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!