Location, Location, Location!

I am sad to report that the location of Abbey's Birthday party must be changed! Turns out that the main community park, where we were going to have the party, will be hosting the community party at the same time on Saturday! Unlike us, they did not give almost a months advance to everyone but sent out fliers last week. Oh well, not to fear, there is another cool park in our neighborhood that doesn't get used too often. We will switch to that park...

Directions are as follows (or just go to the house, I am sure one of us will be home getting things ready to take over around 12:00): Turn West on Williams Field from Val Vista, left turn into Spectrum neighborhood just after shopping center on Palomino Creek, 2nd right on Buffalo (the 3rd right is Boston where we live on the corner!), follow Buffalo until you see the park on the right by the mail boxes

Shopping for Babies!

Yesterday I left the house all to Tim and went to Chandler mall with Carrie. Christine ended up meeting us there too (thankfully since Abbey was starting to get bored and Wyatt was just the cure). We had a few different things to get but we all had a baby shower gift to buy. Christine's sister-in-law Carla is having a baby girl and her shower is on Saturday. How fun is it to go shopping for a baby girl!?! I went to Baby Gap and found out they were having a great sale. They were offering an extra 25% off the already marked down price! (The sale rack is my favorite place to go in Gap) I found such a cute outfit for Carla's little baby girl. And to get me jazzed up about having to shop for boy clothes (I have to say I have been fighting disappointment that I can't buy girl clothes again), I found two cute onesies for Michael. I couldn't resist seeing that they were only $3.00 with out the extra 25% off!! It was just the thing to get me excited about a little boy. P.S. they are having the sale until Saturday, so if you want to find some cute clothes for your little ones get over there soon!

Favorite Holiday is Halloween?

I didn't think I would ever be paying as much attention to Halloween as I have found myself doing these last two years. It must have something to do with Abbey's Birthday being on the actual holiday! I know she doesn't get it yet but I sure have fun planning a Halloween party for her. I could go all out if I'm not careful. Lately I have been shopping around for costumes. There are some cool stores out there with all kinds of costumes and decorations. For the most part the costumes for women are all slutty, which is very upsetting! Who wants to show legs and shoulders? Especially when you are pregnant!?! With Carrie's suggestion I found a Geisha outfit that will be fun. Carrie put the makeup on me last night to try out the white face paint I bought. It was pretty scary looking. We have a few kinks to work out before Abbey's party. But we sure had a good laugh! Maybe you will get a good laugh too (hopefully it won't scare you!)...

Wolves, Bears and Webelos, Oh My!

Last night our Cubs had their Rain gutter Regatta for Pack Meeting. What a crazy night... I ended up taking Abbey with me, which I usually don't have to do since I am lucky enough to have Carrie most graciously watch her for me. But she was unavailable for the evening. So Abbey accompanied me to the family packed event. There were little kids running around everywhere and soon Abbey was joining them. She was in awe of all the activity, and decided she would help out with flag ceremony by standing in line with the flag boys and trying her best to salute with her finger by her eye! (That made me laugh so hard, she was so serious!) Due to my Bear Leader duties I wasn't able to watch Abbey as closely as I usually do. Needless to say she must have became very familiar with the halls of our church building. When she was missing for too long I would dash out to try to find her. The last time this happened she was around the Bishop's offices where there wasn't as many lights on... She was calling "Mama" very timidly. I picked her up and asked her if she was scared and she of course nodded and said yes in her own language. Hopefully that will stick with her for awhile and she won't want to run off so far any more! It was a long night, we didn't get home until Abbey's bedtime. But I think all the kids had a lot of fun. One of my Bear boys got third place too! It was funny to watch how competitive those 8-10 year old boys can be. I couldn't help think to myself that Tim and I will one day have a cub scout of our very own!

A New Look

Everyone seems to be changing their blog layouts, so I wanted to join in too! With much consideration and differences of opinion, Tim and I decided to go old school with Mario Bros! I thought it would be fun and Tim likes that its not too girly. We will see how long it stays until we change it to something else... there are a ton to choose from on http://www.pyzam.com/. Check it out sometime!

Crazy Pregnant Lady!

OK, I don't remember being this emotional pregnant with Abbey. I think it has to do with being pregnant with a boy! I am crazy emotional! I know I have scared Tim, Abbey, and Carrie. I seem to get overwhelmed very easily and then the tears start to come! Tim is really good about it, he gives me space (mostly because he doesn't want to make anything worse) and tries to help out as much as he can. I swear it comes over the dumbest things, when the house needs some picking up or when Abbey is real defiant and a wild 2 year old! Oh well, maybe it will get better?!?

(Almost done, just need to add the sports stuff around Santa!)

Lately there hasn't been much going on in our lives to update on. I blame the fact that I am sewing a felt Christmas stocking for Christine as the reason I haven't updated much. I don't know what it is about those stockings, but I love to sew them. Christine bought one for each member of her family so she needed some help if any of them were going to be done for Christmas. I took Luke's and have been having fun with it. Thanks to Conference on Sat. and Sun. it gave me the excuse to just sit on the couch and sew all day!! After I finish it I have to start on Michael's baby blanket!

(Yes that's Oscar, our dog, in the stroller! Abbey loves to carry him around where ever, luckily she doesn't seem to get him to stay in the stroller often)

Other than that I have been chasing after Abbey. She is in dire need of some big girl toys to keep her attention! She is so sick of her baby toys! She has two whole baskets full of toys but she doesn't care about them. Instead all of her energy either goes into finding things she shouldn't be into, watching Disney movies (which is really hard to keep to a min. of 3) or running outside with the dog playing with rocks! Thank goodness it is getting cooler because she loves to play outside! The only down fall is that it brings in dirt on my kitchen floor. I guess that's better than her pouring grits on the floor from the cupboard or breaking a glass candle on the kitchen table, both of which she accomplished this morning! And I'm proud to report that she also loves to tell us "NO" pointing her finger at us, "go away" (mostly to the dog), and "let me go!" (its mumbled but I'm sure that's what she is saying as I try to get her ready for night time or change her diaper!) Oh the joys of being 2! But seriously what would I be doing with out her?
So now everyone is caught up on our lives! Hopefully with Abbey's 2nd Birthday party and Halloween coming up there will be some good photo's and stories to post!

It's a BOY!

For all my family (who are most likely the only ones who read our blog), this is old news because we called everyone the day we found out! But it seems official when I blog it... We are having a baby BOY!! Yes, I know that it shocked just about everyone, with the exception of Carrie and Tricia (they were the only ones who believed it could happen!).

(around 4 1/2 months)

Tim, Abbey and I went in for my ultrasound October 2nd and were amazed and excited. He is already so cute!! He has been moving around a lot and it was fun to see just what exactly he was doing in there! We got to watch him suck on his fingers (that little jaw already has a strong suck, it was moving pretty good! Nursing shouldn't be a problem), while his other arm was nestled behind his head. His legs were crossed and bent up with the occasional kick straighting them out. To be honest, the tech looked at his "parts" so fast that I really didn't get a good look at that area, but she said he was "defiantly a boy." My doctor came in for the follow up and informed me that has was healthy and normal, but he was a "big boy." It could change month to month but he already is in the 87% for his growth! I think I am destined to have big babies.

It was fun to bring Abbey with us. When the picture came up on the computer Abbey immediately started saying "Baby". I think that it helped her mind click that the baby is in "mama's" belly. When Tim later asked her where her baby brother was, she ran up to me and started to lift my shirt! She will be a great big sister. I'm a little worried that she will try to be too helpful!! She loves babies and seems to be very motherly. It is fun to watch her with Christine's baby Luke. She tries to put blankets over him and give him his pacifier! It will be an adventure come the end of February!

(these are action shots of him sucking on his fingers, notice the jaw moving)

Oh yeah, we already have a name picked out too. It will be Michael Reed Merrill. Michael is a family name (Tim's older brother who passed away shortly after he was born, and my mom's real dad), and Reed is Tim's middle name. I guess we beat out Peter and Brittany with getting to use Michael (I still wouldn't care if you guys ended up wanting to use it!). We are very excited to welcome Michael into the world and our family. I hope he will be a "mama's boy" because Abbey is definitely a "daddy's girl". Regardless he will be very loved and we can't wait to meet him in 4 more months (wow, that seems real soon!).