Floor Day!

The old, stained, and frankly just gross looking carpet is outta here! Ryan and his Dad put new floors in our kitchen, dinning, living room and hallway in TWO days! They are floor laying machines :) It looks so awesome. I would love to show you a picture, but again, Riley-Anne is asleep in our room where the camera cord is and I am afraid of her... seriously.

Moving out

We are moving the computer out of Riley-Anne's room (also known as mine and Ryan's bedroom) so hopefully I will be back to blogging soon!

We are still here!

RILEY-ANNE IS HERE! Well she has been here for four weeks... but we are a little busy with three babies so give me a little credit :) She is perfect, beautiful and such a sweet little miracle. We are beyond in love. Speaking of being busy with three... Garrison just woke from his nap, so...

I will leave you with one of my favorite songs. This was sung at our wedding and now it is Riley-Anne's "night night song" (all of our kids have certain songs that we sing to help calm them or put them to sleep). The words to this song have always been so powerful and special to me. Hope you enjoy!

How great are You Lord

How great is Your mercy

How great are the things

That You have done for me

How great are You Lord

Your loving kindness

Is filling my heart as I sing

How great are You Lord

How great is Your love

It reaches to the heavens

How great is the heart

That sought and rescued me

Today

Today was a great Friday. Me and Audrey kept up with our Friday football season tradition and took our kiddos to the park this morning. I brought my camera, but did not bring the battery with me... can we say pregnancy brain?!?! The kids were great. They played and played and we thought for sure we would have a successful nap time all around, but it was a failure :( Nonetheless, it was still great to get out of the house and hang out with Audrey and her sweet babies.

Another great thing that happened today was... drumroll.... we bought a vacuum! I know, crazy Friday right?!?! I am pretty excited about it though, because our carpet is looking more than just a little shabby :( Also, my mom came over today to visit while Ryan was coaching. We ate a great dinner with two recipes that are supposed to induce labor. I can't really say that I believe that anything like that really works, but it is something to pass the time! This is the day that for some reason throughout Riley-Anne's entire pregnancy I thought she would be born, so since nothing has happened I think I will treat myself to some Oreos and milk before bed :)

Well that is all for now. I have pictures to load of the girls nursery that I will try to get up tomorrow.

Beware: Extra long post

Here is my best effort to catch everyone up with whats been going on with the Little's. To sum it up- EVERYTHING! Football season is in full swing, leaving us missing Ryan many days and nights. Thankfully this year he gets Saturdays off, if he didn't I just do not think I would make it!

Garrison has started "school". Like we thought, he LOVES it! I love it too. The program is just so great, they do so many fun activities for the kids and really love on them. Garrison (and Allie-Parker too) are still adjusting to the new schedule -before school started they went down for nap at 11:30 because they wake up so early, but now with school they do not go down until 1:30. This can make the car ride home a little nuts because everyone is sleepy and screaming, but hopefully they will adjust soon. Here are some his first day of school pictures, doesn't he look so handsome?!?!

What's been going on with Allie-Parker? She is growing up so fast. Her vocabulary has started to really take off! She loves to point and say "trees" and "car" while we ride in our car. She has become a little less clingy to me. She still pretty much screams the entire time she is in nursery at church, poor volunteers, I'm so sorry. Although, we did have two Sundays that she made it, but only because men where helping with their wives. Allie-Parker loves guys and she went right to them. This might come back to bite us in her teenage years, but hey it gets us through the service :0 It really has been great to be able to spend some time with just Allie-Parker while Garrison is at school. I have really been able to get to know her and all of her little quirks. She is so not a girly girl. Allie-P would rather be outside, running around in a diaper than wearing a dress and hair bow, even though I repeatedly put them in her hair :)

Here are some cute pics of Allie-P after she woke up from a nap... love the hair!

And now for Riley-Anne's update. She is now 35 weeks old and weighing 4 pounds 15 oz! Also, they think she will have hair! On the positive, we no longer have to see the specialist for her kidneys! What an answered prayer! Her cysts have not grown and are no longer blocking anything. She will just have one working kidney (which is fine) and need to be evaluated by our pediatrician after she is born!

We had a scare a couple of weeks ago and ended up spending the night in the hospital. To make a long story short, she stopped moving and when she did her heart rate did not accelerate and I was having contractions. After all this our Dr. decided it would be best to do weekly non-stress test and bio-physicals. She continues to "fail" the stress test, but pass her physicals! After meeting with the Dr. yesterday he said that we will be delivering around the 38 week mark, if not sooner. While we are very excited to meet this little girl, we also want her to grow and be as strong as possible before she is born! Please continue to pray for our sweet Riley-Anne! I do not have any of her ultrasounds pics on the computer, but I assure you she is beautiful :)

I have so many more pictures to load, but I can hear my little bugs waking up from nap!

Catch up

I really need to update this blog... but between football season, two overly crazed children, and Riley-Anne taking every last ounce of energy out of me I haven't found the time. Geez, I am a complainer :0

Hopefully when the babies (who are no longer babies) go to sleep I can update!

Way with words

This morning I had gotten dressed to go walking in a MGM football shirt (do I ever wear anything else?!?!) and some running shorts that are begging for mercy, not feeling all that great about how I look in my sixth month of pregnancy... but while I was putting on my tennis shoes Garrison came up to me, hugged me and said, "Momma, you look so beautiful." That boy- he always knows just what to say to make me smile!

Only child for the day

My mom and dad kept Garrison this weekend so Allie-Parker got to experience life as an only child! We had a great time! Friday night we took her to Chik-fil-A and she really lived it up! She ate and ENTIRE kids meal and had a juice box for the first time. That is a super big deal because I always water her and Garrison's juice down! Her face was just priceless! Then Saturday, Ryan had an irrigation job, so we got to hang out all day. It was so great to be able to play with her and give her all of my attention. I do think by the end of the day she started missing her "Gar gar" a little bit. When she woke up from her nap, she kind of just wandered around the house saying his name over and over :( But then we went and got some ice cream, just us girls, and she seemed to be just fine!

Getting ready for Riley-Anne

We started switching out Allie-Parker and Garrison's rooms this week. Allie-P and Riley Anne will share a room (Garrison's old room) and Garrison will move into Allie-Parker's room. Try explaining that to a 2 1/2 year old and a 15 month old! They just still do not really get it! I have gotten the closets switched out and I think that is all I can handle for this week. For some reason I became very sentimental while organizing their closets. It made me think about bringing them home to their nurseries for the first time and how small they looked in their cribs, and how quiet everything was ;) There are so many sweet memories that took place in each of the nurseries, it is going to be so hard to change them up! But Miss Riley-Anne needs a place to make her memories too... so we will be adding a few new things for her!

P.s. I know there are a ton of pictures... I just could not narrow them down!

Garrison pulling up in his crib for the first time! I walked in, and there he was standing up! We found out days later Allie-Parker was on her way!

So, so tiny on her first day home!

Garrison checking on his new baby sister

Peek a boo!

All grown up sitting in her "rock rock"

Morning after sleeping in his big boy bed for the first time!

What happens if you turn your back! They got into that green bucket in the back of the picture and into the closet! I was only gone for like 5 seconds and they completely destroyed the room!

VBS

We had Vacation Bible School two weeks ago at our church. It was so much fun to be apart of! Garrison was old enough to attend this year and me and Allie-Parker helped out in the nursery. Garrison had a blast, he left very tired every night, but was so excited to wake up the next morning and talk about what all he had experienced! His favorite things about VBS were: Holding onto a rope to walk to different rooms, saying "Lets go Parrots", and singing songs. He also would talk about some Bible stories that he learned about. They also did something called "God sightings". The other day I helped Allie-Parker while she was doing something and Garrison said, "Momma, that a God sighting"! I never knew how happy it would make my heart to hear our son talk about Jesus. It is just so great to see him become more and more interested in the Bible and God's love for him.

Here are some pictures of Garrison and Allie-Parker outside of the church. I hope to "steal" some photos of them that were in the slide show and post them later :)

Week wrap up

So far our summer has not been very "summer like". It is 100 degrees outside, but things never seem to slow down! This week was no different!

We started the week with a visit to Dr. Dobak (Riley- Anne's specialist). First of all let me just say he is a wonderful doctor and has such a wonderful staff. We had an ultrasound that checked from the top of her head all the way to her little toes! It was nice to her again, but we couldn't help but be worried the entire hour and a half. Well, we received some very promising news- the cyst in her bladder is GONE, isn't our God so good?!? She still has some swelling in her right kidney that we will continue to watch, but her other kidney and every other part of her is developing beautifully! I haven't been able to scan in her ultrasound, but it is crazy how much it looks just like Garrison's! What a sweet girl she is, I can't wait to hold this sweet baby.

Also this week, Garrison had his first Library Time. It was really nice! To be honest I wasn't expecting all that much... but he seemed to have a great time and was really even a little shy, which was very odd to me.

Also this week Ryan sold the Corolla! Woo hoo! He is so excited to be getting a truck that he can do landscaping and irrigation out of and not have to haul all of his equipment sticking out of the back of a miniature car :)

Last but not least, I skipped Publix this week and made a trip to Target. I spent right under 35 bucks for $90 worth of stuff! I was super pumped. I wont bore you with the list of what all I got, but it was around 30 items... a lot of which I scored for FREE! YES!

*Ignore that the tp is turned the wrong way in the picture... stuff like that bothers me to no end...*

Free Doughnut Day= Pregnant woman's dream come true!

Instead of walking this morning me, Amanda and all four of our kiddos went to Krispey Kream to celebrate National Doughnut Day, I have heard the calories do not count if it is free food! I brought my camera to take some pictures... but as soon as I got it out it went dead :( We had a great time and everyone lllloooovvveeedddd their doughnuts! After Garrison finished eating his, he opened the little menu on the table and said "This is my menu, I'll have another doughnut pease" He comes up with the funniest things!

Finally an Appointment!

We go see two highly recommend doctors Monday for Riley-Anne. I wish we could go sooner, but they only come to Mobile twice a month, so Monday it is! They will do an ultrasound and then speak with us about the results and then hopefully we will get some answers on what things will be like before she is born and after.

Please continue to pray for healing of her bladder and kidneys. Also please continue praying for us too! I was doing good until I saw "specialization: high risk pregnancies" written under the doctors names... it felt just like a swift kick to the stomach!

It's a GIRL!

We went for our big ultrasound last Friday. We decided that we would ask the ultrasound tech to put the picture showing the baby's gender in an envelope and we would decide later if we would open it or not! Well after the events of the day (more on that later) we decided to go ahead and open it... much to our surprise we are having another GIRL! I still can't believe it. I had been thinking all week long if we didn't find out I would go ahead and just buy a few boy things for when "he" got here! So much for mother's intuition!!! Here are the pictures of us opening up our big news!

I am only posting the rest of this so you will join me and Ryan in prayer for our sweet baby. After the ultrasound we were told we would need to wait to see the Dr. because there were a few things he wanted to "go over" with us. Well that def threw up a big red flag, because we were only going for an ultrasound that day. So after nervously waiting for 3 hours... we were called back to see Dr. Max. He told us that the ultrasound showed a cyst in they baby's bladder and that the tube connecting the bladder and kidneys was swollen because things were starting to get "backed up". This could mean that she would have to have surgery to place a stint to redirect fluid right after she is born and will have to be closely monitored throughout the pregnancy. BUT he also told us there is around a 50% chance that she could just grow out of this. We are holding onto that 50% chance! We will go sometime in the upcoming week to see a specialist and have another ultrasound to hopefully give us more details on what is going on. As of now though, she has plenty of fluid around her and is growing right on schedule.

We are confident that God was not shocked by this. We are also confident in God's ability to heal. Wont you join us in prayer for our sweet Riley Anne? It is much appreciated.

This is still such a happy time for us! We feel very blessed to be able to have another sweet baby girl!

Baby 3 update

I am 17 weeks along now (I will be 18 on Friday) with this little one... seriously will I ever be out of the teens?!?!? Baby center says that they baby is the size of a turnip now. Are you serious?!?! Just a turnip... my tummy tells a different story, maybe more like a cantaloupe. Ha.

We go for the big ultrasound June 2nd. We still haven't really decided if we are going to find out if we are having a boy or a girl or just wait until delivery day. I go back and forth. On one hand I would love the surprise, but on the other we have decided this baby will be sharing a room with either Garrison or Allie- Parker (bless this sweet child :) and my type A personality is screaming at me to have everything in its place and more than just a few yellow and green sleepers. So we shall see.

Garrisons quote of the day

It seems like Garrison is always saying things that are cracking us up! Today after Ryan had to discipline Allie-Parker for standing on the couch he was telling her that he loved her and Garrison looked at him and said, "Daddy, I love you, but I want to stand on the couch."

I could not help but laugh :)

Happy Mothers Day!

We had such a wonderful Mothers Day! Of course, with all the craziness of running around seeing family I forgot to take pictures, sad. Even with no pictures it was still great.

I started the morning by being greeted by Garrison saying "Lets go in the the living room" (same thing he says every single morning) at 5:30. But, I got to sleep in for another 2 hours while Ryan took care of the babies! And if that wasn't great enough I was served breakfast in bed... with no little fingers grabbing at my food!!! It was so wonderful! I could really get used to this type of pampering :) The best part of my day was on the ride home and both children were asleep and Garrison woke up and said, "Happy Mothers Day Momma, you are my best friend". I will never forget it!

I could not be more thankful for such a loving husband and such precious gifts... "Behold, children are a gift of the Lord," Psalm 127:3.

Sweet Allie-Parker... I love you precious girl. Thank you for all my sweet kisses and hugs today. You have such a tender heart, but you are so tough too! You make me laugh all the time because it seems like you can fall 100 times and never cry, but as soon as you get in trouble you get so upset! I can not wait to see you grow up. You will be such a good wife and momma some day... but please take your time!
Sweet Garrison... I can not believe that you are a little boy now and not a baby! You have such a great imagination... I love to sit and watch you sometimes just to see what kind of fun things you will come up with. You are such a great helper with sweeping and throwing away trash! Thank you for always helping and trying to remember to say "yes ma'am". I love you sweet boy.

Most days I become so tired of doing the same silly, seemingly small tasks over and over. But I am finally coming to realize that raising my children is more than just a mundane thing I am "stuck" at home doing. So when I am telling Allie-Parker for the 5oth time today not to open that cabinet or trying to get Garrison to be kind to his sister I will tell myself I have been entrusted with these children. I pray that I teach them more than just their numbers and ABC's, but teach them about and show them Christ's wonderful, selfless love.

Publix Trip #2

I made my second trip to Publix this weekend. This time I came with backup- Crystal and April made the journey with me across the bay. We all ended up doing really good! They spent around 50 bucks each and saved 50 and I spent $53 saved $78! The picture really doesn't do how much I was able to buy justice. After looking at some old receipts I would of spent $40 alone on all the meat I purchased if I had bought it at Target. I also bought Ryan enough deodorant to last him half his lifetime and got it all for free! So I think the trip was very successful! We are taking a couponing class this weekend, so we are hoping for even more savings the next time we go!

Here is what I got:

2 bags of bagels

Gallon of milk

Ribs

3 packages of chicken

1 lb ham. meat

2 boxes of cereal

6 deodorants

bananas

1 can Rotel

1 diced tomato

coffee

2 bags of rice (equaling 10 pounds!)

Multi grain crackers

2 Juicy juice

2 mini box juices

12 pack of tp

2 taco dinner kits

Ryan's last softball game of the season

Last week was Ryan's last game of the softball season- they were playing Theodore (a huge rival for the girls and for their Coach) so naturally we all wanted to be there to see our team win! We loaded up and headed to Semmes. I think this might be the first time I have made it through the ENTIRE game... but only because my very helpful Mother in Law came! I can't really tell you any details about the game because Allie-Parker insists on putting every single acorn she can find into her mouth... but I do know the Vikings won! "MGM... say it backwards, MGM", sorry Ryan I had to do it- its my favorite cheer :) Go Lady Vikings and Go Coach Little!

The funniest girls you will ever meet... they keep Ryan on his toes!

Ryan trying to explain to the babies that he isn't coming home but heading to football practice... can you believe its already football time?!?!?

Family pic with the winning Coach, isn't he cute?!?!? Baby three is saying "hello" to everyone!

First trip to Publix

So... I must admit I was a little skeptical about this whole Publix thing. Well that all changed Sunday. I collected coupons and did research throughout the week and it paid off! I was able to buy $150 worth of groceries for $50! It equalled out to be 45 items! I was so excited. I got tons of cleaning supplies... the cost of these alone would of been at least 50 bucks at Target (were I used to shop ;) I am hoping to get down to even less. I have read on a couple of blogs of ladies from our church were they bought about $100 of groceries for $10- what in the world?!?!? Sounds unreal... but they have the pictures to prove it!

All in all I was pretty please with my savings, considering this was my first trip!

Here is the picture of all of my goodies...

What all was in my cart you might ask...

4 Green Giant Steamers

3 Kashi Cereals

3 bags frozen fruit

4 cans Green Giant corn

4 cans Green Giant green beans

1 dozen eggs

1 All Small and Might detergent

1 box Teddy Grahams

2 boxes of strudels

2 Windex multi- surface cleaner

2 Shout stain removers

2 Lysol toilet bowl cleaners

4 4 packs of Del Monte fruit cups

1 24 pack of granola bars

1 bunch of grapes

1 Scrubbing bubbles

2 pastas

1 olive oil

1 BBQ

2 Yoplait yogurts

1 Palmolive dish soap

1 Peperidge Farm flat bread

1 box of Del Monte chillers

Bye Bye Soy Milk

We have been trying Garrison on cow's milk for the past few days... and so far we like what we see! No intolerance symptoms, no bad diapers, and his eczema seems to be staying the same! What a huge praise this is! Not only did Garrison go pretty smoothly with the transition our grocery bill has went down roughly $20 a week!

His lactose intolerance has been something we have battled pretty much since day one with our sweet little boy. It was so hard to see his tummy always hurting him, not to mention disgusting cleaning up vomit and awful diapers ALL OF THE TIME ;)

We are going to give it another week or two and if things keep going great then we will introduce him to the wonderful world of cheese!

Cookies

I got these little beauties on sale the day after St. Pattys day... and they are just delicious! I didn't want the baby to be left out and not have any green...

Baby #3, are you serious?!?!?

Yes, you have heard right... baby number three is on the way!!! We are beyond excited! To say this baby was a surprise would be an understatement. We were very set on just having two but the Lord is seemingly saying that we are not done! As shocked as we still are we are so excited and feel so blessed that we are going to be parents to three children. What sweet gifts from God they are!

We haven't had our "official" first appointment yet, although I did have to go in a few days ago for some pain I was having. At that appointment, thankfully, they found nothing to be wrong, just chalked it up to my muscles being so, and I quote "stretched and tired" (nice)... that I was just feeling the stretching of the baby. But after insulting my stomach muscles ;) the nurse told us that this little one will more than likely be due at the end of October (no exact date yet). We go back in March so hopefully we will know a little more then! We can't wait!

P.s. I will take any and all suggestions on how you Moms of three survive from day to day :)

Let it Snow!

So this is from forever ago... but we had a snow day not too long ago in Mobile! It was wonderful! Ryan is OBSESSED with weather - so he had the tv on the news almost as loud as it would go just waiting for them to say it was fixing to start snowing in West Mobile. It finally did snow, but it did not stick :( We had such a great time running around like crazies in our front yard! Garrison loved it and said "I'm going to eat this snow" over and over and over, Allie-Parker wasn't too crazy over it but she was a champ and did not fuss even though she had about 5 shirts on.

After it stopped snowing at our house, we decieded that it would be a great idea (sarcastic) to drive to Mt. Vernon during naptime to see more snow and build a snowman. Being honest here, the drive was just horrendous, the babies were not very happy... but once we got there it was so worth it. We built two snowmen and had fun playing with Gigi, Aunt Celeste and Mimi. Thankfully the ride home went a lot smoother... we stopped and got a "box juice" and all was good again with Garrison :)

Garrison with our "stylish" snow woman.

The redneck snowman, complete with Hunters orange hat, Garrison loved him though, he would just stare at him and laugh and say "How are you snow man, you cold?" Hilarious.

Right before I got smacked with the snowball Ryan is holding...

Sweet Allie-Parker at our house

Please note Garrison's outfit, I was totally unprepared... I have plenty of sunscreen, bathing suits, etc. but obviously no winter gear for my children!

Double stroller opinions please

I need your help. I ended up taking back our double jogger stroller. It had been falling apart since the day we bought it so I finally got the nerve to take it back. We did not have the receipt nor did they have it on file still, so we received a gift card to Academy. Well to make a long story short they had no other jogger strollers and weren't about to order me one, so me and Ryan got to go on a $180 shopping spree... so now I look all athletic in my Nike, but I am not.

I have given up on the dream of being a runner. I think I am more cut out to be a fast walker. So I no longer need the jogger, just a regular old double stroller. There is just one condition: it can not be a side by side. As everyone in the Semmes post office witnessed today my children can no longer sit in a side by side. They know each other exist now and and both know how to push the other's buttons.

So with all that said, I need your opinion. I have it narrowed down to two:

The Graco Quatro Duo. I love our Graco single stroller that we had with Garrison. It was wonderful. I was set on buying this until I found this little number...

Its a Joovy Sit and Stand. I love it because it is not as huge as an SUV, but really, do you think Garrison would sit on that little bench? He still needs a five point harness, well, I still WANT him in a five point harness! Does anyone have this stroller and use it successfully with a two year old?

I am leaning more towards the Graco... but is there some other awesome double stroller out there that I am not aware of? Please let me know!