Fathers Day 2011!

Happy Father's Day to all of you dads!!  Landrie made this card for her daddy here.

(This picture was from one of the times that Landrie has gotten into the markers!)

I think it's my favorite card ever!  She made photo cards for her favorite grandpas too.  :)

I also taught her to say "Happy Father's Day!" She could repeat each word after me in her teeny-tiny sweet voice.  My heart just melted!  And Mark got wrapped just a little bit tighter around her finger...

I love you, Dadda!!

Landrie's current obsession is checking the mail with Mark when he gets home from work!  

 She's mighty proud to bring in a piece of mail and the paper!

She worked so hard to make Mark and cheese and cracker plate before lunch.  She put all the crackers and cheese on it all by herself. :)  These two would be happy to eat cheese for every meal!

Since we got home from church right about Landrie's nap time, we went out to dinner instead.  

Mark had their award winning Mashed Tater Parfait (served in a mason jar, of course!)  We did an early dinner, and I loved that the place was full of dads with babies and toddlers!  

Landrie is SUCH a daddy's girl and just lights up when she sees him!  Her love for him is written all over her face!  Lately, she wants to "guggle" (snuggle) in the glider before nap and bedtime, and her daddy is always up for some sweet Landrie time.  :)  Happy Father's Day to the most AMAZING DAD!!!  Oh, and congrats on that award and magazine cover too, Baby!  :)

I can't do a Father's Day post without mentioning our amazing dads too!  Mark and I are SO blessed to have grown up with phenomenal, loving dads.  Watching them now with Landrie and their other grandkids is just icing on the cake.  We love you both so much!!

30 Weeks!!

30 weeks

Belly update: Oh, folks, it's definitely growing!  I teared up a bit in Academy this weekend.  The checker was so excited (she was 16 weeks herself) and asked me about my due date!  It was my first official "stranger asking about the belly" moment.  Obviously people can tell that I am, but it must be really big if a stranger is willing to go out on a limb and ask about it!

What's Baby Long up to?: Our little GIRL is over 15 inches long and about 3 pounds.  She's ready to start packing on the pounds herself.  I think she's supposed to gain about a half pound a week for the rest of my pregnancy!  My doctor said I may get to have one more sono before she's born, so we'll get to peek at her precious face and see how she's growing!

Cravings:  I guess the baby is encroaching on my stomach room.  It's getting tough to eat a big meal!  My only craving the past 2 weeks has been frozen drinks...sno cones and slurpees.  Do you have any idea how hot it is here?? :)

Best part of these 2 weeks: We went to our childbirth class ALL day on Saturday!  It was at the same hospital where we will deliver, so we got to go on a tour of the brand new hospital too.   We learned a lot, but I don't know that you can ever be really prepared for childbirth!

I'm looking forward to: I'm ready to get the nursery set up.  I think it will make it feel even more real!  It will be a bittersweet moment though, because it means our first baby will graduate out of the crib and into a big girl bed!

30 weeks down, 10 to go!

Whew!  It was another big belly growth week!  I love watching our little girl grow! 

 I'm going to have to adjust my cropping or the belly will be cropped out soon. :)

And here's the view from this mamma's eyes. :)

Great Wolf Lodge!

For our Memorial Day weekend family vacation, we started out with our Safari visit and finished off the trip with a stay at Great Wolf Lodge!  It's a family resort with a HUGE indoor water park.  This place did NOT disappoint!  We LOVED it!

LOOK!!!  

Since this Great Wolf is in Texas, they have an outdoor area too.  This huge pool was all 2 feet or less, perfect for our tiny girl. :)  I loved that you were able to get in to the water parks at 1:00 on check in day and could stay until 9 on the day you checked out.  We only stayed one night, but we got 2 days to play, which was plenty for us!

Landrie LOVES her daddy!

We loved the water slides!  My niece Anna thought it was hilarious that we were able to "sneak a baby" on the ride, even though she wasn't tall enough. :)

Long fam

We kept going back and forth from the outside to the inside parts.  They had a huge toddler area inside.  Landrie's favorite part was riding the jet skis and squirting us!

Fearless little miss rode the big kids' slide. 

When we got to the top, they asked each kid which color slide they wanted to ride...except for my little baby.  She was the littlest one!

This is the huge little kids' area where we spent a lot of time with Landrie.

 My brother and sister-in-law, their 3 girls, my parents and us!

The girls took AMAZING care of Landrie!  Abbie carried her everywhere, and made sure she had a front row seat for the story time around the clock tower.  :)

Did you notice how Landrie doesn't have swim diaper poking out of her cute bikini?  Last summer we tried reusable swim diapers and this summer we are using them again!  We got this cute polka dot one, but I saw one at Walmart this week too.  

Well, I think I stretched out the blogging on our fun vacations as long as possible. :)  That was our last trip of the summer, and we took it on opening weekend for summer!  Our next 10 weeks will be full of relaxing, finding fun stuff close to home, and prepping for baby #2!!  I wish all of you lots of great summer adventures!

African Safari in Texas!

Over Memorial Day weekend, we took advantage of the extra time off and had a family vacation with some of my side of the family.  SO fun!  On Saturday, we planned a day in Glen Rose, Texas, which is a cute little town just south of Fort Worth.  I heard fabulous things about the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center!  We were not disappointed by this AMAZING drive through safari.  I seriously felt like I was in Africa!  I don't know if you're like us, but we are always on the look out for things to do that lots of generations can enjoy.  This trip captivated EVERYONE!  

We started off with a picnic and checked out some of the animals that were in a fenced in area.

Landrie and her cousin Abbie

This picture cracks me up!  We all wanted to ride together, and we found out you can ride in the back of a truck.  I was thinking we should put some blankets or something back there to make it a bit more comfy.  Nope.  My brother Kevin put 4 lounge chairs in the back of the truck!!

Christy, my dad

Mark, Anna, Kevin, Abbie with Landrie, Adelynn and my mom

We rode about 10 feet into the park before I moved Landrie inside the truck with me. :)  This was her constant "oh!" face of amazement at all the animals!

Adelynn proudly matching the animals with our guide.

Abbie and Anna in the back!

Can you see the pure JOY on her face??  I LOVE it!

After about 1.5-2 hours of winding through the property and feeding lots of animals, we reached the halfway point.  They had a little cafe where we stopped for some much needed drinks!  It was HOT.  There was also a gift shop and petting zoo!

Just like at the zoo, I knew we needed a picture to document how big our baby girl is getting!  It looks like we've got an emu, a zebra and an almost cheetah.  Sometimes it feels like that! :)

Oh yes we are!!!!!  :)

Seriously!  How cool is that?  The animals have become quite well trained, and put their faces right in your window if you have feed for them!

I think the zebras were my favorite.  We got to PET (and feed) a TON of them!!  

So beautiful!

This gives you an idea of how many animals there are there!  The zoo has a handful of each animal, but not here!

This is just a short drive from our flat, naturally-treeless neighborhood??  I had no idea that the north part of the  gorgeous Texas Hill Country is just south of Fort Worth!

We headed to an early dinner at The Loco Coyote Grill.  It was only about 4:50, and the line was out the door!  It turns out that people were lined up waiting for it to open. :)  That's a great sign.  Our camera battery died when we got there, so my mom has all the fun pictures.

I found this picture here of the HUGE delicious portions.  It was the kind of place where you eat outside, have live music, and just enjoy living in Texas.  Do you see those onion rings??  

Ahhhhh...a great end to a great day!

This post already has way too many pictures, so I'll post about the rest of the trip in part 2.  We did something totally different (but just as fun!) for the other 2 days...

28 weeks and still growing!

28 weeks= 7 months!

Belly update: It's starting to get more difficult for Landrie to sit in the middle of my lap!  The other day she saw my belly sticking out of the bottom of my tank top, said "BABY!" and put her hand on my belly to feel her kick. :)  We had a big family weekend over Memorial Day weekend, and I had my first contractions when we got home.  Yikes!  They were just Braxton Hicks and didn't hurt, but my stomach got really tight.  I was glad to hear my doctor say that's perfectly normal!

What's Baby Long up to?: Our little GIRL is 14.5 inches long and about 2.5 pounds.  Now we get to hear her precious heartbeat every other week!  I start going to the doctor every two weeks until 36 weeks, then I'll go every week.  

Cravings:  What a flip flop!  For the past week, my appetite has gone way down.  Some days I'm back to making myself eat.  

Best part of these 2 weeks: I FINALLY picked fabric for the nursery!  It's sooo cute.  I've been adding on to this "nursery ideas" post, and it's the last one on there.  Do you love it??   We started painting last weekend, and her room is starting to look like a baby's room!

I'm looking forward to: Now that I'm in my last trimester, I feel like we're on the home stretch!  We can't wait to meet this little wiggle worm!  Our friends Bill and Kelli "gave birth" this week to their beautiful 2 year old, Lilli Hope.   They are still in China, and are blogging every day about their adventures there.  :)  No matter how you become a mom, there are labor pains for sure!

7 months!!

I'm going to have to switch to a maternity tank top for the next row for sure!  :)

And just because she looked SO cute before bible study yesterday, here's BIG SISTER Landrie Grace!

Beach Baby!

We wanted to squeeze in one last trip to see Mark's parents in Florida while Landrie could still fly for free, and before my last trimester started.  I think it's going to be awhile before we fly as a family again!

As always, Like we always expect, we had a fantastic time!!  Remember our last trip to Florida??  Yup, same trip, same beach, but I ended up in the hospital with emergency major surgery.  YUCK!  We were praying for a much better trip this time, and that's what we had!  :)

Mark's dad got a pool for the backyard and got it all ready for Landrie.  She wanted nothing to do with that wild and scary kiddie pool!  We were all a bit worried, because we had a big beach trip scheduled for the following day.  This was her face when she first glimpsed the ocean.  :)

Absolute GLEE!!!  

She embraced the sand, waves and saltwater like an old pro.  

3 generations of Longs!

Jumping the waves!  She had absolutely NO fear!  Even when a wave knocked her down, she'd get right back up for the next one.  

My two babies!  

I stretched into my last year's non-maternity tankini.  I wore it again the next weekend, but this weekend, I don't think I can pull it off!  :)

We love Mark's sweet parents!

Building a sand castle with her Pon Pon.  Ever since we got home, she walks around the house with any "phone" she can find saying, "Hi, Pon Pon!"  Then she walks all around the house, nodding her head and babbling.  Too cute!

We rinsed off at the beach showers, and threw on some clothes for lunch.

We couldn't wait to try the famous burgers at The Breakers, which is right on the beach.  The burgers were SO good!  Mmmmm...I could use one right now!

We gave Landrie an onion to keep her occupied.  She ate it!  That girl will eat just about anything!

We spent a lot of time in the evenings on the lanai.  Landrie got in lots of quality bubble time!

She can't get enough of their wind chimes.

So precious!

Landrie ran circles around us, and we got to relax. :)  

Landrie's all decked out in her new dress from Grandma and ready to RUN!  I remember being stressed out about our first flight with Landrie, when she was maybe 6 months old.  You all said that was the easy age, and you were right!  Flying with a 20 month old is a whole different story!  We held her hand and let her run through the airport during every stop.  On the plane, we were so thankful that we bought one of these for the trip.  It was the best $59.54 we've ever spent.  If you're flying with a little one soon, you need one. :)

We loved our trip!  I am so thankful to have such sweet in laws.  I don't have any pictures, but they also watched Landrie for us while we went to my cousin's wedding.  I know Landrie had a great time with them too!