Long Time No Talk....

Well, it has been almost 5 months since I last blogged. Wow, how did that happen!?! I guess we got busy, busy, busy....but, now I am on bed rest so I guess I have some time.

Anyway, here are some highlights from that past couple of months:

In December, we traveled to Virginia to visit Brian's family. We were hoping to see snow, but it didn't happen :( Well, I take that back, we saw flurries. Not much but enough for Savannah to try and catch flakes on her tongue.

January we celebrated Brian's birthday. Happy Birthday Brian! Also, we (OK, Brian, my dad, my mom, my brother Guy and a friend, Will) tore out the carpet in Savannah and the nursery and laid down laminate flooring. They did a wonderful job!

February brought Savannah's 5th birthday! I cannot believe how big she is getting. She is so excited about becoming a big sister. She now has a "big sister" bed and new furniture in her room. She loves her "princess bed". A group of my friends from our old playgroup hosted a joint shower for myself and another friend. It was nice to get out with the girls!

We did a lot of running around in March, but nothing too noteworthy :)

In April my mom gave me a baby shower! Many friends and family came from all over to help celebrate the upcoming event! My WOW friends from church also had a shower for me. How blessed I am to have do many good friends and a wonderful family! Savannah also got to take part in a "Becoming a Big Sister" class. She loved learning how to hold, feed, burp and diaper a baby. She also got to make a gift for Taylor. We went with friends to an Easter Egg hunt at UCF. Savannah enjoyed running around finding as many eggs as possible. Brian played a total of 5 services the weekend of Easter! He was beat, but he enjoyed it. We celebrated Easter at my parents where Savannah got to enjoy another Easter egg hunt. The bunny was good to her and she has been enjoying her craft projects and toys ever since. Oh, and Savannah is officially registered for Kindergarten! Can you believe it is already time for my little baby girl to start Elementary school!?! Although, she is VERY ready!

So now we are at May. At my appointment on Monday my blood pressure was high for the first time which lead to my doctor sending me to the hospital. After over four hours of sitting around, having my BP taken, blood drawn, and baby monitored, they sent me home with orders to sit, sit, sit. Bed rest, or more like house arrest. I can get up and move around for food, shower and bathroom but have to be sitting at all other times. No lifting, cooking, cleaning...nothing. So, here I sit until Taylor makes her entrance. I am predicting sometime next week. My dad thinks this upcoming weekend. And my friends are picking dates on Facebook :) Anywhere between the 12 and the 20. Oh, I should mention that all the tests they ran came back completely normal but they still feel I should slow down. So, hope all is well with you and look for updates on when Taylor is born!

Baby Girl

Here she is, our new baby girl:

Hello Taylor Jane! She is on track to be born May 18. Savannah is thrilled. She loved getting to go see the ultrasound and can't wait to meet her baby sister. By the way, that is just what she ordered :)

It's Official

We got a special early Christmas gift today. Brian, Savannah and I all got to head down and see the baby! (My ultrasound was today) After a lot of jostling around they were able to tell us that we are having a girl. Savannah is thrilled! She wanted a sister and cannot wait to meet her. They had me do a level 2 ultrasound because I declined the genetic testing. Also, my original scheduled ultrasound date was too late and they didn't think they could get me in at the office for an ultrasound this week (due to the short week) so we got to go to Winnie Palmer for the ultrasound (where the baby will be delivered). Everything looked good with the baby, healthy and growing. She is 11 ounces (not sure if that is the norm or not). And, might I add, already sitting on my bladder! The ultrasound tech made a point to say that the baby is sitting really low (which explains why I have to go to the bathroom sooooooooooo much more this time around). Anyway, it was a nice present to get to find out what the baby was! Merry Christmas everyone!

Trip to Disney

Brian and I decided to take Savannah to Disney this past weekend. This is only the second time she has actually been to the park. Thanks to our friends we were able to get tickets at a pretty reasonable price so off we went. We did not tell her where we were going. Just got her ready and headed off. She was funny! We past Sea World (which she knows well) and said, "oh, we are passing Sea World". Then we pull onto Disney property and she says "oh, we are going to pass Disney too". Now, she hasn't been enough to know that when you go through those arches with the Disney characters that means you are entering their property, not passing by it :) So, at this point we told her where we were going. She was actually speechless for a second or two! It was really quite amazing :) Needless to say she was thrilled. She had a wonderful day up until dark, at which point she decided it was time to go because there were going to be fireworks, mind you, it gets dark at around 6:00 and the fireworks were not until 9:00! No concept of time, though, so that did not help. Her favorite ride was the Aladdin Magic Carpet ride. She really enjoyed that! She also went on Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion. Not sure she loved those, though :) Of course, we sucked up about 4 hours in Fantasy Land. It's a Small world, Snow White, Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, Cinderella's Carousel, meeting Ariel (for the first time!) were all fun but the lines are definitely the longest in this area. And full of tired kids (and parents). After all of this, we went to meet the princesses because it was dark at this time and the princesses were inside (which meant no fireworks). We did not get to do this the last time we were at the park because the wait was an hour and a half. We ate lunch at the Crystal Palace where we got to eat with Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Piglet and Eeyore. It was a wonderful day!

EA Kids Christmas Party

One of the new benefits of Brian moving to EA is that he is finally working for a company that is actually family friendly instead of just claiming to be. Last Friday Savannah and I got to visit Brian's job for a Christmas party they put on for the kids of the employees. There was cookie decorating, a visit with Santa, a gift from Santa, goodies to eat and it was even "snowing" out back.

After the festivities, we were able to go up to Brian's office and meet some of his co-workers. We got a tour around the building and Savannah got to see her "crush" Mr. Doug. Brian and Doug worked together at Highwinds and Savannah took an instant liking to him. So she is thrilled to able to see him again now that Brian and Doug are working together again. Savannah also enjoyed the arcade that EA has for their employees. She tried her hand at Ms. Pac-Man and enjoyed "driving" race cars in the Nascar game. She had a great time and I enjoyed getting to meet some of Brian's new co-workers and seeing his new office.

Happy Thanksgiving

Well, another Thanksgiving has come and gone. Savannah asked today when the next Thanksgiving was going to be. She was disappointed to hear it was not going to be next week :) We enjoyed the day at my Brother's house with his family and my parents, Aunt and Uncle and Grandma. We had TONS of food (I think Brian calculated 42 pounds of meat, that is insane!) and a wonderful day. The day was actually a little chilly which was a nice change to most Thanksgivings we have had down here. Actually, most of November has been in the 60s as a high which I have really enjoyed. I did not take any pictures on Thanksgiving day so nothing to share :( But, I do have an interesting picture of what happens when I leave Brian alone with my laptop :) Actually, he was replacing the mouse which is a bit more detailed than doing so on a desktop computer. Thankfully everything went back together without any extra parts and even booted up the first time!

I did end up going out shopping today. My mom and I ended up heading out around 9 and got home around 2. I was able to finish up a couple of people and get a good start on Brian. Once I got home we went out and got a tree! Savannah was very excited. We like to buy our from a local nursery who gives you a coupon to get a free tree to plant. I am a little sad because we are discussing possibly getting a fake tree after Christmas this year. It just doesn't seem like Christmas without a real tree. I also do not particularly like the look of a fake tree but the prices are getting a little ridiculous. Also, I am pretty sure that they are really bothering Savannah and I with all of our allergies. Even Brian seems to have a hard time with it. So, we are discussing the idea of a fake tree. We'll see how it goes. After dinner we decorated the tree. We seem to have a new tradition of watching The Polar Express while decorating. It helps keep Savannah distracted when we are doing the not so fun parts like putting the lights on. As we go through the ornaments, she gets to hang up all of the non-breakable ones. So, the bottom half of the tree is full of the soft or metal ornaments we have and all the glass one are on the top :) It works out well, too, because the heavier ones end up at the top where the branches are stronger. Anyway, I hope everyone enjoyed Thanksgiving and Black Friday, if you participated.

Thanksgiving Program

Tonight was Savannah's Thanksgiving program at her preschool. She did such a good job! She got to dress up as a pilgrim. They looked very cute :) Each group got to sing two songs and then all of the 4 year old classes sang three songs together. It is amazing how much more they can do this year compared to last years Noah's Ark program. Apparently she was telling her teacher in school today that she didn't want to go up on the stage tonight. I was surprised because she has not mentioned anything to us and has been performing all the songs for us all week. Well, I am glad to say that she did go up on stage and did a wonderful job. The highlight for her was the her daddy played the piano for the program. Here are some pictures from the evening: