christmas swimming

That's right... Ben went "swimming"...in the deep end too!! He got a kick out of being in the "pool" and had a hay day playing on the dirt mountain.  After 20 years of begging for my parents to put in a pool, all it took was giving them a grandson :)   It will be perfect timing... I'll have the baby, go on maternity leave and be soaking up the rays all summer. We all can't wait!!! There are many more pictures from Xmas, along with pictures from Thanksgiving at Seaworld... if I could just the energy to blog more :)

A much needed mess

Since I layed my eyes on our current home, I immediately envisioned a much brighter kitchen.  I knew exactly what needed to be done and mistakenly decided that around Xmas would be a good time for some remodeling.  Our house STINKS to all nastiness, the fumes are unbearable.  There is a film of dust. On everything. We've taken up residence at Noni and Papa's house.   Below was the state of the project a week ago.  Hopefully the painting it will be completed by tomorrow.... really HOPING :)  Then the hardwoods will be installed. I am so happy we did this now and not a month before baby is due. I can't wait to make the den a cozy hang out off the kitchen and get my blue walls back in action.  No matter how hard I try to find other wall colors, I can't stay away from the blues.  Once it's all complete, I post more pictures!

DEN - BEFORE

DEN - in the midst of it all

Kitchen - BEFORE

Kitchen in chaos

Santa's Wonderland

To keep up tradition, we went to see Santa at Bass Pro for the 4th year in a row. As I've mentioned before, Ben has never met a stranger, including a man with a beard dressed in red velvet and white fur.  As we were waiting in line, Ben was on daddy's shoulders, yelling "Hi Santa" over the line of people.  Then he became very concerned, an elf was stuck in Santa's workshop! I mean, who was going to save him mommy?? Ben was extremely concerned about this and upon the intially meeting of Santa, Ben kept looking up at this stuck elf.  While waiting in line, Ben found Roger the racoon. Ben met Roger last year and Santa delivered Roger on Xmas morning last year.  He loves his raccon.  I do too, he is super soft and perfect size to snuggle.  We didn't take the entire Bass Pro tour as usual... it's too much energy that I don't have these days :)  Next year, we'll have 2 kiddos on Santa's lap!!

ROGER!!! We told him it was Roger's family who lived at Bass Pro when he saw the bin full of them



If you look carefully you can see the Elf half way out the window at the top of the house in the background



Santa: "What do you want for Xmas"
Ben: "CANDY CANE"

Love these next pictures of Santa's facial expressions to what Ben wanted....

We crusied through the land of wasteful spending... I mean CHK campus to see the beautiful lights... really out did themselves this year, putting lights on the 5 construction cranes. I mean is that necessary Mr. McClendon?!

Pretty in Pink!

It's official... Ben is having a SISTER! As if the 3 previous ultrasounds weren't enough, I finally believe the doctors now.  For sure a girl, as apparent from the first picture below :)  It's been quite the long road and I can't even explain how thankful, happy, relieved and excited I am for this baby girl! 

Road Trip

Packed up for Seaworld Wednesday morning... this is how trip got started....

Then we stopped at McDonalds and Ben swiped some toys - Stir Sticks.

More Stir Stick entertainment....

Down to 1 stir stick....

That was on Wednesday on the drive down to San Antonio.  Ben did awesome.  All it took was a set of large headphone and an iPad to keep him occupied.  Took potty breaks when we stopped and he tried to have us pull over because "I need to pee in the grass, right there mommy, in the grass".  Nice try, we just stopped so I'm not falling for it. 

Friday we took a slightly shorter road trip from San Antonio to Fredericksburg to see my college roomie. We hadn't seen each other since my wedding, it was a long over due visit.  Evan has the 3 most precious girls.  Hallie (below) was just a baby at our wedding and is now 5 years old! So glad we got to sit around and catch up... just like old times hanging out in Drummond 612 :)

Can it really be?

Can it really be true that we will be buying bows, dresses and PINK clothing?!? And what is the deal with siblings knowing the sex of the baby from the get go? Ben has NEVER waivered from his statement "it's a girl". 3 ultrasounds in the past 3 weeks (being high risk has it's benefits) have each shown this hell raiser to be a GIRL.  So weird to not see a penis on the ultrasound and I'm still hesistant that a penis will appear on our next one in 2 weeks, so I might be retracting this blog entry :) But in the mean time, I couldn't hold this info in any longer.  Most importantly, baby is healthy and bouncing around all over the place!  I thought those girls were nuts who said they felt their baby kick early on, well I'm one of them.  Sunday night I felt a thump on my left side and today, as the nurse was picking up the heart rate, baby was on the left side so pretty sure I did feel a kick.
At 16 weeks....
I/baby can't get enough chocolate milk. I hate milk, so this so bizarre to me
Love pineapple & strawberries
Still not too fond of steak
Bagels with strawberry cream cheese
Can't think of anything else out of the ordinary.
We are so thrilled with the baby girl news and so relieved baby is healthy and growing!

Trick or Treat 2011

To say Ben was excited about trick or treating is an understatement.  Once our doorbell rang with kids asking for candy, it was GO time for Ben.  He wanted to leave with them, "where the kids go, where the kids go?"  We quickly put our shoes on and went out for the night, thankfully catching up with those kids he so desperately wanted to find :)  He knew the trick or treat routine, follow the kids up to the door and get the goods.  In the group of kids we tagged along with, there was a Princess and this Princess had to be the 1st to the door and was "in charge".  Well my son, with his competitive streak that he must have gotten from... well me (it's fun to make things into competitions and it's fun when I always win!), caught onto this Princess and by the end of the night, he was 1st! Hahah.... so proud, no way was he going to let her beat him.  But I was more proud of him when Tigger dropped his candy and Ben went over to help him put it back in his bucket.  As I always say, he is such a sweet boy!! We all had so much fun in our new neighborhood trick or treating!

petting the kitty

Miss Owl grabbed Ben's hand to help him across the street, it was really sweet!

the "scary house" on our route. ben was brave and went straight into the "danger"!

ben and his noni

why sure, let me walk right into your house!

watch it princess... i'm onto you!!!

scoping out the scary house with dad

walk-arounds

We attempted a night out to the OSU homecoming walkarounds.... it was PACKED! I hadn't been to a walk arounds since my days spent pomping all hours of the night, I don't remember it being that crowded.  Our 1st stop (and only stop) was the Delt house carnival.  Ben had a hayday on the spinning ride, I can't wait until he is old enough to ride the tilt-a-whirl. He is gonna love it! Ben is a spinner, spins all the time and came home last week from daycare with a black eye, a result of spinning into a play pin. We left the carinval and weaved our way through the mass of people to see a view more house decs.  Truely amazing what creativity, chicken wire and tissue paper can create!

having the time of his life!

"i'm spinning daddy... i'm spinning" as he holds on for dear life





It was fun to watch daddy try to get out :)

Here I come....

on the belly slide!

Space Ben

Ok, I feel like a human again and going to try to actually do things, like blog :)  The past 7 weeks were HELL. Not going to sugar coat it, I was in a bad bad place stuck in bed and had zero interest to do anything. Finally, I can say I feel GOOD.... I ran errands all day today, such a nice feeling to not be gagging while trying to browse Target. 
After serving my time on jury duty Monday and Tuesday (wow... that was interesting, convicted this thug and gave her 7 years, who knew we had to decide the time in prison, I did not!) Thursday was Devon's Halloween Spooktacular! This year, thanks to Grandma Sandy, Ben was "space boy" or "space ben". I finished the look with the purchase of some snow boots, I mean space boots.  After trick or treating on one floor, Ben got his sucker and was "all done". WHAT?! Mom needs more candy! "I don't want anymore candy!".  Crazy kid.... we continued to other floors and scored candy for me :)
I am actually finding my nikon and taking pictures tonight in Stillwater for walk-arounds.  I've been slacking for long enough!

Rumble made surprise appearance!

Ben and Iyla

Catching up on some work at mom's office

Big Brother

Not talking about the show but the fact that Ben is going to be a big brother come May 1st!!!!  Baby Forrest completely took us by surprise, not that we weren't trying but there were no fertility pills involved and lets just say it doesn't take but one time for a baby to be conceived :)  The specialist was planning on running further tests, but obviously that wasn't needed.  John and I were, to say the least, in complete shock when the test turned positive, trying for nearly 2 years, the only times we got pregnant, it was on fertility pills.  Of course, the anxiety of losing this baby set in and the past 8 weeks have been extremely stressful.  However, the fact that I've been stuck in my bed dealing with this outrageous case of morning/day/night sickness has let me know I was still pregnant.  I didn't know if I was going to make it to work each day, I seriously thought I'm going to have to quit.   I thought I was "sick" with Ben - not even close.  These pregnancies so far are night and day. I start my 12th week tomorrow and REALLY hoping it goes away by next week!  John has really stepped up to the plate and took over for me... oh and has been getting me whatever food sounds good at the moment :) Ben couldn't be any sweeter - laying in bed with me, giving me kisses when I felt so horrible and is so excited for "the baby in mommy's belly".  (which he thinks is in my belly button!) So far my craving and dislikes have been....(I need to write this down now or I'll forget)

Cravings: *some of these lasted a week and I moved onto the next weekly addiction
Fruit, fruit,and more fruit
Glazed chicken lean cuisine
Carrot sticks with veggie dip
Baked Lays
Taco Bueno... or as Ben says "Mom we got your Taco Beano"
Ramen noodles
Jalapeno cheetos
Crackers, pita chips, pretzels (didn't want these by choice)

Barf tendencies:
Ice cream :(
Pizza
Meats
Gray walls... I can't explain it but I made John repaint walls in our house
Scented laundry detergent
Fruit scented hand soaps
I'm sure John could add just a few more to this list :)

So far we've had 3 ultrasound and each appointment I about give myself a heart attack from anxiety, thankfully each time we got to see the bambino growing and growing! Heartrate has been from 177-182 and due date was 5-5-12, then 5-3-12 and now back to the calendar due date of 5-1-12!

Super Ben is 3!

Another year for the record books for the Beano.  We celebrated the big 0-3 with a super hero party at our house on a gorgeous Saturday morning, couldn't have asked for better weather.  In fact, we moved the party outside to the back porch! I'm pretty sure Ben was in heaven with all this friends and family at his house to celebrate his birthday.  He loves to have guests over, such a people person he is. 
Quick stats to report:
Weight: 32 lbs
Height: 38.5
And now for the party pics.... a huge thanks to Lindsay McDaniel for capturing the day!

My mom (Noni) made capes for all the super heros

I let Ben pick out his shirt... Thunder jersey... surprise, surprise. Time to get that 3T :)

Ben and his BFF Jacob

"to the rescue...."

Hit of the party... Rocket launcher from Uncle Seth and Aunt Ryan

We captured all the super heroes at once!