33 Weeks-Doctor's Report

Well, I went to the doctor on Wednesday and we are healthy and strong! I didn't gain any weight this time, so I'm at 17 pounds and holding...yay me...hopefully I'll stick to the 1 lb. a week for the next six weeks and not start swelling too badly. Baby girl's heartbeat is at 142, which is a little lower than Logan's was at 146, but of course still healthy. I do have carpal tunnel in my right hand, so I am having to wear a brace for that. Hopefully it will go away once little bit arrives. My c-section is scheduled for August 21st at 9:30 a.m. I am getting a little more anxious by the day, so please keep us in your prayers...more than anything Jarrod and I both just need a sense of peace after our last experience.

We're still stuck on a name, but we are resorting to drawing out of a hat...haha! So far, we've all picked Emma more times than anything...but I can't make a decision based on the "hat draw." I mean seriously, how do you tell your child that you decided on her name by drawing it the most times out of a hat???

My aunt was supposed to be here last night with the bedding, but my precious niece decided that she wanted to get baptized this weekend, so my family is all headed to Memphis to share in the occasion, sans the Dyer's. We're so sad to have to miss it, but its an 8 hour trip and just too far for a 3 day trip this close to delivery. We're so proud of her and the awesome decision she's made!!

So, instead of being with our family, we will be here painting the nursery...finally. My lovely aunt did overnight the fabric samples to us so that we can get the paint and get the painting done before she and the bedding get here next week. Maybe then my racing, panicking mind will be a little more at ease. I'll post pictures once we get everything moved in and situated!!

The Bloody Nose

Well, last night it finally happened...you always know that it will in the life of a little boy, but it didn't make it any easier. Logan was playing hide and seek with Daddy and Gammie and he was running full speed when he tripped over his stool in his room, tripped again and ran head first into the side rail of his bed. It was awful...he cried for all of 2 minutes, but he lifted his little face from Jarrod's shoulder and blood started running down his little nose! I thought that it would make him panic, but he was just fine albeit a little dazed. I never realized what seeing the blood of your child would do to you as a mother...no nausea, no panic, just a cool, composed split second devastation of seeing that he truly is hurt, but knowing if you lose it he'll be a complete goner!

4th of July Celebration

I love the 4th of July. Its such a wonderful reminder of the freedom that we have and the sacrifices that have been made for that freedom. I love celebrating that freedom with those I love the most and with friends that we don't get to celebrate on other "holidays". This year, we made the most out of being close to home and celebrated Thursday, Friday and Saturday. On Thursday was Midlothian's annual celebration. We went with our friends Karen and Edmund and ate some great food, watched Logan jump in the jump houses and then saw a great fireworks show. Logan was less than thrilled with the fireworks, but he wasn't really sure why he didn't like them. He started holding his ears about 2 hours before the fireworks actually went off. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera.

Then on Friday Mark, Tara, Hannah and Drew came down and we had a day of good food, Settlers' of Catan, and playing in the sprinkler with water guns and water balloons! It was wonderful and the kids got along so well! Then on Saturday, we loaded up the cars early and headed to Granbury for the parade. It was great and the kids had a lot of fun! Then we swam the afternoon away and the McClure's ended up leaving around 9pm. It was a fun, festive weekend!

The Month of June

The month of June was extremely busy. I'm not sure that we were home until the last weekend, and even then we were busy. It was the last month of "travel" for us, so we tried to squeeze in as much as possible. We started off the month with a visit from my sweet sister and her two kiddos (see previous post.) Then we went on our annual houseboat trip with a group of our college friends. This year marked our 7th trip. It was the first year that the McClure's had to miss, but I don't know that we've had the entire group together every year since the first few...there seems to always be a new baby coming, or something happening at work etc. We missed the McClure's but somehow managed to have a good time anyway! Vic, Colleen, Amy, Porter, Matt, Laurie, Kimberly, Kyle, Sarah and Jarrod
We have always played 42 the entire weekend, but this year we were too addicted to Settlers!

The next weekend marked the second annual family camp with Woodland Oaks. One of my good friends has been going to her church's family camp for as long as she can remember and she brought the idea to WOCC last year. She and the other two couples who put it together did a fabulous job and they are gracious enough to invite us even though we moved away before they put it all together last year. It was a great weekend of renewing and rekindling friendships and it was a joy to watch Logan "rediscover" some of the friends that he's had since he was born.

Jarrod and Logan getting ready for the all camp kickball game! This is a highlight for Logan's competitive "sport" spirit and he manages to do pretty well!
In the "outfield"
Too bad I didn't capture the ball when he kicked it!

Taylor "calling Daddy" during the game to report

Trey cheering on the teams with Uncle Craig!

Logan with Laurie at the campfire devo Matt was speaking at--he did a great job!

The final weekend in June marked the "goodbye party" for our good friend Marissa. She is going on an 18-month work assignment to....Australia!!!! Some friends came into town and we all went to Simply Fondue for a 4 hour dinner. It was fabulous, but mostly it was wonderful to get to see everyone and talk about all of the "big" plans Marissa has for Australia. She is going to have an amazing time and I know that God will bless her richly through the trip. Unfortunately, I didn't get a single picture!

Day to Day

Yesterday was one of those days--those days that you just cherish being a mom and cherish where your child is in life. I don't think that there have been very many statements of "Wow, I love this age" throughout the last six months...but still they are there. There was nothing extraordinary, just a day of being with a little person, doing day to day life and loving every second of it.

Yesterday we had to go running several errands first thing (well, first thing in our house means after breakfast and 30 minutes of a movie.) I expected this to be somewhat of a battle--I mean we had been out of town for the weekend and we didn't have just a ton of playtime before bed on Sunday night...who could expect their child to want to leave all of their toys behind yet again. Logan handled leaving like a champ. He often goes to bed at night with this statement, "Mommy, where are we going tomorrow." For those of you that know Logan, you know that he is my "prepare me" child. He needs a schedule and routine and if there's going to be a variation, he will be great...so long as you've given him some warning. Now that we know that, parenting a toddler is soooo much easier!!! We ran our errands and because he was amazingly good, we got to go on the beloved carousel ride at the mall. Its so funny to me that just as important as the carousel ride is the watching the ice skaters afterward, but again its part of the "routine" if there is such a thing for a child that goes to the mall 4 times a year. There's really nothing to report, other than it was a wonderful day filled with the absolute joy of being a 3 year old--and being in the presence of a 3 year old. Its always amazing how important the simple things in life are and how just the conversations and day to day life can seem so surreal and so joyous when you realize that this little person is still the miracle that grew inside of you and is daily such a tremendous gift.

What's in a Name

I picked out a name for a girl when I was 16 years old...when Logan was a boy, we really didn't have any issues with a name--Logan is Jarrod's middle name and Rhodes is Jarrod's grandmother's name. We had 5 grandmothers--3 of which have boy names, so we had a lot to choose from and Jarrod's Nanny is just extra special. She commented to me throughout college that she was the only one of her sisters with a boy's name (her name is Rhodes Arthur). She always reminded me of my Grandma Brown, who I loved DEARLY, but her middle name was Wayne (and that was way out of the possibilities list), so it was doubly special for Logan to have Nanny's name. The name I loved for a girl was Ashlyn Grace. Since then, I've run across a million Ashlyn's and the reason I liked it was because it was different. Well, since there were 3 in our age of classes that I teach at school this year, its especially out. We cannot for the life of us come up with an agreeable name...so I need some opinions:
Jarrod's favorite is: Emma Hope (we'd most likely call her Emma Hope, not just Emma)
My favorite is: Ellyse Hope (call her Elly when she's younger)
Logan's favorite is: Kamryn Hope

Another possibility is: Lindsay Hope (Lindsay is my middle name, so it would follow Logan's nicely)

Jarrod and I both like Caroline Hope but I can't see us with a Caroline for some reason. Seems too proper or something--I don't know. Well, Jarrod campaigned with my parents, my siblings and my cousins this past weekend on the Emma Hope name and it is growing on me. I have a few issues with this name...mainly its soooo common and popular right now. I think that the reason it may be growing on me is that I don't have any friends with an Emma, there are no Emma's at church, and I don't know of any coming into our age of classes at school next year, so it doesn't seem as "in my face" right now. Plus, it really is a beautiful, English name...just a little too popular overall.

Give me some help here so we can start calling this baby something other than "sister."

Three Musketeers

After a weekend of fun with the most of our family, Matthew, my brother Chris, and my sister Emily headed off to Costa Rica for the week. Becky and I felt sorry for ourselves, so we decided to spend the week together at my house. Ryan couldn't come because of work, so we missed having him here, but we had a lot of fun watching our kids make "cousin memories." Shane and Jessica entertained Logan and we went on several adventures throughout the week.

The first day we went to the Fort Worth Nature Reserve and had a picnic while watching for non-existent bison (this was not a hit with us adults--the kids thought it was great)

and then that night Jarrod had a work meeting, so we took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner and play

Wednesday we went to the Fort Worth Zoo and the kids had a great time.

Thursday we went to see the summer Thursday kids movie "The Bee Movie". This was Logan's first movie and he did REALLY well until the end when he got scared that the pilots were going to kill the bee...we had to wait for Aunt Bec Bec and Jessica and Shane in the lobby.

On Friday, my parents came in and Gumpy and Jarrod took Logan and Shane to see Shane's first professional baseball game. All he could talk about all week was getting a foam finger. I mean, we seriously talked about this no less than 5 times a day. Gumpy was great and made sure that he got one and that both boys got a bat. They LOVED the game--Logan was very glad to have Shane along!!! Gumpy also scored high "smart" points by buying all you can eat tickets. Shane ate 2 hotdogs, nachos, peanuts, popcorn, cotton candy, a DP and a Diet DP...and he's only 8. I'm not sure what anyone else ate, but needless to say the all you can eat was worth it. We had a girl's night with Jessica and went shopping, to eat a girlie dinner at Panera Bread and then home to watch 27 Dresses. It was fun, but I don't think it was nearly as big of a hit as the baseball game! Logan went to sleep with the hugest grin on his face.

Bec Bec and the kids left yesterday morning so they could rest at home today before getting back to their normal routine tomorrow. Mom and David stayed all day and then we went to meet my traveling siblings for dinner. They had wonderful stories and sounds like they made a lot of terrific memories. I can't wait to see the pictures!

It was a great week, but we've been resting after church today...my feet are still swollen...I'm a little afraid of what the rest of the summer will bring.