Forty Weeks and New Blog Site

Today is our due date and our sweet little one seems cozy for awhile longer. We are so excited to meet her! Above are the latest (and perhaps final) bump pictures taken over the weekend.

In March I began experimenting with a new blog site that was more user-friendly for posting from my phone, since I'm rarely on our laptop. (Hence, very infrequent blog posts!) I wanted a blog where I could post photos and videos easily from my phone, mainly to keep our long distance family up-to-date on the daily adventures of our family. Over the last few months I've posted nearly 60 entries on the new blog, so I've been incredibly happy with its ease of use. I won't be posting to this blog anymore, but we will keep it around in the event we find another use for it. For now, feel free to visit our new family blog on Tumblr at: http://teamross07.tumblr.com/

Bluebonnets!

After a rough drought season for the state of Texas, we've been blessed by much winter and spring rain, enough to produce the beautiful array of bluebonnets, paintbrushes, and a colorful palette of other little flowers sprinkled across fields and along roadsides. A Texas springtime tradition is to take pictures in a field of bluebonnets, so I was determined to get pictures of Elisabeth in the flowers. Through some people we met in a park, we learned of a spot nearby which has good bluebonnet photo opportunities. The next week we went, somewhat spontaneously, and had a great time taking pictures. Elisabeth really wanted to pick them, so we tried to help her understand she could only have the flowers that were already on the ground. I haven't taken the time to actually look it up, but I've heard that it's technically against the law to pick bluebonnets, the state flower. Any fellow Texans know if this is true? Below are some of our shots from the first Ross bluebonnet adventure!

Not to be left out of the fun, here is our little bluebonnet bundle of joy, still growing strong and active as can be! She's still set to make her debut in about seven weeks! This is probably the worst maternity shirt to be wearing for belly pictures, but it was a spontaneous adventure so we just went with it. (-:

Jason and I talked about how taking these pictures reminded us of taking pictures with Elisabeth in 2010 in the sunflowers on a farm outside of Lawrence. It made us miss Lawrence and our Kansas friends and family! Here is one of our favorites from that beautiful Kansas day:



Happy Spring!

The Bambina Bump

We are grateful and excited that our little girl is growing well! She turned 20 weeks a few weeks ago, which marks the halfway point until we get to meet her! We took a few baby bump pictures to document the halfway mark. She's been very active lately, much to my delight, and she's even been saying hello to her daddy at night before bed through some cute little kicks and jabs!

It's A...

Elisabeth is going to have a baby sister around May 29th! I am so excited that she will have the opportunity to grow up with a sister. We had our big sonogram on Tuesday morning, and Elisabeth joined Jason and me as we watched and learned more about our sweet new baby. First and foremost, we are incredibly thankful that she is healthy and developing well. As the sonographer talked through what we were seeing on the screen, it was just amazing to marvel all over again at the intricacies of our bodies. She talked through the chambers of the heart, different vessels, the brain stem, her stomach, her kidneys...it was amazing to be able to see her organs in such detail.

We will have fun starting to plan for this little girl, and I'm excited to bring out all of Elisabeth's baby things to see what we can use. Elisabeth was born during one of the coldest winters in Kansas, and this little girl will be a South Texas summer baby, so she will get to have some of her own tiny little summer outfits. Fun fun!

We are grateful to God for this new blessing and addition to our family!

Elisabeth enjoyed holding her sign and posing for Daddy:

Minnie Mouse Birthday Celebration!

Elisabeth was first introduced to Minnie Mouse back in February when I was in a dear friend's wedding. The wedding was very close to Disneyland, and while Elisabeth did not actually go to Disneyland, my mom, who was also at the wedding, bought her a stuffed Minnie who was quickly named "Mimi". Since then, Elisabeth and Mimi have been the best of friends. This summer while we were in Florida for the Jacksonville STP, we were blessed with the opportunity to go to Disney World during the students' Orlando weekend. Elisabeth was able to meet the "real" Minnie and Mickey and had a blast!

Mickey did not get a hug as Elisabeth was partial to Minnie. He was a good sport about it. (Fun tidbit: the picture below is actually from a video clip we took as we did not have any photos from her meeting Minnie, just video. I was sad about that afterwards, but I discovered the day before her party that you can take a photo from a video using Windows DVD Maker. The resolution isn't that great when printed, but they look good in digital form. This is probably common knowledge, but I was so happy to discover this!)



When thinking about her second birthday party, it seemed perfect to have a Minnie theme as they are still the best of friends. She now has three Minnie dolls and we usually have one of them with us on most adventures.



Her birthday is this Friday, December 9, and we had the party at our house this past Saturday. It was so much fun! We had just a few friends over, and Elisabeth had a great time. All the kids were older than her, and I think she enjoyed watching and following them around. They were a sweet bunch.

I had a great time planning her party with the challenge of nothing too elaborate or over-the-top, but some fun little "Mimi" touches here and there. Elisabeth loves cupcakes, so I knew they would be a part of the celebration. When doing a Google search for "Minnie Mouse Cupcakes", I came across a cute blog where I ended up getting nearly all of my party ideas from. You can see the blog at The Idea Room.

Elisabeth's cupcakes were strawberry with strawberry frosting, which was fun because they both had lots of fresh strawberry puree in them. Yum! I found the recipe here.
My mom bought these cupcake tiers for our wedding reception, and when we moved this fall she gave them to us to bring to our new home. A little plastic Mimi, given to Elisabeth by her cousin Abigail, was the perfect topper.




Elisabeth had been waiting all day for her cupcake, so she was a happy girl after blowing the candles out!



The Idea Room blog had great ideas for using Oreos as Minnie Mouse ears, and I used them for the ears on the cupcakes as well as trying a fun experiment called Minnie Mouse pops. I took pictures of the step-by-step process because it was so fun, and the end result was delicious! Basically, they are chocolate-covered Oreos on a popsicle stick. Can't go wrong with that combination! We gave these as party favors to the guests.






We served light snacks which included Mickey mouse shaped cheese bites (I did not cut these out myself, you can actually buy them at Walmart.) I also made the same punch that my sister-in-law, Laura, made for my baby shower. It was delicious, thanks Laura!

The birthday girl was dressed as Minnie herself, and this is her first dress up outfit, which is very fun for an almost two year old!



All the guests wore mouse ears; Mickeys for boys and Minnies for girls. I found many online templates for making Mickey ears at home with headbands, foam board, felt, etc, and it seemed to be a bit much, so I was happy to find paper ears and then just hot glue pink bows on the Minnies. A time-saving, economical solution! I'll admit, they were obviously made for kids and looked a little "goofy" on the adults, but Elisabeth thought they were great and has requested that mom wear them even after the party.



The kids had fun playing "pin the bow on Minnie", instead of pin the tail on the donkey. We had coloring books and crayons available, and they each colored their own bow and then I cut them out for the game. Here are a few of the bows (Elisabeth's is the farthest one on the right. She took off her blindfold and then stuck her bow next to the rest. It was so cute!)



Jason was a champ and blew up pink and black balloons for the party, and they filled the front room. The kids had a great time playing in them, and we left them for Elisabeth to play in throughout the week!
Action shot:



This final picture is not from the party, but is a classic pose of Elisabeth and Mimi together. One of Elisabeth's favorite things to do is to bite Minnie's nose, and it absolutely cracks me up! Who knew those big mouse noses were so bite-able?



Happy birthday to our beautiful, spunky, funny, smart, delightful little two-year old! We love you so much and thank God for you every day!

Thankful for our newest blessing!

This Thanksgiving we thought it appropriate to announce one of the biggest blessings our family is thankful for~the joyous news that we are expecting a new baby next year!

Yep, Elisabeth is going to be a big sister!



This picture was taken when we shared the news with our families just before our move to San Antonio in September. Elisabeth talks about and prays for her baby brother or sister, and sometimes I think that she thinks she's getting one of each! (She's not). We'll have our big sonogram in January when we'll find out definitively, but for now it's fun to talk about both.

Our littlest baby is doing well so far! We have a tiny sonogram picture and have heard his/her heartbeat. The technology just continues to amaze me. What is most amazing to me though is the way God forms us. It's breath-taking if you stop and think about it. The other night I was reading in our pregnancy development book, and for where we're at right now (around Week 12), all the major systems are already developed, and we're not even one-third of they way there! Below is a link where the size of the developing baby is compared to every day items, like fruits and vegetables. We shared this link wih Elisabeth's pregnancy blog and thought it would be fun to post again. This week, little one is about the size of a lime. We should have limeades in his/her honor!
http://www.babycenter.com/slideshow-baby-size

We love this little baby so much already and have such fun thinking about life with two little ones.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Rosses!

Pumpkins and (un)Packing

It has been nearly a month since we closed on our home, and we have only a few more small boxes to unpack and organize. We have considerably more space than our previous home, so we will be filling it up over time. Meanwhile, Elisabeth loves having so much space to run around!

This is a picture of our new home from the outside. I couldn't wait to buy pumpkins, and Elisabeth loves patting them and talking to them any chance she can (except at 4 pm when they are so hot from the sun beating down on them. Yes, it's still 90 degrees here...we're not in Kansas anymore!)



We had great help unpacking the moving truck from some local Navigator staff and a few students, as well as my faithful aunt and uncle who live in Fredericksburg, about 45 minutes away. A few snack breaks helped get the job done smoothly!





Elisabeth had so much fun seeing many of her toys that she hadn't played with in five months. Here she is, in her jammies, hanging out with some of her new-found friends. Happy girl! Later, she decided to climb in the bucket herself!





A few weekends ago we took a family field trip to the Pipe Creek Pumpkin Patch on a sunny Saturday afternoon. Our pumpkin patch attempt last year failed (click here), so I was determined to get Elisabeth to a real pumpkin patch this year! She had a great time! We already had our two big pumpkins (I bought them at Walmart, not exactly a pumpkin patch!), so we let her pick out an "Elisabeth-sized pumpkin" which she loves to carry around.







This is her with her "Elisabeth-sized pumpkin" from last year. My how she's growing up!



We even took a hay ride, which was fun because the pumpkin patch is also a Christmas tree farm. We rode through the rows of Christmas trees and contemplated whether or not we'd come back and cut down a real tree or buy an artificial one. We're still undecided. Any thoughts?

It's great to be back in San Antonio, and we are excited to continue to settle in. We do, however, miss our Kansas friends and family and love getting updates from up north!