Our biggest event lately was my 20-week ultrasound on May 8.  Paul and I stuck with our plans not to find out the sex of the baby, but it was definitely hard to resist!  Everything looked perfect though, and we are even more excited to meet our new baby in September.  He or she seems very active at this point!  I can feel the baby kicking around in there constantly.

Trista has kept busy lately with all sorts of things.  Even with all of the questionable weather recently, we've been able to go to the pool and the beach some, which Trista has really been enjoying.  We are hoping to make some progress on learning to swim this summer, so I've got some swimming lessons planned for her in a couple of weeks.

We also went to the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia with some friends a couple of weeks ago, and all the kids really loved it!   

Happy Easter!

Trista has had a great time celebrating Easter this year!  She participated in a variety of types of egg hunts, mostly involving parents or grandparents who filled her plastic eggs with surprises.  As a result, she was completely uninterested in her egg hunt with her friends this past Friday!  She opened the first few eggs that she found, realized that they were empty, and then decided that there was no point in bothering with the whole event.  She instead spent most of the morning running around the yard, playing with toys, etc.

This weekend we went to Westminster to visit family to celebrate Easter.  We all really enjoyed it!  We got to go walk around with Billy at Ramsey Creek this morning, which was really beautiful, and Trista got to see a beaver dam.  Yesterday she was also very excited to get to pet and hold a baby chick that Kimberley brought over.  Trista's other highlights during the weekend included organizing decorative ducks at Gamama's house repeatedly, riding the golf cart through the apple orchard, and jumping on the trampoline with Anne and Georgia.  She was also pleased with the surprises the Easter Bunny left this morning.  She got to try her first chocolate bunny, and she really liked the books and little dolls that were in her basket.

Happy Birthday Grandma!

Happy St. Patrick's Day to Henry and all my friends!

Happy Birthday to Grandma!!!  21 years old?

While a lamb's tail enters its 3rd shake

I close my eyes and make a wish

I blow out candles on a cupcake

Then lick crumbs off a plastic dish

It pays to be two 

Cupcakes galore

Before I'm even through

I only want more

Trista is the Cupcake Queen

Trista has been very busy lately, particularly with more birthday parties!  She has actually been to three parties since last weekend!  She had Sophia's last Saturday, Geoffrey's on Friday, and then Issac's today.  Trista had a blast at all of them.  Eating cupcakes continues to be the highlight of every party.

Trista has also really enjoyed the opportunity to be outside a lot now that the weather has finally warmed up.  We've been going to a lot of parks and playgrounds lately, which should be thoroughly wearing her out, but somehow all the activity has not been enough to actually make her sleep!  She has decided that 6 a.m. is her new wake-up time, and she no longer wants to take a nap most days of the week!  Even though she has done great going to bed at night in her new "big girl" bed, she has realized that it's really fun to wake up at 2 in the morning and do puzzles, read books, etc.  We are not entirely sure how she is functioning with this new lack of sleep.  Paul and I are struggling a bit ourselves...

Trista also had her final gymnastics class last Tuesday, so here are a couple more pictures and one more short video from that.  We are hoping to start up with some new activities soon!

Trista Celebrates Valentine's Day

Trista had a fun week getting ready for Valentine's Day!  She and Paul put together valentines for her friends and she enjoyed eating heart-shaped cookies at play group this week.  Yesterday we celebrated by going to Chuck E. Cheese for her friend Jack's birthday. It seemed to be a big hit for all of the two-year-olds.  There was a lot of enthusiastic dancing and cupcake eating.

Trista has also made some major improvements at her gymnastics class!  The actual "skills" she's learning are certainly debatable (see the video of her doing "somersaults" with Sophia), but she is having a good time.  I am very happy that she has started to enjoy it! 

It's been a while since I posted anything, but it's mostly because there haven't been too many big events, just lots of everyday busyness!  We had a pretty good January.  Earlier this month we got to see Brant and Erin and finally meet their twins, Morgan and Reese.  They are doing great, and Brant and Erin seem really happy to be parents!

Trista started taking a gymnastics class last week, and aside from looking cute in her leotard, things did not go well!  She was adamantly against participating in anything at all, and pretty much spent the entire class clinging on to me and freaking out in general.  I am hoping that maybe next week will go better.  Here is one picture I managed to take before things went completely downhill!

This Saturday Trista and I went to watch Paul run a 5K at the Charlie Post Race at Sullivan's Island.  As you can tell by Trista's attire, it was VERY cold out there!  It didn't seem to interfere with Paul's race though since he got first place in his age group.  Trista was very pleased with Paul's trophy since it was shaped like a lighthouse (apparently she's pretty into those at the moment).

I am also posting a few random photos from other events in January.  Here is one from a playgroup field trip to the fire station, which Trista thoroughly enjoyed!  As you can probably see, she had a good time trying on jewelry at Ma Ma's house last week, and she also had a fantastic evening with Jeanne where she got to make wishes throwing coins into her favorite fountain at the Town Center.  Last but not least is one photo from our Alpha Chi Omega reunion that was in Charleston a few weeks ago.  It was a lot of fun seeing some of our old friends.

Happy New Year!

Trista has been continuing to enjoy celebrating with all of our various family members over the holidays. After Christmas, we went up to Westminster to visit for a couple of days. We all really had a great time, and Trista especially loved riding the golf cart out into the apple orchard to look for wild turkeys!  We didn't actually see any, but it was a fun adventure for her.

Last night we went to a new year's eve party at our friends Anna and Pete's house, and Trista got to come too since they have a little boy, Henry. Trista got an A+ for behavior, and she even went to sleep over there without any trouble whatsoever! She talked about "having a slumber party" at Henry's all day, but I think she was mainly excited about the event since I promised her a brownie when she got there.

We hope everyone has a happy new year!