more to love♥

from since i can remember, i've always wanted a big family. 4 kids, maybe 5, to be exact. i came from a family of 3, but being 10 years younger than my sister, and 12 younger than my brother, it was more like i was an only child with 2 sets of really cool parents. i was always asking friends over for play dates, always playing with my cousin who lived a mile away, and always hanging out with my best friend and her 3 siblings. i thought all the chaos and always having someone around was just so amazingly fabulous. then i met michael, and discovered he was one of 4. we've talked lots and lots about the number of children we'd like to have. our numbers don't seem to match up. that's ok. we'll figure it out as we go along. but in the meantime, harper has some news she'd like to share...



ahh. my ♥ is happy. and while constant, all-day nausea and staring at the toilet more times than i can count sometimes seems to take over my happy thoughts, inside, i'm all joy and roses and sunshine. i love that harper will have a sibling close in age. i love that we'll have new baby scents and itty bitty clothes in our house again. and although i know our sleeping will be significantly decreased, i also know the hustle and bustle in our home and busyness of our lives will be fun. oh boy (or girl), my hormones must be kicking in. i'm getting all sappy about spit up and crying and colic and washing bottles and nursing and pumping and lack of sleep and, and, and... i'll let you know about that sunshine and roses come april 1st on this baby's proposed arrival.

so, yes, we're on our way to our 2, 3, 4 or 5 kids. and we couldn't be happier. we've been down a tough road in terms of pregnancies, but things are looking on the up. i've made it past 12 weeks, and this baby keeps reminding me that it's doing just fine with the random cravings followed by the random sickness. and harper is doing a fabulous job taking care of her mama every time i run into the bathroom. her latest saying "mommy, don't get sick." oh, harper, if only i could stop it.

and because i've promised for a looooong while to post these photos, here is our kitchen, beginning to end. this kitchen has given me more to love, too. more counter space. more cabinet space. more openness between family room and kitchen. more love to my husband for his amazing handy-man abilities and confidence and willingness to give anything a try. on top of redoing this kitchen (which still needs some minor adjustments and finishing touches, but no one's complaining), he's back in school for his mba, he's working crazy hours, he's daddying harper a whole extra bunch, and he's allowing me some time for sleep and recovery. he's half the reason our little family exists, and he's my everything reason for love. ♥

beginning...

middle...

and end...

down on the farm

these posts are going to be hopelessly out of order while i catch up, but here's a recent favorite end of summer event.

harper's daycare has a preschool room, and the preschool teacher lives on a farm. we tried to get out to her farm in june to see the newly born sheep and chickens, but it was a rainy day, so it was cancelled. the field trip was finally rescheduled for the end of august, and although harper wasn't in school that day, we were welcomed to join in on the fun! and what a fun morning we had!

harper's favorite activity was climbing up the concrete blocks to peek at the sheep through the fence. i think she liked the fact that she could climb up the blocks herself more than actually caring about the sheep. oh, to be an independent 2-year-old!

she also loved pretending in the playhouse. again, more so that she could open and close the doors and windows herself was the main reason this was such a hit.

but, we also enjoyed visiting the pigs and listening to how loud they oinked!

we got to take a hayride on the back of an rv to see the roaming cows.

we got to see the chickens and rooster, and finally were able to hop aboard a tractor for a pretend ride.

and more importantly, we got to catch up with friends from school who we hadn't see much of over the summer months. harper and this little girl are two peas in a pod. they clicked from the first day of school last year. she is moving up to preschool this year, which makes me sad that harper won't have her to play with, but she's only a hop, skip and a jump away in the bathroom that separates the infant/toddler and preschool rooms, and the 2 get to catch up on the playground outside. i love that harper is already starting to form some good friendships. every girl needs 'em.

roadtrip...beginning to end

we're back! and we've missed you!

i have a lot to catch up on. it's been over a month since i blog posted, and not sure why that is. probably because first of all, the internet on my computer froze and wouldn't work for over 2 weeks. frustrated, mainly because we weren't at home (more on that to come), it only took a 10 minute phone call to apple in the end to get things straightened out. so, once that was working again, i should have been itching to blog. and i was, but was just not focused enough to do it. we were living at my sister's house, while our kitchen was being renovated, and then getting ready for our family roadtrip. we were enjoying the laziness of summer, taking daytrips and visiting with friends, enjoying naps and relishing in the joy of not having anything to do. i think i let that go to my head a bit too much. so now, i am backlogged and have a lot to post. i'll work backwards through this week, but i'll start with our most recent event...

two sundays ago, my sister and i packed up ethan, griffin, harper and the car and drove southeast to virginia. (i took this picture mainly so we could remember how my packaging engineering husband packed all our luggage in the first place since he wouldn't be with us to repack it when we left. and to recall the amount of crap we brought, er, needed?)

we made sure to include plenty of movies, reading material, music and toys to keep the kids entertained during the 8-and-a-half hour drive, not including stops. i was behind the wheel and heather had her twilight saga books to devour. we took to the highway, and were on our way to see our brother...

...and our sister-in-law, stephanie. we arrived after 10 hours in the car, exhausted and just wanting to stretch our legs.

we enjoyed a low-key meal when we arrived in town, and the rest of the week went a bit like this:

lots of swimming in their community pool. harper actually found some courage and jumped in with me. we proceeded to kick back and forth across the pool over and over and over. we blew bubbles. she jumped in from the side. and for the first time she found her water baby within.

griffin and ethan on the other hand have always been in touch with their inner fish.

we took long baths in the jacuzzi tub and snuggled in towels.

on tuesday, we pulled out our tourist cards and visited some sights downtown d.c.-

the washington monument

the world war II memorial, where we could kick off our shoes and dip our piggies in the fountain. a relief from the absolute heat of the day.

the white house, from afar

the reflecting pool and the lincoln memorial

we also toured the museum of natural history and the national aquarium, and harper re-entered the sunny day with a snooze in her stroller.

at the end of the day, we visited chris at the pentagon, where he was working and where we got an exclusive tour.

we ended the week with a saturday afternoon bbq with lots of family. my parents flew in. my cousin, katie, along with kenny and collier and kenny's mom, joined us from d.c. we enjoyed ribs and homemade german potato salad. and of course, dessert from my fave cupcake place georgetown cupcakes, which is now starring in it's own show on tlc, d.c. cupcakes!

we decided on a post-dinner swim, for collier's first time in the pool and harper's first time with a squirt gun.

we had a wonderful week visiting with family we don't often get to see. we were able to relax and ready ourselves for the drive back home on monday morning. we actually made it back quicker than our ride down, with the exception of the hour break along side the highway 20 minutes from home because we ran out of gas!! seriously, i have never done that, but thankfully, we were all together and we were all in good spirits, finding the humor in the situation. when we were rescued by the tow truck driver and his can of gasoline, we were all too anxious to get home to our beautiful new kitchen! more on that to come...

glad to be back.