Elizabeth's Week of Fun...

I've yet to sort and edit our Vancouver and Whistler pictures from our trip so I thought I'd do a quick post about Elizabeth's week instead.  She stayed in Sherman with my family and we are so grateful to them for their willingness to go above and beyond to help us out.  My sister and her daughter stayed at my parents' house for 2 days and the girls LOVED playing together.  My parents traded off the other days.  We didn't get home until late Sunday night so Elizabeth had a full week in Sherman...and my family kept her busy!  Here are a few pictures from her trip.

All cuddled up in her crib at Gigi's house...she loves to be snuggled in a corner, laying like this...

Birthday dinner for Aunt Brooke! 

So happy to be spending the day with Papa!

Yes, Papa, I will be wearing this hat today.

Fun on the train at the Gainesville Zoo

Hanging her head out the window to feel the wind in her face...like a dog...and like her momma.  I used to always do that. :)

Ready for church on Sunday

Probably my favorite picture of the week.  I LOVED having Mimi read to me as a child.  Elizabeth loves to be read to as well so she was soaking up her Mimi time. 

Mimi with her two great grandbabies.  When Brooke got there Monday morning we realized the girls were dressed alike, through no planning of our own.  Are we sisters or what?!

It was so hard to leave Elizabeth for an entire week and I really struggled with it in the weeks leading up to our trip.  I knew she would be in great hands and loved and cared for and she absolutely was.  But I'm grateful to be back with her, spending our days together!!  A huge thank you to all of my Sherman family who entertained Elizabeth during her stay...and a humongous thank you to Brooke, Mom and Dad for the sacrifices yall made to keep her.  As my dad would say... "That's what families do."  And I'm grateful I have a family that does things like this willingly.  We love yall!

Ultrasound Updates

8 weeks

8 weeks

13 weeks

13 weeks

16 weeks

16 weeks (she was in such an awkward position with her head twisted to the side..ouch!)

16 weeks...it's a GIRL!

16 weeks

After our appointment this past Thursday I took a short video of Lizzie to send to my family to reveal the gender.  Since I was texting it I had to choose the setting that wasn't the best quality, so sorry about the graininess!

It's a ...

Girl!!

We went to the doctor this week and had the 16 week gender screen done.  It costs extra but you get a glimpse of the baby, a DVD of the ultrasound and an early reveal of what's inside your tummy!  So worth it in my opinion.

I am so excited that I get to use all of Lizzie's cute bows, clothes, toys...all things girl that we have acquired over the past almost 3 years.  I especially love that I get to reuse Lizzie's blessing dress (pictured above).  These two sweet girls will be almost exactly 3 years apart and I hope they will always be the best of friends.   Elizabeth is so excited about having a baby sister.  We have all of our ultrasound pictures hanging on the fridge and Lizzie shouts "baby sister!" every time she sees them.  I think she's excited!  She has always said she's having a baby sister and every member of my family said baby girl as well...so looks like everyone was right! :)

We don't have a name picked out yet but if I let Jake decide, she will be named Sumlin after the Aggie football coach. :) 

2.5 years old

Elizabeth is 2 and a half today!  :)  I'm big on celebrating half birthdays around here.  We celebrated this morning by going to the doctor for her "30 month well check."  We were in and out pretty quick since I snagged the first appointment of the day and Elizabeth did great.  She's never been a huge fan of the doctor visits but her doctor is so sweet and good with her that Elizabeth has grown to love her.  Plus today was an easy one since it was just a quick exam and no shots.  She is developing and growing properly, which is great since she fell off her weight curve there for a while.  She is 25 lbs (10th percentile) and 34" tall (25th percentile).

Elizabeth is so much fun these days.  She learns new things every day and it's amazing to see how she soaks things up and catches on so quickly.  I love watching her try new things.  She is SO independent so heaven forbid you try to help her with anything new.  :)  She is talking up a storm and has a huge vocabulary and will talk all day whether it's to people or her dolls.  It's so fun watching her play pretend with her toys and dolls. 

Let's not pretend that things are all sunshine and roses over here, though.  Elizabeth developed the fine art of whining/fake crying a loooong time ago. So we hear lots of that over here, mainly when she doesn't get her way.  She is well acquainted with time out and it actually works for her.  As soon as time out is over she comes out and apologizes and is a happy little girl again.  The terrible twos really haven't been too terrible yet, but I've heard the threes are harder. :)

I love to look back on Elizabeth's pictures and blogs...here is a look at where she was 2 years ago..
http://hill-and-jake.blogspot.com/2011/04/6-month-stats.html
http://hill-and-jake.blogspot.com/2011/04/6-months-old.html

And here is a look at where she was 1 year ago...
http://hill-and-jake.blogspot.com/2012/04/18-months.html

Here are a few pictures from the past couple of months...

Texas Bluebonnets

Being a proud, native Texan is part of who I am.  And here in Texas, we are proud of our bluebonnets.  So it's been a tradition of ours since we were dating to take Bluebonnet pictures each year.  We even had a few of our engagement pictures taken in the Bluebonnets :)

2007
 

So this year we went to a new spot that we saw on the way out to the land over the weekend.  We went after church on Sunday since Lizzie was in her Easter dress.  I'm in that terrible "is she fat or pregnant" stage where I'm just not feeling photogenic so I didn't care about doing family pics this year.  Which was good because we had the whole beautiful spot to ourselves and no one to take a picture of us anyways.  Elizabeth was tired but perked up after a while so we got some good ones.  She loves just walking through the flowers and playing with them. :)  My allergies could only take about 5 minutes so here's what we got...



Why can't I just fall asleep?!

Deciding she really does love the flowers :)

On our way home this morning, we stopped at a different patch on Hwy 6.  This one is always pretty crowded but we had it to ourselves at 9am on a school/work day. :)  Jake was the only one who got out this time though.

He thinks he's pretty cool :)

From 3 to 4...

We found out in January that this little jumping bean will be joining our family in September!  We are so excited and blessed to have our family of 3 grow into a family of 4.  I've already been feeling the baby jump and wiggle.  After seeing it on the ultrasound yesterday I realized I'm only feeling very few of those movements!  The baby would not be still so it was hard to get the measurements needed.  So fun to see. 

I've been hiding out at home so much these days.  I'm just as sick as I was with Elizabeth, if not more so.  Zofran and my Prima Bella bracelet have helped take the edge off but I've still been pretty sick.  And TIRED.  So tired.  And I do nothing!  I'm hoping these symptoms ease up over the next couple of weeks as I get into the 2nd trimester but I know new symptoms will take their place.  With Elizabeth, I had a rough pregnancy but the delivery could not have been easier.  Maybe that will be the case with this one too. :)

Elizabeth is SO excited to be a big sister.  She knows where the baby is and likes to talk to it and tickle it.  "I tickle baby, momma!  Baby laughing!!"  She was so concerned yesterday when I went to the doctor.  She came running into the bathroom while I was getting ready and said "Mommy! I have owie!  I go doctor too!"  She's not a fan of going to the doctor so that's big for her! :)  When I got home she rushed to meet me and was soooo happy to see the pictures I brought home of the ultrasound.  I'm not sure she is completely certain about what's going on, but I'd like to think that she remembers her brother/sister from Heaven and is so excited that they're getting to join her on Earth.

So here's to the next 6 months of waiting and gaining weight!  Pregnancy is the only time those two things are ok in my book.  We find out in about 3 weeks if it's a boy or girl but even then, we'll have to call it baby boy/baby girl.  I can't think of a single name for either gender that I absolutely love.  This one may  not have a name until the last minute!

Holidays...

We were a busy, traveling family this holiday season.  We loaded up our suburban (thank goodness we own such a huge car) and headed to Sherman a few days before Christmas to spend time with my side of the family.  Elizabeth has always been the best little traveler.  We met my family in Arlington for dinner at Babe's (one of our faves) and the Katy HS playoff game at Cowboy stadium.

Every Christmas Eve I spend the morning with my Mimi doing some baking for Christmas.  I make the same things every year...pumpkin pie, pecan pie, Chex mix, and usually some type of fruit salad.  You know, those things are so not difficult to make.  But every year I find some way to make a tiny mistake on something.  This year I didn't mix the pecan pie filling well enough.  I won't even tell you what happened to that but my family did mention I was off my game. :)  For as long as I can remember we have spent Christmas Eve with all of my family in Sherman.  This year my aunt and uncle hosted.  I LOVE this tradition.  It's so fun to have everybody in one house for the evening.

Christmas morning just gets better and better each year.  I love watching Elizabeth open her gifts.  This year I got crafty and made a lot of the gifts for our families so I was excited to watch them open them and see if they like them.

We were lucky enough to get a white Christmas this year!  It was gorgeous.  I'm not a fan of snow and cold weather but this was perfect for Christmas day.  We had lunch, presents and Yankee swap gift card style at my grandparents' house and then dinner and presents at my other grandparents' house.  It was a full day and I'm pretty sure I gained 10 pounds.

The day after Christmas we headed to College Station to spend a few days with Jake's side of the family.  We had family dinners and spent some time out on their land doing some shooting and enjoying a hayride and smores over a bonfire.

We spent New Years at home in Katy with my brother here visiting and then all headed back up to Dallas together for the Cotton Bowl.  The Aggies played OU and won...WHOOP!  We were supposed to drive back to Katy on Saturday after visiting with Jake's aunt and cousins in Plano but we were exhausted and not feeling well.  My parents and Ross were staying in Dallas for the night so we decided to stay as well.  My dad got us a good rate at their hotel so we went from playing in the snow to playing in the pool.  Any excuse to buy a new swimsuit...:)

So we're DEFINITELY done traveling for a while.  That was so much driving in a 2 week span.  I love visiting our families but there really is no place like home.