Fourth of July!

As I uploaded pictures from my camera, I had to laugh.  BEFORE the 4th of July, I had TONS of pictures.  I set up photo sessions of the three girls in the backyard, we did fun crafts, and lots of activities.  Then, I found out I was pregnant!  Apparently, life with a 4 year old, 2 year old, 8 month old and morning sickness don't mix well. :)  We quickly switched to survival mode!  I may not have nearly as many pictures, but I still want to catch up on the blog!  It's our family's only scrapbook, so I'd better get moving! 

Harper's first 4th of July!!

Then I attempted a group shot and ended up with a whole lot of craziness!

And more!

But this big 4 year old was so excited to pose!

So was 2 year old Tatem!

Love her!

Landrie had a ball posing with her flag!  She was SO excited to go see fireworks!

 

Look how little they look just one year earlier!  I was so happy these dresses still fit!

One of our very FAVORITE things about living in Houston for a year was that we lived just 45 minutes from my parents!  As a great added bonus, my oldest brother and his family moved to the north side of Houston a few months after we did!!  Houston is HUGE, so they were still almost 1.5 hours away, but we got to see them a lot! We headed over to their house for some pre fireworks festivities.  I was pregnant, but had no idea yet.  :)  Here's my brother Eric and Mark enjoying some yummy snacks.

Sorry about your closed eyes, Dad and Mom, but I didn't get many pictures!

Aunt Melissa, Baby Harper and her cousin Bennett!

 

If you were anywhere near Houston last 4th of July, you know it monsooned all day!  We skipped out on fireworks and mud and just enjoyed being all together. :)  

 

When the sun came out, we met back up at the outlet mall out on 290 for a family shopping day! Here are a few of us! 

Brooke, Tatem, my parents

Landrie and Haper

 

Hopefully this summertime post warmed you up in the middle of this freezing January! 

Baby #4 is a...__________!!!!

I hope y'all had a merry Christmas!  A few days after we moved into our new house, we had the first checkup back with my old OB/GYN. We weren't for sure if we would get to have a sono, but a cancellation happened while we were there, and we got to have our big anatomy scan!  We were SO thrilled to find out we are having a HEALTHY baby!  We had the sonographer seal up a paper with our baby's gender written on it to open later.  We had no idea when!  Mark was DYING to find out, and we already had a family dinner planned for that evening, so we decided to just do it the same night!  We stopped by Kroger on the way, and the sweet florist opened the envelope and put the correctly colored balloons in a moving box, since we had hundreds of them at our house! 

 

Here are the girls' predictions while we waited in the parking lot for my mom to have the balloons filled. :) In case you can't get the video to load:

Landrie: GIRL!

Tatem: gull!!

Harper: cutie pie smile:)

Mark and I were SURE it was a girl too!  So sure, in fact, that I posted this on Instagram and Facebook that afternoon:

"I've already been putting all the extra pink things in the nursery as I unpack.  If this is a boy, I think I'll faint!!" 

 

We gathered around the moving box, ready for those pink balloons to pop out...

 

 

 

WHAT??!!?!

 

Here's a close up of my VERY HAPPY husband!!!

 

Check out the girls' faces!!  SOOOO surprised!!

 

Like I said, we totally didn't plan a gender reveal for this night, so this was just what the girls had on.  I love that on this very, very RARE occasion, no one was wearing PINK!  I think these are literally the most boyish outfits they own!  haha! 

 

Sweet little BOY, we are SO in love with you already!!  We quickly got all of the pink stuff out of your room and friends started dropping by with boy hand me downs the very next day!  Your big sisters decided they need to start watching Bob the Builder and Handy Manny to get ready for when you come!!  You daddy and I cracked up as we corrected each other for WEEKS when we would accidentally refer to you as "she!"  We have only known being parents to three VERY girlie girls, so we are so excited to welcome you into our family!  We cannot wait to meet you and LOVE YOU to pieces already!