Happy Birthday to my hubby...

Yesterday was Frankie’s birthday and he decided to take us all to the circus! We had a great time! Here are some pictures that I wanted to share with you.

Austin got to go to Clown College before the start of the show. Here he is learning how to balance on a ball. (The mat underneath had a circle cut out of it so the ball was not able to move much. It did move slightly so that they "felt" like they were balancing.)













Here is Austin walking on the tight rope... this had him a little nervous. You can see the lady holding his leg. She had to move his legs for him. lol! He was leaning completely on her and not putting any of his weight on his own legs!

Here is a picture of Austin being cool with a skateboard clown.



















Here is a partial family photo. I am kicking myself because I did not get mom to take a picture of me, Frank and Austin on Papa's birthday! I am so bad about remembering to get family photos. All of our pictures are of Austin!

And speaking of pictures of Austin... Here is another one! He was eating his cotton candy and making a complete mess! We stuck some of the candy to his face to give him a wizard's beard to go with his hat! It is amazing how much fun this cotton candy was... good thing... cuz it was not cheap!









And how could a circus blog be complete without pictures of the elephants! We has such a great time! Austin even gets to go back to the circus again on Saturday with his friends from church! I know he is excited!

30 Weeks!!!

I love my family! I think I have the best family around! My aunts Virginia and Nancy are so thoughtful and are throwing me a baby shower for Payton. I got the invitation in the mail yesterday and it could not be more perfect! As you know Austin calls Payton “Sprinkles” and has informed us that that is her name and he will not be calling her Payton. (Lately, I have noticed that he has tried out the name a little more here and there!) Anyway, my clever aunts used that nickname in the announcements and I wanted to share it with you. It says:


Nichole had a shower for Austin, it’s true…
But her Aunts Virginia and Nancy thought for Payton a “Sprinkle” was due!

(So they are giving me a Luncheon Sprinkle instead of a shower in honor of her name! I LOVE IT!)

We hit 30 weeks today! Austin was born 7 weeks from this point! This week has been a great week! It has been much much better than the week before! I have really tried to take it as easy as possible. I try to walk as little as possible at work (which is not that easy for a teacher) but any of the little trips that I can avoid I am trying to get rid of. I am also trying to walk slower instead of rushing around at my normal pre-pregnancy pace. My coworkers have been very helpful with taking or picking up my class and bring them to the room for me when they can and the kids are helping me in the classroom when I need to pass out and collect papers or if I drop something!

Frank has been helpful too. When I came home from work this week I got into bed each day to relax and watch some tv or work on my computer. Since the contractions tend to get worse as the day progresses this has been very helpful! He has been great with only giving me a little grief about my laziness and cooking us dinner each night. I am really trying to take it as easily as possible so that I can remain at work as long as possible. It was three weeks from this point with Austin that I ended up on bedrest. That would give me a minimum of 4 additional weeks of no work leading up to her arrival and I would much rather work right up until the day she shows her beautiful face! (For financial and professional reasons as well as just to keep my sanity!)

All of this seems to be working since my appointment yesterday went well and they are letting me come back in two weeks instead of one week for another checkup! They are also checking to see if I have a little infection that may require antibiotics (they think this is from Payton and her love of dancing on my bladder!) I should hear those results Monday or Tuesday. At that point I may actually need antibiotics for this cold I have had all week and we can just go ahead and kill two birds with one stone!

Frank’s buddy Danny came into town last night to help Frank work on Payton’s room. They will finish painting the one corner that is still brown and move some of the pieces of furniture that need to go back to mom’s house. I am hoping that they will move the crib over today too. Then I can start putting her furniture where I want it and hanging the wall art so that it looks more like a nursery that is ready for our sweet baby’s arrival! I cannot wait to show you pictures as the room gets closer and closer to completion!

Wordless Wednesday- My brother's new puppy!

It is official~

My little man is officially signed up to start KINDERGARTEN next year! WOW!

New Baby Pictures

For Valentine’s Day Frank got me a 3D/4D session that we attended today. It was so much fun! I also got verification that she is still a girl! That makes me feel a lot better about the pink room we have going! Here are some of the pictures that we got today. They gave us so many it was hard to pick just a few to share with you!

She is only 29 weeks at this point but already seems to have Austin’s chubby baby checks and Frank’s full lips. (Looks like I may not have any children that look like me… we will have to see once she is here!)

I love this one the most. I think she looks just like Austin!

Wordless Wednesday!! (My first one ever!)

Sprinkles at 7 months

I cannot believe another month of this pregnancy has flown by so quickly! We are now 7 months along! Just a few more weeks and little Payton will be here! Am I not ready… NO… I am ready for her to be here but I am not ready to turn in my National Boards paper and I am not ready to hand my class over to a substitute! I have to remind myself that I am making great progress and that I will get there! I just wish I knew for sure that she would be here May 1st and not a day sooner! That would help me relax. But… I know that God’s timing is perfect and when she comes… I will make it work!

My wonderful husband told me today that his gift to me for Valentine’s Day is to get the 3D/4D ultrasound done and so that is what we are going to do THIS SATURDAY!! I can not wait! I need to drink lots of water between now and then! They say that helps you get a clearer picture! I have wanted to do this ultrasound so badly for 2 reasons! The first being that we did it twice for Austin and I didn’t want Payton to have nothing but the 2D ultrasound pictures from the Dr. when Austin had dvds of him and very detailed 3D pictures. The second is that I need one more ultrasound and one more person to tell me that she is a girl before we get into baby showers and her birthday. Since we know she is a girl her room is a girl room and the stuff on our registry is all for a girl! I would need a little heads up to correct the situation if there was a little surprise waiting for us! (Although, I am pretty sure it is a girl because as you can see from all my monthly belly shots... my hair has been REALLY ROUGH during this pregnancy. They say that is a true sign of a girl pregnancy and I believe them!)

I have not posted any nursery pictures yet because… well… we don’t have a nursery to take pictures of! I promise someday we will have one and someday I will post pictures of it. But… if you could see what it looks like in my head you would love it! I will also post the new pictures of our little girl over the weekend so come back for that!

And more snow days!!

We are about out of snow and ice here. We have officially had no school for 3 days!!! I am going nuts. I have lessons that I need to teach to some of my kids in order to move ahead on my National Boards work and it is work that is going to take about 2-3 weeks. Needless to say, I want to get it done so that I can start the writing process and finish this paper! However, I anticipated being out of school so I brought home my maternity plans and I did get a great deal of work done on those and that makes me feel a little better! I also got a little bit of cleaning done, although it was not as much as I would have liked or as much as I need to get done. But at this stage of the game I feel like I am just putting out fires and trying to make sure nothing spontaneously combusts in the mean time! One of these days I hope to feel completely in control again… although I anticipate that feeling taking a while to get here! (Maybe well after I have gotten used to being a mother of two!!)

I wanted to share a sledding picture. Frank and Austin had a great time again in the snow on Sunday. I was worried about falling so I just stood in one spot and took pictures. Sunday was a very interesting day! It was the first day that I wore real clothes for a few hours. I think I have only worn real clothes for about 10 hours in the past 100 hours since the snow started! I am still waiting to hear if I need to go into work today, which would require an entire day of real clothing!

The drive on Sunday was enough to kill me. I was a mess. I have a big black SUV that looks impressive but it might as well be a sled. It cannot handle any type of slippery substance on the streets! I also do not drive in “weather” and the two of us together do not make for a good pair on days like this. Luckily, Frank is from Germany and has lots of experience so he drove us to my grandparents’ house. We couldn’t even make it down mom’s street it was so icy! For that matter we barely made it to my grandparents’. We had to leave in a hurry after dinner to avoid the refreeze that happened quickly once the sun went down! Nothing like eating and running!

Austin and I stayed home yesterday for the most part. I thought it was about time I got behind the wheel and gave things a try! (There were a few slick spots but all in all it was not bad!) We went out to lunch together at a local Mexican restaurant… that is what I have found myself wanting to eat with this baby… salsa and guacamole! With Austin it was orange juice! And then we stopped by the dollar store next to the restaurant. It was a good day. Austin has really gotten used to being home since he has gotten to stay here now 4 and possibly going on 5 days!