You Capture. Red.

For You Capture this week the theme was red. And while I had every intention of getting some beautiful red fall pictures that just didn't happen. So I settled for the next best thing and went for the yummy tomatoes from my Mom's garden that are sitting on my kitchen table. This picture was taken at the beginning of the week and the bowl of tomatoes looks nothing like this now (it's actually pretty empty). Head over to Beth's and see all the red you can handle :)

In The Clear?

Well, this is the second morning in a row that I have not thrown up (that has been my morning routine for ooooh 6 weeks now) :) So I'm really hoping all of my first trimester 'fun' is coming to a close. I will be 12 weeks on Friday and I was right around that when I started to feel normal with Noodle (Lizard was more around 14 weeks). Overall I have felt better with this pregnancy than I did with my first two. I think more so because I have two kids and, therefore, don't have the luxury of laying around as much as I could first times around. So it has forced me to stay busy and not have time to focus on feeling crappy. And at the same time I think you get smarter with each pregnancy. You know what did and didn't work first times around and you learn from those experiences.

I have been more tired the last couple weeks, but I think that has more to do with the fact that Husband has been working an unbelievable amount of hours. His official clock out time for this past week was 65 hours! Where he works they are horribly understaffed and some accounts had been pushed to the wayside, which caused them to get backed up that much more. I know he's nervous to go back to work tomorrow and find out just how bad it still is. But, at least he's working, right?

On a happier note I had my first doctors appointment and found out baby #3 is due to arrive April 24th! I was able to hear a quick little heartbeat (and there was indeed only the one) and it was wonderful. With the girls it wasn't until my second appointment that I was able to hear a heartbeat. So I was pleasantly surprised. I go to the doctor on Monday and will have a little more to report. Until then, this will have to do.

You Capture. I Heart Fall.

The quest for the perfect pumpkin (we must be picky about these things).

If Lizard were looking at the camera it might have been the perfect family picture.

Noodle thought these were hilarious.

For me, fall is the single greastest season of the whole year. If I could have it all year long it still wouldn't be long enough. The weather is beautiful, the colors are GORGEOUS, what's not to love about fall? So when I saw that this was the theme for You Capture I was thrilled. We made our first (of many) trips to the pumpkin patch. It was a beautiful day to spend outside and we had so much fun. I hope you all had as much fun with fall as I did :) Head over to Beth's and see everyone else's fall captures.

Unanswered Prayers

First, thank you to everyone for the wonderful baby congratulations. They were a lot of fun to read. We truly are excited and looking forward to adding to our family. And I have heard from many people that going from two kids to three kids is nothing compared to going from one kid to two kids (and i believe it!). Noodle will be a fantastic helper and Lizard will learn to roll with it (i hope. she's my mama's girl so i'm a little apprehensive about it. but it will be fine. no, really it will). If this weren't to have happened how it did, though, I honestly don't believe would have had another baby. We were very content with our family of four. And even more so it was starting to get easier. Like next summer if we wanted to go to Indiana Beach for the day we could do that. Or if we decided on a whim to go to Chicago over night we could easily do that as well. And Husband and I felt like we were starting to get our life back a little bit. Just little things, but, our life all the same.

Very unfortunately last week there was a heartbreaking death in husband's family. His cousin in Colorado lost her ten and a half month old baby boy. From what I know (i'm not sure of the complete details) he had a fever that turned out to be Group A Strep (they didn't know this until the received the autopsy results) that then caused an infection in his blood stream. They took him to the hospital, but, by that point it was too late. He passed away on the chopper going from one hospital to another. Neither of his parents were able to be with him because there wasn't room for them on the helicopter. They had to find this out when they got to the second hospital. This was an extremely rare case of this happening.

Husband and I hugged our girls tighter than we've ever hugged them the night we found out about Hunter, especially Lizard. She is exactly one week younger than him. I couldn't imagine losing her and my heart hurt more thinking about them losing him.

I have never been more thankful for my girls. And I am even more thankful for our unanswered prayer...the wonderful baby we thought our life would be complete without.

You Capture. Something New.

So the theme for You Capture this week was to take a picture of something you've never photographed before. At first this sounded tricky, but then quite the opportunity presented itself.

Now (to be very truthful) I was not necessarily excited when we found out. In fact I cried for a day and a half (because when you have a three year old and an at the time nine month old and you find out you're going to have another one...FUCK). After a few days of the initial shock wearing off we felt a little better about it. And after a few weeks we finally stepped back and thought 'if this is the curve ball God is going to throw our way then we are unbelievably blessed.' And I say curve ball because this was a 'surprise' not an 'oops.' The difference being that a 'surprise' happens despite your best efforts to be 'careful' (i think you all know what i mean). There are so many more things I could say right now, but I'll stick with the short version for the time being. Make sure you head over to Beth's blog and see what everyone else captured.

The little tornado that was...

So in our little town last night a tornado paid us a visit. Where our house is you would never have guess that any of this happened (and we're only 10 blocks out from this picture!). It rained heavily and then at 7:32 p.m. the National Weather Service flashed an emergency message on the television screen saying that a storm with strong rotation would be in our town by 7:35 (not enough time to get to mom and dad's; ya know, because they have a basement). So I round up my troops to get to our bedroom closet, but by the time I got them the storm had already passed us. Thank goodness, right? Then our power went out, came back on, went back out, came back on, went back out...and stayed out. I packed up the diaper bag to go to Grammy's (figuring they had power) and we were on our way. As we got closer to town (which, again, is only 10 blocks) Husband and I realized that a big storm did indeed go through town. As we got even closer into town we realized that it was, indeed, a tornado. Trees were down (some uproooted)everywhere, power lines were down, and firetrucks and police cars were driving around with their sirens blaring. At the local middle school the roof was taken off the south end and almost all of the windows were shattered. Mom and I went out early this morning and took lots of pictures before they started closing roads. These ones are from when little sister and I went out. It was quite a sight. The girls and I ended up staying at my parent's house that night. It helped to keep Noodle's mind off the fact that she couldn't watch a movie. But, Husband went home to sleep because he had to work this morning and all of his work stuff was at home (with the entire town out of power, 8800 people to be exact, I didn't feel the need to be driving around and trying to get into my house in the unbelievable darkness. It was freaky how dark it was outside!). Mom will have more details on her blog because she saw the actual cyclone above her house! Freaky deaky. I'm hoping our first tornado experience is also our last.

Check out Bacardi Mama to see more pictures (i'm not sure when she'll have her post up. you might have to check back later. her pictures will be worth it).

Party on, Wayne!

So we finally had Husband's 30th birthday party, and it was a blast! To say he was surprised would be an understatement. Two hours before the party, though, I thought for sure I had blown it. Husband was doing his P90X workout in the family room and I was in the kitchen talking on the phone with my niece (the one who babysat that night). And I'm going on and on about details she needs to know being I wouldn't see her when she got there. And half way through telling her about bedtime it occured to me that Husband was in the next room and quite possibly heard our conversation (well, my half of the conversation anyways). Now, that normally would not have been a problem. Except he was under the impression that I was out to lunch and a show with my sisters and would be home around 7:00. So why would Niece need to know about bedtime? Luckily for me, Husband was in his own little P90X world and didn't hear a thing.

When I left the house I stopped by a local florist to pick up three bundles of balloons. And as I went to pay I realized that I had left my party shoes sitting in the mudroom of my house. Again, why would it be a problem for me to run home and get them? Because by the time I realized I forgot them I should have been halfway to the restaurant for lunch with my sisters. I had no choice, though, but to go home and get the shoes because the shoes I left the house in would have looked sooooo stupid with my party outfit I took with to change into. And again, when I ran home to get my shoes Husband didn't even know I had been back in the house (which now scares me a little to think about that).

Once I got to the party destination, decorating and setting up tables went fairly quick. Twin sister and her husband and my mother-in-law came early to help (which was a great help). Everyone arrived around the time I asked and then it was just waiting for the guest of honor to arrive. Once he pulled into the parking lot with my accomplice I made the big announcement and everyone got in place and were ready to yell surprise when he walked in (I made sure I was standing front and center).

When Husband walked in and everyone yelled 'surprise' I thought he just might pee his pants. It took him more than a couple minutes to take it all in and realize all of the planning that had gone into the one event. Once he got his barings he said 'i need a drink' and proceeded to walk straight to the bar....didn't look at me, didn't say 'hi' or 'thank you', didn't even acknowledge that I was even there. It got a good laugh and I saw the humor in it as well. Immediately afterwards my Mom went over to him and made the suggestion that he should maybe go over and thank his kickass wife (ok, so she didn't say it quite like that. I adlibbed a bit).

All in all, the party was a big hit. Because of Husband's work schedule I had to have the party on a Sunday. That, actually, worked out quite well. No one was out really late (or got really drunk) and we were home at a reasonable time as well. The girls had a great time with our niece and the icing on the cake was that Noodle was in bed when we got home and Lizard was soon to follow. It was a great night.