20 Weeks!

We are more than halfway through the pregnancy! So exciting! So nerve-wracking! Sometimes I just cannot wait for the baby to get here and be part of our lives and other times I wonder how in the world we will find time to care for another little human being! But I know we can do it and we love the baby so much already.

Here is Cade helping us announce this milestone!



At our Thanksgiving celebrations, our families voted on what they thought the baby would be. Girl votes were definitely ahead!



The day before Thanksgiving, we had the big ultrasound appointment. I was so happy that Chance and Cade were both able to come! Don't you love Cade's new shirt? He was so proud to wear it. In this picture, he is predicting what the baby will be. He was saying "girl"!



And.... HE WAS RIGHT! After some rather vigorous prodding from the ultrasound tech because the baby was so curled up, she finally moved around for us to see what she is. It was quite a moment! Our reactions went like this:

Cade: I knew it was a girl!
Chance: Oh my gosh we are paying for a wedding. I need to get another job. (all while smiling and already looking wrapped around her little finger)
Alyssa: Surprisingly emotional! I was overwhelmed with an immense feeling of responsibility for raising a daughter in our crazy world. I actually started crying right away and I'm pretty sure the tech thought we were all a little looney. Thankfully, I've calmed down quite a bit in the past week, thanks to my wonderful friends that are doing a fabulous job with their little girls!

Here are some of the best ultrasound pictures:



Cade's favorite part of the appointment was hearing the heartbeat. In this picture, you can actually see her little heart (it is the darkest spot in the big circle, which is her abdomen). Her heartrate was 145 bpm, which is normal.



After the ultrasound, Chance took Cade to school so he could get ready with his classmates for the Thanksgiving program and feast. I waited for awhile for the rest of my doctor appointment. Thanks to modern technology, Chance and I decided on a name for our baby via text (this NEVER would have happened with a first baby!). I also *may* have sent him lots of texts regarding the theme for the baby's room. He stopped responding after the first 10 or so. Thank goodness I have a very patient husband!

Speaking of the name, we are not sharing it until she is born. For now, our baby is Little Lady Lock. She is due on April 9!

At Chance's family's Thanksgiving, we made the big gender announcement after lunch. We drew names from the winning jar to determine who would get to announce the gender. The first name drawn was Great Oma, so we called her with the news. Since she wasn't at Chance's parents' house, we drew another name, which was White Hair Nana. It is pretty neat that the great-grandmothers were the first ones to know that they are expecting a great-granddaughter! Here is Nana right after she shared the news.



There were certainly lots of squeals, clapping, and hugs! We were so excited to share the news with everyone and can't wait to meet our little girl.

Happy Thanksgiving!

As our Thanksgiving wraps up tonight, I am overwhelmed with how much we have to be thankful for! We had lots of fun celebrating with family the past week, so there will be several posts about all of our Thanksgiving festivities.

We all helped make our newest banner - Give Thanks - everyone's handprints are on there, and there is a space for a new one next year!



Alyssa's family celebrated Thanksgiving last weekend. Oma and Opa took Cade to Brother's Pond park in the morning so Chance and I could clean the house for everyone to come over. We had a tasty lunch and dessert and enjoyed some relaxing family time!



A tradition my family has had since I was in college is visiting Santa's Wonderland on opening weekend. We loved it again this year! They really have the best Santa and it is good to see Mrs. Claus too. Cade was especially excited about seeing Santa this year and recited his list of sharks and Star Wars characters that he wants.



The whole family with the Clauses!



Santa's Wonderland added a fun run through the lights this year, and we were happy to cheer Chris and Jessi on! We were so proud of them!



Some of my friends from work were also there for the run, and it was good to see them too.



Cade remembers EVERYTHING, and has certain things he likes to do each year at Santa's Wonderland. First off is cooking a hot dog over the fire.



Next is seeing Marshal Frost.



And finally, playing in the Texas snow! I love the look of sheer joy on his face here!



We bought Cade some orange slices at the candy store. These candies have a special meaning for our family - my Opa ate these and called them his "fruit for the day". Even though he celebrates Christmas in heaven now, Opa is always in our hearts and it is fun to share his loves with his great-grandson.



The walkway to Santa's Wonderland is lined with these cute signs. I am really, really trying to make this sign my theme for this Christmas season. I get easily overwhelmed with work, preparing for the baby, and looking for a new house, and seeing this helps me remember just how good everything really is!



Big smiles! A great start to our light-hearted holiday season!

Friends, Football, and Family Time

We've been blessed to have several visits with good friends lately!

A few weeks ago we met the Hull family in Bastrop. We celebrated Karen's birthday with cupcakes, and all 6 kids had a great time playing upstairs and exploring the piney woods!



Lily especially loved her cupcake



As usual, Cade woke up really early that morning after a late night at Chance's game. This is what happens on a long car ride home after very little sleep and hard playing with the big kids!



Last Friday, we met Natalie and Kelsey at Chick Fil A in Cypress (yes, we drove an hour to eat at Chick fil A... these are great friends!) and then went to the outlet mall. The kids were great troopers while Kelsey and I shopped! Cade was so happy to play with Natalie but was not so happy to be in a picture.



Last Saturday, we went to Clark's 4th birthday party at a playground. His parents are the biggest Aggie fans I know, so there was some serious Aggie gear at his Batman party!



The CSHS Cougars ended their football season last week with a 6-4 record. We were so proud of them! The 2nd to last game was very, very cold, but we forged on and stayed the whole game!





Happy to be together as a family!



We are so glad to have Chance home with us more often! Due to the craziness with the end of football season and the Monster Party, Chance and I both got really behind at work. So, last Sunday, we all went to Chance's classroom for some work time. Chance graded biology projects, I graded writing assignments, and Cade got to watch Monsters Inc on the big projector screen. It was a good afternoon all around!



Baby update:
17 1/2 weeks pregnant on November 4 and 85 degrees outside. I don't know what I would do if I was pregnant in the summer!

Trick or Treat!

This was Cade's 5th Halloween, and his first time to trick or treat! We had a great time with everything leading up to Halloween, and a fabulous time that night!

Here is Cade before school on Halloween. Only in Texas do kids wear shorts on Halloween!



Our little Luke Skywalker



Ready for battle!



Our first stop was Uncle Chris's house!



Chris was very generous with the candy and it was fun to visit him



This picture is really fuzzy, but I couldn't miss the chance to get a picture of Chance, Cade, and Holly! We were so happy that Chance got off work in time to spend Halloween night with us. It is great that he works in College Station these days!



We trick or treated with Cole the football player (our neighbor)



The boys were fearless going up to all of the houses! They definitely got into the idea that saying "trick or treat" and smiling got them some tasty snacks!



After visiting just 2 streets, Cade's pumpkin was full and he was pretty sleepy. He and Daddy watched Charlie Browns's Great Pumpkin before having sweet, sweet dreams that night.

We did the Monster Mash

Our Monster Mash party was such fun last year that we just had to do it again! This year had the added benefit of Pinterest, which inspired some of the cute food (but also caused me to lose much sleep and curse the cute cake balls as I made my 80th icing eyeball)! Ah well... everything turned out great and it was worth every short night!

First, the food:

Monster Cake Balls (orange, as requested by my favorite monster)



Mummy hot dogs



Orange and purple themed snacks



Little monsters:

Cade (no costume yet because he wanted to wear his monster shirt), Caroline as Padme Admidala, and Davis as a Yell Leader



Kelly the Strawberry



Clark as Batman and his mom Ellen



Jaden as Spiderman, Garrett as Spiderman, and Cade as Luke Skywalker



Seth as a little Brek Shea (Brek is an awesome soccer player for FC Dallas and the son of one of our co-workers. This is one of the cutest costume ideas I have ever seen!)



Littlest Monsters: Landry as Chewbacca, Annalise as R2D2, and Millicent as an Ewok



We actually had 9 Star Wars characters at the party, but I didn't get pictures of everyone. All of this obsession is thanks to Caroline's Star Wars themed birthday party in March. Such a trendsetter!

Monster Fun:

Craziness on the trampoline! This was the biggest hit and I really think all of the kids would have stayed there the entire afternoon if we just threw the snacks in with them.



I hid little bats in the sand for the kids to find!



Cindy and Katy are busy mamas! Their families provided 6 out of the 9 Star Wars kids!



Monsters swing, slide, and cram in the fort! At one point, I counted 5 boys in the little fort under the slide. This did end in tears as one little monster's head got closed in the door, so we closed the fort after that (and in case you are wondering, that little monster was Cade! It is hard to have a squished head at your own party!)



Monsters play baseball, football, and golf!





Bobbing for apples (the kids were much better at it this year than last year, mostly because I forgot to take the stems off the apples!)



"Feed the Monster" bean bag toss



Monsters need some juice!



And the grand finale... the Monster Dash! The kids did not love their monster masks quite as much as I hoped they would, but they sure enjoyed racing around the cones!





We all had such a great time! We had 51 people total at the party, and it was wonderful to have each one of them celebrate an early Halloween with us. We were all definitely worn out by the end, even Holly!



Despite being completely exhausted, Chance and I took advantage of my parents being at our house, so we went out to dinner and to a Casting Crowns concert with our neighbors. It was really nice to spend some special time together, and it was especially good that the music was really loud to keep us awake :)