More Pictures

Lots of Shiloah! She loves to play with the bubbles in the sink, touch the Christmas tree, and yesterday she was sweeping just like "Seesala" which is her version of "Cinderella." She's looking more and more like Corey!

The Night Night Time

The girls have a new favorite thing to do after bath time now -- they say, "Mommy can we do the Night Night time?" I am not even sure how we got started with it but, as you can see, they think it's the funniest thing in the world! It will be lots of fun when they start sharing a room in bunk beds -- we're thinking some time next summer or fall when Hannah is old enough to climb up the ladder without falling.

Grandad, Nana, Jon Michael, Anne Parker and Aunt Budgie (my sister) all came to stay for Thanksgiving. Jon Michael and Anne Parker bravely slept in the basement with the crickets (though I have now become a master cricket killer) and poor Budgie slept on the couch... which meant she got to wake up with the girls!

Hannah and Shiloah are also really into coloring with some "special markers" on shoe papers (I have a pad of paper that looks like shoes). Hannah will lay on the kitchen floor and Shiloah will imitate her, it's very serious stuff! Hannah loves to take her time and fill in the entire shoe with color and she has even started coloring within the lines of regular coloring papers now! She's so focused and intent on her "very hard work" while coloring and will often say to me, "Not yet, Mommy, I have to finish this part!"

Christmas Pictures

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Here are some sweet Christmas pictures...
The girls got beautiful Christmas dresses from Grandad and Nana and have already gotten way more than their money's worth out of them! They also have their own tree next to Mommy's big tree. They can touch the ornaments on Mommy's tree with one finger and can do whatever they want to their own tree. We also do an Advent calendar every morning that they love, too. We'll probably start opening presents soon -- we had a great time doing them Hannukah-style last year. It made things a lot easier on the girls because they didn't get too overwhelmed. We have a few "big" ones to open on Christmas day, too.

Counting

The girls can count to 15 usually, today Shiloah did 13 and Hannah did 11. Shiloah is much more interested in numbers than Hannah, and Hannah knew all 20 of her colors by Shiloah's age -- Shiloah sometimes knows about 10 colors. It's amazing how different they are!

My Daughter's Eyes

Hannah is singing "In My Daughter's Eyes," sung originally by Martina McBride. We sing this together almost nightly!

Hannah plays with her princesses

Leg Warmers

Leg warmers are so cute!

Baby #3 Update

I am so thrilled to report that my restrictions have been lifted... the second clot is basically gone and, with the baby growing and developing so well, the doctor gave me permission to resume normal pregnant activity. It was very hard to be restricted and I didn't exactly follow the directions perfectly, but I did limit myself quite a bit. So, the fetus is viable now and we are just praying that she will stay in my belly for 16 more weeks!!

More House Pictures

...the bathroom will be Pumpkin on top and white on bottom... eventually!

Updated House Pictures

Here's our new place! It's been painted and our stuff is here. Hannah's room is pink, Shiloah's is a bluish-greenish color, ours is dark aqua and the dining room will be red and white (the bottom portion was just added by my dad and will be solid white eventually, didn't he do a fabulous job?!). Now it just needs the finishing touches.

Halloween Pictures

The girls dressed up as mice for Halloween. It was prompted by Hannah's discovery of the Minnie Mouse dress on Thursday, so of course she had to be Minnie Mouse on Friday! Shiloah's newest thing is to be into everything Hannah is into. This creates all sorts of new challenges around the house for Mommy and Daddy!

Instead of trick-or-treating we sat on our front porch and gave out candy. The girls loved it because we got to see lots of cool costumes. I've never in my life had that many trick-or-treaters visit my house. We live in a great area for getting candy on Halloween! Shiloah had a much harder time giving up her candy than Hannah but we all had a lot of fun!

New Pictures of the girls!

It certainly has been a long time since any photos were posted! I have some more videos and photos but they are on David and Vicki's computer currently and I"ll have to post them another time.

We're finally "settled" into our new house! It's great to be here. We love living in this neighborhood -- we are 1/2 a block away from the grocery store and movie theatre and ice cream shoppe. It's so nice. Shiloah can walk the whole way and she loves to do so.

These pictures are of the girls eating some cookie dough I made the other day, they loved having their beaters. And we painted pumpkins for Halloween, too. Hannah spent about 30 minutes on just one little pumpkin and painted every square inch of it. Shiloah had a different approach, much more random, but it also included tasting the paint and having Mommy do some, too.

BABY GIRL #3

Yes, it is another sweet little girl... sorry it took me so long to respond to this! Thanks for all of your prayers and comments of support. It means a lot to us just to know that folks are keeping up with us.

I go on Friday for another ultrasound, this will be 22 weeks. At the next appointment, at 24 weeks, we will discuss the full bedrest issue further...

Update on Baby #3

So the clot is gone!!! They took an ultrasound yesterday and could see where it had absorbed/died and is no longer an issue. I was so glad to hear that news and was so excited to start working out again, start being active, etc.

Then they told me that there is another large clot that has formed sometime in the past two weeks. They're stumped by this since there's nothing I can really do to cause it and there is nothing they can do to prevent it. I am still on the same restrictions with just that much more caution surrounding the situation now. I was really bummed about it yesterday... I just really hope I don't have to go on complete bed rest.

Good news is that the baby is completely healthy and growing at the appropriate rate, she's right on target. The clot(s) seem to be doing nothing to harm her at all.

Maybe this clot will disappear, too...

Another Baby #3 Update

Today we got good news about our newest addition -- the clot is definitely much smaller! It went from 45 ccu to 29 ccu in two weeks, a remarkable improvement. The doctor said she was finally excited about how things are going, finally because it hadn't shown any remarkable decrease in size for a while. I'm still only 16 weeks pregnant which means the fetus is not viable yet. So, at 24 weeks, when the fetus is viable, she said I may be put on complete bedrest to rule out any possibility of pre-term labor. That would be a nightmare for me! My dr. said she doesn't think that will happen because she believes the clot is going to be gone by then. We are certainly praying that would be true!

More Holden Beach pictures

They also enjoyed a few bike rides around the island with Shishaw and Pawpaw. I think it was mostly because they got to wear their "Pedro helmets." (Pedro is a little cartoon airplane from Chile, so any and every airplane becomes Pedro. Shiloah will even refer to herself as Pedro whenever she's trying to overcome any obstacle, like climbing into a chair.)

And, a little family picture of the 5 of us. :)

More Holden Beach pictures

Holden Beach

We got to spend 4 great days at the beach this week, cut short by the way over rated TS Hanna. It was sunny and 90 every day, except Friday. But we got to spend a night in Raleigh because we left early, which means we got to see my brother and his new wife (and their awesome new house), Corey's sister and her husband and some dear friends. Hannah kept saying, "Are we in Raleigh?!"

Our little girls have very different personalities and they can be easily seen in their attitude towards the water. Shiloah jumps right in and prefers to swim in the deepest water in the pool, Hannah likes to hang on the side where she can touch and play with her little dolls. As for the ocean, Shiloah would have walked right out into the waves if we let her. There is a picture of her laying on her stomach waiting for the waves to get her! We finally decided to let her feel a little impact of what the ocean can do, so as to instill a little bit of healthy fear in her. It worked for about a second, then she was ready to jump back in! Hannah liked to stay where it was safe and the surf just got her a little bit. She was easy to watch. We spent a long time on a nice big sand bar one afternoon and the girls had a great time with the shallow surf that came up to get their feet.

There was also this great tidal pool (we called it the lagoon, like in the Little Mermaid). It was fresh ocean water but without the waves! Perfect for the little girls! Shiloah, of course, wanted to swim out to the middle all by herself, Hannah preferred to stay in the shallow areas and "catch fish" in her net. Hannah did venture out both in the ocean and the tidal pool but it just took her a little while. She has all these neat little creative things she likes to do and is happy with just a little bit of water.

We had so much fun!

Here are some random pictures of last week:
Grandma Rae and Hannah reading a book together. Based on the look on Hannah's face, it was obviously an intense book.

Hannah dressed up to greet Daddy when he came home from work.

Shiloah organizing some of Daddy's papers on the bed.

Aunt Budgie came for a night to babysit and had a great time with the girls.

The girls dressed and ready for Preschool orientation.