the summer rolls on

The summer has been rolling on.



Emma is wrapping up t-ball, last game is next Saturday. She is doing well, but I don't think baseball/softball is going to be her sport of preference. I'm pushing for golf, but we shall see.
Getting ready for Kindergarten to start on August 12.



Freya is starting to really talk a lot and is now asking us questions. Who, where and what have popped up. Why is certainly around the corner.



Julia had a good 2 month checkup yesterday. Her soft spot has grown, so it looks we won't have to worry about that issue at all in the future. She has been more alert and smiles at us occasionally now. They do change so much in the first year.



Funny thing is happening to us when we go out in public. We are seeing people that we haven't seen in 12-18 months. Sort of a shocked look on their face when they see another baby in the family. It wasn't that long ago that Freya was still crawling and Julia wasn't even a thought.



Anna and I had a great 10 year anniversary celebration the past couple of days. I probably pulled off the biggest suprise ever by taking to her a private dinner at a local bed and breakfast. We had a great time...actually have a babysitter tonight as well.



Three more weeks of summer.

Nicknames

With the newest family member arriving, the nicknames have started. Here is a quick run down of the nicknames.

Anna - Ann, A, A-Dog, Anna Banana

Zack - Z, Z-Dog, Z-Man, Uncle Z

Emma - Em, E-Dog

Freya - Fray, Fray Fray, Fray-Dog, Little Z

Julia - Jules, Ju Ju (J-Dog has not appeared yet, but it is only a matter of time)

T-Ball starts to tonight for Emma. Hopefully she enjoys it more this year!

One week

We have survived one week as a family of five. Special thanks to Jon and Carol for helping us out. Anna came up with a t-shirt idea that says, "I survived having three kids for one week" on the front and "and the kids survived too!" on the back. Here are a few more pictures...

Happy Birthday - Julia Bennett Hall

Julia Bennett Hall - Born 5/21/09, 9:09am, 8lbs 9.6oz, 19.5 inches long. Julia is doing great, she has slept most of the day. Anna is doing great, I mean who looks this good 30 minutes after delivering a 8.5 lb baby?

We enjoyed the day with the older girls stopping by this afternoon. Hopefully we can get some good sleep tonight at the hospital.

Enjoy the pictures, more to come.

Mini Marathon Finish Line Photo

brightroom event photography

Am I really that bald? Guess so. This was taken at about mile 13. Over 2 hours to finish...painfully slow, but at least I made it!

Small update from the Halls

A hectic few weeks have just passed and we are anticipating a few more hectic weeks coming up. A few small updates:

Emma - Soccer league has started up again. She scored 3 goals the first game and 5 goals last Saturday. This may be her sport. She is really enjoying it. She is starting swim lessons this week and will probably start the swim team in the summer. Just signed her up for t-ball this summer as well. I hope the other kids get to participate in all these activities as well! We started allergy drops with her to hopefully combat future allergies...we shall see what happens with that.

Freya - She is starting to talk a lot more and has begun to put 2, 3 and 4 words together. She is a truly a funny little girl. She has discovered that watching TV is really fun and wants to watch Gullah Gullah Island every 15 minutes. Good thing the weather is warming up and we can get outside more.

Anna - I anticipate another 4.0 coming up this semester. She is plugging along and is almost finished with all her school work. As soon as that is done, she'll be ready to hatch baby #3.

Me - not much news, had a little golf trip in Nashville last weekend. For anyone that cares I shot 79, 89 and 84. Not great, but I'll take it. I'm officially ready for baby #3 to arrive.

Baby #3 - that is the unofficial name right now...we are getting excited about finding out what the gender is...

Got to run. I'll post more after the baby is born!

The Sunshine State

I'm heading to Jacksonville, FL in about 15 minutes for a short work trip. Anna is joining me tomorrow afternoon. The girls will be with Pop Pop and Grammy while we are gone.

Looking forward to warm weather!

Back on Saturday.

Late February Update

I'm a slacker on this blog thing. Here is a quick update on what is going here in Kentucky.

Weather - it stinks. We are basically holed up in the house as the temp hasn't been getting up over 40 much. If it gets to 50, then we get the girls outside to play. It has been too cold to even golf...I've only gotten in 5 holes all year. Hopefully that will change soon.

Florida - Anna and I are going down next week to Jacksonville. I'm heading down on Wed. for a conference and she is coming down Thursday for a little relaxation. Going to be a quick trip as we come back on Saturday. Hopefully we will have warm weather and a nice break from the "real world".

Anna - She is plugging along with school this semester and she is constantly making references to statistics. Pretty funny to hear all these stats terms come up in our normal conversations. Baby # 3 is doing well...

Baby # 3 - had our final ultrasound last Monday - no, we didn't find out the gender - and everything looks normal with the heart. No more ultrasounds, so it really will be a surprise when he/she pops out. I would say we are about 99% certain on a girl name and 85% on a boy name. We really aren't planning to tell anyone, but Emma has an idea so there is no secret about it.

Freya - She is really a ham. Laughing, running and playing all the time. She recently started eating well again (there was a stretch there where she lived off Vitamin D milk) and will eat the strangest things. Salad, hummus, salmon, salsa, she likes it all. Her favorite thing to do is probably play with Emma.

Emma - As lively as ever. Soccer starts in a couple of weeks. She loves preschool and her teacher. She is really, really good with playing with Freya. It is nice how her sweetness and kindness is rubbing off on Freya - they are quite a pair.

Me - Work, exercise, dinner, girls, relax, sleep and repeat the next day. Busy, but I couldn't ask for much more. I'm training to run a 1/2 marathon in April again, so have an hour plus run on the weekend, but that is about it for extra-curricular activities until golf starts up.

Next post - March sometime...hopefully. Maybe some pictures soon.

Snow, Ice and a Fireplace

Major ice/snow storm in Kentucky the last couple of days. Most everything was shut down yesterday, but things are opening back up today. We are surviving and have been able to drive around without any problems. The major roads are fine, the back/side roads still have some ice on them.

Our biggest problem is that we lost power at 5:30am yesterday (I saw the transformer blow) and it is still out. Apparently there are over 180,000 outages from our power supplier. As of now, there is no timeline on the repair or as the automated man on the phone says, "the estimated time of restoration is not known at this time". Pretty frustrating as the only other estimate we heard was up to two weeks before all service is restored. I can't even get a customer service agent on the phone. Anyway, we cranked up the gas fireplace yesterday and last night and let it heat the house. We bundled the girls up in extra layers of clothes and played games in the dark. Looks like we may have a repeat performance tonight.

I previously didn't like our fireplace, but I am starting to like it now that it is keeping us warm! If the outage continues we will most likely head to Shelbyville.

The worse part of all of this - I can look out our living room window and see lights on inside a house 100 yards away. Oh yeah, and that we missed American Idol last night.

Facebook

So I finally decided to join facebook after one of Anna's friends found her after not talking for 10 years. I have actually found some old friends and remembered some friends that I had forgotten about!

So far it is taking way too much of my time trying to find everyone, look at pictures of their kids, see where they live, etc. I'm hoping that it slows down some point soon!

Lazy weekend for us here. I'm playing guitar in the contemporary service for the 2nd week now. Will probably be doing that once or twice per month. Pretty fun so far.

We will have to get some pictures up soon of the girls. Will have some next weekend for sure when we celebrate 5 years of Emma!

Negative 3!

Yesterday was to my knowledge the coldest ever temperature where I have lived or been. I have no recollection of any negative numbers, yet when we got up yesterday we were at -2 only to see that drop another degree around 9am. It got to the low single digits when we lived in the Mid-Atlantic, but never like this.

Sitting at 9 right now and is getting up to 37 today. 40 degree one day difference, I'll take it.

In other news, Anna's semester started up on Wednesday. Should be a little bit busier for her/us this semester compared to last fall. All is well with the pregnancy as she is hitting 22 weeks soon. Emma got her ear's pierced last week - was an early birthday present. Freya personality is starting to shine through. She is a character and is not shy at all.

We will pretty much be stuck in the house for the next few weeks until the temperature gets up to 50!

Half way home

Had our 20 week ultrasound for baby #3 today. We followed through with not finding out the gender and have just one more ultrasound to go on February 9th. Both Anna and I tried to figure out if we had a little boy or girl in there, but we honestly couldn't tell. Guess we are in for a suprise.