Exciting Day

I'm so super excited this morning! We are going to St. Louis to buy a car for me!!! We're going for a 08 Chevy Impala. It will either be the one I posted earlier or we have 2 other ones we are going to check out and decide between the 3. 2 are red and 1 is grey. I'll keep you posted...I'm so thrilled, I never know how much I would miss having a car.

6 weeks

My Isabel is 6 weeks old today, can't believe how fast it goes. She is growing like a weed. As you can see, she has quite the chubby cheeks too!

Pumpkin Patch

Pictures from our trip to Eckert's Orchard and Fun Farm in Millstadt, Illinois on Saturday. Unfortunately we were missing some people though. Ross had to stay home and work upstairs or we won't get moved up there when we need to be. And Jaimee couldn't make it with the kids or Scott, Jackson has been a little sickly lately. :(
Alexis on the tractor
Photo op!

Tyler, Riley & Alexis

Riley & Alexis

Alexis singing her ABC's for Kid's Kountry Karaoke, it was so cute! She sang Baa Baa Black Sheep too!

Alexis, Papa & Sadie trying to stay warm, it was a little chilly that day.

Alexis & Riley out in the pumpkin patch

A few more pictures

I'll lay Isabel in Alexis' crib after I change her diaper so that I can change Alexis and then she wants to lay with her. She really loves her little sister a lot! My niece Sadie gets cuter every day! This was at her 1st Birthday party. She started walking last week!

Isabel all swaddled up hanging out in the bouncy seat.

Invasion

HELP...the wasps and ladybugs are everywhere! Love the warm weather, but hate it when it brings all the bugs out in full force. Our old house isn't exactly sealed up really tight, so the wasps are bouncing all around right now. We've probably killed half a dozen already and it looks like I'll be after a few dozen more before the day is over.

Some new pictures

I think this one is cute of Isabel because the paci looks about as big as her face! Alexis jumping on the trampoline at the creek for the Lea Family Reunion

The 4 of us

Alexis has watched us swaddle Isabel a lot and she wanted to be swaddled too!

My little girls

Car

We've decided that our next car is going to be a Chevy Impala. Now we just have to find the right one to buy. I test drove one yesterday at Elco Chevorlet and I really liked it! It's an '08 with 47,000 miles on it and it's red! Never thought I would have a red car, but I would like something different than white. My first car was silver and then I've had 2 white ones in a row. Ross isn't hip on red, but I think it will grow on him. But, that may not be the one we end up with after all, we'll just see what next week brings. We'll come back up on Friday or Saturday to purchase. I'm getting excited! :)

Hello again...

...sorry, I've been a little slack on blogging lately. I just really haven't had much to say.

I've been staying very busy with my two beautiful little girls. Isabel is a wonderful baby, but as most of you know, newborns demand a lot of time. And Alexis is good too. She is a bit of a challenge some days though. She is testing all of her limits and pushing to see how far she can go before she gets in trouble. Some days I want to pull my hair out and other days it's not so bad. We attempted to start potty training and she just doesn't seem ready. She went potty twice and poo once in big girl panties and it didn't seem to phase her. She didn't like the potty, but it didn't seem to trigger anything to help her know when to go. She has not yet gone on the big potty once, so no more big girl panties until we achieve that milestone.

Ross is staying busy with work and our project upstairs. We are getting closer to being finished. Within the next few weeks it will be insulated, drywalled and mud and taped, so hopefully it will go pretty fast after that is done. On top of the upstairs work, we've had to get a new roof put on the house. We had someone out looking at it to help us find a small leak and he informed us we had hail damage and needed to contact our home owners insurance. So, we're waiting for the rain to stop and we'll have a new roof.

The car shopping is going okay. We had found a car that we both really loved....a 2004 Volvo S80 with only 33,000 miles on it, but last night we finally decided it's not the right time to buy a car like that. It would be the type of car that we would drive for a very long time and I'm just afraid I wouldn't be satisfied with if after a few years when we add to our family again. Space is a huge issue when you go anywhere with kids, so we've got to have lots of it. So, I'm back to searching for either a Chevy Impala or a minivan of some kind, or some other larger sedan that will hold us and our stuff. We've been asked if I can't just take over the truck and Ross gets an old clunker to drive to save us a payment, but it is almost impossible to travel comfortably in the truck. There is no room in that backseat and the passenger has to sit with knees in the dash so Alexis has room in the back for her feet. And her seat doesn't sit the best back there either because the seat it too small compared to the size of her car seat.

So that's the latest on what's up with us. I'll try and come up with something more interesting to blog about, but lately I think my brain has been in sleep mode. (Must be because I'm not getting a lot of sleep these days. Although I do have to set the alarm to get Isabel up to feed her since she is not supposed to go more than 5 hours without eating, so really I shouldn't complain huh??)

Car Shopping

I'm so excited! We have decided it is time to become a 2 car family again. We've made due with just the truck since the car got totalled on August 1st. Ross' Mom and Dad graciously let us borrow their truck for a bit and then when I went on maternity leave, we've just had our truck. But now that Isabel is getting a little bit older, I'm ready to have my own wheels again! Last week, I was going stir crazy and had to get out. Ross borrowed his parents truck again and I went to Mom's for the day, it was awesome to get out!

So, I began searching for deals on the Internet this week. We have found several possibilities and we are going to St. Louis on Saturday to go look at several cars and some mini vans too. We would love to have a mini van for the space, but it's hard to find one with low mileage in the price range we are happy with. We are not shopping for a new vehicle, but a used one a few years old that doesn't have a crazy amount of miles on it. We don't want to be strapped with a big car payment again, so we decided that we don't want our payment to be anymore than $400 a month, and I would be happier if it was closer to $300. We are finally making some head way with our debt, so we don't want to get any deeper again.

Hopefully we'll get lucky and find a great deal on Saturday and I'll be driving home in a "new" slightly used car! We'll keep you posted on our search.

Isabel Update

We had an appointment with Dr. Rao today for Isabel. She is doing great! She now weighs 8 lbs. 10 oz. and is 22 1/4 inches long! Dr. Rao already said she's going to be tall! She's in the 90th percent tile for height and right around the middle for weight and head size. Dr. Rao said she is very proportionate.

We have a busy October ahead of us. Tomorrow is the Lea Family Reunion. Next weekend - Sadie's 1st birthday, weekend after that - Pumpkin Patch (YAY!), and after that one - Costume Party and Ross leaves for his Pheasant Hunting Trip, and then it will be Halloween.......Boo! So glad that I have a long maternity leave to enjoy all this stuff.

Isabel is now 3 weeks and 1 day old, so I'm starting to feel a little more comfortable taking her places. She still won't really go out in public (Walmart, grocery store) until she is 6 weeks or older. But, all the events I listed above are all with family, except the Pumpkin Patch and that's outdoors anyway. So, I'm okay with taking her to these places as long as no one is sick or has been recently. I still don't want her passed around to a lot of different people either. For some reason I'm being super protective of her. They just look so fragile when they are this small even though I know they are very resilient at this age too.

We've settled into a nice routine and I'm looking forward to spending some nice quiet time at home with my girls. With the exception of our weekend plans, I'm not really wanting to do anything else other than just be home alone with my kiddos and soak up as much as I can before I have to go back to work.

So, look for lots of pictures to come this month. Fall is my favorite time of year, so I'm sure I'll be snapping loads of pictures.