Hard at work, Hard at play

Painting with papa.

A few weeks back Ricardo and my dad and our friend Fabian replaced 3 more windows in our house. They are lovely! During the weekends that followed, Ricardo finished them up (sealing, adding the trim, repairing the drywall inside, etc). He had Xaris help him with painting the trim before he put it all up. She was a very good worker.

And of course, after work there's play! With lots of water--particularly when the work is messy and is done in 100+ degree heat. Yes, that is paint in her hair, and it took weeks for it all to come out :)

32 weeks

Funny...I'm almost 32 also...next month.

Is that right?

Crazy how time flies!

Since we hadn't done ANY intentional belly shots of this next little one, I decided that we needed to do this (we can't have this one feeling she was ignored)! So, yesterday we went to the Arboretum just before it closed and had a picnic and took pictures. We only stayed about 30 minutes because it was 99 degrees and insanely humid, like every day here.

I live inside.

In fact, today I only ventured out a couple times for a few seconds each time.

But we got some pictures and X went crazy chasing a bird that was just a little too smart for her...it would just fly over the little fence so she'd have to go running all the way around to the other side just in time for it to fly back over...and repeat....and repeat....

Anyway, here are the photos!

Yay for baby!

We started out with silliness, probably showing off for papa since he met us there after he got off work...

Climbing in the bottom of her stroller....

Kisses for sister baby

Making tummies big...I win.

Adventures in the Peter Rabbit houses

And then telling mama ALL about it! (one thing those of you who are far away won't know about X is that she is a chatterbox. All the time. And if she's not talking, she's singing).

Posed photo without glasses to make Ricardo happy

Fat and Happy!

Smiles and kisses with papa, because he was there too!

By far my favorite photo of the day.

30 minutes at the Dallas Arboretum in July was more than enough, we were hot, sweaty, and very pink. So...we went swimming.

And then out for frozen yogurt!

Vacation Bible School

Our children's minister left in March. By then, we were down to about 4 kids weekly, so instead of hiring a new children's minister, some of us sort of "absorbed" that job. SO, yay for VBS and my first time as a VBS director.

We actually had a fairly successful week! I learned several things that I WILL do and WON'T do next year, but some of the things we tried ended up being good ideas. And we had over 50 kids registered, which means we had 20 more than last year (which at the very least makes me happy because the people in the church who care about numbers and evaluate our positions won't be able to complain that I'm not doing my job).

We also included the preschool, which means we had to adapt/rewrite curriculum for both a 2 year old class and a 3 year old class. Most VBS curriculum (including the one we bought) only does elementary and preK. Here are some fun pictures from the week (mostly of X's week)!

The preK-1st class

The 3 year old class

The 2 year old class (minus one, who was still getting changed)

2 year olds with their teachers

Play time in Noah's Landing

Bible story time, learning from "Mary" about what it was like when Jesus was a kid. They are playing with wheat kernels in this photo.

Parachute!! Best invention ever.

Mission Trip 2011

Sacramento, New Mexico was wonderful fun! X did well, first night was a little rough, but after that she was a good sleeper, worker, and participated fully!

Of course, her absolute favorite of the week was the dirt piles. She was the filthiest baby ever for a week (We gave her sink baths most nights which did a little good--and one shower which she SCREAMED through)...

She was a good worker. She helped the lumberjack team who were cutting and carrying logs down the mountain.

Cleaning dining hall windows with mama.

Lots of play too! Pastor Lee is taller than Ric or I (but not taller than Tayta), so X has a couple people in her life that lift her Really High.

Swinging with Gramama.

Feeding the fish in the pond with Gramama.

She worked hard, played hard, and slept hard. Although, her pack and play is looking pretty small for her now.

Ricardo's team replaced the roof on this funky pavilion. Weirdest roofing job ever.

Finished roof! Good job Ricardo and Team!

There were also 3 other teams--and lots of projects completed. Since blogging seems to take more time than I have these days, I'm probably not going to post the pictures from all the teams (I would have to sort through over 1,000 photos to do that!)

Twin night. Gramama, X and I wore our new aprons from Alisha.

Diaper hat.

planking

if you haven't heard of it before, it's a senseless phenomenon. Apparently, it is a fad to lay face down with arms at sides in random locations and take pictures of it :)

like so:

While I am not advocating this activity, it was pretty entertaining to watch all the youth on mission trip (not just the youth, actually) having fun and being creative with planking mission trip pictures.

And, of course...everyone was so excited when X learned to plank.

More Mission Trip planking pictures here.

stats

So, last month X had her 2 year well check and she's doing fine!

Her head is plenty healthy, measuring 18.5 which is 45th percentile,

Height is 33.5, 50th percentile (only 2.5 inches she needs to grow before October and Disneyland, so she can go on all the rides :)

and...

Weight.

At least she's over 20 lbs now. A whopping 22 pounds (with clothes/shoes on), which still leaves her at way below the percentile chart. But, she eats a ton and it developing fine, so apparently I still don't need to be worried about it.

And, I'll have my 28 week appt. this week (yay for the gestational diabetes juice....blah), and maybe, just maybe I'll post a belly pic. Several people noticed that I got a lot bigger this past week on Mission Trip (camp food maybe??) So, now I get to feel nice and big while it's 105 outside. We'll not be going outside until September :)

Mission Trip pics coming soon!

Birthday Picnic

Ok, Xaris can be 2 now...I'm finally blogging about her birthday.

Sorry it took me so long to get the pictures up! The problem is not my lack of time on the computer (because I work every night after X is in bed...wonder how that schedule is going to work out for me once there's two of 'em??)

The problem is not my disinterest in blogging--because I keep wanting to post more and keep checking friend's blogs!

The problem is remembering to download photos from the camera to the computer. And needing to find the cable to do so. Or the adapter for the SD card. That one little step is what prevents me from posting so much more than I do--and lately, many of this blog's pictures have been from the iphone, because I can e-mail them to myself and then just have them directly on my computer.

Anyways, I just found the cable, connected the camera, and now have pictures from a 2 year old's birthday picnic to post! It was the most beautiful day possible--warm, borderline too hot, but tolerable, and we snagged the last picnic table in the shade!

Started out with wagon rides from Gramama, while we waited for guests...She looks grumpy here, but I think it was just sun in her eyes.

She wanted more wagon rides...

Picnic lunch!

LOTS of bubbles

She really got the hang of opening presents this year

X's friend Jack ("Yack" is what she calls him) and his mom Leslie!

Other guests--Gramama, and the two pastors I work with, and their wives!

Loved this picture--not sure what this face is, because she loves these cupcakes and devoured it on her birthday picnic.

Cupcake in one hand, cookie in the other...what a happy girl!

Exploring the Peter Rabbit Flower houses in the Arboretum...

We had lots more adults than kids at this picnic--however, if all the families we had invited were able to come, it would have been the other way around. Maybe we should stop having birthday picnics for X, as it seems illness will strike a large percentage of those invited? Anyway, she did have two little friends, Jack and Luke, to play with, and we are so grateful for all those who came to celebrate our girl!

Closing shot: A thank you and goodbye hug for Jack.

sisters

It's a girl!

Or appears to be--she was rather uncooperative for the sonogram, but that's what the Dr and the tech both concluded. Everything looks fine, she seems healthy and wonderful at this point, weighs 10 ounces and I'm 20 weeks along tomorrow.

Just wanted to share our news--looks like the poll was a bit off!

love, and good night!