Spring Break

Last week was Allie's spring break. Despite all of our mishaps and sicknesses we still managed to do a few fun things. Mony and Papa were here to visit during the break and, as always, the girls loved playing with them. Just like with Grandma and Grandpa Huber there were lots of hide and seek and coloring. They also enjoyed playing with play-doh, playing in the backyard, in the toy room, and taking walks.

 We tried a couple new restaurants: Pappasitos - really cool atmosphere, food was just okay. Waxy O'Conner's - this place was on the RiverWalk so it was really loud and crowded, especially since it's an Irish Pub and they had just had a St Patty's parade that day. We just split a bunch of appetizers and some ribs. Most of it wasn't that great, BUT the buffalo wings and fries were amazing (we would go back just for those!)

Now for the outings:

RiverWalk 
We decided to take a ride on the river boat tour. The line was sooooo long, but actually moved pretty fast. We were glad we did it! It was pretty neat and relaxing.

We got the best seats.......at the front of the boat.

Lots of tourists around for Spring Break

Playing darts at Waxy O'Conner's.

McKenna Children's Museum

This place was up in New Braunfels. I had purchased a groupon for it in the fall. Allie had been there with Tami, Abby and Kaiya before so she was loving showing us around! We liked it a lot and spent a good chunk of the day there.

Nurse Allie

There was an area where we could do face painting!

Painting a car!

 

Landa Park

After we left the Children's Museum we thought we should find something else to do so we wouldn't get stuck in rush hour traffic. So, we headed down the road to Landa Park.

rode the train around the park

and this exhausted little girl fell asleep

Sat down by the river and fed the ducks the goldfish that we had spilled earlier

  Huge Texas Live Oak

Sea World
Our original plan was to come here on Wednesday. It was supposed to be the coolest day at 82* and cloudy. Plus, with spring break we figured this day might be the least crowded. Well this was the day that we took Avery to the dr and found out she had strep and an ear infection so we held out until Friday. Oh my goodness! This was the busiest I have EVER seen this place in all of the times we have been. We had to get to the shows 30-40 minutes early if we wanted a seat. We were jam packed for every show. It got up to 85* that day and there was no air circulation during the shows.......so after every show I felt like I was going to be sick.

Azul was the favorite show of the day

Playing in the new Bay of Play

Shamu coaster ride

 

When It Rains, It Pours

Why does everything always go wrong at the worst possible times........and why does it always have to be when one thing goes wrong several more things will go wrong? This is what happened this week:

• Car wouldn't start
• Neighbor stops by to tell me our yard is soaking wet. Burst pipe? Something wrong with the sprinkler system?
• Toilet tank won't fill up with water

All of these happened in that order, one day after the other, while Derek was out of town for work. Now today, I find out Avery has strep throat and a double ear infection. My poor baby! Did I mention that I still feel absolutely horrible and it's Spring Break and 85* outside? Poor Allie! And Derek is so overly worked right now that he won't be able to take a look at any of it until Saturday... at least. Thankfully, Mony and Papa are here to keep the girls entertained.

And my trial is set for next week so lots to look forward to. Oh the anxiety!

Beach Week

Last week Allie had 'Beach Week' at school.

Crazy Beach Hat Day. As you can see Avery wanted to wear a hat too.

Beachwear day - no swimsuits so their cover-ups served as cute dresses

Gamma & Gampa Visit

I love how Avery says Grandma and Grandpa. So cute! They are loving having them here. The extra attention is helping me too. Hopefully they've enjoyed their visit. It always seems to go so fast. They've played lots of games (Sequence, Duck, Duck 1-2-3, and My Little Pony Candy Land), put together a puzzle, watched movies, and played lots and lots of hide and seek!

 The girls had a lot of fun helping Grandma make a bunny cake! They really enjoyed giving one to the neighbors....and eating it too. :)

We're Growing!!!

I'm so excited to FINALLY announce that we're expecting another little one!! We are so happy and excited.......and I'm so ready for it to be over with all ready. It's been rough with the morning sickness and all. When it lasts all day and night it really takes a toll on you. Everyone tells me it should be getting better any day now. I hope they are right! Although, I was sick like this with Allie and Avery all the way up to around 20 weeks.....and pretty much miserable the entire time. Yeah, I haven't had the best pregnancies. Needless to say, this will be our last little babe.
I'm still a little confused as to how far along I am. According to my calculations I'm 12 weeks 2 days. I went for a dating ultrasound yesterday and the tech said they would only do an internal if they thought I was under 13 weeks. When he was doing the regular ultrasound he said, "okay we're not going to do the internal." 10 minutes later we were doing an internal ultrasound?? He got what he thought were the right measurements, went and got someone else to check and in the mean time Avery reaches over from Derek's arms and pushes a button that clears the screen! oops. Guess that's why the say NO CHILDREN in the room. He didn't want to redo it. It was hard enough to get anything in the first place because the baby was bouncing around everywhere! Somehow he was able to get to a screen of the last pic took and used that.....and came up with 11 weeks 6 days. So, just a couple days off. Oh, the cutest part was seeing the baby do these shadow boxing type moves. So cute!
I had my first official Dr's appointment today. Couldn't find the heartbeat with the doppler so they did another quick ultrasound and the first comment made was that that baby had to be further along than 12 weeks because he/she is so big already and well developed. But until I have another "official" ultrasound the due date is going to stay at 12 weeks 2 days according to the nurse practitioner. That means the due date will be September 11th.
We're still debating on whether or not to switch over to Tricare Standard so I can be seen off base. I know I'm going to be high risk.......I always am. I think it's pretty ridiculous how hard it is to get an appointment on base. And the drive..........don't get me started on the drive. I gave myself an hour to get there today.....without any traffic it should only take 25 minutes to get there! Traffic was at a standstill on the interstate for I don't know how long. Time was dwindling down. I started going through the radio stations to see if there was an accident. Yep, I410 and military. Awesome. I had 15 minutes until my appointment at this point so I called the office to tell them I might be late. They said well you might as well reschedule it because if you're over 15 minutes late we won't see you. At that point, by some miracle, the traffic started moving and I said well if I have 30 minutes until it has to be rescheduled then I think I can make it because I'm only 5 minutes away and traffic is starting to move now. Then she said, actually we'll have to cancel if you're even a minute late because this is your first appointment and it's 40 minutes long. I was just like well, I'm almost there I'll see if I can make it before it's rescheduled. We pulled into the parking lot with 6 minutes until the appointment. Luckily there was plenty of parking.....wonder why!? I had Allie unbuckle herself and then get Avery while I got the stroller out. Loaded them in the stroller and dashed to the building. (I'm still wheezing from that run and my appointment was over 8 hours ago!) When I got inside I looked at the clock and I still had 4 minutes to get to the OB office. I made it with two minutes to spare!!
Anyway, enough about all of that. Allie and Avery are super excited for their little sister or brother. Allie has a name for a girl picked out already. It's actually pretty cute and starts with an A. Not anything I would have ever thought of.

Intruder

The other night I awoke several times to noises in the house. You know how when you are dreaming and you hear a sound that sound is probably really happening?? Especially when the sound jolts you up out of your dream. Those are the sounds I heard. The last noise I heard sounded like footsteps or a creaking of the floor. Now, my first thought was Avery because she tends to get out of bed a lot and she'll come right up next to me by the bed. Well, I didn't see her anywhere. It was pitch black though because we hadn't turned on the night light in the hallway so I sat up and listened and waited a little longer. Nothing. Maybe I was just really out of it, I thought. I had taken a sleeping pill that night. No, this was like the third time I had woken up. So I woke Derek up and explained everything to him. He must have thought I was crazy because he didn't grab the gun this time. He just grabbed his cell phone and turned it on to use as a flashlight to check the hall. The minute he turned on the light to the stairway I was comforted and fell back to sleep! Next thing I know Derek is back outside our bedroom - peeking around the door. I see him holding something........Is that a bat?! It's something long. Why is he whispering? And panting? "Brooke, I need your help!" "Didn't you hear me scream and yell for you?" Did you fall asleep as soon as I went to check for an intruder?!" Uh, I guess so.....my heart is pounding. My first thought is.....should I grab the gun? Then I start to see a little clearer and see he's holding a broom. I don't think that would hold off an intruder. I go downstairs with Derek and he explains that he found the intruder in the pantry.......and now it's somewhere behind the refidgerator. Yeah, it was a mouse! Ugh, this is our second mouse. I don't know where they are getting in at. Anyway, Derek set up one of those sticky mouse traps at both sides of the fridge and he slowly scooted it back. Nothing. He got a flashlight so I could watch for it better and then he started swatting the broom around back there. Next thing we know we hear the mouse squealing. Derek's trap worked! The intruder had been captured. Derek took care of the rest of it while I went right back to bed and fell fast asleep.
I still have no idea what those sounds were that I heard.

Pump It Up and Dress Up

Allie was invited to another classmate's birthday party. This one was at Pump It Up and the girls had so much fun!!! I was pretty impressed with Avery. She was tentative at first and had Derek climb the slides with her but by the end of the party she was doing it all by herself.....inluding climbing through the obstacle course with the super steep ladder!



The Party Goers minus the birthday boy

Allie and Avery like dressing up and putting on little dances for us. I love it when they play nicely together (which hasn't been much the past week). They also like putting on little birthday parties for their babies.

Aide

Well, Derek got the job as Aide de Camp to the General. I have mixed feelings about it, but know it's the best for him if he's going to make the Air Force a career. Derek is very honored and a little nervous but also excited. I'm very proud of him too and I know a lot of our family is proud of him as well. He starts in March so he'll be taking some time off here soon to work on his SOS stuff. It's going to be tough on me these first few months but I know I'll figure something out. We have some good neighbors and Allie has made some good friends and they are all willing to help out if I need it.

South Texas Snow

Our phone started ringing this morning at 6:00 and didn't stop until about 7:30.......most of them were due to Derek's work and the whole recall roster thing. Of course, no one was answering their phones so he called most of the people and they all had to call back saying they got the message............that they didn't have to be at work until noon! There were also 2 calls on each of our phones from the school telling us that school is canceled! It was quite the humorous morning......all of this for a light dusting of snow (and I guess there was a little ice).

The funniest thing though was yesterday when Allie told me her teachers told her it was going to snow. I laughed and said, "It's not going to snow!" She said, "Yes, it is! My teachers told me." I was just like okay, whatever.

Then this morning when she woke up the first thing she said was that she needed to get something for show and tell for school. Derek said, "You don't have school today." Her face lit up and she ran to the window, looked out and shouted, "I WAS RIGHT!!" Then Avery said, "I wanna play in it!"  Love.these.girls.

Avery was in awe of the snow. I didn't even think about her not remembering it last year!

100 Days

Yesterday was Allie's 100th day of school! For a home project the kids had to decorate a t-shirt with 100 objects on it. I let Allie do it all herself. She chose to put on those foam stickers. I gave her the idea to add some googly eyes to the frogs and ducks.........she loved that. As soon as we put the shirt on the stickers started falling off. I think by the time she got home there were probably only 20 stickers left! Poor Scobee janitor! I asked Allie what all of the other kids did and she said the same thing that she did.....but theirs didn't fall off.   {I Felt bad that they were falling off and so before we headed to school I grabbed a box of paper clips and started cliping them together in groups of 25. I also grabbed some safety pins and another t-shirt. I didn't have time to pin them to the shirt b/c we were running late so I just told Allie to ask her teacher to help her. She said her teacher said they didn't have time for that! I didn't feel too bad about the stickers being all over the classroom after that.}

Avery saw a podiatrist today for the ridge on her toenail that always seems to get some sort of fungus underneath it. He seems to think that we should file that nail down and gave us a prescription nail polish of sorts to stop the fungal growth. Her pediatrition had said to let the nail grow out.........I guess it's best to go with what the podiatrist says for now.........

Allie went and played with her friend Ethan again on Monday after school. I think it's kind of funny that one of her best friends is a boy! I'm sure that will all change in a few years.



and just a random picture of the girls showing their Purdue spirit. Even though Allie was not a happy camper to be wearing this outfit and repeatedly said she hates Purdue. :-)