V

Since we have moved down from ND, we have been so incredibly busy! For Mother's Day weekend, we headed to Arkansas to see my family and pick up my dad's trailer. We had a really nice visit with  Pops and Nonna and Aunt Boo and her family. It was a 5-6 hour drive (we had a couple of detours on the way down), but we decided it felt like an hour  drive! After making 2 day car trips to come home to see everybody, 6 hours felt like nothing for us. Sunday afternoon we packed it up and pulled the trailer to Shreveport. It's so neat, to me, when you walk into a home and it just smells exactly like you remember. My parent's house always smells the same and Mam-Maw's house is like that too. It's nice to walk in and have that "Ahhhhhh" feeling. We dropped off the dogs and the trailer and then headed out to Aunt Laurie's house for Mother's Day dinner. Holy smokes! We had steak at both family's houses so there was no chance of being hungry on this Mother's Day! We had a nice visit with everyone and finished off the day watching the Survivor finale.

Lila Faye loves doing airplane with Dada!

Monday = The start of chaos! Andy left for Dallas to take his RPL test, and I dropped LF off with Mam-Maw and headed to our storage unit to assess what we needed to bring back to OKC. I made three trips back and forth between Mam-Maw's and our storage unit (which is south of town and not close to her house) to keep some things until we found out the sex of Bean. That was mainly all of our baby stuff and boy, do we have a lot of baby girl clothes!! I did not realize how much we had! I think there were three bins of clothes and 2-3 of those big Ziploc bags. Plus, I have all of LF's clothes from 18 months on in OKC. Here is one reason I am glad we have moved as much as we have: I have everything labeled and organized by size. This is something I have learned over the years. Organization is key in our family and when moving as much as we have. So, it will be nice and easy to go through everything when deciding what to keep. Most of our big baby stuff is pretty neutral so that can go either way. We had also accumulated 3 toddler beds through all of our moving and luckily, my sweet friend Diana (who just had her second baby boy, Sawyer) was willing to take one off our hands. That was my last trip to the storage unit for the day! I dropped off the bed and got to hold that sweet baby. I can't believe that I am over half way through this pregnancy, and we'll be holding our new baby before we know it!! It was so good to visit with Diana, and Tristen, her two year old that I got to keep at Montessori when he was a baby, even woke up from his nap in time for me to give him some smooches. This pregnant mommy was wiped out after that and Mam-Maw let me get a good nap in that afternoon. She had a roast on for dinner that night, and I think all of us gals were asleep before 9.

Andy got to spend the night in Dallas with our friends Paul, Emily, and their little boy Luke. He was back in Shreveport (before 10 I think) Tuesday morning. We had so much to do that day packing the trailer and had to cancel dinner plans with some friends that evening, which was a bummer. We still did not get to bring everything from Shreveport but the amount has dwindled to less than half. One day we'll have all of our things in the same place, ha! I think we were all showered and asleep by 9 that night. I did not sleep very well though because of the anticipation of going to the doctor Wednesday morning. I was so excited about finding out the sex! Wednesday we were up and at 'em and headed for  the ultrasound. It REALLY felt good to walk in to the Women's Clinic; the ultrasound tech was the same one that did Lila Faye too, so that was nice to see a familiar face.

After we got to see the sweet little hands and feet and the sweet little face, we finally got to see this!!!!!

There is no DOUBT that we are having CLAUDE ANDREW MARLETTE V!!!! We are going to call him Cam. The history of names, I believe, in order are: Claude, C.A., Mac, Andy, and now we'll have Cam. He made sure that he was positioned the right way for us to know he is a male!

I was so happy and excited that I teared up! We knew we really wanted a boy, but you know, I just figured it was going to be another girl! I think Andy even teared up a little bit! Lila Faye was with us too, and she was so excited to see him. The ultrasound tech gave her a picture of Baby Cam  - it is her picture and trust me, she knows which one is hers. She has been carrying it around, sleeping with it, and she keeps telling me she is ready to hold Baby Cam. I let her rub my belly and she loves talking to him. But I have to tell her that he has to cook for a few more months! I know she is going to be such a good big sister. I love the way she says "Baby Cam" too  - it is just so sweet!

So glad my husband was with me for this Mother's Day!

All our plates and bellies were full after this!

Pops and Nonna, Cole, Lila Faye and Ben

Just us girls being silly as always...we stopped shortly after this when I felt like she was really going to stick those little fingers up my nose!

We enjoyed our lunch on the deck.

What an exciting few days we had! AND as soon as we were leaving Shreveport, Andy received an email that he passed his RPL test.  I am so proud of him and all his accomplishments. He really is the most ambitious person that I know, and I hope our children inherit that trait from him. I still feel like such a lucky gal that he picked me to be his wife. What a week! We were back in OKC by 7:30 that evening, the trailer was unpacked completely (BIG thanks to Sean for helping with that), and we were all asleep by 10! Andy was off the next morning for work, and I just kind of stared at everything in the house for an hour or so. I felt very overwhelmed at first, but then my "just take it one box at a time" mentality kicked in and I got my rear in gear. I had another set of little hands to help me sort through everything. We have so many pictures and memories that I am going to have to get some shelves for displaying all of them. It's all coming along though and is unpacked enough for all the family this weekend! We are so excited to have our first guests for the Memorial Holiday.  The grill is ready and the baby pool is filled up!

The Sound of Sirens

Ahhhhhh, back in the South. You don't realize how much you miss it until you are really gone! The past few weeks were pretty stressful trying to figure out what we wanted to do, but we kept the faith that everything was going to work our for the best. I could not be happier to be in Oklahoma City. We are only 6 HOURS or so from our family!! We frantically found a place to rent after Andy accepted a job here and really, I am shocked that we lucked out with such a nice place. It is a little bit bigger than our ND townhouse, one story - thank goodness since I busted my rear coming down the stairs a couple weeks ago - huge yard, two car parking, and I think we are in a pretty good spot in the city. We are very close to Sam's, SuperTarget (praise Jesus!), Sonic (praise Jesus again!),Lowe's, Hobby Lobby, Michael's, 2 malls, and tons of new restaurants to try! LF has played outside every day and the fur babies have been worn out at night from having a huge yard to run in! We took our morning walk around the neighborhood, and there is just nothing like the sound of sirens before 8 a.m.! A real city - yay!!

I am going to miss a few things about the North though:

Eala's 2nd Birthday! I am so glad we got to share this day with them!

1. Our friends -  Don, Nicky, Kaiden, and Eala (Lila Faye is really going to miss her best bud from school, their sweet girl Eala), Rosie (who was so helpful keeping Brutus and Hazel when we went for our Southern visits AND she is still checking the mail for us), our sweet neighbor and letting us visit her kitty cats, the lovely UPS ladies, and LF's sweet teachers at her daycare.

 2. The LACK of BUGS - I completely forgot about biting flies, roly poly's, stink bugs and we have killed too many spiders for my liking - eeek!  Lila Faye is really good at making sure that Dada is aware of and takes care of any bug or fly that has crossed the threshold. The bug man has already sprayed and it is better but wow! I think I saw two spiders the whole time we were up there!

3. The McDonald's - I know this may seem strange to some of you, but I swear, it is the best Mickey D's I have ever been to! The fast food tasted better up there for some reason!

4. Mountain Time - I really kind of liked being on Mountain time...the few shows that we consistently watch were over by 9, so it was nice to always be ready for bed before 10. I have to get back in that habit too because my little princess has been waking up before or by 7 every morning so I really need to be in bed before 10, since I get up 2-3 times a night!

That is the Uhaul Andy drove down...it actually
 snowed while we were finishing loading it that Saturday!

I am grateful that we had the experience up north, and it was truly a life experience that we'll never forget! We got to see a lot of things that most people will never see in their life although the one thing that we did not have enough time for was getting our passports done to cross the border. I know we can say that we will definitely go back for a visit and have to squeeze that in then!





The dogs are buried somewhere in the back! Our last trip across the ND!

We checked out the OKC zoo this past weekend! It was so fun!

Lila Faye catching a ride on Dada.

Lila Faye and I are trying to convince Andy that we need a baby elephant :)

They had a little petting zoo which was really fun for Lila Faye!

Tiger cubs less than a year old and they were very playful.

We ate dinner with friends at a Hibachi grill (it was fantastic!) Sunday night and on the way home, Andy asked me if I was happy here. My response was that I am ecstatic to be here and love Oklahoma City so far. I know we have only been here a week, but it just feels like home. Who knows where we'll go next but we signed a year lease at this place, and I told Andy I have no plans to move before then ha!