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!

18 weeks

I'm 18 weeks and feeling great! As long as it's very cold in my bedroom I can sleep really well too.

I'm still in the surprise stage that I'm pregnant. This was a planned pregnancy, but I'm still surprised I am going to be a Mom again. I think we surprised a few people with telling this news too.

Since announcing my pregnancy the most common question is..."what do you want, a boy this time?". Seriously, we would have adopted a male dog, if we wanted another male in the house. I went into this knowing that would be the biggest topic of conversation. I really like the comment..."if this isn't a boy, will you try again?". Sometimes I wonder if I would have tried earlier for another baby, if people would have not talked so much about Jenna not being a boy..... I always thought the biggest concern would be..is the baby healthy. Well, for all the world to know....we want a healthy baby. We would love a boy or a girl.

I have my level II ultrasound on August 11 and we hope to find out if it's a boy or girl. As I've posted in an earlier post...the tech at 13 weeks said 70% chance it's a girl!!

We will see in August if he was right!!

These are pictures of me at 18 weeks preggo. I am bigger than some people when they deliver!hehe

If you look at these two pictures real close you will notice I am bigger on my left side than my right. The left side is where I feel the baby moving around more.

I normally feel the baby moving around when I am reading to the girls at night! I love that because the girls love to be read to and read and I think this baby will be the same way!

Buying baby things has been fun for me and the girls! Meghan wants to pick out everything pink and Jenna wants to get the baby tons of toys!! After we find out the gender (if it works that way for us) we will buy the bedding and some cute little outfits!!

Natural History Museum

This past weekend we headed out for a day in London...with our main stop being the Natural History museum. The girls have been looking forward to seeing a few dinosaurs and we can check it off their "to see" list! We drove down to Epping and took the train in and that is always the start of the fun day for the girls. They love riding the train and I'm actually fine with it until we get into the busy parts of the underground. A few train lines were down this past weekend, so we had a few tight train rides, but we survived. We packed our lunch and ate at the Museum, but couldn't get fast enough for the girls.

The line to see the T-rex was pretty long, but worth the wait (for the girls)....it wasn't bones...it looked like a "real" dinosaur. You would have thought it was a real one because people were hanging over the rail looking at it like it was going to move and do something! Jenna loved it but Meghan got a little scared and hid behind Rob.

We could probably go back to the museum a few more times and see things we missed this first time. We really enjoy our days out in London and we look forward to many more.

Summer heat

We have finally reached summer time weather here. It has been in the 80s all week and the girl have loved loved loved it. They have played out back in the water most days and have found everything they can to play in. I will call the white bucket their redneck swimming pool!!hehehe They had so much fun filling it up and then standing in it...yes you hear me right...just standing in it! The neighbor's dog, Nessie, was in on the fun and she enjoyed drinking the water from the bucket. The girls have on very cute matching swimsuits. I purchased these from Children's Place for $8 each!!!

Nessie is waiting for her turn!!