Okay, okay, I'm updating my blog!

Well my life has been threatened by two different people if I do not update my blog, so I thought I'd better just catch you up on few things...

Isabelle is really starting to enjoy pretend play now. Her cousins passed down some of their dress-up clothes to her and so here she is wearing the snow white outfit and having a tea party with her "friends". I got this cool little table and two plastic chairs at a yardsale for $5. The top comes off and she can stack her blocks on it.

Dora got to wear the "crown" as Isabelle calls it.

Also, we have started VBS, and it's going really well! As I told you before, instead of doing a whole week straight through, we're doing it every Wednesday night instead of regular class for about 8 weeks. We've had 2 weeks so far and the kids are really enjoying it. Our theme is "Son Harvest County Fair: Growing the Fruits of the Spirit." Here are a few pics:

This is the hallway right outside the room where we're doing VBS. The fruit on the tree has all the kids names on it.

Here is "Farmer Ronnie", our VBS leader and song leader. The barn is our puppet theatre.

This is Isabelle the first week of VBS: she had a fun time!

"Grapevines" around the doorway to the room.

The teenagers have been a huge help with VBS every week. Here are our puppeteers, Petrice and Jordan.

Our fellowship room is kind of small, so we set up a craft area out in the hallway. We split the kids into 2 groups for craft/snack time.

The younger kids working on crafts inside the VBS room:

Older kids at the craft tables in the hallway:

Now onto our Father's Day. We did our main celebration on Saturday night. Ben grilled hamburgers and corn on the cob, and I made coleslaw and homemade apple pie (Ben's favorite).

Izzy chomping down on her corn:

Daddy enjoying his corn on the cob:

Isabelle "helped" Daddy open his present. (We actually did this before we ate.)

This was the "headline" on his wrapping paper: "3 Cheers: Best Daddy"

This is why we opened presents before dinner: he got a new tool set and cover for his grill.

My next door neighbor keeps 4 kids in her home, but last week one day she only had two, so we decided to go on a little outing to the mall. We went to the pet store, ate lunch at Chick-fil-A, played in the kids area, and even did a little shopping. It was fun. Here are a few pics:

All three of them just happened to wear red,white, and blue that day. (Not on purposes, I promise!) So we tried to get a picture of them together. The two little ones wouldn't give up their sippy cups.

When they did, their hands went straight in their mouths, and Jake's attention was gone by then.

Finally I just had to throw in this spaghetti picture. Even with a fork, she is still just that messy.

We had a yardsale this past Saturday, and were able to get rid of a lot of our junk. We'll still probably have to get rid of some more stuff before the baby gets here, but I'm happy we are making progress! We're still working on the downstairs bathroom, and I've been working on a new curriculum for our cradle roll at church. I start teaching next quarter. So we have been busy busy! I'll try to be a better blogger, I promise!

Green is Her Favorite Color...

Our downstairs bathroom is in ruins right now, so tonight while Isabelle was watching Dora I went upstairs to use the bathroom and left her down there for a few minutes. When I came back downstairs, Isabelle turned around and said "Mommy, I'm eating!" I noticed a huge chunk of something in between her teeth, and I am wondering what in the world she could have been eating, since I didn't leave any snacks with her. Upon closer inspection, her teeth were completely green with chunks of green crayon wax in between the front teeth and imbeded in her back teeth. I had left them out thinking she was past that stage of eating crayons, but I guess not. As I picked her up to take her upstairs to brush her green teeth, she says "Mommy I want some more!" Guess green crayons are tasty. (Don't worry, I didn't give her anymore.)

Just in case you have forgotten, we've had an incident with a green crayon before...for some reason she just likes the green ones I guess.

Clean Sweep

So I have started the process today of trying to clean out our spare bedroom. Now that we know it's a boy, I'm feeling a little more pressure to get things done. I know I still have 4 and 1/2 months to go, but I'm sure that will FLY by, so I want to go ahead and get a head start on cleaning things out while I still have some energy.

So here is my current dilemma: I am going through Isabelle's old baby clothes and trying to decide what to keep and what to sell/give away. There are the obvious things that I will keep, like her first Sunday at church outfit, Easter dress, Halloween outfit, etc., and of course I am keeping all the neutral/boyish things for the new baby. However, I'm pretty sure that we're not done having babies after this one. I've always wanted to have a big family, but we just don't have much storage space in our house. There is NO garage or attic space to speak of, so it just isn't practical to keep ALL her baby clothes. There are boxes and boxes, and I've already given some of it away. And it will be at LEAST 2 years before we have another baby, and that may not even be another girl, or be born during the same season. I'm just wondering how much I should keep, and up to what size. Should I keep shoes, socks, everything, or just a few special things? Will I regret getting rid of a lot of it? Anyone have any advice?

Introducing...

Baby BOY Simmons! (Name is still TBD.)

Here he is...in all his glory! I'm sure he'll hate me when he's sixteen for posting these, but anyway, here is the proof:

I still don't think it has sunk in that we're going to be parents of a boy! I guess this means I have some cleaning out and some shopping to do!

Here is a picture of Isabelle I took while we were waiting at the doctor's office today. She did really good during the ultrasound. The lady who was doing the ultrasound was in training, so it seemed to take a LONG time, so Izzy did get a little impatient, but her Daddy distracted her by blowing up one of the surgical gloves into a balloon.

Here's one of Isabelle and I before we went in:

Everybody Needs Friends

I am finally getting around to posting about our trip to Florida (with a stop in GA on the way)!

We are blessed to have really great friends who just happen to live several states away. So what do we do when we want to see those friends? Take a 14 hour car ride, that's all!! :)

Our first stop was in GA to visit our church friends that live there. We stayed with our very good friends, the Lesters (somehow I forgot to take any pictures while we were at their house, I guess because we were only there for about 24 hours!) We drove most of the night Wed night to get there and then took a couple short naps on Thursday.

Thursday night, Ralston was graduating from preschool, but Isabelle was not in a good mood, and we were still pretty tired, so we skipped the graduation and then met everyone for ice cream afterwards. I stole the first few pictures from Dawn's blog.

Riley really enjoyed his ice cream:

So did Isabelle and I:

and Isabelle and Daddy:

That afternoon, before going to get the ice cream, we got to meet Andrea and Nirav's precious new 3 week old baby, Abigail Krupali Shah. She was so tiny, and absolutely adorable! So happy for them!

On Friday, we drove the rest of the way to see the Bramletts in Florida.

I think this picture is fromt the first night we were there: Isabelle and Kirk-a-ley playing with a baby doll:
Even though the weather was foul, we still got to go out and experience a little bit of Florida. Saturday, we went to the Gulfarium, where we got to see dolphins, sea lions, and a few other interesting creatures.

Kirkley had it made riding around in this awesome sling. I have to get one of those for the next baby! That foot in her face cracks me up.

We got to stop and take a peek at the dolphins in the tank before going up for the show:

Izzy enjoying a green apple while waiting for the sea lion show to start: Noah looks like he wants a bite.

Our only family beach pic from the whole weekend:

Shaking fins with the dolphin statue:

Touch tank:

Picture with the lovely Bramlett family while waiting for the sea lions.

Amber took this one. I love Isabelle's scrunchy face:

One of the shows was a sea lion and dolphin together. This was a really cool trick. That lady is about to put a fish in the mouth of that sea lion, but he's not going to eat it.

Amber also gets credit for this awesome action shot: The dolphin looks like he is going to eat the sea lion, but he is actually going to take the fish straight from the sea lions mouth.

For dinner we went to this really cool place called Fudpucker's. If you have to wait to be seated somewhere, this is a pretty cool place to have to wait. They have a "lagoon" with baby alligators to look at while you wait. Izzy thought these were really cool.

Amber took this one too. I think it is my favorite pic of the weekend.

All three of these little girls have red hair. They look like they could be sisters:

Noah loving on his baby sister. He is a great big brother.

Baby Kirkley has the sweetest little grin:

"Umm, maybe you shouldn't chew on that."

Isabelle really enjoyed playing with Noah's blocks, dinosaurs (or sinosaurs as she calls them), and cars. So her Daddy went out and bought her all three of those things when we got home.

This one is of all the kids before church on Sunday:

I also have to mention my incredible trip to Publix Saturday night. It is grocery store that I WISH we had in VA. They have great B1G1 sales, and they accept competitor coupons. Anyway, Amber helped me organize all my coupons (and even hooked me up with a few) and we hit the store. I got almost $140 worth of groceries for a grand total of......are you ready?............about $16.00!!!!!! That total will go down in the history books!

Anyway, we had a wonderful time getting to see all of our friends, just wish it could have been longer!