a pencil and sat down at his place and just start writing his name. 😉 SO cute. He is so excited to learn!! I love that! He had a great day with his teacher and classmates and we are now the proud owners of a pinto bean that we are going to attempt to grow into a plant. 😉

Tired but very happy at the end of the day. 😉 I think it was everything he hoped it would be. 😉

And this poor kid…ha! He was SO tired he could barely walk, but he insisted on wearing his “packpack” and carrying both his water and lunchbox. He had a great time too!

All in all, it was a wonderful first day of school for my sweet boy. So thankful for these last five years with him and so excited for this new adventure ahead. 🙂

School starts today for Nathan, so we have been soaking in the last of summer!!

I can’t believe my baby is already going to school, I mean, seriously, he was just this big only a few weeks ago:

Cue the mama tears.

We started up most of our fall activities over the last two weeks! We have a crazy fall scheduled so we’ve had to drop a few activities that we have done in the past just to keep our sanity (and to give me at least one day to just be home). This time around being pregnant, I have been very tired and sore, so planning in days to be home and do a lot of sitting activities have been SO wonderful for my ligaments and ankles!! 🙂

The boys started swim lessons a couple of weeks ago and are LOVING them. Nathan went last year but this is Parker’s first time to go. He still has to have a parent in the pool with him (enter me) but he is soaking it up (no pun intended). He’s already started gliding to me under the water. It’s so fun to watch him learn! And Nathan is busy learning how to switch back and forth between freestyle and backstroke. I know two kids who are going to go nuts watching the Olympics this year.

Some post nap snuggles with my tattooed toddler. Someone has to be exactly like his brother in all things.

Case in point. 😉 Since Nathan starts school this week, we’ve been trying to go over a few review things over the last couple of weeks and to get us in the groove for the home days with his school. I started trying to do school in the mornings, but it was just too hard with Parker needing to play and Nathan needing to get some energy out, so we’ve switched things up a bit. I get Nathan up early from rest time and we try to get the majority of his school done before Parker gets up (which means less writing time for me, so please pray that I use the time I have diligently!). But when Parker is up, he’s got to be doing “school” with Nathan. I found a little paint with water board for him to play with and he loves it.

Orientation day!! Nathan was fully dressed in this outfit and had his backpack on before I was all the way out of bed. 😉 He is SO excited for school to start!! Since I stay on the campus, I got Parker a little “packpack” too to take to his class (aka the nursery). It’s going to be a fun year!

We had to take the car in to get the oil changed and they were showing a preview of a new Snoopy movie. The boys thought Jiffy Lube was the best place ever.

Nathan finished his entrance booklet and was awarded his Sparky vest, bag and book at the closing ceremonies in the big group. He was SO proud! Oh my goodness. It was adorable.

On Awana nights, Parker gets Mom and Dad to himself, so we took him to Target for a little shopping and Auntie Cayce’s Starbucks for a treat, where we all got spoiled rotten by Cayce. And to top the night off, she even let him sweep a little bit. 😉 I think Thursday nights might become his favorite. 😉

We
got a box of baby girl and maternity clothes in the mail from my dear friend Leigh
Ann – SO much fun!! I love all the pink! Such a blessing from a sweet
friend.

And that was our week last week! Can’t wait to update on how school went today! 🙂

So, I’m not sure how long it will take for the disbelief to fade, but I’m still right smack in the middle of it!! I was SO sure that this was Boy #3 for us…I just knew it!

We got to know the sonographer really well with all of Parker’s cord issues that we had to keep checking on, so it was very fun to catch up with her and see how she’s been. We talked and talked and I told her that I just knew it was a boy but Jon was convinced it was a girl. She told us when she was going to start looking for the gender and we both looked away. When I asked if she saw it, she said, “Oh yeah, definitely,” and I just knew it was a boy. She printed out the gender picture and put it in an envelope for us to open at dinner.

We have the same (though to a lesser extent) issue with the cord as we did with Parker, so we would so covet prayers over our baby’s protection in there! We’ll have another ultrasound at 28 weeks and a few more between then and delivery just to check up on her.

Fast forward to dinner, Jon and I ordered as fast as we could and then finally got to open the envelope! Our sweet sonographer had written a congratulations note and then put the picture of the ultrasound in the envelope. I unfolded the page, saw the word “GIRL” on the ultrasound picture and just started bawling right into Jon’s shoulder. Oh friends, I so thought that this little one was a boy and I honestly would have been completely overjoyed for another son but it is so so fun to think about having a daughter!! Jon and I just hugged and cried and Jon prayed for our sweet girl and it was just a wonderful, precious time!

Our poor waiter showed up right then to ask a question about our order and saw me crying and got all worried and I choked out, “We just found out we are having a girl!” and started crying again. Bless his heart. He was so cute. He was just a college guy so he had no idea. I felt so bad for him. Ha!

Anyway, I cried off and on throughout dinner (Jon was all teary too – it was so sweet!) and then they brought dessert out and set this in front of me and I just lost it all over again.

Such a sweet waiter! He even made sure he gave us pink handled fondue forks. We tipped well. 😉

We went over to Mom and Dad’s house and controlled our emotions and we had family over and skyped with a few out of town family and friends. Nathan got to cut open the cupcake that would tell everyone what it was…

And everyone FLIPPED OUT. The screaming totally scared poor Parker to death. Ha! We are all so excited for this little one! I think everyone thought this was another boy, so it was really fun to surprise everyone again!!

I was in so much disbelief still that I had to call our sonographer the next day just to hear it from her. She just started laughing and said, “Yes! It’s definitely a girl!” 😉 Ha!

And, I mean, I just had to go buy something girlish… 😉

The following week, we went and got a 3D ultrasound done. I always wanted to do this with the boys and never did and so we made sure we scheduled it this time around. It was SO fun. And she’s definitely a girl!! Love this sweet face!!
 

We are SO blessed!! I cannot stop praying for this precious baby girl. So thankful for the surprise of this pregnancy, the surprise of this little girl and this wonderful adventure we are about to start all over again. Please keep our sweet girl in your prayers!!

So much love to you all!!

Thank you all so much for your participation in guessing along with us!! We are SO excited for this precious baby girl to join our family! 🙂

And the winner of the guessing game is… (Edited to add: If you checked this morning, I totally forgot to put the winner down. Can we say pregnancy brain??!) Daneen Roberts! I just emailed you! 🙂

I have lots of pictures of the reveal, but first up, a few pictures from the past week or so…

So fun to see Aunt Nicole and Uncle Caleb for a whole week! Next time we get to see them, they will have a little boy of their own! So crazy!

These two. They were both sitting there trying to learn how to tie their shoes at Evie’s house the other day. When did they get permission to grow up so fast? They are still supposed to be fighting over sippy cups.

The real estate company that Jon works for had a little barbecue and I won free ticket to watch the minor baseball team in town play! We had the best time! 🙂

Me and soon to be middle. 😉

Someone was VERY intent on watching for foul balls.

VERY intent. And he dragged his little brother into it too. 😉

The stadium was basically empty, so Nathan talked Jon into going a little closer to see if they could catch one down there. Seriously the play after they came back up to our seats, someone hit a foul ball that landed right where they were standing and then rolled onto the lower decks. Nathan was completely heartbroken. It’s all for the best, I’m not sure Jon could have caught it and kept both boys on the right side of the rail! 😉

The best part of the game – watching “Ohbit” (or Orbit), the team’s mascot. That’s all Parker said during the game. “Bayball? Ohbit? Bayball! Ohbit!” Ha!

Me and the lopsided lump busy at work during rest/nap time. 😉

Nathan was messing around after rest time one day and slammed his forehead right into the window sill corner. So, we had to spend the rest of the afternoon in and out of ice packs and I kept checking his pupils. We had Awana orientation that night too and he bloodied up his knee on the monkey bars while we were there. It was a rough day.

This little is just asking for a goose egg of his own… every time I turn around, he’s climbing on something! He discovered the water button on the fridge this day and we started being a LOT more diligent about closing the kitchen baby gate.

Showing off the bruise/scrape. #chicksdigscars

This one. This one is a MESS. I don’t even know whether or laugh or cry at him most of the day. He’s just a complete disaster and I love him dearly.

Jon sent me packing after an open house and I got a little over two glorious hours alone. So, I did a few errands, wandered through a few stores by myself and then spent an entire hour eating this sea salt caramel bar, drinking a chocolate milkshake and reading my Bible and Calm My Anxious Heart. So, so wonderful and SO needed!! We have been having a rough time lately with my very strong-willed eldest and now Parker is starting into the terrible twos with “no” and “mine”. It’s been difficult to be level-headed and able to deal with these emotional issues when I’m so tired physically! The break was amazing.

Bought the shirts for the reveal while I was out – time to return one!! 🙂

Parker finally got another haircut – it was needed! A friend was telling me about this shop for kids and it was pretty cool! He got to sit in a yellow Hummer and watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse the whole time. And they had us in and out in 12 minutes! Not bad!

Little love. He did great!

His face in this picture just cracks me up. He did not know what he thought about the clippers. 😉

Backpacks are here which means we are on the countdown to Nathan’s first day of school. Cannot, cannot believe my baby is so big!!

Mental note: Do not let Parker feed himself blueberry oatmeal ever again. The kid was stained blue all morning.

And that’s what we’ve been up to lately!! Reveal pictures coming tonight or tomorrow – we are just still in so much shock over here… so, so excited!