A Day out with Sondra and Amelia

A few weeks ago Strummer and I spent the day w/Sondra and Amelia. We met at the Samp's house, loaded up Sondra's car and headed off to Des Moines! First Stop ~ Babies R Us. Where we both bought some things for Strummer and Amelia. Neither Sondra nor I know the sex of our 2nd babies, so we couldn't buy anything for baby #2 (all though, very tempting, since I saw a REALLY cute girl guitar shirt on clearance....hee-hee-hee)

Next stop was FOOD! We went to the Olive Garden where we both ordered the soup, salad and breadsticks lunch. it was DELICIOUS. Strummer and Amelia had their 'first date' of eating oyster crackers, gold fish and breadsticks. It was nice eating w/a fellow prego b/c then I didn't feel so bad about eating so much! :P

Our last stop was the mall. This is where the kids had the most fun. We both had them in their individual strollers and they kept on looking at each other, laughing and trying to grab each others hands. They were not only entertaining for us to watch, but also for other mall-goers that were around us. It was a successful shopping trip! We both found clothes for our kids and for ourselves! (We both bought some new maternity wear!) We ended the day by going to Cookies Etc and buying some cookies!!!

Here are some pics and videos of the day.












The kids were talking to each other while we were waiting for Sondra to get the rest of her things from the house.



This is just the first time they did this. They also were trying to hold hands and giggling the entire time we were in JCPenny looking at clothes for ourselves. :D

A Fun Poll for Baby #2!

I decided to start a poll after my friend Sondra started a poll for her second baby, who got the idea from our friend Kelly who had a poll w/her son last year. (still with me?)

SO - it looked like it would be a cool thing to do! I went to the website, set everything up, now it's your turn to go to the site and take a guess on the gender, the size, the date and the time of baby #2!

Good Luck!!! The winner will get a big THUMBS UP! Sorry, no real prizes here! Just the satisfaction that you had the best guesstimation! :D

Just click on the title of this blog and it will directly take you to the webpage!

Or you an copy and paste the link into a new browser if that doesn't work.

http://www.expectnet.com/games/RockerBaby2

Strummer's BIG news!

I tried to get a good picture of the front, so this will have to do!!! Strummer's news is he is going to be a big brother! I think he is very excited!

We are very happy for another little miracle from God. We feel so blessed being able to be parents again. Even more so with all the troubles (getting pregnant, staying pregnant) we had before Strummer arrived!

My due date is March 25, 2010! We are hoping that he or she will be born on the 27th, b/c that is when we got engaged!!! However, we have no control over when this baby will be born! hee-hee-hee

On another very cool note showing how awesome God can work in our lives. This baby is due almost the exact same time (w/in a week) of when our first baby would have been born!

Happy Birthday...to Me! :D

A few weeks ago I turned 28! I know! I'm getting so old!!! Just 2 more years til I hit a new decade! AHH!!

It was a nice birthday! Brad remembered to tell me happy birthday when i woke up. then went to work for a bit and Jim had a slice of oober-yummy triple-chocolate cake his wife had made. Then Strummer and I headed to Fort Dodge to meet my mom for lunch at Applebees (since Bonanza is now closed, still bummed).

Then when we arrived home, Brad came home shortly after and I eventually decided I wanted Papa Murphy's. So I went to go get pizza and Brad said he needed to go to Hy-Vee and took Strummer along.

He came home w/Angel Food cake (one of my favs), chocolate marshmallow ice cream (my fav), chocolate syrup, carmel syrup and m&ms! Yummy-Yum-Yum!

He also came home w/2 things of flowers. AND when I came back home I had another gift - from Era and Brad! They sent me flowers w/peppermint patties!

It was overall a good birthday! I do find it funny that I have been pregnant my last 2 birthdays! Last year I was 8 months pregnant and this year I was 3 months pregnant. (I know, a bit crazy)

Thanks to everyone for all the birthday wishes!!!

Happy Anniversary!

On August 27th Brad and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary! Way back when (okay, 6 years ago) we started dating on June 27, 2003, then engaged on March 27, 2004 and married on August 27th, 2004 (see how brad kept w/the '27' theme?)

So on our actual anniversary I decided to make lasagna since that is what Brad wanted for supper. So b/f Brad got home, Strummer and I went to the store to pick up the ingredients and other things we needed. Then when Brad got home, I realized I forgot some things we needed at home - something basic, so while I was finishing supper, Strummer and Brad went back to the store and came home w/flowers. There was one bunch from Brad and another bunch from Strummer (and if i knew the name of the flowers, I would tell you)

Friday we went out to eat. My parents came down for the afternoon/evening to spend time w/us and to watch Strummer while we went out to eat at The Olive Garden. We had a wonderful time on our own for a few hours and Strummer had fun w/Grandma and Grandpa. We had a good report saying they went on a walk, went to some garage sales and since Algona was playing Boone that night, they also walked to the HS since one of their friend's were there watching their son play in the 9th grade game. They apparently also ran into some of Brad's former co-workers at the gate b/c they saw Strummer and recognized him :D

Thanks to mom and dad for coming down! I really appreciate it!

If I had pics from the past 5 years I would post them, however, I have been having to put my old photos on DVDs since I'm running out of space on my computer.

I also don't have any pics from the evening, however I have a picture of my flowers!

Thanks to Brad for a wonderful 5 years! It's been an adventure of ups and downs. I can't wait to see for the future brings us! Love You!

House For Sale!

Our first home is on the market! We have owned it for 4 years and have improved and redone pretty much the entire house. We are wanting to move to a bigger house. With 2 adults, a walking and very mobile baby and a 45 lb dog, we are thinking a bigger house may be a good thing to try and purchase. Since our house would most likely be bought by first-time home owners and they have an $8,000 incentive, we decided to put it up and see if anyone has interest.

So far we have had 2 couples look at it twice and we found out that they both have the house at the top of their list! So, all we are waiting for is a call from realtor w/an offer! Ideally it would be nice to move b/f it is super cold and snowy.

If you know anyone looking for an adorable 1-1/2 story 2 bd - 1 ba house....please send them to the link for our house!

http://www.greatiowahomes.com/properties/index.cfm/ia_boone_109_s_greene_street_11936

Strummer's First Tooth

Strummer finally has a white thing in his mouth! A few weeks ago (Well, August 13th) we were visiting our pals Holly and Brayden....and Sara was there too! Well - the little guy was being unusually cranky...and hungry and I couldn't figure out why! All of a sudden Holly said - Manda, he has a tooth!!! Well that explains it! It must have just popped up b/c I hadn't seen any signs of a tooth b/f that day! Thanks for spotting it Holly!

I finally grabbed a good shot last week!