Thousands of blessings

We had a really fun Thanksgiving day as a family. There are so many people who don't have what we have. When I lived with a host family in Nepal, there was no such thing as a shower. I get a hot shower everyday. My host family there went out to buy the day's food each day, and here I get to open our chest freezer and plan my meals for a whole week. Those are just two blessings, and there are thousands more...

I'm extremely thankful for days when Justin gets to be with the three of us and not think about any of his work. Oh, but I'm grateful that he HAS that work.

In the morning, we bundled up and braved the rain to support Justin's sister and bro-in-law in their 8k Turkey Trot. Justin held little Joel while I desperately tried to get a picture of Jennifer and Calvin, although the race was PACKED with people. Jennifer is in the white top and black cropped pants in this pic:

After the race, they all came over to our house for a late eggs and carmel apple oatmeal breakfast! I love family time.
In the afternoon, we spent time with Justin's parents, bro, and his bro's girlfriend while the turkeys fried and smoked.
In the evening, the LaPlant family joined us for a feast! Jennifer, Calvin, and Joel spent dinner with some good friends, and then joined us for the rest of the night.

Leftovers were delicious today. :)

Roanoke visit

Aunt Jennifer, Joel, Grammy, Izzy, Clara, and I drove in Grammy's car up to Roanoke, VA to visit with family for the weekend after Tess visited us in Charlotte. Grandma and Aunt Pam were great hostesses, and we were thankful for all their work. Time with family is a blessing!

We celebrated Jennifer's 25th:

Come South!

We LOVE when family and friends visit! Skyping with my family has been a great tool for keeping the girls in touch with their grandparents and aunts. Come back soon, Auntie!!!

First Discovery experience

I haven't been back to Discovery Place since I was a teacher, but we had a fun afternoon playing there!
They built a small aquarium:

This water area was a great ending:

All 5 of us were worn out when we got home!!!

Goin' to the city ;)

We don't live far from downtown, but I still felt like country bumpkins goin' to the city when we stopped by the fountain for a picnic lunch. We did have fun, though. ;)

Look who we ran into. ;) He was busy, busy in meetings and on the phone, but he still took a few minutes out of his schedule to see his bumpkins in his work territory.

And Daddy took a pic of us for memory's sake:

Ridin' downtown!

We took the girls and Izzy's friend, Maggie, on the light rail from South Blvd. to the very last stop downtown. The girls loved the ride! (I loved that it was cheaper for us to ride than to park my car down there.)

So happy together:

Toy Story!

One nice thing about Izzy not having any idea about arcades is that you can put her on the motorcycle without $.25 and she still thinks it's awesome. :)

I treated the four of us to Toy Story 3 while Justin was at a meeting one evening, and it was a real steal... $4 total for $1 Tuesdays!

This movie was Clara's first theater experience, and she was perfect! Her fav part was undoubtedly the popcorn. ;)

What a fun night!

Museum outing

One day while Tess was here, we visited the Billy Graham Library (museum). The grounds are beautiful, and the tour is very thorough and professional... all for free! Izzy's fav part was at the beginning of the tour when Billy Graham's dairy cow, Bessie, gave the first talk. ;)
Her second favorite part of the trip was Auntie's spoiling:

Tirrrrrred on the way home!

Auntie Visits!

Whew, I've been behind on life updates. Pictures have been sitting on my camera card for a few weeks now!
Auntie Tess visited Mon-Thurs a couple weeks ago, and we had a blast. I think we wore her out with all our fun Charlotte activities, and I know Clara, Izzy, and I were exhausted by the end of all the fun.

Izzy was obsessed with Tess' iPhone, and somehow knew how to make it work right away. Eventually, she taught herself a bunch of the phone functions. I was pretty surprised... all these kids these days KNOW technology!

The weather was beautiful and warm all week, even in November!

Shutterfly post

Guess what? Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly… sign up: http://bit.ly/sfly2010

I have read a couple of my blogger friends' blogs and have seen that they are receiving some free holiday cards just by blogging about Shutterfly's cards! Well, I am jumping on the bandwagon now. :) I love pictures and really ENJOY sending Christmas cards. Due to the fact that I cannot pick just one picture to adorn a card, I always include a collage of pictures. Shutterfly has cards that can hold just one picture and cards that can hold 6, 7, or even 8 pictures! I think I might pick a few pictures from throughout 2010 to place on the Christmas card. :) These cards have to be pretty nice since they are printed on cardstock and not just the shiny photo paper that most stores use for their holiday picture cards. I am just not sure which card to pick since there are so many different options from whimsical to classic. Better get to narrowing the options down... Can't wait to get my cards from Shutterfly just for being a blogger!!! Thanks, Shutterfly.

If you are interested in Shutterfly products, you can purchase Christmas cards, photo mugs, and canvas wall art on their site.

A boy to add to the mix!

3D ultrasound picture (kinda alien-ish) that is oh SO cool:

We found out we were having a girl when I was pregnant with Izzy. Then we waited till delivery to find out that our second baby was a girl. I loved doing what we did for each one. I was wanting to wait till the birth again this time around, but I'm glad that other things changed my mind. I have a feeling that if our third was a girl, I might have been a little less excited at birth, but who knows...

Anyhow, Izzy DAILY reminded us that she wanted the baby to be a boy like her cousin. Justin wanted a boy, too. At first I was fine with either boy or girl, but then I started thinking about boy babies, boy names, etc. For Izzy's sake, I decided I was okay with finding out the sex of our third. Right before the sonographer told us she saw boy parts, I was sooo tense. And then relief came! God did give our family our heart's desire. We couldn't be happier.

In this picture, I'm 16.5 weeks and due April 20, 2011:

Now we'll be putting all the pink and purple away in the attic as Clara outgrows her clothes! :)
I'm thankful that almost all our baby stuff, including the nursery, is neutral. After Christmas, we're going to figure out which room we'll put the girls in together and how to set it up. And then we'll have to figure something out with BOY clothes!!! Everything's so exciting!

ps. I don't take this lightly: The sonographers said that everything looked good to them on the u/s.

GREAT NEWS...

Take II:

Woohoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A taste of sugar

Clara had her first lollipop, and as soon as it hit her tongue, she was hooked!