Weekend Renovations

Back from a fantastic weekend in Chicago, be sure to check out the awesome pictures on Picasa. Mom, Curtis, and I had a great time hanging out with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. They are a beautiful family and were such gracious hosts to all of us.

Super busy weekend that started with finishing up the grout on our new tile in the guest bathroom. Porous tile+dark grout=lots of hard work! But its done and looks beautiful. Hopefully tomorrow night we can get it sealed and put the baseboards back on oh and get our potty back also :)
We went to IKEA on Saturday to pick up a few things and decided it was finally time to make use of our Baylor/toy/computer/room. We bought this awesome new shelving unit and I can't even believe how much more useful the room is now. We took down our 'bar' that we used as a computer desk, touched up the paint, and reorganized everything. I am finally happy with how this room turned out...four years after buying the house! Not totally done yet but you get the point.

Now we need a weekend to rest from our weekend!

September

September has rolled in on us and found us extremely busy. We are all grateful to have such wonderful family and friends to keep us entertained! We had a wonderful long weekend in Minnesota with Mike, Emily, Anna, Willie, and Jacob's Grandmother and family. Mike and Emily are always such generous hosts and we all had a great time running around Minnesota and watching the kids play together. Anna and Curtis got along beautifully and were the best of friends by the time we left. In fact poor little Anna cried the entire way to drop us off at the airport because she knew that meant Curtis was going to leave...too sweet! Little Willie is such a fantastic little guy with nothing but smiles and laughs all the time. We keep telling Mike and Emily that they are really in for it with their next kiddo seeing how well tempered and easy going their first two have been :). We thank God daily for their awesome friendship and look forward to seeing them again soon! Jacobs Grandmother is doing wonderfully. She is such a sassy lady and time has not slowed her down one bit! We got to spend quite a bit of time with her this trip and we all love our GiGI!

As you can see from our pictures I am getting REALLY BIG! I can hardly believe we have less than 12 weeks to go. We are all getting super anxious to meet our little man and are especially grateful to have so many distractions between now and then to keep Mommy from nesting 24/7! Curtis, Nana, and Mommy are headed to Illinois on Friday to visit with some family. Should be a great time to see everyone and we are all ready for the gorgeous weather! During the week Curtis and Mommy have started our new St. Francis Nature Club which meets at various parks in the area each week with a science/nature themed unit for the kids. This week we read the Very Grouchy Ladybug and took our magnifying glasses out on the hiking trails looking for bugs. We are so blessed to have so many like minded kids and parents so close to our house!

I think that just about covers everything lately. There probably will not be too many posts in the next 12 weeks. Mommy is starting to feel very big and very tired and Curtis is almost ready to give up his nap time...this could be a dangerous combo! Happy Wednesday! Be sure to check out all of our pictures from all the above mentioned activities!

New Mexico

Jacob, Curtis, & I traveled to Albuquerque, New Mexico for a few fun filled family days. We had a fantastic time and got to experience a bunch of really cool things before Curtis and I came home yesterday to leave daddy to his work (the trip was actually a buisness trip for Jacob, we just tagged along). We arrived early Saturday morning and ate lunch at a really neat local place before going to the hotel for nap time. Saturday night we caught the Railrunner train into Santa Fe. We were able to walk around town for a few hours, visit the St. Francis Basilica, and eat some more local cuisine. This picture is of Curtis's face when the train pulled up...think he was excited? Sunday, we went to mass and then headed to the Zoo, Aquarium, and Biopark. The Zoo was definitely one of the coolest we have ever been to. They had a bunch of really unique animals and the entire zoo was very kid friendly. There was a really neat little train that took you on a tour through the entire zoo. Two trains in two days=super happy Curtis! Monday, Daddy had to work :( so Curtis and I headed to Iexplora a really neat hands on exploration zone for kiddos. I was so sad that Jacob couldn't come with us because he would have totally geeked out over all the cool engineering toys to play with. Curtis is definitely going to be like his daddy as far as all that stuff goes. We spent almost our entire time there building things out of pipe, making mazes for marbles, and creating cars out of random materials. It was a fantastic learning experience for Curtis and just plain fun for me! Doesn't he look just like Jacob in this picture? He said building all of these creations was his "job" Monday night we went to an awesome local brewery and had a super yummy fancy dinner. Tuesday, Daddy had to work again :( so Curtis and I just played at some local parks until it was time to head to the airport. The weather was gorgeous and barely made it into the 80's most of the time we were there. The dry weather made for some great hair days for us all too :) Can't wait for Jacob to come home on Saturday! Lots more pictures on our Picasa site.

RIP Sharkie

Remember when you were in elementary school and you had a super cool classroom pet? All the kids counted down the days until it was their weekend to take the adorable little hamster/lizard/gerbil/fish home for the weekend? When I was in elementary school we had a hamster. I couldn't wait to take the little guy home and spoil him all weekend. I fed him and played with him and gave him tons of gerbil treats. We were off to a really good start...then I woke up in the morning to find the little guy had practically blown up. The poor little rodent had a sudden brain aneurysm and had brain matter coming out of his eyes/ears/you get the picture (did you know that could happen to hamsters? I certainly didn't!!!). So I was "that girl" you know the one that killed the classroom pet and had to break the news to all of her classmates. Well you see it looks like my reputation has stayed true even into adulthood. My awesome neighbors and friends got married last weekend and I am in charge of taking care of their house, checking the mail, signing for wedding gifts, and feeding their adorable school of fish. And I showed up this morning and one of the little guys was a floater. Curtis and I had a mini memorial service and sent the little guy on a whirling ride to the other side. Poor guy. Poor Tommy & Kelli...hope they weren't too attached to little sharkie. Looks like I get to be "that girl" again and share the news with the newlyweds. Sigh. And we are going to be out of town the day they return so I am going to have to leave a note...man I feel bad! I fed the little guys I promise I did! I hope Curtis will be okay with never being allowed any pet smaller than Gracie!

Ram It!

We sold Jacob's Toyota Tacoma this week and bought a really nice Dodge Ram. Jacob was of course thrilled to have a nicer truck and I was thrilled to finally have a truck we can all fit in comfortably. In his old truck my knees literally touched the dash board since we had to move the seat all the way up to fit Curtis's car seat behind me. This is becoming more and more uncomfortable the more Nicholas and I grow! Its great to have two vehicles that we will all four be able to fit in safely. This was a great move for our entire family and as you can see the new truck is pretty nice!!!

Weekend Project & CFA...again!

Here are some pictures of our super fun weekend project. Jacob did a fantastic job cutting all the stars and Curtis and I had a blast painting them all. Overall we are thrilled with how it turned out. Most importantly Curtis loves all the stars!

We HAD to venture over to Chick-Fil-A again tonight for Superhero night. Curtis was thrilled to wear his Batman costume again and his best buddies all joined in on the fun too. Got to love five free kids meals! I know I am biased but these kids are TOO cute!

New pictures on our Picasa site of Curtis & Clare's 1/2 birthday cake eating "party" and "gifts" (garage sale buys!), me at 23 weeks, and lots more super cute superhero shots.

HMMMM...

Nothing much going on here this week. Jacob has been working a TON, I really feel for him! He is exhausted but has to keep up with his overwhelming work load. Please keep him in your prayers that he can get some much needed rest this weekend! Curtis and I had a pretty low key week. Play dates, breakfast dates, splash park, library, confession, shopping. Nothing too exciting. We are working on adding some decoration to Curtis's room this weekend. We are really ready to "BOY" out the room now that we know we will have two rough and tough little guys in there! Hope you all have a great weekend! I keep forgetting to take a prego picture so here is one of me last weekend (22 weeks) holding my beautiful niece Kaylee. You can kinda see the belly in this one :)