November and Pregnancy Update

I hardly took any pictures during November.  Thankfully by mid-November, the morning night sickness went away.  In some ways I was lucky, because I didn't start feeling really sick until about 5pm most days.  Which meant that I was in bed by 8pm 5-7 nights per week.  I would wake up feeling like a million bucks and then slowly throughout the day start to feel a little worse until I was so worried I might puke I would just go to bed to avoid the feeling.  We officially found out I was pregnant at the very end of August (although I had my suspicions before I saw the + sign).  I am due May 9th, which is hilarious because if I make it to May, we will have 4/5 birthdays in May in our family.  So far everything is going well, I have a healthy baby according to my most recent doctor appointment.  The best part of this pregnancy is that I have 2 little girls who are old enough to understand that I am pregnant!  They are seriously so excited, and this baby is so loved already!  I took the girls to my last appointment and they got to hear the heart beat.  On December 17th, I am going to take them out of school early for my 20 week sono so we can find out if baby is a boy or girl!  Its going to be so much fun.
I was 12 weeks right at the end of October, when Grandma Rowles happened to be in town.  Chris and I had been plotting and planning to get their reaction on tape etc, and when we told them, it was SO anti-climactic.  I think these 2 girls had been praying for this so long that when we finally told them they were like, oh yeah, well of course mom is pregnant, we knew God would answer our prayer, no big deal.  We were totally disappointed by their reaction, so we reenacted the telling, and told them they had to be super excited.   This is what we got on tape, its too funny!

Other November pics:

Gianna's soccer team won their division championship.
Chris helped coach the games, which he loved.
Elia was too young to play in the games, but she still went to practice every week, so she got an honorary trophy.

Why yes, you can sunbathe in November in Texas.

One week mama got all efficient and made sandwiches for the whole week.

Day before t giving I took the girls to IHOP

Chris had to work Friday and Saturday after thanksgiving,
so I took the girls to downtown Carrollton via the DART.  Fun times!

A Week without the Girls

Saturday Chris drove the girls to Joplin, MO and came back to Dallas all in one day!  Since I had in-service and weird hours all week, I worked it out with my mom that they stay with her all week.  It was a blessing, because there were a few days I wasn't home until 8:30 at night!  This is the first summer ever I have not been to StL, and that hurts my heart so much!  I'm glad the girls could go though.  They had a blast hanging out with Aunt Colleen and Shannon, Uncle Ryan, Baby Brendan, and of course the grandparents.  Uncle Craig was even in StL for a night or 2 for business so they got to see him too.  And maybe best of all, Gianna and Sophia got to reunite twice, thanks to my mom coordinating with Rebecca.  Then, after a week, I drove back to Joplin to pick the girls up.  It was wonderful to see them!

Aunt Colleen and Rebecca's baby, Mary

Love everything in this pic!

Aunt Colleen took the girls to the Magic House!

We found a park in Joplin.  Glad to see Ry!

WE stopped on the way home near Lake Eufala- prettiest place in OK if you ask me!

 The next day (Sunday) we hit the ground running- taking the girls to the park with the dog.  This is their latest trick- DarDar running next to G on her bike, while Elia tries to catch up.

This was literally seconds before Daria took off across the street and almost got hit by a car, 

just so she could say hello to another dog across the street.

Then we had a back to school mass and came home to get ready for the first day!

Pool, Zoo and Baseball- ATL

Megan has a neighborhood pool just down the street, so we went quite a few times.  The pool has a lot of strict rules, the most important one that you cant be alone under the age of 18.  Almost every time we went, we had the whole pool to ourselves.  We usually packed lunch or even dinner and stayed quite a while.

This is where Elia got her nickname "Elia Franch"

One day we went to the Atlanta zoo!  This was the first day they wore their camp shirts.  Too cute!  It was a very hot day, so off to the pool once we got back.

Missing: Brendan was with mom and dad at the ATL aquarium

One night we went and saw the minor league team play.  Very kid friendly!

Tailgate first

Such a good walker!

Deep Conversations

Cousin Love at its very best!

Top 10 of our Trip- # 9

9. Extreme Flagstaff
Ziplines, rope crawls, and swinging from tree to tree is what this place was all about.  I sat this one out too, and the cousins had lots of fun cheering on their grandpa, uncles, and aunts!

Love this one of Aunt Becky!

Gabby watching Aunt Sarah

They hadn't seen each other in like, 15 minutes.  What a reunion.

Top 10 of our Trip- # 8

8. Bearizona
This place was just like Fossil Rim, but with carnivorous animals as well.  A baby white buffalo had been born that morning, so that was really fun to watch all the big buffalo help the little guy walk on wobbly legs.  Bearizona was also a huge hit with the kiddos.  Afterwards, there was a bird show where we got some great pictures.

New baby!

Love this action shot!

This is a great video of a bear taking a bath and then walking right past our car!

A Sneak Peak of our Trip!

Rowles' Reunion

Swimmy

I signed the girls up for swim lessons as soon as school got out.  So we have been to the pool every weekday so far this summer!  They both amaze me.  G's teacher said to move her up a level next summer, as did Elia's teacher.  With lots of practice in between.

Diving Board Day

I like this picture because it shows that G can handle the older kids- they were all in the same class!

This was Elia's first time, so she was a little hesitant at first.

Here is a video of them playing in the "square" pool, as they call it.  This is at our public pool, and this year is the first where both girl's heads are above water in the deep end!  I think it goes up to 3 feet.  Here they are practicing their back floating.

Birthday Surprise, and Fossil Rim

Over Memorial weekend, the Marschners came to visit!  Shannon basically woke me up at 2:30 in the morning and totally surprised me out of sleep.  Their flight was supposed to get in much earlier but bad weather had them circling and their rental car situation went from bad to worse(no car seat for Brendan even though they had reserved one!!).  So Chris snuck out of the house with a car seat around 1:30 and got them back here to wake me up.  I think Tom, with Chris' help, had been planning this since March!  I honestly thought I was dreaming when she came in and sat on my bed.
There really is nothing better than spending time with my twinnie, but its even more special when we get to be together on our birthday!  We sort of just hung out and did fun kid stuff, like the splash park and walks around the neighborhood, but the highlight was Fossil Rim.  I have been wanting to go there since I heard about it a few years back, and it was pretty fun!  Feeding animals from your car?  Elia was in paradise.
With our awesome new minivan, we were able to scrunch all 4 adults and 3 babies in one car!

Love

Loving the new sunroof

Prob my fave pic of the day!

Little loves!