Trip to MD

I took a short weekend trip up to Maryland to celebrate my good friend, Krista's engagement to an awesome guy, Doug. And also to be with my family for Easter and celebrate my brother's baptism, communion and confirmation into the Catholic church. I really miss my high school girls up in Maryland, especially now that I don't have a core group of girlfriends in Raleigh anymore, so it was fun to see everyone. It was too short a visit however, so I'm looking forward to more trips to MD for wedding stuff in the coming months, since 3 of my girlfriends are getting married this year.

And yup, you read that right- Brian at age 32 is getting baptized Catholic. My sister in law was raised Catholic, so when they started a family and wanted to begin raising Kelsey in a church Brian chose to learn about the Catholic faith. He then chose to convert (however we were never really raised in a church so he wasn't really convert from anything). I learned a bunch about the Catholic faith by quizzing my brother over dinner out of sheer curiosity. And then on Saturday night got the pleasure of sitting through a lengthy Catholic Easter Eve Mass ;-) Congrats Bri! It was fun though to be able to spend some time with my neice without the distraction of my own baby. Kelsey's really starting to form her own personality!

Easter Sunday we went out to a nice brunch and then Mom, Dad and I got back on the road.

Easter Egg Hunt

Arden has been fascinated with collecting things around the house and particularly the rocks in the driveway lately, so I figured this was probably the best year to go to an Easter Egg hunt. Raleigh Parks & Rec holds them all over the Raleigh area so we chose the closest to our house. I even succumbed to being the girlie mom that I thought I'd never be and bought her a pretty flowery spring dress for the occasion. Mom (Noani) got her a Easter "bucket"- we figured that would be better since that's what she used to collecting things in and all the baskets looked too shallow to hold anything. We got to Shelley Lake early and went down to visit with the ducks first. Then back up to the community center for the hunt. The areas were sectioned off by age, Arden falling into the 0-3 year old group, which seemed to be the largest group. Apparently this was not an original idea. The only thing that was missing was the horn at the start of the hunt and all the kids went toddling into the roped off area with the not so hidden eggs. Arden was so mesmerized by all the kids running by that it took her a few beats (and some not so subtle help from Mom & Dad) to remember that we were hunting for eggs. And within less then two minutes all the eggs were gone. She got a whopping 2 eggs and then another one that one of the volunteers gave her. Of course she's one so she didn't know any different, which was great. Too many kids, too little eggs, but still a happy outing for Arden. Now I see why families do hunts in their own backyards ;-)

Another Girl!

So had our scheduled 18 weeks ultrasound today. With prenatal care at the Women's Birth & Wellness Center this is the only ultrasound that I will get unless there is reason to need another. With Arden we only had the one ultrasound so this was our one and possibly only chance to find out the sex of baby #2. I'm way to much of a planner to do the whole "surprise" thing. My parents came up for the ultrasound, as they did for the first, and of course Arden was there too, which made for a very crowded and squirmy (Arden) room full of spectators. And of course baby didn't not want to participate in the show. After a bit of repositioning and a very diligent and patient ultrasound technician, we saw that it's going to be girl #2 for us! (begin deep breathing here for mom) Dave was really wanting a second girl because he's seen 3-5 year old boys first hand and thinks they are exhausting. However, he's never seen TEENAGE girls first hand, but he doesn't seem worried about that. I, however, being the angel that I, was during my teenage years (especially to my mother) know a little more what we might be up against in 11 years- and now times two. I keep telling myself, that my mom is NOW my best friend so in the long run everything will I'm sure by fine as it always seems to be. We already have all the girl stuff, even though we do want to make a point to not have this little one have all hand me downs and the seasons might be slightly off, but that makes it a lot easier financially in the beginning which we need. And how knows maybe they won't both hate me! At least at the same time.