First Fruits

We received our first fruits, or I mean veggies, from our garden these past couple of weeks. So far we have taken out 4 to 5 zucchini, 6 to 8 yellow squash, 3 to 4 cucumbers and 1 banana pepper. The cucumbers and zucchini have all been huge and we have probably about 4 to 5 more cucumbers to come out in the next day or two.

We have been pretty good at using up most of the veggies so far. We have grilled them, put them in a chicken dish, made fried zucchini and cucumber salad a couple of times. I am also planning on making zucchini bread, hopefully tomorrow if not yet tonight. If we can not keep up with them I figure we can always freeze the zucchini and squash and Mark has mentioned trying to make pickles. We will have to see how that all goes.

The Playground

Last weekend we decided to take a walk to a park that is only a couple blocks from our house. Grace use to only play with the mulch and then she would occasionally go down a slide. Now she only wants to go down the slides but not just any slide, she goes right for the big one!

I just love her hair!! It does this every time she goes down the slide.

Hot Spring Day

Boy or Girl??

Well you are not going to find out the answer to that question until at least late September. We went in for our "Big" ultra-sound a couple weeks ago. Baby Husby checked out wonderfully, completely healthy as far as they could tell. For the past month now I have been able to feel little kicks every so often and each day I seem to feel more and more of them. The doctors did tell me that because of where the placenta is located I won't feel very many sharp jabs with this pregnancy. They said it would be more soft kicks, like the baby is just lightly floating. I think I can live with that. Now if only this baby decides to not permanently place his/her head into my ribs like Gracie did.

20 weeks

For those keeping track I am now at 21 weeks so I'm half way there, man did that go fast. It is funny cause I will go out and some people think I'm a lot further along because I'm so big and then I get the next person telling me I'm so tiny for how far along I am. Either way I notice a difference and can no longer sleep on back which is my 2nd favorite position to sleep. I thought I was going to have troubles with sleep again at this stage but my thyroid levels are still off and that makes me extremely tired. Which is not good but on the plus side as soon as I hit the pillow I'm out even though I'm not all that comfortable. :)

If you would like to pray for us, other than praying for the health of the baby, you could pray for the doctors to figure out the right level of medicine I'm suppose to be on. Another huge thing I need prayer for is to figure out how I want to deliver this baby. With Grace I had to have a c-section however, my doctor performs VBACs and I have the option to either do a VBAC or a c-section. I'm at a loss at the moment. I see advantages and disadvantages to both so we have been praying about this more regularly as I progress in the pregnancy. I know God will give me an answer I just need to be patient and wait for it. But just in case you were wondering what to pray about this would be a good one. Thanks! :)

Bayou Wildlife

Gracie and I joined our Moms Club on an African Safari! As you can imagine Gracie loved it!! It is located about 20 minutes from our house and we had no clue until now that it even existed. It is a huge park that has a ton of animals, some endangered and some not, that just roam freely. You get to take a tram ride through the park and feed the animals, if you want to. Going as a group everyone was able to get a bucket of food so we of course fed them. Some of the animals would come up and eat from the bucket and others we had to throw food out to them. Either way Grace would hold the bucket with me or she would just throw the food out as we drove along...animal or no animal to feed she still threw the food over. :)

Checking out the food we get to feed the animals

Patiently waiting to go and for the animals to get closer.

Our 1st animal we got to feed....an Emu.

I'm not sure if she thinks this is cool, gross, or a little scary at this point.

Looking for more animals and more than likely throwing food over board.

Some of the animals we saw along the way.....









An Ostrich Egg....which is equal to 24 chicken eggs.

The ostriches would follow the tram for a bit and eat as we drove.

This was her face every time an ostrich was eating. I'm pretty sure it was because they were not very neat eaters. About half the food they took in there mouth would come flying out.

Tram ride was done and she was not ready to get off.

Besides the tram ride everyone that enters gets to go on a pony ride and go into the petting zoo. Grace went on her first horse ride and threw the biggest fit when I took her off and she realized she couldn't get back on. I think if it was up to her she would have rode that horse all day. I was a little nervous about her wanting to get off half way through but that was a lost cause on my part. She hung on tight and like I said didn't want to get down.

Giving the goat in the petting zoo a hug...so sweet!


When you enter and leave you have to drive through the areas with the animals. When we came in they were off in the distant but upon leaving they were all hanging out on the road waiting for more food.

On a side note, to let you know how much fun Grace had, here is a quick little story. After we got home we were sitting in the living room talking about our day and looking at the pictures we took along with the brochure. After sometime of talking about it Grace got up and took my finger, she does this when she wants something, stopped as we got into the kitchen ran back into the living room and came out with her blanket. She then lead me to the garage door and pointed at it to go out. I told her we were not going out and she looked at me hopefully. After a little guessing on my part, I finally told her we were not going to go see the animals right now. She lost it. :( Fell to the ground and just cried. I felt so bad but explained that we would go to the zoo in the next week or two and go see those animals. That seemed to have worked cause the tears stopped.

Road Trip

Over Mother's Day weekend we made a road trip back to Nebraska. It was a last minute trip and a quick one at that. My Grandpa Wink passed away on a Friday and the funeral was on a Tuesday so Mark and I loaded up the car Friday night and drove back to Nebraska to be with the family. It was a bitter sweet trip. We were not planning on going back to Nebraska or New Jersey this year but God had different plans. It was great to be able to see my family and for Gracie to play with all her cousins, I just wish it could have been under different circumstances.

Grandpa & Gracie a year ago.

While we were all together the family thought it would be great to get a picture of Grandpa's grandchildren, since we have no clue when that will happen again. Even at holidays it is hard to have every cousin present at the same time.

So while we were at we figured might as well get a picture of Grandpa's great-grandchildren too! They were all there but four and of course the one I'm still carrying!!

We also got a picture of Gracie with all of her cousins!!

Strawberry Fields, Forever

No I'm not posting about the John Lennon song or about Strawberry Fields in Central Park though I have been and it was extremely nice and it would be wonderful if that is what this post was about. However, it is actually about strawberry fields. There is a local farm that grows strawberries and every spring you can go pick your own strawberries. While Elizabeth was here, one morning we did just that. We have never been before but I had heard wonderful things about the place. It was great. Not only do they have strawberries but inside their store they have all sorts of fresh veggies and fruit, nuts, jams, sauces, rice, candies, and just all sorts of goodies. Plus it is all priced very reasonable. I wish we lived just 5 minutes from there because I would go here every week to get our produce and probably should go there anyways but the last couple weekends have been pretty busy.

Grace actually did a really good job picking the strawberries. She only picked the red ones and very few were over ripe. Such a smart little girl.

After collecting all of our strawberries we came home and made strawberry jam that afternoon. It was the first time we have actually made it on our own. Last year when Mark's mom came down she made some for us and I watched. I must say I think it turned out pretty good but I guess the true test would be to have Joyce, Mark's mom, taste it and tell us how we really did. :)

Grace "helping" make jam!

She was the taste tester!! :)