Pretty Pictures

Here are a few pictures I snapped in Miami that have quickly become my favorites.  

Miami Children's Museum

Today we hit the Miami Children's Museum while Mimi studied.  To say the kids had a great time would be an understatement.  

 They practiced some dental hygiene together.

 Did a little grocery shopping at Publix, where shopping is a pleasure (and you can get a 20lb wheel of cheese, apparently.)

Put out some fires with the local fire station.

 Took a little motorcycle ride with the Miami Police Dept...

 Worked together to move some dirt on a build site.

 Became a captain of a carnival cruise ship.

 Moved some large cement blocks to build a sky scraper.

 (small break in the carnival cruise lounge)

 And rounded off our tour of the museum with some big stuffed bears!

 Then we headed over to the ocean for a nice ocean side lunch. 

 Logan was right in the path of the wind for a while!

 Then it calmed down and we got a sweet picture.  Her hair is getting so long!!

 Usually she's all smiles, but it seems like she's rediscovered her tongue and ways she can use it to be a little difficult lately.  ;)

Shopping

The kids and I came down to Miami while Mike finishes his time in DC.  This way we could get a little help and a little vacation.  Mimi has been promising Logan for months a girl's night to the American Girl Bistro and a trip to the store so that she could pick out her very own AG doll.  To say she has been excited would be an extreme understatement!  In preparation she and I have been reading our way through several AG series books-- Molly, Caroline, Marie-Grace, and Saige are the one's that we've gotten through.  She's become very attached to several characters and this made the decision making very hard.  We went to the store 30 minutes before our dinner reservations hoping to get the decision making rolling, but it barely got the ball moving as she insisted she needed some food in her and some time during dinner to help make her choice. 

So, we sauntered over with Lucy in tow and sat down for our meal.

It is such a nice atmosphere for little girls.  They brought Logan a "juice cup" to help Lucy sip.

 

We brought Aunt JoAnne and Tita with us!

Logan needed some extra time, so she ordered a banana split to stall.

 Then we went and walked the store several times in effort to eliminate some of the dolls from her list.  She stopped for a photo op with Saige!

 An hour and a half after our arrival she FINALLY made a decision!  (she was also thrilled that we brought friends with us for our girl's night because it meant she racked up on doll clothes)

 She chose......

Caroline!

 After much humming and hawing Logan decided it'd be fun to have the doll that looked the most like her. 

 

Brody was a trooper and walked around the mall with Grandaddy and Great Grandpa while the girls did their thing.  He didn't fuss once!  

We had such a great time together, I can't wait to enjoy living some of my childhood out with my own daughter, now.

Daddy Leaves, Friends Visit

Sunday afternoon we said goodbye to Mike as he headed of to Walter Reed for his 5 week summer practicum.  This is the first time we've said goodbye when both kids have had a really hard time.  We went grocery shopping at the same time he left so that we could be out of the house and both kids sobbed the whole way there.  Logan held onto Mike like this and said, "I'm not letting go so that you can't leave us, daddy!!"  Break my heart.

Thankfully, we had distractions on the way!  My friend, Valerie, whose husband is a marine, was on her own, too.  We've been friends since we were 9!  They recently moved to NC and are only about 2 hours away.  When she found out that Mike would be gone, too, she offered to drive in when he left to help distract the kids.

Logan was excited to have another little girl around to play with.  It was really surreal to see our girls playing together 18 years later, doing things that we used to do together!  They made paper dolls, played house, played Dr. and cooked up a storm!

They started out in the same room but after an hour and a half of chit chat, we moved them apart.

They happily reunited for breakfast in the morning, though, and were inseparable until we parted!!

James and Brody had fun sword fighting and playing with trains together.

Pardon the blurry picture, we had two young photographers trying to capture the moment.  Here we are  (including babies #3 for me and #4 for her).

And here are all of the kiddos!!  (Kristen age 6, Logan age 4, Peter age 1, James age 3 and Brody age 2)  We looked like a small classroom walking around the mall together!

It was nice to have another military wife to talk through separations with.  She was able to give us insight (after two deployments and several smaller separations) on how to help the kids deal with it and how to get through it all without going crazy.  I haven't had good girl time like that in a while!!

We can't wait to visit with them again after the babies are born so we can get all SEVEN of our kids together!

Baby Boy #2!!

Mike and I were thrilled when the Dr. ordered our anatomy ultrasound 2 weeks early so that Mike could be with us to find out the gender!  We went in last Friday hoping to sneak a peak and find out what gender would be the tie breaker.  Mike was 100% sure it was a girl and I was 100% sure it was a boy.  Brody said boy and after a while Logan started saying she was on both teams (because, like mommy, someone else HATES being wrong).

Five minutes in and I instantly caught a glimpse that told me it was a boy and asked that the tech go ahead and check the gender right away.  Sure enough, little boy 2 was not shy and showed us that he was all boy!  Everything else looked perfect, he's growing right on schedule.

The kids wanted to do some sort of reveal with balloons so after the appointment I took them to the store and let them each pick out an "It's a boy" balloon and we brought them home to take pictures to send to everyone.  

Then I photoshopped little buddy's ultrasound picture to put up so the rest of the world would know we were expecting our second sweet boy.

Here he and I are at 18 weeks!

I'm feeling better.  Some energy has returned, the nausea is almost gone and the only thing I really suffer from is needing an afternoon nap most days pretty badly.  It's nice to finally be able to clean the house and get pictures hung.  It's also nice to be able to cook and eat what I make without wanting to gag.  I'm feeling him a little more, but a lot less than I felt the other two.  His placenta has attached to the front of the uterus (anterior placenta) and so all of his kicks are being cushioned pretty heavily.  On the ultrasound we could see how terribly active hie was, but I didn't feel any of it, whereas at both Logan and Brody's anatomy scan's I could feel all of their strong movements that we saw.  Hopefully in a few weeks he'll be strong enough to kick through the placenta and I'll feel him a little more--I hate to miss out on that part of the pregnancy, it's my favorite!!

We are over the moon THRILLED to welcome a new little boy into our family!  It will be fun to watch he and Brody interact being a little more than 2 1/2 years apart.  It'll also be fun to go to Churchill family gatherings with all of the boys we've acquired in the last couple of years!  Logan was a little disappointed, she really wanted a baby sister, but we talked about how right now our family gets to have two princesses and we get to do lots of special princess things together since there are only two of us and I think she's feeling a lot better about it.

We have no names for this little boy yet.  We've tossed around several ideas but nothing has jumped out at us like the names with the other two did so quickly.  We may not name him until we see him!  But, as always, everyone will find out his name when he makes his grand entrance.  We can't wait for November!!