Within in a week of Christmas

Sallie Rose and I are so excited that we are within a week of Christmas. We head to Texas on Wednesday and then the real fun begins.

Sallie has asked us almost everyday if it was Christmas morning yet. She is so confused about the date, but she will soon find out when Christmas morning is. She can't wait to see if Santa brought her a Minnie Mouse doll.

I have to say, I just caught her digging into one of my favorite candles and had it all over the rug and ruined the candle, so Santa might be reconsidering her present. Errrrrrr....

Oh and today we go to the dr. for our 18 week sonogram. Yeah, can't wait to see the baby. We will find out the sex, but not til Christmas morning. I can't wait! I honestly have no preconceived ideas about whether it is a boy or girl. Either one is great and we just want a healthy baby!

The Littlest Star

Sallie Rose had her first Christmas Pageant at Church. They have been rehearsing for weeks and last Sunday they had a 3 hour rehearsal after Church. She knew every word to every song and was so excited about wearing her costume. The costumes were super cute. Of course, the night of the pageant she was in a bad mood and didn't want to do anything. I believe she sang one verse to Away in the Manger and that was it.

There were about 15 3 and 4 year olds that were dressed as stars and the boys costumes were way too big for any of the boys and they kept poking Sallie Rose in the eye while they stood on the risers or hitting her in the back. She was annoyed. She didn't cry and she didn't yell, so all in all it was a success. I do have some cute videos, but I am not even going to attempt to load that here.

We are getting excited about Christmas and she can not wait to see if Santa brings her a Minnie Mouse doll. I finally wrapped some of our gifts to other people and she came home and was so excited that Santa had come. I had to explain that Santa had not come and those were gifts for her friends. She was not accepting it and lo and behold, I had to put the gifts in the closet so she would quit crying and not unwrap any of them. It's a hard concept to understand, I suppose.

Here she is showing Christopher, her BFF, her ballet shoes. He asked her if she could dance in them. She said no.

This is a glimpse of the costumes. The girls had silver and the boys were gigantic gold stars.

Christmas Decorating: Part 1

Check out Part 1 HERE.

Baby Deuce

I finally decided to take some pictures of the new baby bump. I am 16 weeks this week, but I feel further along since we started going to the doctor at 6 weeks. They thought I was further along than I was.

So far, I don't think I have gained as much weight as last time, but then again I didn't gain most of until this time. The only reason I really even am concerned about it is because I do feel like all the weight I gained might have had something to do with my blood pressure problems at the end, although they can not prove that. I am still watching it a little more than last time and trying to avoid things like sweets and Mexican food. I ate a lot of both of those last time. :)

Everything is going well so far and I feel pretty good, still a little tired and not exercising as much as I should be, but what can you do?

Oh and I did make a mistake a few posts ago about what the due date is. It is May 19th not March 19th.

Sallie Rose wanted to be in the picture.

Hey little baby in there.

Today we went to see Santa (and it was adorable!) and tonight we go get our tree! I can't wait to put out all my Christmas decorations that I made last year. My lollipops and peppermints!

Giving Thanks

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and I am proud to say that I am feeling out of my funk that I was in last week and ready to get jolly and excited about Christmas.

I don't usually have "funks" that last very long. I am that person who always says "it will be fine and everything will work out the way God planned it." Well the last month has been very hard and my "it will be fine" machine was broken. I couldn't shake it. I was tired of discussing which one of the numerous bills we should pay this month and alert those who wouldn't be getting paid until next month, hopefully. I think it was just a surprise to me that we were in this position again with the rentals. I had worked so darn hard to get them rented and then 4 murders happen within 4 weeks within 2 blocks of our rentals. We lose 2 tenants because of the murders, and then the next month 3 more for various reasons. Plus, many of our tenants are just not paying their rent and I don't have the heart to kick them out immediately. Well, that's not real great business, because we have bills to pay and its usually their bills to keep their water and electricity on.

So, it hit me. I was tired of this business and I am tired of dealing with these tenants and their "needs". I went to a funk. And so did Kevin. It's not easy to unfunk when your partner is in the same funk. Then, one day I woke up in a good mood and decided, yeah its bad, but we are still paying all of our personal bills and we still have a beautiful home and no we might not have money at the end of the month to do anything but buy a coke, but that is more than most people could dream of right now. I am BLESSED AND I WILL BE HAPPY. I will deal with all the other unpleasantness of not being able to pay the roof company or so on, but I will still be happy and have faith in God. I am working as hard as I can and he will bring us through it. It just seems like we have been doing this same merry go round for 3 years.

On the other hand, I have a healthy baby growing and another healthy baby on the way. We took Sallie Rose to the doctor with us on Tuesday and I had asked her if she had any questions for the doctor and she had a couple. She wanted to ask him if we could get the baby out today and other various related questions. When we saw the doctor, I asked her if she had any questions for him and she said (in her cute, tiny voice) "what's your middle name?". We all laughed and he was a little embarrassed, because his middle name is Eugene and he is not very fond of it. It was adorable.

We will be finding out the sex of deuce (baby #2), on December 20th, but will wrap it up and not look until Christmas morning. We want to give ourselves a little surprise and a little extra Christmas joy.

So, here is to a great Thanksgiving and looking forward to a wonderful Christmas full of family, fun, Christ and health.

Children's Sermon

Now that Sallie Rose is 3, she gets to go to big Church with me. Today was her 2nd Sunday to go with me and considering she had already gone once and did just fine, I really wasn't worried about it.

The first Sunday she sat quietly and scribbled with the little pencils and occasionally she would whisper to me and she even folded her hands and closed her eyes when it was time to pray. She did great. Then, she went to the front for Children's sermon all by herself and went out the door to Children's Church.

And today, well it started off good, but ended up with me running down the side aisle of the long Church to whip my child's behind.

We sat next to Christopher Butler and his parents. Sallie Rose and Christopher were baptized together and have grown up in the Church nursery for 3 years as buddies. We love Christopher and his parents. The kids were a little loud at first and I had to grab Sallie Rose and put her in my lap so she would be quiet. Christopher was being a little louder than her, but she wanted to play and stand up just like him. They did fine.

Then, it was time for them to walk to the front. Our Church is fairly big and this particular Sunday, the Church was full which means there was probably 400 people in service. We sit on the 3rd row from the back. I let her and Christopher walk up to the front by themselves. She went and sat down and I could not see her. I saw Christopher though and he was standing at the altar, kind of hopping up and down and just not sitting still.

I wasn't concerned about him....until I saw Sallie Rose get up and walk over to where Christopher was playing. At that moment, I thought that I might want to walk up there and make sure nothing was about to happen, but I didn't. I just watched them nervously. All the other children were sitting quietly and listening and usually if there are other kids who are not, the preacher will ask them to sit down and listen.

I watched as the two of them started giggling, then they started jumping up and down on the altar and I kept waiting for them to stop, well of course they didn't. They decided to start hopping like bunnies down the aisle and waving to me and Whitney very happily. They had no idea that they were embarrassing their Moms and that they were disturbing the Children's sermon. I was a little frozen, I was laughing nervously, and then as they got louder and starting hopping more and more, I got up and went down the side aisle (very red faced I am sure) and went straight to the front. Of course it felt like it took me an hour to get up there. Not to mention, it took me an hour to pick a dress this morning, because I am getting a little too big to wear anything. The dress I chose was a little short and a little tight and I felt very self conscience that as I was running down the aisle my butt was hanging out or that people could see the top part of my panty hose.

As soon as I got to the front, I grabbed Sallie Rose and pulled her off that altar and sat her on the front row. I was so mortified and a little amused as well. I can't help but laugh, because you always hear those kids that say or do funny things at Children's sermon and you always laugh, but never think about it being your sweet, nicely dressed little girl. Needless to say, I will be walking her down the Church for the next few Sundays to make sure she stays in line.

Honestly, how could you stay mad at this face?

We're having a baby!

We are so excited to be having another baby. We have been waiting for the right time and the right time is NOW! Sallie Rose is so great and she is so excited about having a baby brother or baby sister or both as she likes to think. She tells the baby good morning almost every morning and she kisses it good night every night. I bribe her to snuggle with me on the couch by asking her if she wants to snuggle the baby and she will. She won't just snuggle with me.

The baby is due March 19th and yes we will be finding out the sex of the baby. We will need as much time as possible to decide on a name for either a boy or a girl. Kevin and I have very different ideas about names and Sallie Rose was our one agreeable name and I don't think we can use that again, although Sallie Rose the first thinks we can.

I have felt a lot worse this time around. I basically lay on the couch every night and try to take a nap everyday. I was pretty irritable for a few weeks too. I think in the next couple of weeks I should start to feel a little better.

In other news, Sallie Rose was Minnie Mouse for Halloween. She was soooooo cute, as you can see from the pictures below. She had a festival at school and we went trick or treating around our neighborhood Monday night. We had a good time, but I am ready to move on to the next Holiday.