Brooke Nichole Dutton - 29 weeks

We had a 3D ultrasound done tonight. We didn't do one for Kayla or Macy, and we thought this would be something special to do for this pregnancy. We were able to have all of the grandparents, my sister, and the girls join us. Kayla has been giddy all day and was so excited to see Brooke. About halfway there Macy started saying "see Brooke, see Brooke." As soon as the first picture showed up on the television she screamed, "Brooke!" It was so cute! She was even naming body parts when she would see them.

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It looks like she is holding a ball, but the part that looks like her hands is the umbilical cord. Somehow the change in depths made the section in the middle (her chest) look like a glowing ball.

Here she is sticking her tongue out.

It's hard to see, but this is her sweet baby foot.

A Perfect Saturday Morning

The girls woke up early this morning. Well, not too early, but earlier than I wanted to get up. Marc got up with them and let me go back to sleep. I went back to sleep, and the next thing I know it is 1 1/2 hours later and the girls are bringing me breakfast in bed. Kayla really wanted to make grits, but we are a cheese grits family and there was no cheese in the house. Her response was, "but we have enough bacon and Mommy likes bacon." So I had bacon, toast with yummy homemade jelly (I didn't make it though), and juice. After sharing my bacon with 2 little munchkins they took off to their room and are playing so quietly together. Marc has gone back to sleep and I am laying in bed with the computer. Such a sweet morning.

Pumpkin Patch

We went to Burt's Pumpkin Patch again this year. We met up with a good friend and her family. The kids had such a great time. Marc and I had both cameras with us so we were the crazy camera family. We've learned that if we both have a camera and just keep snapping we are bound to get a couple of good shots. Worked out for us again this time!

Our crazy girls "sleeping" in the wheelbarrow.

This is Austin. He is Macy's first crush. He is actually 2 days older than Kayla, but Macy has quite a little infatuation with him. While we were waiting for them to arrive she kept saying "where Austin, where Austin." On the hayride he would tickle her and she would laugh so hard. Here they are during our picnic. I can't remember what he was doing, but Macy thought it was hilarious. She also chased him around for quite a while.

Los Angeles

After spending a couple of days in San Diego we drove up to Los Angeles. We actually flew in and out of LA for scheduling/pricing reasons. On the way up there we stopped at Downtown Disney and bought the girls a few presents. Unfortunately that put us right in the middle of downtown LA during rush hour at the same time everyone was trying to get to the ball field for a baseball game - some playoff, but I can't keep it all straight. If the Braves aren't playing then I have no idea what is going on. It took forever to get to our hotel. The traffic was worse than Atlanta, but the people (excluding the crazy motorcyclists) were pretty good drivers. None of this jumping lanes just to get one car length ahead. Most cars just stayed in their lane which was very helpful for us.

We took the Sony Pictures Studio Tour. It was really neat to hear the history of the studio, see some of the sets for upcoming movies, and we even hung out at the empty Jeopardy set for a while. I would recommend this tour to anyone who is headed out there.

Of course we had to get a picture of the Hollywood sign.

Rodeo Drive. None of the stores were open when we drove through, not that we could afford anything anyway.

Santa Monica Pier. We took a lovely walk in a park area right off of the beach. This pregnant lady had done enough walking on this trip that I wasn't about to walk down to the water. The distance to walk down to the water from the parking was ridiculous!

Next we drove up to Malibu. We saw some crazy huge houses, but I'm not really sure why this area has such the reputation it does. Maybe if we had driven more of the 22 miles of Malibu we would have seen something more spectacular. See all of those little dots in the water? Those are all surfers. I'm not sure how long they have to wait to get a wave.

We have so many more pictures of the things we saw and did, but since I'm a single parent for a few days this will have to suffice. Our flight arrived around 8:30 on Saturday night and Marc was back at the airport for a 5:00 flight Sunday evening. This time he is headed to the Miami area. I'm not sure what he'll do with these cold temperatures when he gets back!

San Diego

Marc had a business trip right outside of San Diego, CA and I was able to join him thanks to frequent flyer miles. While he was working I spent my day playing around on the Internet, watching television that did not consist of cartoons, and reading a book by the pool. It was fabulous! This was the view off of our patio.


He finished working mid-afternoon so we drove down to San Diego and drove to a state park that overlooked the city. It up a mountain and it was gorgeous! Unfortunately the park closed at 5:00 so we didn't get to stay long. Those park rangers really wanted to get home because they were shooing everyone back to their cars.

We drove back down to San Diego the next day and spent some time walking around Balboa Park. The grounds were beautiful. There were many different gardens to walk around and the architecture of the buildings was stunning.

We made a stop at the beach before heading north to Los Angeles. I have never been to the Pacific Ocean and wanted to check it out. I am a Gulf Coast girl - I love the powder white sand. In California it is dark sand and the water was frigid! For the temperatures to still be as warm (I mean HOT) as they were I can't believe the water was that cold! We didn't stay long, but at least I can say I've put my feet in the Pacific Ocean.

The Beginning of a Lot of Updates

Kayla has been going to Home Depot with her Daddy for quite a while now and making fun little projects. She absolutely loves this time together, but our schedule has been so crazy that they haven't been the last couple of months. This month we had some errands to run, so we decided to take Macy. At first I was just going to wander around the store while Marc and Kayla did their stuff, but with the fire trucks and live broadcast from Radio Disney, there was a lot going on. We decided to take Macy over and we picked out the easiest project for her to do. They both had such fun and are so proud of their projects. When we were leaving a Home Depot employee actually stopped us to get a picture of Macy with her sailboat. Since the projects are really set up for older kids I guess they don't see many 2 year olds walking around so proud of what they made.



When I went in to kiss the girls one last time before going to bed I couldn't find Macy. I went to Kayla's bed and found them snuggled together. This is the first time that Macy has climbed into Kayla's bed to sleep.

Ever since Kayla found out we were having another baby she has loved putting a baby (or bear, or horse, or whatever she can find) under her shirt. She then has her baby and we wrap it up in a blanket and she starts taking care of it. Of course Macy has to join in the fun, although she has no clue what she is doing. All she knows is she is doing something just like her big sister.

Hide and Seek

The girls are playing Hide and Seek with their Daddy. I personally can't stand the game. I think at some point in my childhood I was scarred by being chased or something. I can't handle it when Marc comes up quickly behind me on the stairs. I've come to accept my issues and move on, but even being chased by my 2 and 4 year old stresses me out. Tonight during Marc's turn to count Macy hides in the coat closet. Pretty creative for a 2 year old that usually picks one of the same two spots or just hides with her sister. Well as soon as Marc says "ready or not, here I come" she jumps out of the closet and says "I found you" to Marc. I guess we need to better explain the rules.

State Fair

Last night we took the girls to the state fair. Marc and I had never been and we weren't sure what to expect. We had heard many great things, though. The kids had a fantastic time.

The "Nemo" ride was a favorite.


The girls enjoyed seeing all of the animals and feeding the horse. Well Macy enjoyed seeing the horse, but she didn't want to have anything to do with feeding it.

The panda ride was the first one the girls went on. I wanted the first ride to be something where they could sit together because I wasn't sure how Macy would do once I walked away. It was a little jerk to start, but then she had the best time!

I love seeing the girls holding hands, especially when they do it by themselves without me asking them too. They are trying to decide which rides they wanted to ride on. There were only 4 or 5 that Macy could ride on because of height restrictions, and one that they both really wanted to ride was Dumbo. Macy LOVES Dumbo, unfortunately she is too small for that one. We tried to avoid the path that went by it. We were going to let Macy go get the cotton candy they wanted while Kayla rode Dumbo for her last ride, but then she decided it went too high for her and chose something else. Only after we were done did we realize that she could control if she went up or not.

Yummy caramel apples! My favorite! We also let the girls play one game where they were guaranteed to win a prize. They went fishing for sharks and they were both so proud of the little stuffed animals they won.

We will definitely be going back next year except we will be toting 3 kids around! The girls did great staying with us, and it wasn't really crowded until we were leaving. We also decided we will take our own dinner and drinks - boy was that all expensive. Of course we'll have to treat ourselves to the usual fair goodies - cotton candy, caramel apples, and a funnel cake!

"No, I Want to Be a Mommy and a Teacher"

Tonight after baths Kayla wanted to tell me the plan for tomorrow. I expected something along the lines of wake up, get ready and go to church, each lunch, take a rest, play with Nini, go back to church, come home and go to bed. Instead I received a 6-7 minute plan that included bathroom breaks, what we do while we wait for lunch to come, and how we'd get to Nini's house. About 5 minutes into this (yes, I admit I was trying to distract her from her speech and failed several times) I asked, "Kayla, do you want to be an engineer like your Daddy." Her very quick response was, "no I want to be a mommy and a teacher because you make all of the choices and I want to be able to make all of the choices." Oh the thought processes of a 4 year old! All week she has been complaining about how much "work" she has to do. We had a nice talk one afternoon about all of the work I have to do compared to how little she has to do. I also reminded her of all the fun things we get to do. Such a rough week for her!

She Has a Name!

We finally decided on a name for our little girl... Brooke Nichole. We spent the months before we found out we were having a girl trying to decide on a boy's name. We've always been able to come up with girl's names pretty quickly, but have never been able to agree on a boy's name. We thought we'd start early trying to decide on one just in case. Well we never could agree, and it ends up there was no need. We did have a harder time with this one, but we think Brooke is a sweet name, and Nichole is my middle name. I really liked Brooke Avery, but then her initials would be BAD. We couldn't do that to her! While we aren't ordering all of the monograms yet, we are pretty certain this will be her name. Less than 4 months and we will get to meet this little girl that made me sick for 10 weeks and tumbles around more than her sisters combined!