Just Waiting...

So, my due date was about 6 days ago and we are finding ourselves still waiting to meet our little girl. She is healthy and doing great, just comfortable where she is and not quite ready to come and meet us just yet.

Because we have kept our calendar free for the last few weeks (just in case we have the baby), we have had a lot of free time together as a family.  We have managed to have a lot of fun family outings and family nights while we are still a family of three.  This is how we have been passing the time the last few weeks...

Family dates to Krispy Kreme 

Hanging out making silly faces to the camera 

After park days, walks, and outings to downtown Raleigh you might find Neal like this...Passed out in the back after a day of fun. 

I know Neal is excited to have baby sister come 'cause he talks about her all the time.  The other day he leaned over and talked to my belly saying "baby sister it's time to pop out".  

What really made my day was a few weeks ago when Neal came home from Awanas with this art project...

The little heart near the top says "Sister & Mommy" -  This was the first time he made something and decided on his own to add "sister" to it.  I know he is going to love his sister and I cannot wait to see him as a big brother.   He sleeps with baby girl's blanket every night, and talks about how he is going to sit on the couch and "snuggle her" and "play peak-a-boo" with her.

So, baby girl, you can come join us any day, all three of us are ready and anxious to welcome you into our family and we want to share all these fun family days with you.

AWANA

I can hardly believe that Neal is already old enough to be in Awana.  He started Cubbies a few weeks ago.

His first night there he was a little unsure.  Our church doesn't offer Awana so we signed him up at another church in the area so with unfamiliar faces and a new location Neal was a little nervous.  Tyler stayed with him the first night.  Tyler sat on the outskirts of the room while Neal played games, ate snacks and listened to the story but said Neal kept looking over to make sure he was still there the whole time.  The next week Neal went in and stayed all by himself!  

He loves his Cubbies vest, and has been doing a great job memorizing his verse each week.  I'm excited that not only Neal will be memorizing scripture but that Tyler and I will get to memorize right along with him as we work on the verses together as a family.

It's fun to see him so excited to go each week, and I hope the enthusiasm for it stays all year.  I also like the fact that now Tyler and I can drop him off at Cubbies and go on a coffee date once a week while he is there...It's great for all of us :)   Next time any of you see Neal ask him about Cubbies, but be prepared to hear all the details, as well as listen to him recite his verses, he loves to talk about it.  

From the Mouth of a Toddler

Neal, like all toddlers, is always making us laugh as he says things and discovers new things.  I think it's about time I wrote some of his fun sayings down so that I won't forget them.  Every day he seems to grow up more and more and once baby girl arrives I am sure he will seem way older compared to a new baby.  So here are few fun things from the mouth of our 3 year old....

"Don't worry mom I can save you all the time, 'cause I'm a super hero" 

"Stop squishing on my dadddy"  - he says this often when we try and snuggle him

"Mommy do you know I love you" - always followed by a big hug from him and big smile from me.

Neal loves to look at the map on my phone while we drive places and when Siri tells him what way to turn you can hear him reply "Don't tell me what to do Siri" 

While at the pool this year Neal learned to hold his breath and put his face in the water.  Last time he did this he said, "Mommy watch this, I can hold my breathe for 16 hours" 

Looking out the car window one night on our way home:  "The moon is following me mommy.  It's following me all the way to mommy and daddy's house" 

When he wants to talk about how fast or strong something is (or he is) he will say, "Look, I'm stronger then strong"  or "Wow, that's faster then fast"

The only clothes he ever wants to wear are either his batman or superman shirt.  When he first got his batman shirt he told me, "When I Skype with Tia I want to show her my batman shirt, she'll say 'Neal, I can't believe my eyes, that is awesome'"

A few of his favorite things:

1. Fruit Loops (he would eat these every morning and be happy)
2. Sweet Tea (a southern boy already)
3. Playing Go Fish (we play it at least 3 times a day)
4. Being a superhero (everyday he is a new superhero and is always acting out some action scene that he has created)

5. Reading stories.  He can sit and have you read him books for an hour or more.  The library is one of his favorite places to go.

Game Time

The last few weeks we have been trying to cut back on our media consumption in our family.   So with less time in front of the computer and TV has allowed us lots more time to interact together.

We started to teach Neal some new games and he LOVES to play games at night with us.  He has a fun train game where you have to collect cargo for your train that matches your pattern card.  It is simple to play but has been good for Neal to learn different patterns and find the pieces that he needs to match his pattern card.

Last week Tyler taught Neal to play "Go Fish".   Let's just say we have played "Go Fish" at least a dozen times if not more in the last week.   This has been Neal's favorite game ever.   Every day last week when Tyler would walk in the door from work Neal would say "Welcome home daddy, hey let's play 'Go Fish'".    We have had lots of fun seeing him learn the game and he is actually quite good at it and has beaten Tyler and I many times.

The other activity that Neal has started to love is building puzzles.  He has mastered his transportation puzzles and loves to pull them out and build them with me each day.

At first I had to help him figure out how to build with the flat edges and look for clues int he pictures as to where they would go.  Now, he can put them together all by himself.  He knows that the flat edges go on the outside, wheels go at the bottom and clouds at the top.

I have even brought out a few other puzzles and can see that he is really getting the hang of putting them together.  I think we may need to make a trip to the dolor store for a few new puzzles soon.

We have loved the extra time we have found as a family and have noticed that Neal has gotten a lot better and finding ways to play and be more imaginative without as much TV.  Plus it makes for movie nights extra fun since they are more of a treat.  I think this Christmas we are going to be adding to our game collection with some fun new family games so if y'all have any great ones to recommend please let us know :)

A Morning Out

It has cooled down just a bit here (meaning humidity is blow 90+%) and so on saturday morning we decided to take a last minute family outing.   We got ready, packed a small lunch/snack, loaded into the car and headed out for hike to Raven Rock Park.   The park is less then an hour away and we were able to hike all the way to Raven Rock and back in under 2 hours.

It was such a fun family hike.  The path is wide, easy to walk and really quite easy.  The hike down to Raven Rock is only about 1 mile.  It was great to get outside in the woods and both Yawkey and Neal loved it.   Neal walked almost the whole way all by himself and loved picking up rocks and sticks all along the way.

When you get to the end of the hike there is a steep staircase that leads down to the big rocks and river so Yawkey and I (9 months pregnant) sat at the top of the stairs to take a little rest.

We send Neal and Tyler down by themselves.   Neal climbed around Raven Rock a bit and then they headed back up the stairs to meet up with us and we headed back.

We will definitely be coming back for more hiking again maybe this fall.  It was a great family outing, a great way to get moving for me (walking can only help get this baby girl to arrive right?), and we found out you can camp in the Park.  We may have to take a family camping trip out there one time.  

Art

Neal received some mail the other day from his cousins in Texas and he loved getting mail just for him. They sent him some pictures they had drawn with a note and Neal was excited to write back.  So, the last few weeks we have been doing more coloring, drawing and decorating our color pages with stickers.   The other day I asked Neal if he could draw a picture of himself. I was curious what it would look like since he has never tried to draw himself before...this is what he brought me...

Next he said he was going to draw our whole family.  This is the result...

We may look a bit like birds but he did try and make daddy very tall (and I guess he sees himself as almost as tall as Tyler) and he even made sure to draw baby girl in my belly.  I tried to label each person but it didn't work so well.  From left to right you have, Tyler Neal and Me.  It made me smile and I wish he had drawn it on real paper so I could keep them forever but just a picture of his creation this time will have to do.