Labor Day

Today Mike and Wanda took us out for breakfast at IHOP. The we went over to the park to play for a bit. The kids had a really good time, but our weather went from 100 to 65 degrees in no time flat so it was a bit chilly. Looks like I need to start getting our fall wardrobes in the closet and ready to use!

First prenatal appointment was uneventful as expected. After reading Simcha Fisher's recent post I think I'll be skipping first trimester appointments in any future pregnancies. I go back in a couple weeks then we have a whole bunch of birthdays happening. We have all four kids' birthdays between 9-25 and 10-21! Fun fun fun!

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I hate that I don't blog regularly! Oh well, I do have some exciting news though! We're expecting Baby Number Five!!! Our due date is March 14th. I'm very excited to be having a spring baby, since all the others have come right when the weather starts getting cold and yucky. It will be great to just have to throw on a onesie and head out the door instead of putting on layer after layer and fifty blankets before I can leave! I have my first prenatal visit next week so hopefully I'll be posting updates. We'll see if I can stay on top of things.

Here are some pictures of my boys. Ian will be 3 next month and Owen is about 10 months. Aren't they cute together?

My Brother's Wedding

Friday night when Scott got home from work I took off with my grandma and Owen to make the 8 hour drive to Missouri for my brother Andy's wedding. We weren't going to be able to go since the wedding was Saturday afternoon and I had the paper route to do Saturday night. Turns out, I got laid off a few weeks ago so we were able to go down.

This was the first time we got to meet my niece Addison who is just a month younger than Owen. She's a squirmy little thing and moves around a heck of a lot more than Owen (probably because she has a lot less weight to carry around!) but she's such a sweetie.

Here is my grandma with Addison and Owen, her two youngest great grandbabies.

And here I am with my baby brother right before the wedding.

I didn't get any pictures at the ceremony, but it was super fast. It was actually faster than my wedding, which I didn't think was possible! It was outside at a botanical garden and it was a little over 100 degrees outside, so they had a good reason to make it fast!

This was their lovely cake.

Cutting the cake.

The family a together. Rachell, Andy, Bailey and Addison.

First Dance

Father of the Bride

Addison, Grandma Willa, Andy and Owen

Andy and Addison, my mom, me and Owen

Good picture, then Addison tries to choke Gramma!

I think Owen was getting a little bored with all this wedding business.

Happy Fourth of July!!

Conveniently they all had a red, white and blue outfit in their current sizes!

Meeting the Duggars!

Today I got to go to a Duggar book signing! It was really neat. The whole family was there! I didn't get to take many pictures, but I've always wanted to meet them so it was pretty exciting!

By the time I got up to the tables, the younger children were off taking a break. I did get to talk to Jana, John David, Jill, Jessa, Jinger, and Joseph. And Michelle and Jim Bob of course!

I only took Owen with me, but after standing in line for about an hour I kind of regret not taking the stroller in. Man are my arms sore!

Vacation

Let me start by saying this is the cutest picture ever!

OK. Now that I've done that I can tell you all about our vacation. This is the first time we've ever gone more than a couple hours away since the kids came a long and we've never stayed overnight anywhere with them. Mike and Wanda invited us to go down to Hilton Head Island with them. Scott had to stay home and work though. :(

The kids had a really good time seeing the beach for the first time. They love playing in the sand and jumping in the waves and looking for seashells - 3 buckets of seashells!

Abby did get a little freaked out by the seagulls though. If they thought you had food they would go crazy and get super close. She didn't like that very much.

This was a cute little lighthouse we went to see on the rich side of town.

Then we let the kids have some fun at the park. There is a really cool tree there with lots of really low branches and it has a huge treehouse built in it. The kids loved it!

And I was happy to get a pretty good picture of them all on one of the branches. If only Ian would look at the camera!

One day we went on a dolphin tour which was pretty fun. We got to see a few baby dolphins even. So freaking cute! They are super hard to get a picture of though.

Here's a dolphin splash.

And a fin.

Sandcastles!

Sleepy beach baby.

Owen messed with the sand for a minute, but ended up just getting mad at it.

Since it's a 12 hour drive to get there and another 12 hours to get back I got a few pictures in the car. I definitely wish I had thought about putting some movies on my iPad...

We had a pretty good time. Not too many meltdowns. And I was the only one to end up with a really bad sunburn. The kids got to meet their great great grandmother which is something most people can't say.

For me, it was super exhausting, but I'm really glad the kids had such a good time. I had a good time too. Just a really sleepy, good time. So if anyone has pointers for going on vacation with small children just let me know and I'll remember for future reference. Thanks!

A Family Picture

I set the timer on the camera, ran to the back, and finally have a family photo!

It's not that great, but this is the only one I took so I would have to say it was a success. We don't have any other pictures all together so this will have to do for now.

Poor Little Owen. I leave the room for a minute and Emma sticks a Batman ski mask on his head! He didn't seem to mind it though. He's 6 months old now, weighs 22 pounds and is sitting on his own. Hooray! I can't wait until he's mobile. I definitely prefers the later stages when they can move around on their own! It will be a little different this time around though since the "big" kids are starting to play with some toys that have smaller pieces. I'll have to keep an eye out for that. Oh, and we have stairs now! That's ok, I'll still like it better.

We've been in our house over a month now and I still don't have everything put away. I'm definitely lacking motivation. I seriously need to get it done though. And there are soooooo many things I want to do around here it's crazy! Re-do the bathroom, put another bathroom in the basement, turn the sunroom into an actual room.... Don't ask where I'll be getting the money for all of this stuff though... Who knows?! I'm optimistic - we'll just have to do a little at a time. It will be awesome though!

The kids and I will be heading to the beach soon and I am having a heck of a time finding a swimsuit! Especially one that is in my budget! I'm highly against a one-piece, but after having 4 kids, I do need to cover my midsection. And I also prefer boy-short bottoms. It's been hard to find things that don't look too grandma or are under $20 per piece. Per Piece! I seriously can not imagine spending 40 bucks on something I will only be using this one week. No way. If anyone has any suggestions feel free to send them my way!

Dinosaur World

Yesterday we drove to Cave City, KY to Dinosaur World. And the kids loved it! They had over 100 dinosaurs, a museum, a playground and a couple of digging activities. The kids really like the digging. They got to uncover a full size dino skeleton and then sift for smaller fossils that they got to keep. They also got to stick there head in a T-Rex mouth which the loved! It's hard to really see, but in the picture below all 6 of us are siting at the feet of the big orange one.