summer is here

and apparently spring decided to just skip us by this year.

we enjoyed an afternoon of soccer with our friends and then because Miss Kylie scored two goals, we all went out to celebrate with some hot chocolate! Actually it was called "20 below hot chocolate", but Brigham kept misunderstanding, and thinking that he was going to get the hot stuff with marshmallows. not quite, after we just endured the intense sun and we all now have some pretty nice farmer tans!

but my flowers did especially well, and I seemed to have 5x more daffodills in my front yard then last year! I was also happy to see that the bulbs I planted in the back yard bed came right up! since we went straight to mid 80 degree temps, my tulips are starting to pop open now too!

I can't wait til this weeked when I can plant the rest of my pots and get some more color in my beds. Since we have only EIGHT more weeks til we meet our third child, I need to get a move on the ol' gardening..

Plus, in two weeks we will be celebrating our sweet Tatum's second birthday....

I have to say that I was trying to get that perfect photo for her invitation, but at nearly two, she had other ideas, and was not wanting to cooperate. So I improvised, and used three of the cutest ones. I actually created my first PS document all myself, and I think it turned out pretty cute.

Though after they were all in the mail, I somehow realized that I had made one major mistake..

can anyone spot it?

I'll let you know at the end of my post...

So yeah, this pregnancy is going by super fast. I think I said that when I was carrying Tatum too, but this one seems to have gone by even faster. Maybe because I was on the go so much. Like when I was pg, with Brigham , the time seemed to drag on for -ever. Perhaps that was because I was working the entire time!! LOL

Well, last Friday, my friend Kelli and I went to get our toes pampered. Her husband set it all up for us, and he watched all the kiddos, so we could relax for a bit. It was so nice to have a couple hours of uninterupted girl time where we could just 'talk'. She'll be having her little girl this week, and we are sooo excited to meet her! Hopefully, we'll get to see her shortly after she is born. I just love those 'hours old babies'...

and as we wait for our bundle to arrive, I am busy, busy with projects. This week is focused on getting all of B and T's clothes boxed up and then switch Brig's dresser into Tatum's room. She will be sharing space with the newborn clothes and at least her folded/ stuff. All of her hanging stuff will still stay in Brig's closet.

I sure can't wait til' the day that they all have their own space. But for now (since I have completely taken over T's closet with scrapbooking stuff), we are improvising. and it seems to work for now. but they just have so many, many clothes!!

Also, on the agenda for the week is to narrow my choice for a double stroller. I am finding to be very frustrating, b/c I want the colors to match with the two seats that we already have. Plus it needs to blend with the interior of our car . (which is black leather as of the Jetta), but sadly we will be trading that in before too long..... I soon will be a mini van mama....

so before I ramble on too much more, I'll leave you with some self portraits. Took these last week. I actually did have Andrew help a bit, he thinks he is in training to be my assistant.. HA!!

not sure about the umbrella thing.. but I had seen it somewhere. I just won this umbrella in a women's group I belong too, and thought it would be cute to try out.....

so this was me at like 31 1/2 weeks along.... I have got to get my pg photos scrapped soon, so that at least baby tres has a few pages in his/her book, before we meet them!

**so did you find my huge mistake on the invite?? um, totally forgot to put the date on it!! must be my pg brain on the fritz again!! LOL

catching up

spring fest at Purdue was last weekend. I loved it when I was in college, though I participated in more of the wearing of the crazy get-ups, and consuming large quantities of Long Island Ice Teas.Since we have had Brigham , we have taken him over to campus . The weather has only been nice once. 2 years ago, it was so cold we were in winter coats and hats. and last year it was pouring down rain and about 40 degrees. But we marched on and participated in as much as we could.This year, it was 70 and sunny, and we stayed over 5 hours. We all had a blast!! Above is Brigham with the sought after bee (spring fest is also called Bug Bowl and the entomology department goes all out at teaching that insects can be useful and liked, instead of detested.) We ran into one of his friends from school, Cloe, so they took a picture together,
this was toward the end of the day, but my pictures are all out of order.. the horticulture department always has a great plant sale and the seniors all have to do a final project in the way of landscape of some kind. This year, there was a huge focus on water features, which was really beautiful.
My little pretty in among the flowers. Notice she is decked out in her lady bug dress.. to attend 'bug bowl'.. !!Brigham was dying to join in the cricket spitting contest. Here he is picking out his gem.
and here he is spitting it. (this picture is also for daddy.. lol)
and they had set it up like a football field, and Brig's spit measured all of 9ft !!

Next we moved onto eating the crickets. Brigham remembered this from last year, and was begging to try it again. These are the chocolate covered ones.
and obviously, my kid had no problem chowing down!!
I believe this was eating the stir fried meal worms.
The animal science department had a tent , where they taught all about different animals, etc. Here is Tatum petting a chic. I think she liked it..
Here she is with daddy, petting the chick
Brigham loved milking the cow. Somehow my angle here is not the best....lol
moving on to the entomology department... Brig just walked right up and held this big ol' furry spider... um, mom and dad wouldn't go near it!!
Tatum was ok, with touching the millipede...
and of course mr. bug man , loved it too..

and that was our fun last weekend. We also had a great evening with friends who are getting ready to move away to HOT lanta to attend seminary. We will miss them and wish them so much luck.

computer update:

well.. so apparently the ol' computer did crash last weekend, and the part Andrew ordered was not going to bring it back.

soooo. my hardware genius of a husband, researched and researched and built his own computer.

We ordered it this morning, and should have it next week. my fingers are crossed.

so in the meantime, we get to fight over his macpro.

I have had a couple photo shoots, and it is driving me nutz as I stumble thru learning CS4 as I edit them. ( I am used to CS3 on my puter)

not to mention I don't have any of my actions or templates on his mac.

I am in no way anxious to get mine back up and running. nope. not at all.

oh, and if you could all say a prayer that all my stuff saved on the external drive will transfer on to the new one. thanks.

hope you are all enjoying your weekend! we finally have some sunny and warm weather . YAY!!

computer crisis

yep. I should have known that something was about to happen when I walked into my bedroom and from within my computer /office armoir was a very loud buzzing sound...

and I couldn't get anything to show on the computer screen.

shutting it down and restarting, just revealed a nice little message

error in OS

My computer wiz of a hubby, took the entire thing apart and cleaned it, tried to reformat it, and we still got nuthin.

ugh.

he's been researching how to fix it, but it is looking as though I am going to get a brand new computer.

just what we need to add to our list of 'spending' as we prepare for baby #3.

but since I do have a business that relies on the ol' puter....

and I do have to keep up with faithful blog readers and writers.....

and I do have to read my 50-60 emails a day......

guess, this will have to move up on the list

before the double stroller.. lol

or the mini van...

PRIORITIES right people?????

so I am writing this from Andrew's mac, but I don't have any pics on here to post. =(

We had a super fun, action packed weekend, where I nearly used up 2 memory cards.. so yeah, I did have mucho pictures to share..

but my computer had other plans.

hopefully we'll have good news soon, and I'll be back to showing off my cutie heads and their crazy antics.

picture overload

of the Easter variety =)

we waited until sister went to bed to start the egg deal... why do we never remember how long it takes? poor Brig got to dunk them, Sat night,and we let him stay up til' almost 11pm watchin Fox and the Hound, so he could watch the eggs turn colors.

He wasn't able to add any more decorations.. but I don't think he cared too much. We now have egg bands and stickers tucked away for next year!

Andrew suggested that maybe egg dying becomes a Good Friday tradition. I think I like that idea.
However this past Friday, we went out for dinner w/ our friends and back to their house so the guys could booze it up( while their prego wives watched them obsessively play guitar hero).
At least the kids stayed near the dads in the play room, so whether they were being supervised or not, us , moms, got to gab uninterrupted for once!! LOL
and we only had one blood shed, and one set of poopy pants..(um. yeah,that one would be by our 4 yr old.)

Brigham learned the word " sharted" LOL

We stayed til after midnight, which is pretty normal for us when we get together with the K family. I just can't believe the two 2 year olds were still going strong at that hour!
luckily we could all sleep in the next day!

the finished product. Brigham was so proud!
Saturday, we finished up some Easter bunny shopping... holy cow does that stuff add up!!
Before we knew it we were over $100.00! ( now it wasn't just in candy.. lol)
but still...... geesh!


Here is Brigham as he walked into the living room and found the trail of carrots

maybe he wasn't quite awake yet..
I had gone to bed before he did last night, and had to get up super early to 'stage the scene'..
He followed the trail, and found his basket.
He also found his sister's and wanted to run and wake her up... but we vetoed that.
He was pretty concerned about the fact that he left the bowl of lettuce and carrots and the back door, and the trail started at the front door.
hmmm. silly rabbit.
or was it silly mommy?

diggin' for goodies...

and yeah, my kid, doesn't even attempt to eat any of the candy. He starts methodically sorting his candy in piles!

( he did eventually ask if he could eat one piece before church!)


Our church service was amazing. I got super emotional during the drama. It was amazing, and set to the song "everything". seriously. I really hoped it touched a lot of people.

the sermon was great and my mom and brother made it too.

It was also cool to see 5 more people from our old church. One by one, they keep showing up. God is doing something. it's really cool.

I really wish that all my friends could experience a church like this. so if you're reading this, once again, an open invitation. in face this coming Sunday, is Friend day. so we are encouraged to bring our friends. I am encouraging you (if you're local) and reading this, to just come and visit once!

********

ok, so after church we went to my mom's for dinner-ish at 2pm.

she pulled out all the bunny stuff and the table was really cute





I made this yummy strawberry cake.





and the kids did an egg hunt inside, b/c it was still pretty cold and windy out.

the money in the eggs was a huge hit with Brigham. He scored quite a bit in bills too.

Tatum had her first encounter with jelly beans.

and she grew to love them quickly.

unfortunately, her dress found itself showing the love too.

but after a long soak in BIZ(the best stain getter outer) it is as good as new!

******

and here are the mock hunt outside pics.. LOL

see jelly bean in hand, and mouth already full..

I love this one. since her room is garden-ish, shabby chic decor, I think I am going to blow this up and frame it and hang it from some soft ribbon on her wall.

my handsome fella!

*****

I hope you all had amazing Easter celebrations as well.

I am so thankful that HE lives!

when it rains it pours

( Tatum modeling her new raincoat!)

and if were snow it would have been 16-25 inches!!

yuck!

(and we did have snow on Monday.) double yuck.

We had a couple beautiful days.. sunny, but pretty windy. The kids and I met my friend Kelli at Chick Fil Et on Friday for a rather long play date! The kids play so well together the time just goes by fast!


We used to get together at least once a week, but since we are both dealing with pregnancy, our get togethers have been more like every 2-3 weeks! We are trying to cram the last few all inclusive(family) outings in before she has her baby in just a few weeks!


We realized when we went to Texas Roadhouse about a month ago, that we were a party of 9. and by this summer, we would be a party of 11 including 2 slings and 2 highchairs!! LOL


bet the staff, would run when they see us coming!!



Saturday, Brigham had two birthday parties, though he only attended one. It was one of those tough mommy decisions, b/c both parties were relatively at the same time. So Brigham excitedly picked out the gifts for both friends and we took the gift over to the little boy's house the morning of his party and Brig still got to 'see' him for a bit!

The party he attended was Pirate themed, and Brigham had a blast. We have heard nothing by "arrrrrrgh'"and ''ll shoot you" since he came home!! LOL


even little sis is saying "arrrrrgh" every time, big brother comes out w/ the eye patch and hat on!!
And since now his friends Micah and Noah have turned five, Brig is constantly talking about how long it will be until he will be 5.
gotta get on his party planning. I've got sister's pretty much done for May. I still haven't settled on a theme yet , for Brig's July party.

Sunday we had rain, rain and more rain.

We went to church and listened to a fantastic sermon. The pastor challenged us to think about the different perspectives of what the cross means. from Jews. from Romans and from Christians. something I hadn't really looked at before. I am so thankful for God to just keep placing us just where we need to be to grow and be challenged in our faith. We were at a pretty stagnant place for 4 years. A place that really didn't teach or model the same values and beliefs that we have. We were refreshed by finding a more progressive church which challenged us and spoke scripturaly just the words we needed to hear during some tough times. We fell in love with the spirit led worship(something we had not experienced before) and the relative sermons.
But God knew that we needed to grow.
And thankfully he led us to that perfect place .
Its so exciting to be at a place where we want our friends to experience what we are. Its been a blessing to have the familiarity of nearly 10 friends from our last church and we keep inviting more.
If you're local, and you're reading.. consider this an open invitation to just "TRY" our church once.
( you can find the link on the left)


Brigham has been asking everyone we meet "if they know what kind of Sunday it was"


and then he replies " SUN PALM... the day we celebrate GOD lived!!".
well, he's partially right. pretty cute huh?
I am so excited for Easter this year. He's really starting to get it. He talks about how God had 12 friends and then there were 3 people that didn't like him. and they wanted to kill him. so they put nails in his hands and hit him. and then he died.
Brigham has his Easter program on Thursday, so I am sure he'll learn more, and I'll post pics for sure.
Because of the cold temps and rain, we've been doing a lot of this.


and riding bikes inside. my lil photographer. ya never know what sights you'll see on the trip around the living room!

and in other technology news.... grandpa and grandma Holland have been reading the kids bedtime stories from Colorado.


the kids adore it. they run to the Mac when they hear it ring!!
we use skype and the link for the stories is
www.magickeys.com/books


and that's our week thus far!

Hope you're having a great start to yours!!