Meghan's a 1st grader!

Time sure has flown by the last 6 years, 11 months!! My baby is growing like a weed and is officially a 1st grader today! She asked me leave the camera home today, but I took it and after she let her friends' parents take pictures, I took some;) I am so happy to see she knows a handful of the kiddos in her class this year and her teacher seems pretty nice. Ms. Coutee let the parents go in the building to see the classroom and say goodbye to the kids! (most teachers make you say goodbye outside)

Meghan was up and dressed by 635am today and was so excited about starting school and I'm so happy she loves to learn. I think I was more nervous about her starting school today than she was!!

Meghan with three of her friends/classmates!!

Meghan and Hayden

All the kiddos ready for their first day!!!

(stay tuned.....Jenn's first day of school is next week)

Tea time

I have finally made it to tea with my little ladies. I took the girls with my friend Kelli and her boys. We had so much fun at Emily's tea room. The girls and boys had hot chocolate with the works on it. The food was yummy and it was a great way to end summer vacation. The kids start back to school next week (well, Meghan does...Jenna doesn't start until the 8th of Sept). I will miss my little buddies during the day, but I look forward to some me time before Sarah arrives. Me time will involve running errands on my own and cleaning the house really well!!!

Framlingham Castle

We headed out for a beautiful afternoon at one of the many Castles in our area. This one was just as beautiful as the others we have seen. I really enjoy seeing the history and exploring this country and we have under a year left (if we move on time)....so I feel like I need to kick my traveling into overdrive to see it all. I won't get to see all of the beautiful little villages and castles, but I will try to see as many as I can. With the pregnancy, I move a little slower and have to stop for more breaks.

Welcome to Framlingham Castle!!

View from the top

Rob and Meghan ahead of us walking around the top of the wall.

courtyard

Show us your life~ vacation

I haven't posted with Kelly's Korner in a while, but have stilled checked out all the very cool sites, pictures and stories. This week is show us your favorite vacation spot ....so I'm in!

Moving overseas has added some new vacation spots to my list of favorites and the one that sticks out the most is Brugge Belgium. We went Thanksgiving 2008 and stayed at the Crown Plaza in city centre. It is one of the most beautiful cities I have visited, it's rich in history and the food is awesome too!

Walking over an old bridge site seeing in the city.

We enjoyed a horse and carriage ride around the city centre.

Rob enjoying a Belgium Beer.

It's a.......

I had my level II ultrasound this morning and the tech said..."it looks like a girl"!! I could tell it was a girl too. She is a very active baby and looked super healthy!! I was able to have the girls in the scan with me and they were both super excited to hear they were having a sister!!

We also had my friend and neighbor with us, so we went to eat and do a little "pink" shopping too!!!

LeGoLaNd

Early Saturday morning we packed the car and headed to Legoland. The Garmin told us we would arrive at 10:06am, so we were pretty excited to arrive when the park opened. Well, our plan didn't work out as we hoped....we were 20 minutes from the park and were stuck in traffic. Our arrival time kept getting pushed further away....we finally arrived around 1:30pm. Me being pregnant and stuck in the car wasn't a good thing...I had to potty for about an hour and I thank the construction on the M25 and M4 for that! I think the girls were about to give up on going too!

We decided we would spend a few hours at the park and then right before dinner time we headed to the hotel to check-in. The park is very cool and the girls loved it. I have to admit....I don't really think the girls knew what Legos were...but they do now (we bought a little set to play with at home). The coolest part of the whole park is the Miniland....I can only say WOW!!! It's amazing what was built with the legos and we walked around the little mini-london and could identify everything.

We ate dinner at the hotel and took a swim Saturday evening. I thought the girls would crash and sleep in....WRONG! They stayed up to watch the Karate Kid and then were awake up 630am asking if we could go to the park. We ate breakfast, killed a little time and then headed to the park for our day two adventure. We rode on as many rides as we could, ate some junk food and were exhausted by the time we left the park for the ride home.

The girls loved the park and are hoping for a return visit before we leave England. I enjoyed it except for the crowds and think if we make a return trip we will plan it when the British schools are in session. I also don't want to be pregnant the next time....it didn't stop me from riding any rides, it just was very tiring for me.

The girls are standing in front of Brugge, Belgium!

Stonehenge

London (Big Ben)

20 weeks and counting...

I was just sitting here thinking...WOW I'm 20 weeks pregnant!!! Where has the last 20 weeks gone and why did they pass by so fast. I think I want to rush my pregnancy because the end result and a tiny little baby that is a part of me and Rob...at that point I can hold, hug, kiss and love (well, I already love the baby, but will just do it more!!). I think my waist is expanding pretty quick and the last few weeks was a growth jump!

I think life would fly by too fast if we counted each week of our life like we do with the pregnancies of our children. I think I will try and slow it down a little and enjoy the pregnancy part!! Life truly does seem short and too fast at times.

I think the comment in the past few weeks that bug me most is....don't think you will get sleep when the baby gets here...UMMM I have two little ladies that started out as babies and I am well aware that babies eat many many times in a 24 hour time period. I think one of my most favorite times is when it's dark (middle of the night) and it's just me and my baby. I nurse, so I'm the one who gets up at night to feed the little hungry person!!! I like the quiet bonding time.

Below is my 20 week belly picture. Excuse the mess in the background and my crazy hair...(we just returned from Legloland, stayed tuned for the post)!

VBS and annual checkups

I'm going to do a review of the last week and include a little about this week too. We have had such a busy past few weeks. I have tried to keep up with the girls' friends for them and last week we had two days with play dates! We had so much fun with all our friends and it makes us all three look forward to school starting back. The girls had annual medical check ups last week too. The appointments went well and I am so happy no shots were thrown in! I did tell Meghan she would get a flu shot this year and if she did not freak out she could get her ears pierced..but that will be another blog post!! Jenna is going to pass on the ear piercing, but will still have to get the flu shot.

Meghan is 6 years 10 months old, she weighed 44 lbs and is 47 1/2 inches tall. She has two warts and we received the medicine to apply to them to get them gone! She is reading more each day and is becoming confident in her reading skills too. She is also practicing math problems...and WOW..she is pretty good!

Jenna is 5 years 1 month old, she weighed 38 lbs and is 42 7/8 inches tall. She is learning her "popcorn" or sight words (whatever you want to call them) and is writing much better. We have been working on her numbers and letters for writing and she has come a long way this summer.

For both girls I have work books for them and they love working on homework!! (I hope this doesn't change)

This week we are in VBS!!! So much fun and I'm so happy I signed up to help out. Both the girls are really enjoying the classes, music, food and fun. It is tiring them out, but hey...just a short time and they will both be back in school!

I have been doing a lot of cleaning and reorganizing the house..which isn't really new news, but I'm trying to work harder on it because I want the house just right before the baby arrives. I don't think we will be moving to a four bedroom before the baby arrives and that is cool...it is just hard to think we will have 5 people living in this tiny little house for almost 8 or 9 months. The best part about getting rid of things is over here the charities collect items from your house, they drop a bag one week...you fill it up and leave it out on the date assigned!! I love it!!! I have to be careful, so I don't give away what we really need or use!