Baby Week!!! Welcome to the world Baby Jayden and Baby Tucker!

This week was a week of babies for us. It all began on Sunday night as our friends Jimmy and America got ready to welcome sweet little Jayden Lynne into their lives. Jimmy and America joined our little life group back in February, and it’s been so fun watching them get ready to be first time parents. They have a BEAUTIFUL nursery (sorry – forgot to take a photo of it, but it’s amazing…) to match an even more gorgeous little baby. They are blessed for sure, and we’re blessed to get to be a part of it! Some of us got to go meet her on Wednesday night. Here she is!

THEN, as if that weren’t fun enough, we’ve known Brad and Remy were expecting their little man Tucker soon, but weren’t sure when. Turns out that she went to her appointment on Thursday and it was determined (based on some low fluid levels) that it was the day! She went in to be induced late morning yesterday, and Tucker made his way into the world last night around 11:30. We got to meet the precious little man today, and again – so fun to see such sweet friends get to join us in this amazing journey of parenthood. I was a little better with the camera this time. Tucker Bradley Webb:

  He had to have something personalized from his “Aunt” Amy!

Looks like a good big sister to me!

Sweet new momma Remy!

The Webb Fam!

And since we’re already talking about babies, here are a couple of belly shots of baby #3:

21 1/2 weeks

Backyard Fun

This is one of those moments that I just thought had to be captured on video. It’s short and sweet but also pretty cute. Enjoy!

One Very Blessed Little 5 Year Old

Ellie has had a very special birthday week. It started 4 days before her birthday when James took her out for their annual Daddy/Daughter date. This is something that my dad did with me, and James loved the idea and starts it with our girls on their 4th birthday. This year, he took Ellie to Cheesecake Factory. She got to have a big tall (virgin!) Strawberry Daiquiri and some yummy noodles. She was in heaven. Here’s a photo of them before they left:

The way Ellie’s preschool works, they put all of the kids in classes by age. This makes perfect sense developmentally, but it means there’s a super heavy birthday season this time of year. Ellie had a blast the very next day at one of her friends’ gymnastics birthday parties.

She got to do a zip line!

Her actual birthday was the Tuesday after Memorial Day. After a long explanation about how her party was 5 days after her real birthday, she decided she wanted cake balls for her actual birthday. Here are her and Emma mixing the cake and the icing together. They thought it was fabulous they were just able to stick their hands in it!

    

Her birthday began by her coming downstairs to the dots we had from Emma’s party last year all over the kitchen and our birthday banner up plus a card. I neglected to take a photo, but she loved it. For over a year now, I’ve been telling Ellie that she can’t crack an egg until she’s 5 years old. It’s a silly rule that we make up for a few various things to make her excited about doing things. Here is her first shot at cracking an egg on her actual birthday morning (working on homemade waffles).

After breakfast, we went to the gym and then to our community pool. She then helped me finish the cake balls and then we went out for her birthday dinner. Turns out, she enjoyed Cheesecake Factory so much that she wanted to go again! James and I didn’t argue…

The completed cake balls. They say Happy Birthday Ellie plus a few random letters she chose for Cookie, Crouchburger, Momma, Daddy, Emma, etc. :)

Her Tinkerbell watch from us. All in all, a great actual birthday.

After five long days of waiting, her party finally arrived today. She wanted to have it at Chuck E. Cheese. This didn’t excite me at all, but kids love that place, and we decided we could use one that was a little easier. I just did her cake and the party favors, and the rest was up to Chuck. :) She wanted a Hello Kitty theme, so her last gift from us was a cute party outfit:

Goodness, she’s getting big…

With her school friends Alex and Ashlyn

Happy little sister

   Sweet friends Kyndall and Kate posing

    Look at that happy face….

Hello Kitty Birthday Cake as requested….

  

Ellie was so excited about the ticket blaster thing they do there where they go in a booth and get to grab the tickets blowing around. Unfortunately, we neglected to warn her that it might be a little loud/windy inside and it turned out to be a bit of a sad experience instead (check out the video below). Ellie’s friend Madi was happy to take her place instead. :)

Here she is before it started – happy and all set to go

And here you can see the fear creeping in (again, much more evident in the video…)

Emma and Sara Paige had a blast together. I wish we’d gotten some of their antics on video, but they were playing with forks and full out belly laughing together – what sweet little friends they are! (Side note: This morning at church, Emma decided she didn’t want to go to her class. I knew it was going to be one of those mornings where I’d have to force her and she’d cry, etc. Well, Sara Paige was there and came to the door and as soon as Emma saw her, she went straight in, gave SP a hug and I was forgotten. Sweetness!)

   

And here are some video highlights of the party:

Every morning this week when Ellie comes into our room, she says “Here’s the five year old!” LOL. She’s really exited to be five, and I can’t believe how fast the five years have gone. I guess all parents say that, but until you live it yourself… We went to a graduation party for a friend of ours yesterday. As I watched his picture video, I knew I’ll barely get to blink twice before that will be us with Ellie. We’re trying hard to soak up every second of these precious years when they’re little. Happy birthday, you precious, blessed, funny, happy sweet five year old of ours. We love you the mostest!!

20 Week Ultrasound Update

The “big ultrasound” was on June 1st. Finding out the gender is such a big thing, right?! It completely changes your family and gives the little life inside of you more of an identity. Will it be more pink, bows, and princesses? Or blue, cars, trains and sports? I know I’m stereotyping, but the generalities are true… I wish I was one of those people who honestly didn’t care which gender it was. I admire them. I’ve always wanted both genders and really hoped for a boy on this one. I’ve spent a ton of time praying and talking to God about how I trust him no matter what, though. And I really do. Whatever person He chooses to place in our family is the right one. I just knew that if it was a third girl, I’d need his help healing my heart of the dream of getting to experience a son, you know?

By the time of the ultrasound, I was mostly just excited. I thought I’d be nervous and anxious, but I really wasn’t. Just wanted to KNOW! We took the girls to the appointment knowing it would be fun for them to see the baby on the TV screen. My OB does the sonogram himself (as opposed to having a tech), so he came in pretty quickly and got things going. The girls sat in James’ lap behind me and we all watched the big TV screen as baby came on. Pretty quickly, I thought I saw a little boy part, but I had thought I saw one with Emerson, too, so I didn’t put too much stock in what I saw. My OB is “mean” and always does his measurements and stuff first before he goes and officially reveals the gender. He was doing the head measurement and I asked if he knew already. He said, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I know.” I said, “Well, when are you going to tell us?” “At delivery,” he says. Funny funny man. A few minutes later, he slipped, though. He said “Ok, let’s take a look at his face.” I was pretty sure at that point… Pretty soon, he went over the “area” again, and it was so obvious he just stopped and showed us it was our precious little boy!!! Yea!! We were so excited.

The girls have been pulling for another sister. They were definitely interested in watching the ultrasound, but they were underwhelmed that it was a boy. They were fine with it, but there wasn’t any jumping up and down or anything. :) They were more excited about the lollipops they knew they’d get on the way out!

Baby measured right on target and looked super healthy in every way! Praise God for that!

Here’s the boy photo – our proof!

And in case anyone is interested in the full video of the sonogram, here you go!

As we’ve let the news settle in, it’s so fun to imagine a little man in our family. He’s going to know how to treat women well with two older sisters. I also love that we’ll get his late teenage years (most likely!) all to ourselves with him. I envision him maybe playing some sport and getting to go watch without worrying about activities for all three kids. I’m afraid this little one might be a Momma’s boy… Can’t wait!!

Anyone who knows us well knows that we don’t tell the name until the baby is born. The girls know about this rule, and they also know that we give “pretend names” until they’re born to make sure we have something to call them besides the actual name. The girls named this one Baby Jerry. I love it since Emma can’t really say her Rs yet. From her, it’s Baby Jewry. Makes me smile every time. I think we have a lot more smiles on the way!