It's July! And we are having a baby!

     So, as the title suggests...I am pregnant!  We are having another baby!  Pretty much everybody knows this news already, but one day I am going to make a book out of all these blog posts, and so I figured I should probably mention this big piece of news.  The baby is due on Christmas Day!  Super exciting for me, but probably not as exciting for the baby.  I always thought it would be pretty stinky to have your birthday on Christmas.  Oh well, we will figure out some way to make it a lot of fun!
     So far this pregnancy has been pretty tough, but not nearly as hard as my pregnancy with Hudson was.  My biggest blessing is the fact that I have such an amazing husband and such wonderful in-law's to help me.  Seriously, I wouldn't have survived those first few weeks on my own.  (Ok, I probably would have, but Ed and Debbie have made things so much easier and bearable!)  I also have a great doctor who helped me get some great nausea medicine early on, so I could feel better before it got too bad.
    We find out on August 12 what the baby is going to be and the days are just dragging by! I want to find out so bad!
     July had a great start for our family.  Joe had a week of vacation from school, and so he took the week off of work and we just played and played all week long.  It was so fun and so needed for our family. We went to a super fun outlet mall, which is not your ordinary outlet mall!  It had a go-cart track and a mini-golf course, and I think even a paintball thing.  But the coolest part about this mall is that the official training rink for the St. Louis Blues (the hockey team) is there!  We actually got to see a hockey game, but it was only some high school kids playing.  It was still really neat to see it, and we got to see a real live Zamboni!  I have always wanted to see that (weird huh?) and I finally did!

On the 4th of July we had a great day!  We went up to St. Charles and watched a parade, and then we got to walk around Old St. Charles for a bit, it still has a lot of old building and cobblestone streets!  There was a super yummy soda shop that we stopped at, and they had a soda fountain from the 1920's that they still used!  It was one yummy soda!  Hudson also got to sit on Santa's lap (you know, Christmas in July or something like that) but he freaked out so it wasn't for very long.  Though, he did understand that in order to get the yummy looking candy, he would have to sit on that big guy's lap!    After we got home we all lounged for a bit and then we went to Darryl and Elisa's for a 4th of July BBQ!  It was tons of fun and great to just visit with family.  After dinner we went to the park to watch the fireworks.  By that time Hudson was so tired that he wasn't too excited by them, but he did just cuddle and snuggle with me and watched them quietly.  That was one of those perfect moments in my life, where I was so happy I thought it was just going to burst out of me.  Here I was, sitting there with my baby in my arms, and my husband by my side as I remembered how blessed I was to live in a country where I could do that very thing.  I know there are a lot of things going on in the U.S. that we may not like, but it still is God's country and I cannot be any more proud to be an American.

     On Joe's last day of vacation we went to the water park and splashed around the entire day.  We had been doing swim lesson's with Hudson the week before, so we were hoping that maybe after giving him a whole week break he would like the water a little more.  Didn't work.  He loved the little splash pad, and the lazy river (in which he just floated on the water but never got in,) but as soon as we got in the pool he was ANGRY!

     The rest of the month has been moving quickly and I can't believe that it is almost over!  Debbie came home from Idaho the day after the 4th of July and you could tell how happy all the Grandchildren were to have their Grandma back home!  Debbie was in Idaho for the entire month of June, and so we all missed her very much. Hudson has loved having his Grandma home and another friend to play with.  Especially because she has a new tablet with lot's of fun games for him!

(So, I just realized that I never posted this, so sorry it's late.  But better late than never!)