say it like it is, son

last night after dinner, we showed the kids the video of my sonogram, and ethan was more than thrilled to see the baby's heartbeep... again and again and again! i think he actually understood that the chicken nugget-shaped black mass on the screen was the baby in my tummy! i wanted to show him how it would end up looking more like an actual baby as it grew, so i whipped out caroline's 20 week sonogram video. we hadn't watched it since the day we brought that video home 2 years ago--how neat to watch it with that little baby sitting on the couch with us exclaiming, "baby! baby!" ethan loved telling her, "that's YOU, caroline! that's YOU!"

anyway, after we watched her heartbeep several times, i reminded ethan that this baby would get bigger and bigger and that mommy would also get bigger and bigger. as i put my arms out to show him how big i would get, he replied so matter-of-factly....

yes. fat.

baby's first picture!

i just got home from my first dr's appointment this time around...and everything looks great! there is one baby, carrie. just one! we could see little arms moving and a strong heart beating (174 bpm... and caroline's was 171... hmm, another girl?). i even learned that the egg came from my left ovary! did you know that the ovary that produces the (ultimately) fertilized egg has a small cyst on it for the first three months that produces progesterone... which is the cause of first trimester nausea?

well, i am pretty ready for that cyst to just disappear!!! i have not been very sick, but if i do not put food in my mouth every 30 minutes, i am out of commission for awhile. it took me a few weeks to figure out that eating that often would help, so i have not been the most fun summer mommy since the beginning of june! i'm thankful to have finally discovered what my body needs to stay happy, so i just eat a little bit all day long, and i can make it! the kids have already grown accustomed to hearing "it's for the baby!". so far, that has worked!

ethan was "so exciting" about my doctor's appointment this morning. my mom stayed here with the kids while brian went with me, and she said that when ethan woke up, he exclaimed, "mommy is going to bring me a picture of the baby!" then later this morning, she said that he was walking around singing, "baby number 3! baby number 3!" that cracks me up because i haven't really used that term very much around him, but we all know that kids hear everything.... then my mom asked him who baby #1 was, and he gave her the most puzzled look! she tried to explain that HE was baby #1, but i'm not sure that really stuck. :) thanks for trying, mom!!

we already can't wait for january to get here. :) caroline is totally in love with babies, and ethan is convinced it will be a boy and he will name him "goggles". never fear, we do not give our children everything they want!!!

they go way back

i guess you could say that ethan & steven's friendship began during water aerobics while kristi & i were pregnant! twice a week, we'd feel weightless (or at least less weighted!), and i guess the boys enjoyed the extra buoyancy?! who knows! but those boys had no choice but to be friends. :) for the first year of their life, they played together (with lydia too!) several times each week, and kristi and i talked about how we were so excited for our kids to grow up right down the street from each other. well, down the street changed to several states away when they moved in 2006, but we have been blessed to be able to get together with them several times since then. ethan talks about his sweet friends often, and as soon as he finds out that a trip is planned to see them, it is ALL i hear about until we leave! ethan loves every minute that he spends with lydia & steven!

and this time was no different... we arrived at the beach house around midnight, and lydia & steven had just given up on waiting up for us. we snuck into their room so that ethan could wake them up, and the three of them got so giddy seeing each other!


here are the boys bright and early the next morning... they were already laughing and playing before 7:15 in the morning... hey, at least they like each other, right!? :)




the kids got a big kick out of the jello guessing game we made up! they covered their eyes and guessed what flavor of jello was put in their mouth... oh, the little thrills of life!

ethan & steven are showing their muscles. :)
this will be a great one to show in 15 years!

"who wants ice cream!?"

sweet, sweet, friends. we love you, lydia & steven!

caroline & meredith are also on their way to never forgetting each other. :) they even packed matching pants for our beach trip without planning it! i didn't get very many pictures of the two of them because they were always walking off in different directions, in someone else's shoes, dragging a random bag or blanket around...only to swap 30 seconds later. (they are so in that bag lady stage!)


how cute are these girls devouring ice cream sandwiches?! of course, we'd just given them baths a few hours earlier, and now melted ice cream had dripped into every little place possible! oh, but that's what vacation is for!

my kids loved being with their friends, and i sure did enjoy being with mine. as usual, we stayed up too late and didn't get to talk nearly enough, but the fellowship was sweet. (it was an extra special blessing having my wonderful sister-in-law there, too! kristie's heart spills over with encouragement, and it was just what kristi needed that week.) kristi and i talk several times a week (sometimes several times a day!), so in a way, it doesn't feel like almost a year since our last visit. i love that. i do miss her smiling face & the fun of feeling her baby kick, but what a blessing it is to know that my friend will be ever so close to my heart even if our visits get fewer and farther between.

we have walked a long road together this past year... and so even more than the talking face to face, my favorite part about this visit was the wonderful reality that i could hug my friend, belly and all, whenever she needed one. you can't do that on the phone, and sometimes, i just don't know when to stop talking. and that's where a hug is so great. so we shared lots of hugs, me, kristi, and shepherd, and we laughed when i plowed straight into her belly for a hug because i momentarily forgot she was pregnant. :) praise the Lord for this much-needed time with my friend!

a break from the beach

i'm getting close to wrapping up the pictures from our beach vacation with kristi. it probably seems like our family is continuously out of town, but really, it's that it just takes me forever to write about our trips. :)


one day during our visit, we took a little break from the beach and ventured downtown to the farmer's market. it was the most beautiful day... we enjoyed sampling chutneys, jellies, and oh wow, THE best grits i've ever put in my mouth. (they tasted more like mashed potatoes! :) can you say doctored up? i'm sure paula deen would have been proud of these grits!) we also feasted on pretzel dogs and homemade donuts. besides food, we enjoyed letting the kids run all over the beautiful lawn. they played with dogs, jumped on the inflatable bouncy thing, and ethan even invaded a random family's bubble extravaganza. fun was had by all. :)



"thank you, mr. eric!"
ethan smelled these donuts the minute we walked up to the farmer's market! donuts are a few-and-far-between treat at our house, so i was surprised that he recognized the smell! but oh, it was an irresistible smell! this picture was obviously taken AFTER ethan enjoyed a donut... or two.

ok, enough about the food... here are some more scenes from the lawn and the farmer's market...









after the farmer's market, kristie and i took our kids on a carriage ride around downtown charleston. this particular tour was focused more on the old homes of the area than the main historical sites of the city that i wanted her to see, so i was a little disappointed. but kristie loved it, and we did see some beautiful homes. the kids did pretty well for it being their naptime, but caroline was pretty squirmy on the back of this carriage with a very open-backed seat. it was stressful trying to keep her still and quiet... i'm seriously thankful that she didn't fall out! (though we did lose a toy, and a sweet lady chased us down the road to give it back!) as we clopped through the cobblestone streets, i couldn't help but think that the last carriage ride i took through charleston was as a newlywed, cuddled up with my sweet new husband! that was surely more relaxing! :)

kristie and i also meandered through the downtown market, and we found the cutest little knitted animal finger puppets! we got the biggest thrill choosing one for each of the kids. we even found peacocks, which of course my kids LOVED... we think they actually might be turkeys, but hey, they are peacocks to us! after our carriage ride, i took kristie on the free-honda-odyssey-air-conditioned tour of the downtown that our carriage ride didn't cover while our kids fell fast asleep. it was fun to show her all the places that i love about this city, and it made me miss my hubby!

the motley crew after our carriage ride...
caroline finally got to stand up!
kristie looks through the big basket of finger puppets at the market.
we had such a hard time deciding which ones to buy! they were all so cute!

i never tire of visiting downtown charleston... if you've been there, what is your favorite part?

beach beauties

these are my three favorite scenery pictures from our beach trip. i can only take credit for the first one... kristie, thanks for sharing the other two with me! and really, no one can take credit for the beauty that these pictures behold except the One who created them! i cannot step foot on the beach without praising God for His creativity in the way He made the earth. and to think that the same God who numbered the grains of sand between my toes is also knitting this precious child within my womb is more than i can fathom. so enjoy these beach beauties to the glory of our great God!

the cutest little beach cottage...

staying in this adorable beach cottage was like stepping back in time to the 1940's (well, with a/c and other modern-day amenities!)... i loved all of the old characteristics of the house, like the hardwood floors, the wooden front porch, and the vintage clawfoot tub and old sink. besides the white paneled walls, my favorite thing about the house was the bathroom door that had a little bit sliced out of it so that it would clear the big sink!! only in an old house! i smiled everytime i shut that door! :) kristi's friends were more than generous to offer their house up to three families with a bunch of kids! i don't think they knew what they were getting into! ha! it was such a blessing to stay right across the street from the beach. that was a first for me, and we sure did love it. if i had to choose between staying in an older cottage like this and a new beach condo, i would choose this cottage in a heartbeat!






below is the bedroom that i shared with ethan.

lydia and steven slept in this room and shared a bathroom with us.
(i love these comforters!)

caroline and meredith shared this room,
which made for some early morning parties!

kristie and karina slept here.

i forgot to get a picture of eric & kristi's room...
but you get the idea of the cottageish-ness of it anyway. :)

i will end with the view from the front porch. isn't it beautiful!? the houses you see across the street were built in the 1990s. they sure did have a marvelous view of the dunes and the ocean before all these houses were here! it's still a great view, and at least the houses are tasteful!


i hope we'll be able to return to this cottage one day! we may not all fit quite as well as we did this year, since our numbers are growing, but it would be worth a try!

more vacation fun on the way....

from the mouths of babes....

tonite, ethan was spending time with brian on the couch while i put caroline to bed. when i came back in the living room, ethan sat up and exclaimed...

i am listening to daddy's heartbeep!

i never get tired of the beach...

i am still having a really really hard time choosing my favorite pictures from our recent beach vacation! with beautiful scenery and six little beach bums running around, i have ended up with so many that i can't help but share! so who's ready to go to the beach!?

"MEEEEEEEE!"
this is the storybook path across the street from the house to the beach...

the beach was absolutely beautiful. there was so much "beach" between the dunes and the waves that the kids were able to run free and play as they pleased. anytime they headed toward the ocean, we had ample time to catch up with them! the little 2 inch pool of water in the middle of the sand was also a big hit. caroline's favorite activity was to pour water (or sand-mud) in and out of cups and buckets, while ethan was highly concerned with bulldozing half of the isle of palm's sand one little mound at a time. and if that wasn't enough to keep the boy occupied, he also devoted much time to running to the waves only to quickly retreat when the water started chasing him. and everytime, he acted as surprised as if it were the first time it had happened. :)

here's crazy haired caroline! thank you, aunt kristie, for putting
caroline's hair up in pigtails and a ponytail the next two days!!
when i took this picture, i thought back to this picture of ethan...
ethan is hard at work...running from the waves & bulldozing away!




the three little girls with older lydia off in the distance...
what a symbolic picture of growing up!


the girls were gettin' down! it was so funny to watch them dance...
my little surfer girl loved her pigtails!
the kids learned how to make their own little pools of water in the sand.
ethan had fun splashing in his!
this was a surprise shot for their mom...
i was so excited to capture their reflections!
i just happened to turn around and see the kiddos in this perfect line!
well, except karina who was lagging a little behind! :)
and ha! look at caroline's stride! easy there, cowgirl!

the last day at the beach, the older kids discovered little coquina clams that bury themselves in the sand. this was pretty amazing to them, and they spent at least an hour collecting them and observing them dig back into the sand.



we praise the Lord for our time at the beach with the owners of these little shoes! we made countless memories and enjoyed His beautiful creation!


there's more fun to come!