Spring Break, Softball and 34 weeks and counting!!!

It official, Spring break is over!! The girls and I had an amazing time together and of course, like always, it goes by oh so fast!! We went to the zoo with a couple of my girlfriends and their kids, that was adventurous!! Four adults and eleven kids!! Madison was more in to her mp3 player and rocking out while walking through the zoo than looking at the animals!! Ms Ashleigh loved the snakes and has asked her daddy for a pet snake!! um, yeah, don't think we'll be purchasing that one for a family pet!!!! We had several play dates with our friends with much needed dress up time! Got to visit the American Gangster museum in Hot Springs and have dinner with Nana!! I d say the girls had a good ole time once again! The highlight of our spring break was our softball uniforms coming in, I'm so excited and proud of them. As the coach, I had my work cut out for me!! Two bake sales was interesting!! We did raise enough money for them though, and its official, we have the "big girl" uniforms now since we are playing with the big girls this year!!! And yes, I must take credit for designing them myself!!! lol.... And as for Mr Branson, well, I'm 34 weeks and still measuring full term at this point!! I have been having some contractions, but none strong enough to rush off to the hospital or call anyone just yet!!! Don't want the "Drama Queen" title...lol The insulin is going pretty good, although we have had to up our units once again, its no big deal, I'm actually getting used to being a pin cushion!! Madison is very excited, she tells us on a daily basis how ready she is for her buddy!!! Ms Ashleigh is constantly kissing Mommy's tummy and telling her baby "brober" she loves him, mommy has enjoyed that herself, melts my heart everytime, as for daddy, well, he is like mommy, we cannot wait to see who our lil boy looks like and how big he actually is going to be!!!

Mr Bransons Baby Shower

This past Saturday my wonderful best friends Kali and Kara threw a baby shower for me. I must say the turn out was incredible, I was amazed that I could actually fit that many adults along with that many kids in my house at one time! Though I never got a head count, I think the kids beat the grown ups!!! lol It really touched my heart to have all my family and friends together in the same room, maybe its just a pregnancy hormone thing I've got going on, but it was very hard for me not to get so emotional!! The kids had a lot of fun, Scott made sure of that! He really out did himself, like always!!! I couldn't ask for a better husband! He bought a duckie pinata and filled it with three giant bags of candy, party blowers, bubbles, etc....The whole kid table was a big hit!!! Thank you Scott, I love you so much!! Did I mention he even brought his huge pregnant, hormonal wife a dozen roses for the event too?!?!?! They looked very lovely on the cake table!! Ahhh the cake table, that was another highlight to my day!!! I not only had just beautiful two tier cake that Kali had made, my mom also brought me a Bulgarian cheese cake too....both cakes were from Ambrosia cake company in Hot Springs and very well known for their awesome cakes!!! The food was amazing to, Scott made it very clear that he wanted "man" food at his sons shower, so we made three different kinds of chicken wings, BBQ meatballs and had four rack of ribs from Allen's BBQ!!! Not to mention all the fruit and veggie trays we had too!! Mr Branson received a lot of wonderful gifts for his arrival, my mom, like always went over board and stuffed a diaper bag as full as she could and still had to bring the rest in a walmart sack and my mother in law made Branson a beautiful choo choo train quilt and allowed my daughters to stitch on it too.....very special to me, as grandma always makes quilts for her grandbabys!!! Scott and I loved all of our gifts and we are sure Branson will to as well!! Madison and Ashleigh had a great time at the shower too, they played hard all day with their friends!! And Maddie was Mommy's helper when it came to opening the gifts. I'm truly blessed to have such wounder family and friends!! Ive included some pictures for all to enjoy.

Fun filled weekend!!!

This valentines day was quite a nice change for Scott and I!! We normally end up celebrating the dreadful heart day at midnight because of Scott's work schedule, however, this year we were able to actually go out as a married couple and do our first official "double date"!! We got up early Saturday morning and headed to Guy with grandma and grandpa. We got to leave the kids with their cousins, Emily, Cole and Luke along with grandma and grandpa being the caretakers! The kids of course were extremely excited, Ashleigh gathered up her tractor and proudly announced that her and Cole were going to play trucks and Madison gathered her build a bear and accessories so Emily and her could have a fashion show. We met Ann Marie and Jarrod in Little Rock for dinner and a movie. They showed us this neat place to eat, which mind you the food was great!! and then headed to the rave to watch He's just not that into you. Movie was ok, however, I was more excited that I actually got through a movie at the theater without falling asleep, which I'm so known to do! We got to do a little bit of shopping and then went to shakys for a shake. The highlight of that was the fact that the straw was the size of a pvc pipe, yep, that's right, it was huge!!! When we got back to Ann Marie's and Jarrod's we got to hear all about the grandbaby adventures!! lol, them four feed off of each other so much its not even funny..... Sunday morning we joined Grandma, Grandpa, Ann Marie and Jarrod at church, it nice that their church didn't start until 10, that extra hour of sleep was quite nice i must say! Goodbyes are always sad, as I always enjoy the Mckinney company!! We finished our long weekend off with dinner with Pam and Victor in celebrating Pam's birthday!!! WOW, what a long weekend we had, but very exciting at the same time!!! Thanks Grandma, Grandpa, Ann Marie, and Jarrod for a wonderful weekend!!! Our family so needed the break!!

Kids say the darndest things!!

We had yet another Dr's appointment on Thursday, Scott and I thought it would be a great opportunity to take Ms Ashleigh to the nursery and show her the baby's in preparation for her new brother. She was so funny, all she could do was stare through the glass and make comments on how cute the baby's were! Mommy and Daddy answered all her questions as to the beds they were sleeping in, where their Mommy's were and so on. Later that afternoon we went to pick Madison up from school and Ashleigh so proudly announced "Maddie, our baby is here". After Daddy and Mommy got done chuckling at the comment for about ten minutes, we then had to explain to her that the baby was still in Mommy's tummy and it was not time for her brother to come yet, but that she would definitely know when it was time. All Ashleigh could say was "stop laughing at me, that's not funny!". Madison thought it was super funny too, she reminds her sister everyday about the comment she made and how mommy only has so many days left. Madison has done a very good job with counting days and announcing to everyone how many days are left until her little buddy is here! Mommy's not sure who's more excited, Madison, Ashleigh, or Daddy!! Madison and Ashleigh have been a great deal of help to mommy with getting things ready for the baby! We've gone through all the clothes that uncle Billy and Uncle DJ has handed down to us and the girls both have their favorites! The other day we put together the bassinet!! Ashleigh kept asking why Branson was going to sleep in that "cage". I guess to a three year old it does kinda resemble a cage, especially when your too short to actually see inside!!! Mommy got great pleasure in telling the story of how Nana bought the bassinet and the girls slept in it and now their baby brother gets to sleep in it!! Madison was quick to ask if when she grows up if mommy will let her use it for her baby, of course, that's the plan, to pass it down to my children when the have children of their own! I have included some pics of our bassinet and of course, a pic of the growing belly!! Enjoy!

Look At Our Baby Boy!!!

I figured we needed to put some pics of our lil boy up to share! We are so excited to finally be having a little boy!!! As you can see, he has very long arms and legs!!! And yes, I did post the lil boy parts up too!!!!! Maddie is so excited, I have a feeling she is going to be his second mommy and Ashleigh talks non-stop about her baby brother! Daddy already has a nice collection of footballs, spidermans, and whatever else boy toys you can possibly think of!! Mommy has started a nice little collection of baby boy clothes too!!!

Potty Training, Pennys for my class and Insulin!!

Yesterday was quit a eventful day, I had my Dr's appointment in Hot Springs only to find out that I'm officially on insulin now! My blood sugars have been almost perfect during the day, but at night, however, that was a different story! I would go to bed with the greatest blood sugar count but only to wake up in the mornings with it shooting past 200! My Dr was very concerned considering my count should have been extremely low after fasting all night. What was happening is my sugar would bottom out while I was sleeping then my liver would produce too much insulin to make up for what I was loosing. SOOOOOO, as of right now, I'm taking 10 units of insulin every night at dinner time. Last night was my first official shot, it took me 10 minutes to finally get the nerve to stick a needle in my stomach but when I finally did, I didn't even feel it! THANK GOD!! Scott couldn't watch, he is very concerned with what is going on, and a little over protective! His first response when I told him I was being put on insulin was "Your doctor doesn't know what she's talking about!!" lol My heart flutters every time he is overbearing with protectiveness to know that he loves me that much!! lol The girls are amazed with mommy giving herself a shot...Nurse Maddie wants to administer the shots herself, I told her once mommy got the hang of it, I would teach her! I figured that would not be a bad thing just in case we ever get in a pickle when daddy is at work! Miss Ashleigh is astonished that mommy doesn't even cry when she gets her shots and reminds me constantly "don't cry mommy, be a big girl and daddy will buy you a toy!" I cant help but snicker every time she says it! (As does the lady's in the lab when I go to get lab work done every week)

Potty Training has been a chore for us with Miss Ash!!! Maddie was so easy, all I did was put big girl panties on her and voila, we were potty trained!! Ash on the other hand, being the little booger that she is, apparently decided she would do this on her own time when she was ready!!! This week has been a big milestone for her, she would pee in the potty, but that was all!! So here I am, about to just throw my hands up in the air and say forget it when she decided to go poo poo in the potty!!! and has been for a whole week now!!! This morning I find out her daddy made a deal with her that if he didn't have to buy anymore pull ups he would buy here a new game for her leapster handheld.......to my surprise, ITS WORKING!!!! Woooo Hooooooo!!!!

Maddie Bears school is doing penny's for my class this week! They have asked that all the students bring as many penny's as they can to donate to unfortunate families!! Maddie, being the little guardian angel she is, hoped right on board for this one! She came home from school yesterday and started searching high and low for every penny she could find in our house! I must say she had a pretty good collection going on! She raided daddy's desk, mommy's piggy bank, her piggy bank and any nook and cranny possible! This morning on the way to school, she opened her backpack and was very pleased with all her findings and announced to me that some little boy or girl would be having dinner tonight because of her and how proud of herself she was!!! It touched my heart so much to see that my little girl was so caring and giving! Yes, I had to reach ever so secretly to my face and wipe a tear! I'm so proud of her and the young lady she has become!!!!! She truly is, as my dad said the day she was born, "our little angel"!!!!

An Early Spring Cleaning!!

This week daddy was on vacation so we decided to take advantage of the extra helping hands and clean house!!! WOW were we in for a treat! We started in the laundry room, going through all the cute little girl clothes that we have been hanging on to for seven years now....All I can say is, "wow, there sure is a lot of pink and purple". lol we ended up donating over fifteen bags of clothes that we either did not wear, or did not fit anymore. I was amazed at how much we had and both Scott and I agreed it needed to be donated for families that were not as blessed as our family was! We then decided to move into Miss Madison's room. We are in the process of bunk bed shopping right now because when baby Branson makes his arrival the girls will be sharing a room, considering Madison has the biggest room in the house we figured it would be OK! Anyway, back with the story, Daddy and I spent over 5 hours in her room!!!! Cleaning out closets, going through toys boxes, and emptying out drawers!! I never realized exactly how spoiled our kids were until this point!! To make a long story short, we donated over five giant trash bags of toys being very careful to hang onto all the baby toys for Branson! The girls had so many toys, that over half of them were not even being played with anymore!!! Some little girl is going to be a happy camper when she gets all the goodies Maddie agreed to let go!

Though we have enjoyed having daddy home for a whole week, he unfortunately, has to return to work tomorrow. I myself, am sad. It was nice waking up every morning to him and the girls wrestling in the bed and hearing the girls say "Daddy, if you get up, we'll rub your back". Not to mention how nice it was to have two very well behaved little girls because daddy was home and they could not get away with as much as they do with mommy!!! lol