And today at my desk...

He has one eye slightly open just to make sure I'm not going to try to put him in a "container"!

This is How I Spend My Days

Ian is seven weeks old today (yes, he has a bad looking scratch on his face even after I trimmed his nails just last night)! He's on my lap and I'm sitting at my computer trying to frantically finish some more work. I have every baby "container" known to man but this big guy is most content on my lap.

Our Birth Announcement

Here he is!

I've been busy, busy, busy lately and haven't had time to post to the blog. So here's what's been going on lately:
Ian Edward Writer arrived on January 9th at 8:33 in the morning (Yes, Ian, Annabelle's name choice just stuck with us!). He's been a calm, sweet big guy from the start. We are truly in love with him and so happy that he decided to join our family. Annabelle is adjusting well to her new role as big sis. She's not much into helping with the baby yet but I'm hoping as he gets bigger (and more mobile!) she will enjoy him more. Sitti & Papa were here when he arrived. Aunt Lisa came to stay with us the following week. Grandma & Grandpa Clark met Ian on a short weekend visit. We can't wait to make a trip back to Kansas to Introduce Ian to the rest of the family!

Annabelle's Girl Scout Troop at the Edinburg Fiesta Parad

Annabelle is a Daisy!  I decided that Annabelle would enjoy being a girl scout so I signed her up with one of the local troops. So far we've attended some meetings, sold some cookies outside the HEB, earned some badges and walked in the Edinburg Fiesta parade. I am definitely a glutton for punishment, I think the Girl Scouts have activities planned almost every weekend!..oh and since she's a Daisy I was required to join also. Hoping Annabelle can make some new friends and do some awesome stuff with the Daisies!

We've been SICK :( Annabelle brought home a nasty cold from school. She stayed home one day last week, the first time she's ever missed a school day! Now I have the nasty cold and I'm trying to keep poor Ian from catching the bug.

The weather is BEAUTIFUL in South Texas This is the perfect time of year to live in the Valley. The weather has been awesome, sunny and in the 70's during the day and only dropping down a bit lower than that at night. I definitely don't miss scraping car windows, shoveling snow and slipping on ice this time of year!

I can't believe it's almost January 2013! These past couple months have just flown by. Here are a few highlights of what's been going on around here:
* We celebrated a quiet Thanksgiving at home in South Texas. We cooked a turkey and enjoyed the nice warm weather.
* Annabelle turned 6! I can't believe she is such a big girl now. We celebrated with a Chuck e. Cheese party and we also brought cupcakes for a school celebration.
* School is going well for Annabelle, she is working at 1st grade level in some of the subjects.
* We celebrated Christmas in South Texas this year, no traveling for me. Too pregnant.
* We got a real LIVE Christmas tree! First time ever, so pretty.
* We spent a lot of time decluttering our house. We hope to put it on the market soon & find a bigger place so baby boy can have a bedroom and I don't have to lose my home office.
* Annabelle insists her new brother's name will be "Ian"...her second choice is "Zeke"...crazy kid!
* I've spent a lot of time at the doctor's office...being older
& pregnant involves a lot of office visits, testing & monitoring!
* I'm married to the best mechanic/painter/handyman/electrician/jack of all trades EVER, don't know what we'd do if we had to pay folks to fix all the stuff that "breaks" around here!
* Baby boy continues to grow, scheduled c-section is Jan. 9. So excited to meet him!

Butterfly

Flower

Annabelle wanted me to post some photos of her most recent artwork. I think it's wonderful!

Things I Never Thought I'd Discuss with my 5 year old...

Kindergarten seems a lot more "involved" than I remember it being 35 years ago when I was 5. Annabelle is learning to read, do math equations, work on a Mac computer, write sentences and multiple other things that I don't think I even knew about until I was in second or third grade. But she's also learning a few other life lessons that I had no idea we would be dealing with at age 5.

We've been dealing with a bit of bullying from one girl in her class. At first I blew it off and told her to just stay away from the girl. Every day at school pick up Annabelle would hop in the car and start complaining about this same girl, how she cut in line, pushed her, told her mean things, told on her. I just kept up my usual advice of "stay away from this girl and she will leave you alone". But after over two weeks of constant complaining I decided it was time to take action, so I spoke to A's teacher. She assured me that she had no idea this was going on and she would take care of it. Needless to say, the situation has not gotten any better...actually, it has gotten a bit worse, the teacher decided to move Annabelle to the same table as the "bully" and now she has to sit next to her every day. I'm thinking about enrolling Annabelle in some martial arts classes to help build her self esteem.

Annabelle's teacher also pointed out that she and another little girl in the class are the only "white" kids. Of course Annabelle asked me about this immediately when I picked her up from school that day. She had no idea she was "white" or what race she is. Most Kindergarteners don't see color or difference. Now we've had many, many conversations about how "all people are just people no matter what color they are".

We've also been struggling with appearance. Annabelle insists that the other little girls wear a lot of jewelry to school. We've had many fights about how school is not a place where Kindergarteners need to wear jewelry, actually is there anywhere that a 5 year old needs to wear a lot of jewelry??? She has also been VERY concerned with the appearance of her hair. I was baffled with this one, for years she hasn't cared what her hair looked like, often times she would leave the house with five different color barrettes in her hair or a crazy headband or even unbrushed hair that was standing straight up! Suddenly she is concerned with her hair looking "perfect". As we were getting ready for school one day she was in tears about how "imperfect" her hair was, at this point I finally asked her to tell what was really going on with her hair and she finally told me that the "bully" at school had told her that her hair was messy....uggghhh, will it never end?

And so we just deal with the obstacles day by day...I can't imagine how much worse this is going to get when she's in middle school!

Some of the girls from Annabelle's Ballet Class

Sophie & Annabelle

Rapunzel and Flynn Rider

I'm a little late on posting Halloween photos. Things have been busy around here as they always are this time of year. Annabelle had a busy Halloween. She got to wear her costume to ballet class, school and out to trick or treat with her friend Sophie. Justin is always a great sport and this year he dressed up as Flynn Rider to take the girls out trick or treating. They came home with more candy than they should have and very tired feet.