I got to experience something totally new to me this pregnancy that I hadn't had in either of the last two......a 36 week ultrasound! For some reason, my doctor's office has started doing 35-36 week ultrasounds to check on the baby's growth and fluid levels. I had no idea I would get to see as many details of the baby! Reilly came along with me since she didn't get to see either of the other ultrasounds I've had and she definitely thought it was pretty cool!! The baby's face was the clearest of anything, by far! It seemed as though we were looking at a 3-D or 4D ultrasound, but it was just a classic 2D image. The round cheeks and full, puckered lips were so clear! And so stinkin' cute. Makes me even MORE excited to hold this little guy SOOOOON!!!

and just for final confirmation, we are indeed having another boy :)

Big Sister "in training"!

Yesterday was super special. I signed Reilly up for a the "Sibling Tour/Class" at the hospital. She and I headed down for her class and showed up to find out that she was only one of two children signed up!! And the other was a little girl, who was also named Rileigh. Too funny. The class started out with a short video showing a newborn baby who had just come home from the hospital. Then the teacher had the girls choose a baby doll and taught them how to swaddle, hold the baby in their elbow to protect the head/neck, and diapering. Reilly has had lots of practice with diapering since Shawn got her a pack of diapers for her baby dolls so she just flew right through that part!!





After the classroom stuff, we headed out for a tour so Reilly could see the special room that mommy would be in with all the fancy equipment. By far, the best part of the entire class was actually getting to go by the nursery and seeing all the sweet sweet babies. Ah, so precious and SO hard to believe that I will back there in no time!!

After the tour, the girls were presented with a packet of fun stuff and a "big sister" certificate. Reilly said it was so much fun and she loved every part of it :)

Summer Fun

Since it has been in the high 90's so much lately, we have tried to do as much with water as possible!! Last weekend we set up what Shawn has so eloquently named the "Urban Beach" on the driveway, which consists of a 10'x10' blue tent with a water table and kids pool under it....yes, it's about as "red" as it comes, but we like our little urban beach style :) Some of the neighbors came to play in the water with the kids and they all had a blast.

Reilly, Kate, and Marlee

Last week, we headed up to Village Park Splash Pad in Kannapolis with Karin and "all the Drescher kids". The kids had so much fun! We started out with a picnic and then had quick trip on the choo choo train before hitting the splash park. Great times!

Ellie, Reilly, Ava, and Braxton

the girls insisted on riding in the very back so they could turn around and what "where we had been" instead of "where we were going"!

Branson, so excited.

Braxton and Branson just enjoying the ride!

Thank you, God, for lawnmowers, love Braxton

Wow, this has been so funny lately during our nighttime prayer time with the kids!! A few weeks ago, when we were going around saying what we were thankful for from that day, Shawn looked at Braxton and asked him, to which he replied "mah-mor" (lawnmower). We all laughed and thought that was super cute, but Braxton was the first to blurt out while Shawn was praying that God had NOT been thanked for the lawnmower like he said. So Shawn quickly said, "and thank you God for the lawnmower". It has happened several more times, but tonight was the best of all. When we sat down to pray, I asked Braxton what he wanted to pray for and he immediately said "mah-mor". I said "ok daddy, make sure to pray for Braxton's lawnmower". Braxton quickly said, "daddy mah-mor", meaning he also wanted to thank God for Daddy's lawnmower. And then very quickly added, "Poppi mah-mor"! While Shawn was praying, Braxton did not stop saying "mah-mor", "Daddy mah-mor", "poppi mah-mor"! Shawn prayed and said thank you God for Braxton's lawnmower without also including "daddy's mah-mor and poppi's mah-mor" and Braxton would not accept the prayer. We all laughed and laughed, but sweet Braxton just looked at us with a straight face wondering what in the world was so funny?!! Love that little boy :)

Great Wolf Lodge!! June 5-6th

There were a couple reasons we decided to make a special trip over to the Great Wolf Lodge last weekend for some fun family time. The first, and maybe the biggest if you ask Reilly, was to celebrate a HUGE milestone in her life......the ability to fall asleep withOUT sucking her thumb!! Shawn and I have been trying to encourage her for many months to stop sucking her thumb at night, as we have noticed the effect it is having on her mouth and are more concerned about preventing future orthodontists bills!! But, since this is a habit that she has literally had since the moment of her birth, and since it's something she only does while sleeping, it's not been easy to help her break the habit. We decided to use some special "gloves" on her hands at night to help be a reminder to her that her thumb could not go in her mouth. The first night we put them on was absolutely miserable. She cried and screamed for about an hour for us to please take them off. It was honestly the first experience as a parent where I knew what we were doing was for her own good but she did NOT see it that way and it was heartbreaking. But after that first night, she obliged to wear them every night thereafter and has now developed the ability to fall asleep on her own. What a HUGE accomplishment!!!!! We gave her the incentive that if she could stop, then we would celebrate by going to "The Lodge", a place she asks to go to at least once a month.
The other reason why we decided to have such a special overnight adventure was for the purpose of having one last "hoorah" as a family of 4 before the new baby arrives. And that's just what we did :) The kids had an absolute blast. I never imagined that Reilly would be so over-the-top excited to ride some of the water slides, but after she got started on the first, she wanted to do them ALL!!! And since she was just at the minimum height of 42", she was able to do everything except for the biggest slide, the Tornado. Shawn and Reilly rode the slides over and over and over and over and would have kept riding more if time wasn't an issue! Braxton had a blast on the "little slides" in the toddler area and he LOVED the wave pool too! He definitely tried to say "ME!" several times after Reilly got off a slide, indicating that he wanted it to be his turn, but unfortunately, he'll have to wait until he grows about 10 more inches to do that!!

Braxton loved getting knocked over by the waves...

the first time down one of the big slides....ALL SMILES!

Reilly's FIRST race!!

Oh boy, this was an exciting day in the Turner household! Since Shawn has been doing much more running lately, and has done several 5k races, Reilly has been asking to do a kids run. This morning's 5k race had a 1k "fun run" for the kids after, so we decided this was a good option to give Reilly a taste of running if she really wanted one! Shawn and her had a special date night on Thursday to go pick up their race packets, which was super special! This mornings race was a bit early, so the kids had to get up a few minutes before 7:00 so we could get out there before the 5k started to see Daddy off. It didn't take long for Reilly to start asking when it was her turn to run! Shawn pinned her number on and then, as he was doing some cool-down stretches from his race, she joined him by doing some stretching of her own. She also started doing some random running around to "warm up" which was really cute. Daddy gave her a little pep talk/instructions about running all the way to the finish line. She insisted that she did NOT want Daddy to run with her...that's our independent little girl!


The 5k started at 7:30.....there were a TON of runners and several running with joggers...

pinning the number on.

little pep talk and pre-race instructions...

stretching on the curb like Daddy.

and they're off! (click below for a quick video clip of the start)

we thought they were just going around the traffic circle and then coming back up the hill, but they actually turned left behind the traffic circle and went out of sight for a few minutes! I was a tad worried when we didn't see them for a bit and and as soon as Shawn started to walk down the street, here came Reilly around the corner, just running along! He said she even started running fast when she saw him!

another video clip....

and here's a clip of the finish...

look at that precious red face!

Such a proud Daddy!!! He definitely confessed that behind his glasses were lots of tears, the whole time he watched his little girl run :)

Young Life Mini Golf Mania

Last night we headed up to the new Lake Norman Mini Golf for a fun Young Life event. Instead of doing a traditional golf tournament this year, our committee decided to put together a more family friendly event and came up with the idea for Mini Golf Mania! It was a great event and lots of fun for kids of all ages.....just a tad on the HOT side! Reilly had a blast playing putt putt with her best buddy Evan, since Ali and Keith purchased a foursome to help support the event. Some of the leaders and high school kids involved in YL put on a mini Club so that the kids and adults could see a glimpse of Young Life. Again, Reilly and Braxton LOVED dancing around to the always crazy songs and laughing at the skits. It was a great time...

No YL event is complete without some ridiculous characters to add some humor...

Braxton is getting it, but may just need to work on his form a bit :)

Butterflies!!

I am really mad at myself for not documenting this awesome adventure we went on as a family this spring better with pictures, but I did get the last part which was the coolest, be far!!

We decided to do a Butterfly kit with the kids this year and it was SO much more thrilling and exciting then I could have imagined!! I had ordered a couple books about butterflies for us to read as we went through this experiment and it really helped!! The kit comes with a postcard that you use to mail off in order to get the caterpillars via mail. So I sent it off and sure enough, a few days later, five caterpillars, not longer than 1/4" arrived in a small plastic cup with some gooey yellow stuff at the bottom that was supposedly their food. I was so nervous that I was totally going to screw things up and end up without a single caterpillar turning into a butterfly. But, alas, we put the cup in the middle of the kitchen table (I know, kinda gross, but there was no way for anything to get out of the cup onto the table) so we could see if and keep our eyes on things throughout the day. I was totally amazed at how fast these things grew! Seriously, I think they doubled in size every single day. They grew tremendously fast and by the end of one week were over one inch long. The kids LOVED coming down in the mornings to check on things and frequently looked in the cup to see the caterpillars moving around or "sleeping". We went out of town one weekend, and when we came home, one of the caterpillars had already formed his chrysalis, hanging from the top of the cup!! That was so neat! Within a few days, ALL the caterpillars had formed chrysalis' and it was time to move them into the net. This is when I was super nervous. I was so worried that one of them was going to fall off the paper that they were attached to and be all ruined. Reilly helped me very carefully move the paper with the 5 chrysalises attached into the net with some tape, just as the instructions explained. Not more than one hour went by and Reilly came running to me, "Mommy, the chrysalises are lying on the bottom! They fell down!!!" Great, now I knew I had ruined things and we were either going to end up with no butterflies, or they were going to have some serious malformations. I think they ended up falling down twice before I finally went and got a safety pin and pinned the paper to the netting. Several times a day for an entire week we checked the net for any sign of life, as the chrysalises really show nothing of what's going on inside! Again, we were out of town for the weekend. We came home super late and put the kids straight in bed. When I went over to the net to check on things, I couldn't believe it....a real live butterfly was right in front of my eyes!! We grew a butterfly!! Amazing!! So exciting. I couldn't wait to show Reilly in the morning. She was SO excited!!! It only took a couple days for all the butterflies to emerge and it was just as exciting as each one took flight inside the net. We had flowers in the bottom and put water+sugar droplets each morning for them to eat. After a few days of them all being in there, we began to realize that they needed to be set free. Reilly's plan was to put them out on our butterfly bush in the front yard so hopefully they would stay around. So that's exactly what we did!! It was so much fun and truly something that amazed me at each stage!