Following the Fowlers

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  This school year has seemed busier, more chaotic, and much more tiring than normal.  So, Mark and I were very happy about getting to stay home, not travel, and just spend time with Charlotte.  We were blessed to spend Thanksgiving day with family at Mark's parents' house.  We had two of Nancy's sisters' families join us.  Marcene and Jim, and Lee Ann and Tom and their son Brian also came.  We missed having Mark's other cousin Kevin there, who is currently working in China.  Charlotte had a great time with Brian!  In fact, being the only kid there, she was a bit spoiled that day!  Of course, we also had a fabulous meal to go with all the great company.

On October 22 we went in for a sonogram of our little one and were able to find out the gender of this baby.  The sonographer looked around for while at "the parts" but wasn't certain, so went on and measured some other things and did this several times before she finally was confident enough to tell us we are having . . . a girl!  This pregnancy has felt so different from my pregnancy with Charlotte that I had completely convinced myself that we were having a boy.  So, when she said we were going to have another girl, I instantly burst in to tears - not out of sadness by any means, just total shock!  We are so excited that we get to love on another sweet baby girl and even more excited that Charlotte is going to have a sister.  I know from personal experience that there is nothing in the world that is the same as sisterhood.  Our sweet baby girl will be named Elizabeth Michelle.  Elizabeth is a name we thought was beautiful and as it turns out it is a Hebrew name meaning "God's promise."  Michelle is my middle name, so that will be very special to pass on.  We were able to get some great sonogram pictures.

                                     

On Halloween we took Charlotte to trick-or-treat around our neighborhood.  She had a a good time, but Mark had to end up carrying her for a large part of the time.  Next year we will take the wagon!  She got a lot of yummy candy and we are still enjoying it!  Now that we are in a neighborhood playgroup, we also saw several people we know while walking around, so that was really fun.

Charlotte was a princess.  She loved her costume and got many "she's so cute" remarks.  :)

The weekend before Halloween we had our annual small group Halloween costume party.  Not everyone in our small group was able to make it, but we had a great time with those who were there!  Getting a picture of all the kids together is always humorous.  This was the one I got with the most kids looking.

In mid-October our family went with two other families to the Big Orange Pumpkin Farm in Celina.  It was definitely a bit of a drive, but the kids loved it!  It was very windy that day, but that turned out to be a good thing.  It was unseasonably warm for an October day.  The kids got to feed animals, go through a hay maze, ride a hay ride, and eat a hot dog picnic lunch.  What a great day!

Last year Char would have nothing to do with the goats so we were very proud of her for feeding them!

I have gotten very far behind on blogging. At the beginning of October I had Mark take my picture for "belly shot".  I was about 16 weeks along.  Charlotte was rather humorous because she kept trying to sneak into the picture!

Then Charlotte needed to have her own belly shot.

Tragedy struck our family this week.  Tragedy involving our babysitter's daughter, my daughter's hair, and an unwanted first hair cut.  I got this picture and a very apologetic story from Ms. Lisa on Wednesday during the school day.  Ms. Lisa had gone to answer the phone and her 5-year-old daughter decided she wanted to try out her scissors on Charlotte's braids.  

                                                 

I was definitely sad because Charlotte's hair had gotten so long and I wasn't ready to get it cut yet.  This picture hides very well just how uneven it turned out to be.  When I finally got her home and took down the braids, the difference in length was very significant   However, it could have been so much worse - like if the other girl had decided to cut off the entire braid.  And, although it is not how I pictured getting Char's hair cut for the first time, it is just hair and it will grow back.  It makes a good story, nonetheless!

Here is my attempt to show how long and pretty her hair had gotten.