Updates, good and not-so-good

Wow, it's been awhile since I've posted... as usual. A lot's been going on, so I'll try to give the short version of updates.

Most recently...
4th of July was awesome... we spent the day out on the boat on the good ol' Ohio River. The weather was beautiful, blue skies and sunny. We went out to dinner with friends, then back down to the boat to watch the fireworks on the river... good times! Aly went to my Grandma's with my mom and dad to watch the fireworks. My Gram lives close to where the fireworks are let off, so everyone usually goes over there and watches them from the backyard. I wasn't sure how Aly would do with being REALLY close to the fireworks, so I figured I'd wait til next year to take her with us. Come to find out, she LOVED the fireworks and just stared in awe at the sky, going "Woah! Wow wow!" when the big ones let off. Too cute.

What else to talk about that's been going on recently... Oh. We just got back from vacation last week... we spent some time in Ocean City, MD with friends of ours and their 3 kids. We stayed right on the boardwalk which was awesome! Lots of nightlife. Not that we could really enjoy it with 4 kids ages 4 and under, but it was still nice to sit out on the balcony late at night and enjoy some 'adult beverages.' haha But yeah, like I said-- 4 kids ages 4, going on 3, 2, and 18 months. Mass chaos all around! haha It was definitely a good time though. The beach was beautiful, and the weather cooperated the whole time we were there. Which was only 4 days, but long enough to get somewhat relaxed. (Before making the 8-hr trip home...fun fun.) I miss it! Russ, Aly and I are heading to the Outer Banks in September, so now I have THAT beach to look forward to :-)

As for Alyson, she's doing great. We had a Dora the Explorer birthday party for her on the 21st of June. She had a BLAST! We had a pinata in the shape of a #2, and all the kids loved it. The weather cooperated for that too, which was great because there were 30-some people there and the house would have been kinda crowded if it decided to rain!

Aly's 2-yr checkup at the pediatrician went well... she's 36 inches tall and weighs 34 pounds... higher than 100th percentile! My baby is off the charts. No wonder everyone always asks me if she's 3. She's gonna be a tall one. I figure I'm 5'5 and Russ is 6 ft, so she'll probably end up somewhere in between. She's just growing like a weed, and is into something new everyday. SO curious!!! Her latest antic was to flood our upstairs bathroom. Yeah... that was fun. You see, she always goes up the stairs and plays in her room, that's just an everyday thing. So i didn't think anything of it when she went up there the other day. Well, she had gone into the bathroom and decided to stick a bunch of baby wipes into the toilet and keep flushing and flushing and flushing. That toilet is pretty quiet so I didn't hear all this going on, I thought she was just playing in her room. But when the water started spilling onto the floor, I heard THAT. I thought she had turned the shower on, but no. I got to the top of the steps and saw water all over the floor about to head onto the hallway carpet!!! I had to turn the water off to the toilet and figure out what the heck she did. She was just laughing and laughing at the water falling onto the floor. Mommy, on the other hand, was NOT laughing. Ugh... eventually I got the situation under control, but not until after the extra water decided to drip down to the main floor by way of the counter over the stove, and then down to the basement. It basically made a path all the way down the house. NOT fun. I'm hoping we don't have anything like that happen ever again. I hope she got the toilet-plugging out of her system.

And we're thinking of having ANOTHER child?? haha

Yes, you read that right... we're officially "trying." Well, not TRYING trying, but we have the "if it happens it happens" attitude for now. We're not trying to prevent anything from happening. I was totally excited at the end of May to find out I was pregnant, only to have my excitement cut short by a miscarriage a week later. It was pretty crushing, because it is totally amazing how quickly you can come to embrace and love a child that you've never even met yet (and who is virtually the size of a pencil tip.) At first, I was surprised (because we weren't really expecting it and were actively house hunting at the time.) Then in the next breath I was TOTALLY excited, and Russ was too. To top it off, 2 days later my cousin/best friend found out SHE was pregnant, so we'd literally have been due days apart.

I knew to be cautious in the first weeks, but I still found myself planning for the future and how we'd redecorate our spare bedroom to make it the baby's room... it's just sad. But I know everything happens for a reason, even if we can't figure out what that reason is right now. The good thing about this whole situation, though, is that it really made us get our priorities in order and think about the future more. It REALLY brought my husband onboard where having another child is concerned. It was pretty much the furthest thing from his mind even a month ago, now he is all for trying. For now, we're putting our house-hunting on hold to focus on other things, like paying off bills!! My husband is in the process of putting up a huge building/garage on 10 acres he bought for his business, so that's taking up time and money. He's just running out of room where his garage is now, and his business is expanding, so that takes top priority over us buying a new house right now.

So now we're taking things day by day, and are excited to bring a new baby into this world when God decides to bless us with another one :-) Fingers crossed!

Well, I know there's still a lot to update on, but I need to get some things done around the house before Aly wakes up from her nap. Hope everyone (who still reads this or occasionally checks up on me) is doing well. Take care :-)