home

as of this week, is starting to look like this.

on saturday, july 2nd, all of our belongings will find their way over & make it official.

since april 28, 2006, home has looked like this.

i love this house. our home. five years later we've picked out every doorknob, light fixture, and cabinet pull. i love this house so much so, in fact, that when i unexpectedly met a potential buyer (who turned out to be offer #3, executed contract #2) i started to cry telling her how much i loved it here. good thing i could blame it on being pregnant. but the dear sweet woman gave me a hug & started to get teary too.

they feel like the right people to me. i hope they are. if we do make it to closing i'll feel good about our house having a lovely new family. and i'll have done well by my cottage green peeps, who from the beginning helped make this house our home.

getting weepy again. time for bed i think.

18 weeks

18 weeks...here i am.
hardest pregnancy to do date...still nauseous on any given day, with heartburn on the off days. my energy level is usually pretty good though, gotta love the second trimester. the weeks & months are FLYING by! i went to my ob on thursday & our sweet second son is as healthy as we can know him to be at this point :) he's estimated to weigh about 8 ounces. he kicks me a lot. i'm not complaining.

hmm. other notes?
all i want to eat are cheeseburgers.
i have round ligament pain, like all.the.time.
i'm having a hard time sleeping.

i think that's it for now...off to bed.

father's day

my LOVES on fathers day...

we went to church, hung out, had to wake up gus to leave the house for a showing, hit the pool, the kiddos melted, we went to outback for dinner, and put the kiddos to bed!

my love, you are an amazing father and we are SO lucky to have you!

another brother on the way

it has been confirmed...another brother is on the way!!

according to our ultrasound tech our lil guy is quite cooperative & photogenic...and not at all modest or bashful...we got quite a few shots of his boy parts!!

we saw the four chambers of the heart & his little spine :)

luci is excited to have another little brother...she seems to have already forgotten that she wanted a sister.

now we just have to figure out a name for the handsome lil man!

steel trap

last night the lu wanted to bring her strawberry shortcake doll into the bath with her. sure, yeah, whatever i say. but strawberry's dress gets wet when gus grabs her before we were able to disrobe her, and the lu is VERY distraught that strawberry won't have any pjs to wear. then she says, 'ah ha!' and tells me that she'll just put strawberry's other outfit on her.

now can't remember when for sure strawberry came to live with us, but it has been quite awhile, and i've only ever seen her in one outfit...the very same one that was wet. so i ask lu about the outfit, and she tells me it's a small one. i still have ZERO idea what she is talking about. i ask her where it is, she says she's not sure, but she thinks its downstairs in 'the white thing'. um, okay, i say. i tell her she can go find the outfit while i put gus down for the night.

when i finish with gus the lu is still downstairs & just super duper distraught. i still think this supposed other outfit doesn't exist. i tell her so with a gentle, but firm 'it's time for bed so please stop stalling' kind of voice. she responds with a VERY genuine 'but mama, the easter bunny brought it for me.' oh, that's right i think...the easter bunny did bring strawberry. and i didn't remember that part, so maybe there is another outfit? i talk her into coming upstairs, and then she decides to check in her bench for the outfit.

and sure enough...what does she pull out? an old white baby wipe container, that now holds 2 rapunzel skirts and...you guessed it...strawberry's other outfit. a short lil dress. the girl's memory is like a steel trap.

just cuz

a few shots of pure joy...

but mostly shots capturing our everyday crazy...

my poor blog is suffering these days. just back from vacation, 1 month of work left to document the last 6 years of my career for my poor boss, 17 weeks pregnant, two kiddos under four to entertain in 100+ degree weather (we swim. A.LOT.), regularly showing a house, thinking and stressing but not yet doing anything about moving in two weeks...aside from calls moving utilities, cable...which, btw...it took me an hour just to do cable yesterday...leaves me without much energy left to post on my blog at night. which is sad, because in a few years when my memory inevitably fades i'll wonder about how we made it through this time.

oh, and the new house is officially ours. closing was on june 6th. went very smoothly, really. did i already post about that? what was that i said about my memory fading in a few years? guess i don't need to worry about that...it's too late! i'm already there!

vacation for mom = mom-cation

the view from our pool...
my baby sister baylee graduated from the university of iowa in may, with a b.b.a. in economics...she graduated with highest distinction. meaning rockstar A++ grades. yay baylee!! what does this mean for me? why a graduation vacation!!

my mom, my sisters and i are currently on the island of grand caymen. at a two bedroom condo on the beach. well, technically i think it is called 'oceanside', but close enough to beach front for me!

my peas are home with their dad & grandma & grandpa pierse, who were kind enough to come down. my sweet husband sold his soul to his jobs to get enough days off in a row that i could come. so i won't be seeing him much the rest of the month. and while i'll miss him, i'm grateful for his sacrifice. it was a lot of me to ask...leaving during the crazy home selling process...staging a home & keeping it spotless is not an easy task...not to mention the taking care of our two needy children for days. i am grateful. thank you sweet man.

and of course i'm thoroughly enjoying my time off from everyday duties and time with my mom & sisters. i'm lucky...i really, really enjoying spending time with them...and what better place than on vacation at the beach! we've been lounging in the sun, doing lots of reading & talking & even some eating & drinking. fun times, fun times!

brown bear, brown bear

what do you see?

i think i see lil boy parts looking at me...

clay & i went in for our 16 week appointment today. our ob's ultrasound is not super high tech, but i recognized the above shot from one we had done just under 2 years ago.

it looks familiar, no? this bottom photo is gus. from the 18 week high tech ultrasound...the one that we'll have in less than two weeks for the new pea. our ob made us promise not to go out & buy any lil boy things...but she said her money is on a boy.

just please don't say anything around the lu yet...we aren't telling her until we find out for sure on the 20th. she has her heart set on a sister, which she wants to name lil flower. we've started to gently prep her for the possibility of another brother...and when we said, 'you know lu, it could be ANOTHER lil brother. you could have TWO lil brothers! what would you think of that?' she replied, 'well, THAT'D be SOMETHING!' she also decided we might want to call him lil clock...



oh boy oh boy!! stay tuned for confirmation!