My Mother's Day/Birthday/Push Present/Christmas Gift...

I have been wanting a digital SLR camera for a while now. I have a number of friends that have bought one recently, and the vast difference in quality over my decent point and shoot has been driving me crazy. I love to take my own pictures of the girls. I have actually never had professional studio pictures taken because they drive me crazy. Thus far, I have really gotten some great shots, but I know they can be so much more with a better camera.

So, Daniel was checking his email the other day and, from what I can only assume, had not bought me a Mother's Day gift, yet. He had an ad in there from Costco for Nikon cameras. This happens to be the exact camera we had decided we wanted to buy after a lot of research. It was between the Nikon D40 and the Canon EOS Digital Rebel Xti. They both had their pros and cons, and we decided on the Nikon after noticing what most professional photographers use.


Anyway, Costco was offering an excellent deal on the Nikon with an extra lens. All of my friends with the camera already kept swearing that finding a deal that included an extra lens was definitely the best way to go, so you don't have that on another wish list in the future when you realize you want more zoom.

Well, my camera arrived today, and I couldn't be more excited! I have already been playing with it trying to figure out the manual modes. So, you can expect to see a number of new pictures coming your way in the near future.

I am still laughing over this one

So, Tricia's comment in my last post made me have to post this here. I am still just blown away by this story. I simply can not imagine what her parents were thinking when, I can only assume, they helped fund this custom creation. I am just glad there were no kids at the park while she was there. She would have really done some damage.

By the way, this local story made national news this weekend.

Watch the video here:

Teen handcuffed for wearing skimpy prom dress
http://www.khou.com/video/index.html?nvid=243976

Happy Mother's Day

Update on the last post-- Wedding

I had so much fun last night at my friends' Crissy and Edgar's wedding. As I mentioned before, it was a luau theme. I must say, it was one of the best weddings I have ever attended. It was just so perfectly them. They kept the traditional wedding stuff to an absolute minimum. They even had Mac Stevens officiating the ceremony. It was just perfect. I had so much fun catching up with old friends that are all marrying off and starting families of their own. In other words, they get out as much as I do...never. Here are a few pictures from last night.

Adventures in maternity fashion

I am so excited for Saturday because a good friend of mine that I have known for several years is marrying another friend of mine. I could not be more excited for them because they are both just wonderful people that deserve one another.

Anyway, they are having a 1940's luau themed wedding. They have been planning for about a year. I have had a great vintage dress picked out for the occasion since hearing their plans. Well, I did not really factor in being pregnant for the occasion, so I was really freaking out on Sunday when it occurred to me to try the dress on to be sure I hadn't already outgrown it.

So, I pull it out of my closet, and I swear, light was shining down on this thing with heavenly voices singing all around. I wiggle myself into it praying I could zip it up. I get halfway up my back when it stops. I could still close the top, though, so I was hoping I could force it the rest of the way up. No such luck, and I was scared to death of busting the seam. Grrrr....non-forgiving vintage fabric.

Of course, this sent me into a panic of what to wear to the wedding. I pulled out all of my dresses that could come anywhere close to appropriate for the occasion. No luck at all. UGH! I was being forced into the realm of searching for a *gulp* maternity dress. I H-A-T-E maternity dresses. There is just something about them that make me feel like a beached whale no matter how small I still am. I have only found one maternity dress in the past that looked good, but it is more of an evening attire kind of dress. Not appropriate for and afternoon luau themed wedding.

The whole idea of having to shop for something the week of the wedding really upset me, but it was something that had to be done. So, I decided to just check things out online before actually hitting any stores. The first place I looked was Old Navy. I clicked on the maternity section, and staring me in the face was THE PERFECT dress and priced just right. I could not believe how lucky I was.

So, I look to order it and realized that their $5 shipping takes 4-7 business days. I could do 4 maybe 5 days at the most. I couldn't chance it, so I looked at their 2-day shipping costs--$15!!! No, no, no. There was no way I was going to spend that much on shipping. So, I decided to just try my local store that carries the maternity line to see if they had it and in my size.

I run over there on Monday in the middle of a good Houston rain to find it. I walked in and made a bee line to the maternity section, spot the dress, grab the first one on the rack the read 'S', and raced to the register before it could disappear from my hands.

Mission completed!!!

I am so excited for the wedding now. I even have the perfect shoes for the dress already. It is just all working out so well. Here is a picture of the dress.

Leila Turns 2yo

Leila turned two years old on April 10. I still can't believe it has been two years since I was hugely pregnant with her. I can say that she has been nothing but a joy to have. She is the one that keeps me on my toes.

She brings so much laughter, mischievousness, and fun to our family. She knows just how to push all of our buttons and does not hesitate to do so. It is just so hard not to laugh at her even when she is making us crazy. It is part of her charm and hard for most everyone else to pull off.

We celebrated her birthday with a small party with us, my parents and a friend of mine, her husband, and her son. We had everyone over to the house for pizza, cake, and presents. Leila was so thrilled to open her gifts. I had set them out the night before knowing they would taunt her all morning until it was time to open them during the party. She just kept eyeballing them the whole time. Once we gave her the go ahead, though, she went right at them. She knew exactly what do and that cool new toys for hiding beneath the paper. She got some great toys including an inch worm, her very own backpack, and a water table.

Then, it was cake time. She did a great job singing "Happy Birthday" to herself along with the rest of us and even managed to help blow out her candles. Now, Leila really has not had a lot of sweets in her short life because she has, well, a mean mommy. My mom likes to hassle me over the fact that "it won't kill her". Anyway, Leila was more than thrilled to bite into her puppy dog cake. She finished almost the entire piece. She left it for a bit only to return back to it with as much joy as the first bite she took out of it. I think that was the highlight of her day. I am still hearing about the cake from her.

Overall, it was a great day with her. It was not as hard as her first birthday, though, when I thought that would the very last first birthday we would be celebrating with any of our kids. It helped knowing there would be another baby coming along that we would be celebrating a 2nd birthday with in less time than imaginable.

Here are few more pics from her party.

Second OB appointment

We have a heartbeat! I am so thrilled things are going smoothly with this little baby. I had my second appointment with the OB today to check for the heartbeat. We found it right away on the ultrasound. The girls were both so thrilled to see the baby again, and they were even more thrilled that it is actually beginning to look like a baby.

My dr is so wonderful. She printed out a copy of the picture for both Ava and Leila to bring home. I can not tell you how excited they are to have their own picture of the baby. Leila actually demanded to nap with it after I had taken it away from her when I was putting her down. It was too sweet.

The dr also asked us if we wanted to do the blood test for down's syndrome and spina bifida. We declined it. We know that we would never terminate the pregnancy despite the test results, so there was really no reason to take it. Plus, the chances of it happening are so low considering my age. Why put ourselves through any of that?

Anyway, everything is looking fantastic. I took a moment to reflect today given that it is the last day that Leila will be a year old. This time two years ago, I was so pregnant and bloated waiting to have our c-section and meet our precious little girl. Now, I am at the beginning of another journey in parenthood. It is amazing to see how quickly they grow.