October Compliation

 10/5 - Mommy and Daughter

 10/5 - Bryce and Bauer are great friends!

 10/7 - I was able to surprise Derek with Costco pizza to eat during school lunch. He loved it!

 10/7 - Clara has really started to develop a love of coloring. Yay!

 10/7 - Three little monkeys climbed into my bed

 10/8 - This is how Clara dressed herself today, hahahahahaha! She loves owls right now.

10/11 - We love building forts!

 10/12 - We babysat Oakley today. These two girls love twirly skirts!

 10/17 - Mitchell let the kids excavate his Star Wars coin kit (the plastic coins are embedded in a rock matrix that looks like Han Solo in carbonite).

 10/21 - Clara and Bryce built their own temples! Bryce says he and Emeri are going to get married in the temple he built, hahahahahaha! :D

 10/24 - Gogurts at lunch are always a hit

 10/24 - The Burton boys came over to play today! We love the climbing gym!

10/25 - Grandpa and Grandma Bazemore and Aunt Alex sent Bryce a Paw Patrol watch for his birthday. Paw Patrol is one of his favorite shows right now!

Gender Reveal for Baby #4

Gender reveal day! We had So many friends and family come over to help us celebrate and have a fun time. The kids loved the mystery of the cans of silly string and had a blast spraying each other and running around the yard. Bryce couldn't get his can to spray and Clara was somewhat traumatized by the experience, but I think everyone else had fun. We're so excited to welcome our little baby....

 Most of the kids lined up and ready to grab a mystery can of silly string (on the right)

Getting ready to shoot...

 IT'S A.....

Yay PINK!!

 Bryce wasn't happy to be shot without shooting back and Clara just stood there and screamed

 Emeri showed her can who's boss

 Aunt Jenn and Ally even got in on the silly string, courtesy of Preston, haha!

Beckett and Mallory were happy to watch the chaos unfold. Good choice, haha.

Baby #4 ULTRASOUND!!

Well, this pregnancy hasn't really gone as I had planned, but I finally got a due date and and ultrasound after visiting Hope Women's Center in McKinney. Since we're in between insurance at the moment and I meed a proof of pregnancy to apply for insurance, the wonderful ladies at Hope got me set up with an ultrasound to confirm pregnancy (haha, the raging morning sickness is proof enough for me), number of babies (eek!) and estimated due date. I only have one baby in there but, heaven help me, is that baby active! The ultrasound tech struggled to get a heartbeat because the baby was moving around so much that another, more experienced tech, came in, grabbed her hand and pushed so hard she pinned the baby just long enough to get three good heartbeats before the baby wiggled out. At one point, we saw the baby plant both feet on the opposite side of the uterus and straighten his/her legs completely. Woof.

It was a bittersweet experience. The clinic doesn't perform abortions but they do referrals and the nurses I met (Melinda, Karyn, Rose, Ju) were all so excited that I was excited about this baby, had planned for this pregnancy, and absolutely intended to keep the baby (not to mention that I have a committed, monogamous relationship)... it was so sad. I saw Melinda in an office and stopped in to tell her the good news (just one baby, due date and the gender) and she started crying. She was apparently having a hard day and told me that this was the best news she had heard and it made her day. Being a hormonal mess, I started crying too and it was a sweet moment to be able to share the joy of life with someone who admitted that she doesn't get to see that very often. The clinic has life-size plastic foam models of babies at various gestational periods and Karyn pulled out the 14 week baby and let me hold it while I was getting my ultrasound. It was an amazing experience to be able to "hold" my baby and Mitchell seemed particularly fascinated with it, holding in his palm and commenting a couple times about how tiny and perfect it was. I can't wait to hold MY baby in my arms and I'm so glad to finally have a definitely due date and be able to get insurance so I can start having regular prenatal visits.

Look at that sweet little face!

August Compilation

8/1 - Derek fell asleep on the couch and Clara took care not to wake him up

8/1 - I launched my business, Memories Abound, today! Here's to hoping it takes off.

8/4 - our temporary foster dog. Derek called him Torch after his favorite dragon from the How To Train Your Dragon TV show. The Olympics just started up and I thought that was appropriate.

8/4 - Poor guy had infections, heartworms, was underweight and abused, but he was so sweet with me and the kids. Just put his big ol head in my lap while I rubbed his ears. Carolyn changed his name to Duke.

8/11 - Bryce is my hummus buddy. Any time I pull out the pretzel chips or cucumbers, he tries to grab the hummus. Love spending time with my babies! 

 8/11 - I snapped a cool photo of this grasshopper on the back fence

 8/14 - I love my LuLaRoe clothing! LuLaRoe is a boutique consultant-based company that makes cute modest clothes. My visiting teaching companion is a consultant and Mallory introduced me to their incredibly comfortable clothes. 

 8/16 - My silly boy. He is a big help when we unload groceries. Love my Derek!

 8/18 - Gorgeous sunset tonight!!!! :D

8/20 - Impromptu nacho picnic dinner with "ninja turtles and the dinosaurs" (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Blast From the Past) - their favorite movie right now.

8/23 - The boys sleep surrounded by their "babies" but Clara rarely sleeps with any stuffed animals. Had to memorialize this sweet moment.

 8/26 - All the kids love watching Derek play the harder games like Minion Run. He likes the attention.

8/29 - Kamryn and Clara are usually fighting or staring each other down. This was a momentous occasion!

Dog Playtime

 Stepped outside to take some updated photos of Sadie for Petfinder and saw these beautiful clouds!

 Told ya - they play rough

" You wanna play too?? Can I play with you??"

 "PLAY!!!"

 She can be an angel sometimes

 "Are you just gonna stand there or are you going to break them up?"

 I let Ace handle it most of the time - Sadie got her good this time

 Quick cuddle break

 Aaaaand back at it

 I know her teeth are showing, but she actually does like it

 Finally! Andi:1 and Sadie:12

She finally slowed down enough for me to take a decent picture, haha

Introducing...Foster Puppy Sadie!

Happy National Dog Day! To celebrate, we rescued a collie mix puppy we've named Sadie. She's about 2 or 3 months old, super sweet, and suuuuuper high energy. I forgot what it's like to have a puppy, whew! We rescued her from the local animal shelter who found her as a stray about a week ago. Their puppy policy was to keep the puppy crated, in arms or on a blanket on a table to interact with potential adopters, so she was crazy high-strung when I brought the kids with me to the shelter (at the last minute of the day!) to try to adopt her. The volunteer who showed her to us said that she had shown Sadie (that called her Zaya) six other times that day and everyone had declined because she was so rambunctious. Psh. We OWN rambunctious at our house, haha. So we took her home and she'll be ready for adoption around October 1st. She's adorable so I'm sure she won't last long.

 She tuckered herself out after a lot of running around the yard

 Meeting Uncle Ace - He's putting her in "Time Out" for playing too rough with Andi

 These two play soooo rough

 Connor and Clara strolling about the yard

 Andi is terrified of Sadie and doesn't know what to do around her - which gives Sadie free reign to terrorize her as much as she wants, haha

 Our sweet boy... 10 years old and still in the foster system... or is he??

 Connor, Clara and Bryce like to rock the airplane teetertotter

 Oh to have the energy of children

 Andi and Sadie ambled over to check out Kamryn playing in the sand pit, while Derek tinkers with some toys in the fort above

 Kamryn and Connor flying on the wings of imagination

 Uh-oh, Sadie got put in time out again. He barks at her if she tries to get up, haha!

A boy and his dog. What a fitting way to see out National Dog Day!