Preschool

Is it even possible that I have a child old enough to go to preschool?  Hayden will turn 4 in September so we decided to do 2 years of preschool before she goes to kindergarten.

Hayden goes to Burnt Hickory Baptist Preschool on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 9 am to 1 pm.  Her teachers name is Mrs. Tammie and Hayden absolutely loves going.  The first day I dropped her off she told me, "It's ok mom, don't cry, I'll be right here when preschool is over and you can come pick me up!"  How funny is she.  She wasn't nervous one bit and was trying to care take me!  I wasn't too sad either, let's be honest.  Hayden has such a strong willed personality that it's nice to have a break from time to time.  I did have more mixed emotions than I expected her first day.  I did miss her and kept wondering how her day was going.

Here she is posing for me on her first day of school!

Hayden getting ready to get out of the car.  They have a very intricate drop off system.  You can also walk your child in to class, but she prefers when I drop her off.

I had so many questions for her about how her day went and an OB appointment right after so we went to lunch at Chick-fil-A.  We had a great time talking about her first day!

Swim Lessons

I taught 3 weeks worth of swim lessons this summer and let Hayden come along to all my lessons, but you can never teach your own child!  Hayden made some improvements and got a lot more comfortable dunking her head under water, but I knew she could do a lot more with another teacher.

I asked a lady in our ward, Mrs. Lisa, who teaches private lessons and she was kind enough to take Hayden on.  In just about 6 or 7 lessons Hayden was floating independently on her back and jumping of the stairs, streamlining and kicking on her own.  It was pretty exciting to watch her growth in such a short amount of time.

Hayden is kind of obsessed with mermaids right now, so this has been good motivation for her to learn how to swim!

24 Weeks

I officially hit the 24 week mark on August 15th.  My doctor said I am measuring right on for 24 weeks, but I feel way bigger!  

Beach Day

Our neighbors from the Air Force Base in Cheyenne live in Dothan, AL which is only about 4 hours from Atlanta. The Lasura's have lived there for 2 years and we had not yet seen them, so we finally planned a trip out to Alabama for the weekend.  We left Friday early afternoon and we were able to enjoy a yummy dinner prepared by Joan that night.  The next morning we drove about 2 hours to Orange Beach in Florida (about 40 miles from Destin).  It was such a beautiful beach with bright white sand and fairly clear water.

Hayden with one of her creative poses!

Don't let these pictures deceive you.  Out of no where Hayden announces she wants to go home and take a bath (after being there about an hour!) She had a big old melt down and was adamant that we leave.  I think the salt water bugged her eyes and yet she kept going underwater to show off her new skill.  She finally did cheer up and told me, "Mom, I changed my attitude, I'm happy now!"

Hayden had so much fun with Cora, their poor little eyes were hurting by the end of the day though.

 Ezra, River, Hayden & Cora

 I love spending time at the beach!  We played in the waves, made birthday sand cakes, and hunted for sea shells.  Can you ask for a better day?  After the beach we got dressed and went out for Seafood at JC Seafood and then got dessert at David's Cafe.  The Sno-balls were so amazing and we also got Benyays which are popular in New Orleans.  It's kind of like a fried pastry covered in powdered sugar.  The only problem is that I can't seem to eat and not inhale, so I kept choking on powdered sugar.  It was pretty funny.  

 After a fun filled day we headed back to the Lasura's and went to bed!  The next morning we went to church with them, had another yummy meal prepared by Joan and then headed home.  It was a quick trip with lots of driving, but we sure had fun!  We'll have to do this more often!

Baby #2

We have long been awaiting the day that we could announce that baby #2 was on the way!  I'm hoping to journal our whole experience here shortly.  But for now, here are the pictures from July 23rd when we found out what we were having.

We decided to take Hayden along with us since she is so excited to become a big sister.  She talks about the baby all the time and is practicing on all her babies now.  The ultrasound technician asked if we wanted to find out and asked Hayden what she wanted and she responded, "a brother" surprisingly.  She has been pretty adamant that she wanted a sister for a long time.  So much so that Paul and I almost decided not to take her with us because we were afraid of her reaction if it really was a boy!  This is only the 2nd time that she said she wanted a brother.  Right before she got her tonsils out the doctor asked if she had any brothers and sisters to which she said, "yep, a brother!"  We quickly told the Dr. that we were expecting but not until December.

Anyway, the ultrasound tech discovered the gender and whispered it to Hayden, so she was the first to know.  Then she told us that we were having a "boy."  We were all really excited!  It's so nice to have one of each and know that I will get to experience mothering a boy and a girl.  I'm so happy Hayden is glad to have a brother.

Dad calling family to tell them the news!

Hayden and I, she was such a good girl at the Dr's office!

Introducing baby boy :)  We can't wait to meet him!

Since it's been a long stressful road to get to this point we decided to have a little gender reveal party for our friends.  We decided to write on pink balloons, "nope" and blue balloons, "yep"  then our friends blew them up to see the answer after guessing the gender.  It was a lot of fun, except the writing faded on a bunch of the balloons leaving our guests wondering what in the world we were having!

We found out at about 21 weeks.  This picture is me at 20 weeks.  It's crazy how much faster I began showing with baby #2!  I swear you could barely tell I was pregnant when we found out Hayden was a girl at 24 weeks!  But thank goodness the belly growth has slowed down a bit, I was big enough with Hayden I can't imagine being any bigger!!!

Paul is so excited to have a boy in the house with him and we are just feeling really blessed at the moment!  Currently I am 24 weeks along and recently stopped feeling so nauseous!  Excited to have my energy and stomach back!