The house is coming right along :)

I am still not sure what siding color to pick so if you have any suggestions let me know. I had an interior designer come out and she suggested green.. she thought I needed a contrast color. My rock is 'chocolate grey' and the windows and window trim are a dark expresso color, we also have dark grey mortar in the irregular rock around the base of the house. I had originally picked a tan brown color to pull out some of the brown in the rock but now it just doesn't look right.. the decorator thought it was too 'fleshy'.  So I don't know but I need to make a decision soon! On the inside we have almost all the plumbing, electric work, and HVAC complete.. I think we are a few weeks away from sheet rock. I am trying to get a central vac system installed before they sheet rock.. does anyone have any experience with one of these? I will try to post a picture of the back of the house later. The back porch is up!

Part of the front of the house on 10/29

Front of the house- the nursery room

Dining room bay window and building the front entrance way

The left side of the house.. with first coat of primer. Not sure about siding color

Finished rock 10/31/11!

House Progress



Front of house- putting on green board



Garage is poured!

Back of house... cutting out windows

View coming up driveway



Windows are in! Bedroom # 2 downstairs



9 weeks

Today we heard Baby's heartbeat-- 164 bpm. Such a sweet little awing sound... knowing that there is a little tiny life inside. They did blood work, I got a flu shot, blood pressure and weight. Somehow I have gained a pound I guess because I feel like I constantly have to eat to keep the nausea away. It's so strange how your body works. I was sick with Isaac, not with Eli, and now I am nauseous again with this one. I feel like I am already popping out there and some of my pants are already starting to feel snug. We will go for our anatomy ultrasound on December 12th. Josh is going to find out (not me, or I would tell everyone) and come up with a neat way to tell me, and our parents on Christmas day. That's my plan at least.. we will see how it goes and if I am able to look away. I would just like a happy, healthy baby!

Expecting... AGAIN!

So it's official.. we are expecting again! Baby # 3 is due around May 12th. Eli will be a little over two when he/she gets here and Isaac will be 11! Yikes.  I am going to put it down on here that I think this baby is another boy... Josh won't comment because he says he has no clue this time. He was 100% sure Eli would be a girl so he is choosing not to guess this time. I think it would be awesomely cool not to find out but I am sooooo impatient I know that would never work. We should find out close to Christmas the gender so I am trying to think of some nifty way to tell our family; but I know that if I see the ultrasound I will be sounding the alarm right away. I found out I was pregnant on August 30th...  When Eli bumped into me and I was sore and then Josh told me I was being ill... so later on that evening so I decided to take a test. Sure enough "pregnant" popped right up! We had decided that we would start 'trying' and if it happened that would be great and if it took a while then that would be just as fine... sure enough first try and boom! We will be in our new house before this baby arrives; however I will be HUGE when we move again. I was 8 months pregnant with Eli when we moved last time!

7 week ultrasound of Baby Three - Heart beat was 140 bpm

Camden Thomas

My sweet nephew, Camden Thomas Boykin was born today. He weighed 9 lbs 2 oz and was born on 9/28 at 9:28 am. He looks just like his brother, Carter. He has jet black hair and his daddy's little face and lips. He was born via c-section and swallowed some amniotic fluid so he is in the NICU. He is having trouble breathing without oxygen right now.  My sis is doing okay except for being in a lot of pain and not having her sweet baby with her. She did hold him this evening. We are hoping and praying for a very brief stay in the NICU.

18 months

Mr. Eli is 18 months old.. sniff sniff. At his well baby visit yesterday he weighed 29.5 lbs (90%) and was 34 1/2 inches (90%). He didn't have to have any shots except for the flu shot. He made an A plus on his developmental screening and is a joy to our lives.

So what can Eli do now?? Well... Josh and I tried to count his words but were unsuccessful because there are so many. We just counted the names of people he knows and had almost hit 50. He is starting to combine words such as " I see dog" and "mommys shoe" and imitates everything. He loves to read "Good Night Moon",  "Brown Bear" (he recites this one along with us), and loves to look at his first word picture book where he can name a lot of the pictures. He is starting to sing.. he gets a few words of "Jesus loves me" and "Baby Beluga". He can answer questions...says 'no' and will say "uh huh" for yes. He will say 'yes' if you ask him to but he uses "uh huh".  He names all sorts of body parts including 'eye brow' and loves to play in the bed with Mommy and Daddy in the mornings and poke Josh's eyes while saying "eyes, eyes".

 He can feed himself with a spoon, and tries to put on his shoes (unsuccessfully.. but it's so funny watching him try to stuff his feet in them). Eli runs, jumps, climbs.... even up the ladder to Isaac's top bunk (with me behind him of course). Can scribble with crayons but doesn't have much interest. He is definitely not a picky eater as you can tell from the  29 lbs.- he likes Thai, Japanese (he says "rice and chicken"), Italian... well really any type of food. I think his favorite is still spaghetti. He is doing better holding my hand when we are out places- we still have episodes where he runs and I have to chase after him. Sometimes it is just easier to strap him in the stroller.  He takes one afternoon nap usually 12-2 in the afternoon, goes to bed around 830pm and wakes around 730am. He is a much better sleeper than his older brother was. He usually gets excited that it is nap time and takes his passy, and blue silky blanket and goes to his crib waiting to be picked up and put in. Of course there are the exceptions such as yesterday when I put him down and he laid in there for an hour and wouldn't go to sleep!  He says "poo poo" when he goes but has no interest in the potty.

Here are some other little things he  has done recently.  He will go get the broom to dig a car out under the couch.  He noticed that our niece has a pair of Chacos similar to mine and that the straps were alike, so he went and put both shoes together and tried to buckle the shoes together. He saw a Buick car on vacation and started saying "Nanny, Nanny ( she drives one). He was able to navigate us from the elevator straight to our room with out making a mistake on vacation.

Ohh and he has a mullet... I just can't cut the curls yet!

We love you Eli Thomas and are enjoying watching you grow!

Back to work.....

Isaac is going into 6th grade... ahhhhhhh! It makes me so sad that this is a year of 'lasts' for us at Glenwood! He is so excited to go back to school. I am going to stay part-time (Tues, Wed, Thursday) so I can be with Isaac and keep 4 days a week with Eli. I truly enjoy my job... I have great co-workers, a wonderful classroom, sweet kids, and my job is definitely rewarding. I have a few older kids that I really need to 'fix' and dismiss from speech so I am pondering ways to intensify therapy for these few. Another perk is that I work closely with one of by best friends (highschool buddy/college roommate) and we have lots of fun together. My mom is keeping Eli two days and my mother-in-law is keeping him one day a week. He has lots of fun and says "Pawpaw" every time we go on a gravel road thinking we are going to visit Josh's parents. He also knows when we get to the stop sign near my mom's house and will say "Nana", "Papa", "Ben" (the dog) and "chick chicks" (the two chickens mom adopted from Carter's birthday dibbies).

Wilmington

Josh and I have been wanting to take a vacation by ourselves ( did I say that?) for some time. I didn't want to leave Eli his first year of life because he was nursing and since then we haven't found the right time. However we finally just decided to take a long weekend and go to Wilmington (the condo was free, which helped!). My mom  and step-dad kept our boys. I was nervous to see how Eli would do away from home but other than asking for "Mama" ten times a day he was fine. Mom said he slept great and was a good boy. She told him we were gone to the beach when he asked. One morning she went to get him out of his crib and he said "Beach?" wanting to know if we were still gone. Josh and I had a wonderful time even though we missed the boys. We slept in (had almost forgot how to do that), saw 5 movies, ate yummy food, and enjoyed each others' company. Josh as been swamped at work since his office caught on fire a few weeks ago and I am heading back to work soon so it couldn't have come at a better time. It is nice to able to sit down at a restaurant and actually get to enjoy eating dinner for a change. We stayed right in the historic section so we were in walking distance of pretty much everything downtown. We toured the North Carolina Battleship which is where this picture is taken from (our room is in that building behind the coast guard ship).


Had dinner on one of these adorable private balconies on River Street with live music in the background.

Saw, "The Help", "One Day", "Conan", "Planet of the Apes", "The Change Up" (as you can see we each picked a few movies). I loved "The Help" even though the book was better! Josh even laughed out loud several times.

House building 101

Well, it has been wonderful to finally break ground and see our house being built. I will post some of the pics that I have previously put on fb.  We had house roped on July 14th, drilled for water on July 19th, and foundation was complete July 27th. Today is August 22 and we have all the bottom floor rooms framed, sub floors on top floor and half of the top floor framed. We have already made a lot of decisions but I know there are lots more to come. We did decide on chocolate gray rock and are getting ready to make decisions on kitchen cabinets soon. I really like the distressed white cabinets paired with a dark wood island and darker flooring but I guess we will see. It is going quickly but I know it will start slowing down soon. My sister's house is going great too.. she may get to be in by Christmas. Our builder says we should be finished anywhere from January to April.
Here is the progression so far:

Two bedrooms, Jack & Jill bath, and walkway on top floor

Front of house (Master Suite on right, foyer, dining, and bedroom on left)

Subflooring

Foundation is set!

Laying out house

Isaac is ELEVEN

What? Eleven? Nooooo way! We had Isaac's birthday party at the local water slide again. Unfortunately I have no pictures because a huge storm came about 45 minutes into his party and doused the whole affair. He has been wanting a Nook Color for his birthday.  I decided it would probably be a good investment for him because I cannot keep him in books... they are a bit cheaper and easily accessible. He was thrilled of course.