Soccer!

Noah just started his first season of soccer...he was signed up for classes in the spring, which was fun, but they didn't play any games. For the fall, he's joined a "league" with his buddy, Cole. Their first two games were rained out, and they benefited from the extra practices! Emily and I both work Wednesday nights, so Daniel and Mark take the boys to practice. Their stories of the coach attempting to herd 4-5 year olds are quite entertaining!
The first half of the game, Noah appeared to just enjoy following everyone else, but after a little pep talk with Daddy at half-time, something clicked and he showed some more assertiveness, getting some good kicks in, and even scoring a goal!


Field Trip Fun (or not)

Noah had his first kindergarten field trip this week. It was scheduled on one of my days off, so I signed up to go, thinking it would be great to get to go on one before this baby comes. The teacher said siblings were allowed to come, too, so Lyla headed off with us. Lyla cried off and on for the first three hours of the trip (because we couldn't eat lunch at 10am, because the slide was over there, because the hay was pokey, because kids were bouncing her on the bouncy pillow, because Daddy was at work)...not our best day! She finally perked up after lunch and was able to enjoy the actual apple picking. Not many pictures were obtained due to the massive amounts of cajoling, consoling, and bribing that was happening. 

After getting back to the van, both kids declared it the "best field trip ever!" ha. :) 

Big Girl!

I mean, seriously, how cute is she?!?! 

Lyla is so excited about being a big sister. She obviously has no idea how things will change, but she repeatedly says, "When Allie comes out of your belly, I gonna hoooollldddd her!"

Randomly one day, Lyla asked to take her nap in Noah's bed. We've been dropping most naps to help her sleep better at night (if she takes a nap, she'll lay in her bed and talk and sing and holler for us for up to 2 1/2 hours before sleeping), so I said yes, not really caring if she fell asleep or not.

But she DID fall asleep, so we moved her on over. Something we'd been planning on doing, but had been putting off since she makes no attempts to get out of her crib. We're still working on staying in bed when we first put her down, but overall the transition has been really easy! And she's thrilled to sleep in "Noah's room" (she hasn't yet gotten in the habit of calling it "her" room. 

New bedding for the big girl bed! 



 

 

Love you so much, sweet girl!! 

Summer is gone!

I admire my mama friends who can keep up with telling stories and frequent updates on their blogs...for some reason, that isn't me!

The closest we got to the beach this summer--the giant sand box at the Magic House! 

 Getting ready for baby--taking care of them at the Magic House.

This girl might look like my mini-me, but she curls her toes like a Sampson!

Noah's last day of preschool! 

Noah had a great year with Mrs. Darr! 

The kids headed to Lebanon for a week at the beginning of June to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa Shoemaker and the rest of the Shoemaker clan.

While they were gone, Daniel and I spent the week converting this (it did have all cabinet doors...I just forgot to take a picture before we started taking doors off) green walls with cream cabinets: 

 into this--gray walls with white cabinets: (Daniel's dad helped install the new light fixture and patch the ceiling when he came in July).

The pictures don't do it justice--we love the cleaner and brighter look!

For Father's Day, Daniel won the drawing at church to head up on stage and won Rocky Themed Trivia to get a new jersey! 

I caught them holding hands eating snack one day. So cute. 

For my birthday, Daniel took me to a delicious steakhouse and then checked me into a hotel room--all to myself! Sitting in some quiet was a nice break for a bit! 

4th of July found us at Jefferson Barracks enjoying ice cream treats and watching fireworks. 

We fixed lots of boo-boos.

And we celebrated this guy turning 5!! 

Grandma and Grandpa Sampson brought Aunt Sally with them to surprise Daniel and celebrate Noah's birthday. We were so excited to have her join us for the week!!

Special birthday treat with the birthday boy!

And a fun water party to celebrate! 

I think he had a great day!

While Daniel's family was here, we put them to work! They are amazing! In addition to helping finish off the kitchen updates, they tore down our rotting, carpenter-bee-infested, against-county-code, deck. 

Before

Almost done!

After. It makes the back patio so much more open! But we'll have to re-build an access to that door at some point! Our hope is a new deck, more suited to our taste and needs. Someday!

Supervising the deck demo! 

They also added a sandbox area underneath the swing set, put pavers by the back gate, built a temporary wall in the basement to separate the playroom from the storage area, and more! It's not a regular vacation when the Sampsons come to visit! Thanks for spoiling us!!

But we had lots of time for naps and fun, too! 

Doc McStuffins!

Firefighter Noah!

While they were here, we also had our 20-week ultrasound, which means we took advantage and had a small gender reveal party! Baby Sampson #3 is a ..... 

Girl!
Allie was pretty uncooperative during her ultrasound and we didn't get many good views. We got a quick peak at the very end to find out she was a girl. Another ultrasound was scheduled for 26 weeks to get more pictures.

The rest of the summer held lots of fun, too. Swim lessons, visits to the county pool where we had a membership this year, ice cream dates with friends, Sports Camp (Noah did extra chores to help raise money for kids in Ecuador--helping with laundry, cleaning house, walking a neighbor's dog), a family day at SkyZone, Museum of Transportation, Botanical Gardens...the fun never stopped this summer!

Our church put together an appreciation event--all the people who volunteer in Family Ministries were treated to a day at a private lake. We had so much fun playing in the water and just relaxing with our family and church friends.

 Lyla got her first haircut. It was so uneven and looking a little scraggly. We just needed a clean-up.

Before

Before

After!

After!

After!

Then we had to start getting ready for school! Noah started kindergarten and was so nervous about the big change. Every time we tried to talk about it, he would get upset and most of the time would cry. Even at orientation night, he cried when the kids went for a practice ride on the bus, and the first morning he was a little emotional getting ready. But when the time came he was a champ! Climbed right on the bus and didn't look back! Now he loves it!

The next day, Lyla started preschool. She'd watched Noah do it all last year, so she was ready!

She was so anxious to start playing she couldn't even get a good picture!:) 

Then we took a day trip to Branson with Grandma and Grandpa Shoemaker while Daddy was on a work trip. Since I can't ride any of the rides with Allie on the way, Grandma and Grandpa stepped up to be their adult companions. The kids had a blast!

Grandma came back to St. Louis with us to spoil us while Daddy was gone. She was a hard worker and got a lot of things ready for room transitions and getting ready for Allie to come. While the time with her was nice, everyone was ready for some Daddy time when he got back!

What a fun summer! Now we're into our new routine and getting closer to Allie's arrival. At her 26 week ultrasound, she was still uncooperative (I hope we're not seeing a behavior trend) and has now turned breech. We still weren't able to catch good images and in addition I failed the glucose screen. Thankfully, I passed the 3-hour glucose test, but we're still waiting for her to flip the right way, and will go back for yet another look at 32 weeks. She's keeping us (mostly me!) on our toes!