I'm Downsizing!

When I originally started blogging I only had one blog. As I got into a little more into it I thought the family blogs would be a lot of fun, so I started a family blog for everyone to post. I know that everyone is super busy and that several of you read my posts here on a regular basis, but posting is not the easiest to figure out, so rather than posting similar things on my personal blog and then again on the family blog, I am going to just be posting on my personal blog. I am going to leave this one here, so that if anyone gets the time to figure out how to post they can. Otherwise start checking out this blog for current updates and happenings in our neck of the woods!! If you have a user name and account set up, you can leave comments on the other blog. Otherwise you can just enjoy reading!

Pictures!!!

Once again I have gone longer than intended between postings. We have been busy vacationing. We spent 2 weeks on Colorado and then a week in Houston. We had lots of fun and the kids were spoiled rotten by both sets of grandparents. This last week I took the kids in for pictures. I wanted to get Ethan's 5 year pictures, Emily's 3 year pictures and then some of the two of them together before the baby comes. Like usual there were so many cute ones that it was hard to choose. The nice thing is that I bought enough sheets between Ethan's 5 year pictures, Emily 3 year pictures and the ones of them together that I got the disk with all the shots taken. So here is a pretty big sampling of some of the cute ones! You should all be receiving some in the mail. I will probably wait and send them out with the baby announcements! Only 4 weeks left until the arrival of the new little Stevens baby!!

Our Kingdom

As I was in the kitchen yesterday Ethan came up to me and asked me if I knew that Emily wanted to be a Princess when she grows up. He went on to tell me that that would be great because he would get to see her all the time because he was going to be a Prince. I said that was great and asked if mom and dad could come visit their kingdom and he said that we wouldn't have to because dad would be the King. I said great then I guess that means I would be the Queen of the kingdom. His reply was, "no mom, we don't need a queen but you can be the dog."

Just as a PS... the Dr. said that I no longer need to test by blood sugar as long as I promise to watch my sugar intake! I am so excited, no more poking!!!

The Start of a New Week

So I thought I would start out Monday morning by posting an update of the last week or so. The rain finally went away and we have been spending a lot of time at the swimming pool. The kids love it. I am not the biggest fan of sticking my fat body into a swim suit. I feel like a big ol' whale out there. But it helps pass the day away and like I said the kids love it. Ethan is getting less afraid of the water. He loves to put on his water wings and swim all around. He can pretty much get any where he wants to. Emily tries to follow him and does a pretty good job. She is still a little more scared of the water. I haven't been very good at taking pictures lately. I will try to get some pictures of them at the pool this week.

The end of this last week I had a Dr.'s appt. and they diagnosed me with gestational diabetes. I had to meet with a nutrition counselor and they want me to start testing my blood 4 times a day. I am still slightly skeptical. I have slightly changes my diet by taking out Dr. Pepper and trying to snack on good things rather than sweets. I have not been following the rest of the recommended diet and have had no problems with my sugar levels being too high so I am not sure really how accurate their original test was. I am hoping they will retest and I can stop poking myself 4 times a day. Other than that the baby is fine and all is going well.

Potty training is going great with Emily. Accidents are very few and far between. She wakes up dry most mornings and can stay dry through nap time. She has even come to me in the middle of the night to take her potty. I thought Ethan was easy, but Emily has been 10 times easier. Now we just need to work on the binky issue....

We are starting the count down on our trip to Colorado. Ethan and Emily ask often how soon it will be before we get to go on the airplane. We are down to 15 days!!! I hope that everyone else is doing well and love to hear from you all either through comments here or email. Have a wonderful week!

Update!

So once again it has been longer than I have wanted it to be but I thought I would just let everyone know what's happening here. I have just been trying to find my way around. Last week was filled with trying to find Ethan a preschool. I visited several and finally found one that wasn't too expensive and not too far from where we live. He is already excited to start. If only he could realize that September is still pretty far away.

Yesterday I started up with potty training Emily. It is never a fun task, but I think we are doing okay. Yesterday she had 2 accidents, but made it to the potty chair every other time. Today she is being stubborn (I wonder who she gets that from?), she is refusing to sit on the potty chair. She hasn't had any accidents, but I see it coming since she woke up dry and hasn't gone yet this morning. Hopefully when she decides she can't hold it any longer she will sit on the potty chair and not just go in her underwear. We'll see...

Other than that, we have been hanging out inside mostly, trying to avoid the rain. We are ready for the sunshine so we can head out to the pool. I think that it is supposed to clear up next week. I will try and take some fun pictures of them in the pool and post them for all to see. I hope that everyone is doing well and I'll keep you posted!

It's a BOY!

We were finally able to have the ultrasound and find out that our new little one is a boy! I had to go to the Dr. by myself this time around so I had the ultrasound tech write down the sex of the baby in an envelope and we opened as a family that night. It was so fun to see Ethan's reaction. He wanted a boy so bad and started jumping up and down when I read the news. Anytime we say anything about his new little brother he gets a huge grin on his face!

We are finally starting to feel settled in our new apartment. We had a problem with a leaky roof, and a leaky sink, but they seem to be fixed now so we are set. We will be making a trip to Houston next weekend to close on our house. That will be nice to have done. One less thing to have to worry about. Now that the internet is up and running again I will be better about posting and keep everyone updated as the baby's arrival gets closer! We love you and miss you all!

P.S. Watch for an email soon with all our updated info!

Is the Glass Half Full or Half Empty?

That is a hard question for me to answer today. I am trying to look at the bright side of things but after finding out yesterday that the people that were going to buy our house lost their financing, it is slightly hard. So here we go again. The house is back on the market, we no longer have a closing date, but yet we are all set up to move into our new apartment on May 4th. We have decided to just go ahead and suck up the double housing payments so that Eric doesn't have to travel back and forth and I don't have to be a single mom during the week. So that will be nice, but we then have to find someone to take care of the yard and sit from a far and hope that our house sells quickly. So this post isn't too sad and depressing I decided to go ahead and post pictures from our fun trip to Sea World last week.

We got to San Antonio early Thursday afternoon and decided to spend some time on the river walk. It was nice because it wasn't too crowded. We took a boat ride around the river and then decided to eat dinner at the Rainforest Cafe which was a lot of fun for Ethan and Emily.

Friday and Saturday we woke up and headed over to Sea World. We all had so much fun! The shows were great and the kids and Eric loved the rides. The weather was perfect and there were no lines. Eric was able to ride all the big roller coasters several times in a row without even getting off! Here are a lot more pictures with explanations! It was a great family vacation and definitely worth the extra 4 or 5 dollars per ticket to do 2 days!

Here they are feeding the dolphins. The kids were too scared to touch the dolphins but they loved feeding (or throwing) the little fish to the dolphins.

Emily loved all the rides, she wanted to ride all of them! I love this picture because she is has her head thrown back and she was laughing so hard! It was the cutest thing ever.

Another ride that Emily wanted to go on again and again. She was a dare devil and would throw her hands in the air and not even hold on.

This is Ethan and Emily with their whales that Dad won for them. They cost $35 each in the gift shop, but after only $15 on the boardwalk games Dad had won one for each of them! What a deal!

Here we all are at the entrance. Not the greatest picture, but we were all in it.

This was by far the favorite ride! You can see that Ethan is a little scared, but he still loved it. He was ready to do it again! I was surprised (and slightly nervous) that he was brave enough to sit up there all by himself without daddy holding on.

So you can see from the pictures that it was a fun trip. We will definitely go back again in the future!