Our Weekend

We had such a fun weekend! Our highlight was definitely announcing baby Shep to the family. Such fun memories!

On Friday, I had the morning off and we met Jay around 10:30 for our gender ultrasound. It was so fun getting to see baby again on the screen and the kids were really well behaved watching their little brother. Emma Cate sat in her stroller the whole time and I totally forgot to take a picture!

I took the babies out to breakfast/lunch by myself after the ultrasound. Everything ran smoothly until Holden had a dirty diaper and I had to take two kids to the yucky potty to change him. Yáll, it was the worst diaper I have ever changed. I was gagging and terrified that I would throw up in the process. It was awful. Thankfully we got him clean up and went back out to finish our meals. After that I had very little appetite but the babies ate like champs.

Emma Cate found these lovelies in my bag and although I am embarrassed to put this on my blog, she was obsessed with sticking them everywhere and kept pulling them back out after I would put them away...

 so of course I had to take a picture.

 Our Friday was hectic, just like the rest of the week, but we ended the night with a casual pizza party with friends. Katie and Joe made the drive down from the lake to hang out with us. They are so sweet to our kids and it was so nice to catch up and hang out! Its so hard to keep up with friends with all of our activities, school, and work. We LOVE having friends that are fine with coming over and hanging out over dominos pizza. No pinterest dinner parties involved! Such a fun night.

We had an EARLY competition on Saturday morning. Thank goodness it was uptown Charlotte and not somewhere I had to travel too. My girls placed 2nd and should have won but had a wonky fall that lost us lots of points. Here they are visualizing the routine in pre-warm ups.

After the gender reveal, we watched State play an embarassing game against Duke. It was awful. This year has been terrible for football. Such a disappointment BUT I still sported my team hoodie. No fair weather fans in this house.

This kid LOVES trucks. He is all boy. 100%. I love having a little boy. He always brings a smile to my face and man to have his energy! 

We finally made it to church after a few month hiatus. We want to make church a regular thing but we've been out of town so much that when we are in town we just want to sleep in and have family time. Church brings our family together and helps to center us to prepare for the week ahead. It's been so long since we've been to church in closed toe shoes that the twins church shoes don't fit anymore! They wore their tennis shoes to church and I'm sure no one noticed but still... time to get on that!

Breakfast/brunch at Bruegger's fit the bill for quick, casual, and cheap after church. The kids were good and had the whole place laughing. Our brueggers is always packed and we definitely provided the entertainment! The kids love munching on bagels and it keeps them occupied.

(everyone thinks he's a little girl when I make him wear bubbles and I can see their point but don't care because I think he looks adorable!!!)

After church we met Gigi to do a little shopping at the mall while Jay got some quiet study time. We headed to Whole Foods for lunch and to get a birthday cake for my sister.The babies had fun running through the store and tried to help Gigi with the cart. 

sissy trying to keep up

happy as a clam!

After naps we met the fam at Mellow Mushroom to celebrate my youngest sister, Bo's, birthday! I'm not a huge mellow mushroom (or pizza for that matter) fan but it is the perfect place to take kids. They can be loud, run a bit, and then enjoy their pizza without disrupting other diners. The place is kid central.

Taters and Pop Pops

Holden and Taters, who he now calls by name, Tay Tay. It is the most adorable thing! He will walk around saying her name and will go find her when I ask him where Tay Tay is. The other day she was still napping and I asked where she was and he took off down the hall to their room, banged on the door until I opened it, ran straight to her crib, climbed up the side (all while saying Tay Tay repeatedly) and tried to give her a kiss. Needless to say, she woke up a bit confused but smiley to see her brother :)

Holden's new favorite phrase: whudis (What's this) while pointing to everything.

My favorite guys

The birthday girl and her niece and nephew

Emma Cate was not having it... time for bed at this point

More little randoms

this is my family text chain. my sister has turned into a redneck.

i made these for Holden's Halloween snack. They are the easiest thing ever. Cut a mozzarella stick into thirds. Slice the bottom 2/3 of the way up. Use a knife to create the brooms. Tie with a chive. Stick a pretzel stick in and call it a day.

This has happened twice in the past week. Cleaning up glass on a slate floor with two children and two dogs running around is impossible. Thank you for my mom for coming over to watch the babies while I got all of this cleaned up. Two days in a row. We are sticking to stainless bowls from now on.

My mother-in-law sent me this pic of my sweet girl. I think she looks adorable and scared while hugging her daddy's childhood stuffed animal.

Speaking of Indiana. My grandpa's long term girlfriend, Susan, is a cosmetologist and took us to a shop where she can get products at wholesale. I recently gave up on purology products because they are soo expensive but I jumped at the chance to purchase a 1/2 gallon bottle of conditioner for $45! It retails for at least $120. 

This finally came in. I have been waiting since I ordered it the day it came out. lovely.

I joined some friends a a brewery and was so excited that they had some type of non-alcholic drink on tap. This beet infused kombucha was lovely (and yes, I know it has trace amounts of alcohol in it).

My kids are obsessed with mickey. He loves to watch disney jr on our iphones. I am loving his chunky monkey thighs!

i may or may not take screenshots of the cute pictures my kids' preschool teacher posts on shutterfly because I'm too lazy to download them...

such a little man

pots and pans are our favorite...

mommy would appreciate it if someone stopped blowing out his diaper on his pants. thanks!

Trunk or Treat

A few weeks ago we headed to the babies' preschool for a little trunk or treat. It was the COLDEST day of year and Charlotte was the coldest city in the country. Brrr. The babies' handled it pretty well and after the initial shock of seeing everyone in costume, they had some fun running from trunk to trunk.

my mom teaches at this preschool and was dressed as a witch. of course, emma cate didn't mind at all and wanted to hang out with her all night.

drink break

pic stitching is the best way to get my two together!

Work, Life, and Stains Randoms

I don't talk about work a lot on here but I am a computer and business teacher at a private middle school. I teach 6-8 grade, 6 classes a day. Last year I co-wrote a grant for a 3D printer. The printer arrived, we never got it work so we passed it along to our feeder high school. I created a new class this year based around using the 3d printer and had to rewrite an entire curriculum when we learned we would not be able to use the printer. Our PTO has graciously agreed to buy a nicer, better, 3d printer to keep in my computer lab. I got to miss school to take a tour of a 3D printing facility right outside of Charlotte to learn more about the product before we purchased. Here are some cool prototypes that the new printer can print. I'm excited about the fashion possibilities and engaging girls in 3d design to create jewlery and other "girlie" items they'd be interested in. I love when I can get girls interested in technology!

Stains. Yáll (PS- I have no idea why my apostrophe won't work with the a key... driving me crazy) my kids come home with huge stains every day. I didn't even pack raspberries but somehow Emma Cate came home covered in them. Oxy Clean is not working for me at all. Shout seems to do pretty well. What is your stain remover of choice?

Cuddles. This happened a while ago but I'm just now posting. I was taking a little rest break and this little booger climbed right in and made herself comfy. 

Lastly, this bounce house is their most favorite thing ever. We are still in the process of making the man-cave a playroom and they are having so much fun with all of their toys inside. 

Gigi and Taters

The love between these two is crazy. More than a mommy's girl, Emma Cate is definitely a Gigi's girl. She cries when she leaves and lets out the biggest squeal when Gigi comes in her room in the morning to get her ready for preschool. It's so fun to watch this relationship develop!

Girl's Weekend

I have like a million posts I need to catch up on so hopefully today I can get them written! Here's the first, Girls Weekend.

My middle sister, Allie, got engaged a few weeks ago and is planning a September wedding in Asheville. A few weekends ago we decided a little girls getaway was in order and my mom, sister, and I headed to Asheville for the night. We missed my youngest sister, Bo, but she had to work and couldn't attend. We spent a lot of the weekend eating, shopping, and trying to cross of some wedding stuff!

We arrived Saturday afternoon and enjoyed lunch at Tupelo Honey. It's one of our Asheville favorites! Remember to call about an hour before you plan to get there. They take call ahead seating and it brings the wait time down tremendously!

I can't believe that these are the only pictures I took of this weekend! Anyhow, after lunch, we visited Short Street Cakes for a tasting and enjoyed their yummy cupcakes. We headed up the mountain to Claxton Farms so that I could see the venue where Allie is getting married. It is beautiful and the view is amazing. She is going to have the BEST wedding pictures. We headed back to the hotel for a little rest before hitting the J.Crew Warehouse sale in Arden. The sale was semi-fun. I'm not much of a clearance shopper. Marshalls and TJ maxx give me anxiety. I need things laid out nicely. The warehouse is rows and rows of boxes. After an hour of so of digging we called it a night. I walked away with three sweaters and a pair of shoes. If you are in the market for shoes and have some time to dig, I highly suggest going to this sale. All the tall boots were $60 (some were originally $360!). 

We also hit up the Clearance Store next door and that's where I really scored big. I got two pairs of maternity pixie pants for $15 each. I grabbed a sweater with adorable elbow patches for $12 and a ruffle collar sweatshirt for $18. Great deals on items that were still in the stores for full price! I think next time I'll skip the warehouse and head straight for the clearance store, where everything is on hangers and nicely organized but still great prices!

sale madness

We headed back to downtown Asheville for dinner at Lexington Avenue Brewery or LAB. The food was yum. The few sips of beer I had were good. I've never had a non-carbonated beer before but the one they serve was really good. We called it a night early and headed back to the hotel.

We had breakfast at Early Girl Eatery and it was soooo yummy. I highly recommend. The service was amazing too! After breakfast we headed home to see the munchkins!

Allie and Me

shameless selfies

Glad to be home and back with these two!

Naming Baby #3

We were so excited to learn we were having a boy! (Jay seriously thinks I have some psychic power now that I've correctly guessed the sex of all three of our children).  Luckily, when we were pregnant with the twins we picked out two boy names we loved and two girl names we loved before confirming that they were indeed a boy and a girl. We really liked the boy names equally, both were named after our Grandfathers. When we learned Jay's Grandfather wasn't doing well health wise, we decided to go with Caviness Holden (Caviness is Jay's Grandfather's last name). This time around we knew that this boy would be named for my Grandfather. Unfortunately, like last time, my Grandfather is not in good health and I say my prayers that he makes it until baby #3's birth. We've chosen to honor him when we choose a name for baby #3.

NOW, here is my dilemma. The name that we really like and are going to call baby #3 is Shepherd (or Shep for short). The name we choose to honor my Grandfather is Arthur (my Grandpa's first name). We really liked Shepherd Arthur however, with our last name, his initials would be SAC. As soon as we tell people the name and they realize what the initials spell they die laughing. I know some of yáll think this is the goofiest thing in the world that I would care about this BUT as a middle school teacher I see kids get teased for EVERYTHING and I wonder how crappy that would be of me to hand the other kids the ammunition. (I have visions of my kid being called b@llsac). We've thought about changing the name around the Arthur Shepherd, which is what he did with Holden. I know it can get confusing going by your middle name.

The names are definitely set and we will for sure call him Shep but what do you think about the order? Should we go with SAC or ASC?

Thanks for your help!!!

tiny baby Shep. he's wayyy bigger now.

Its a BOY!

We're so excited to announce that a sweet baby boy will be joining our family in April!

We had our gender reveal this past Saturday. We decided to keep it extremely simple, unlike last time. I think simple is the plan for baby #3. After an extremely eventful pregnancy last time, we WELCOME simplicity and normalcy!

We've had an incredibly busy week and we knew that we would not be able to pull anything extravagant. With Jay in graduate school 3 nights a week, me coaching 3 nights and tutoring after school and having a competition Saturday morning, we are working on keeping this year simple and just spending time enjoying our family when we can.

Both of our parents, my sister, and Jay's grandmother came over for Jay's chili and baked potatoes and some Whole Foods (my fav) cake. I got home just in time for the reveal and had to make sure that no one was outside when I pulled up with my car full of balloons. Jay and I quickly wrapped up the balloons in a box and the twins opened the box to reveal the baby's gender. We found out on Friday at our ultrasound and kept the secret for the day until our family arrived.

My mom took all of the pictures so I'll have to update this post when I get a hold of her camera but until then, he's what we've got!

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