April 25 - Hi Mom

Hola peeps! I hope everyone is enjoying the beautiful spring weather. We've been busy the last few weeks so here it goes.... Jules and I traveled to Florida a few weeks ago and we both had a great time. We flew into Tampa and I drove to Gainesville for my first quarterly visit to the main office. It was GREAT being in the office surrounded by people. I also stayed with Jill and her fam and it was fantastic hanging out with her. Her daughter Julia just turned two and she was beyond adorable. She already knows the full alphabet, can count to twenty and can spell a few words including her name. She also called me 'mom' most of the time I was there-it was really cute, she'd come out of her room and say 'hi mom.' Precious! Meanwhile, my actual daughter was having the time of her life with Grammy Yamo in Tampa. She had a blast playing with the cats (especially K.C. who let her carry him around everywhere), playing in the baby pool and playing with bubbles and charming Grammy's sewing friends. Thanks for taking such great care of our little bean Grammy!

We flew back in town this past Wednesday and it was great seeing daddy and Amelia after being away for a week. Yesterday, we went to dinner at the Rainforest Cafe in Galveston with the Radford's and to say Jules and Hannah had a good time would be an understatement. Whoever designed this place definitely had kids in mind. The ceiling of the restaurant was like a jungle, there was a person dressed as a tree frog going from table to table, fishtanks throughout the restaurant, with elephants and gorillas and waterfalls. Fantastic! Today Jules had a playdate with her friend Emma from school and the girls had a great time playing with a myriad of toys

Until next time! Hasta luego!

April 13 - Boys, Boys, Boys!

Just a fun observation that almost everyone I know is having boys these days. Other than one of J.D.'s cousins (Cindy-who is having a girl), everyone I know in the last year has had/is having a boy! And for those of you who are "sure" I'm having another girl because of my extreme nausea, two of my girlfriends (Sheela and Jill) had the same thing and are both on the boy train. So..that goes to show you can't put any stock in wives tales!

I look forward to our ultrasound in June to find out for sure! And unlike last time-where I was dead set on wanting a boy, I'm totally fine with either. I just want a healthy baby..preferably one that doesn't take 31H to make its appearance in this world and one that sleeps through the night earlier than 9months....

April 6 - Climbing Out

Big news bean fans: last night we made the switch to a toddler bed. Why you ask? Well, Monday morning I went in Julia's room and where is she? The little stinker was looking out her window toy in hand. She must have some catlike reflexes because she never cried when she fell, perhaps jumped out. Anyhoo, she rolled out of the toddler bed a few times last night so tonight we put the mattress directly on the floor. Keep your fingers crossed that she stays on the mattress! We'll keep her in the toddler bed until baby bean arrives, then she'll move into a real big girl bed. Amazingly-out of all of the things she's done over the last year and a half, moving out of her crib seems like the biggest developmental step to me. Before I know it, she'll be getting her drivers license and be off to college!

In other fun news, we made a family trip to the Houston Children's Museum and it was beyond amazing . When anyone comes to visit with kids, I can guarantee that we will go there! I can't describe all the amazing areas so here are a few: outside water area (fountains galore), dance area complete with a dancing floor that lit up (it goes without saying this was Julia's fave), vet area, obstacle course (she did this about 10 times before we had to physically pull her away), miniature grocery store where kids could shop and check out food (she became attached to a plastic croissant and tried to steal it...I literally had a volunteer running after me to get it back!), and J.D.'s favorites: lego area where kids could build race cars, building blocks, a little quality control area where she picked up foam shapes, the science area, paper airplanes and of course-building rockets (she was a little young for some of these but J.D. was in heaven!). There were so many more cool, fun things that we did but I doubt anyone wants to spend 30min reading about it in detail. To those who do..call me for more details!

Otherwise-of course, it was Easter too this past weekend. Happy belated Easter everyone! We went to the Radford's house for dinner and it was an adventure. Let's just say between Hannah (2.5yr old) and Jules (1.5yr old), there were some toddler tantrums going on. Overall, they did have fun playing (when they weren't busy shouting-that is MINE!) and they were also great with Elliott, Hannah's 10mon old cousin (who crawled for the first time that day, very exciting!). Tammy also made an amazing ham dinner and homemade orange/berry cake that was amazing.