What's a blog?

I keep telling myself to sit down and update my blog, but I just can't find the time or desire for that matter to sit and actually update. I guess I feel like my life is so uneventful that I'll be okay if I don't. Quite a few things have been happening. Baby girl #2 should be here in about a month. She does have a name; Caroline Grace. After months and months of going through lists and hearing "no" to just about every name out there, we were able to finally agree upon one. We are just trying to get ready for her arrival, but to be honest it is MUCH different the second time around. I waited and waited for Parker, had things ready four months in advance, and couldn't wait for her to get out. This time? I looked at the calendar and thought, "oh crap, she will be here in a month". Nothing is/was ready and I have barely had time to really relish in this pregnancy. I'm okay with her staying and baking for as long as she needs to. Who is prepared for two kids? I know I'm not. On top of that, we are trying to buy a house for our growing little family to live in. Want some real stress? Get ready for a baby and try to buy a house. No.Thank.You. Thankfully, Benchmark testing is over and I can relax knowing I am done with that for this year. Now I'm just counting down the days until we get out of school; 27. Yes, I know. I'm ready for this year to be over and done, but also realize that I could quite possibly be a mother of 2 by that time too! I thought about going back through the past few months and adding pictures and comments about what is going on, but after much deliberation decided not to. Hopefully I can stay more up to date the next little bit.

Worst Blogger Ever?

Answer: Yes! I am having the worst time finding a spare minute to get on the computer and actually blog. I have been more than awful at taking pictures too. It truly is sad; that's my life currently. My life consists of spending two hours in the car, enriching young lives, preparing dinner, doing house work, playing with Parker, talking with Jeff, and attempting to absorb every second of rest possible. Being pregnant and teaching has been a work out all on its own! As of today, I am 15 weeks and will find out if it is going to be pink or blue December 22. I am excited and anxious to find out. Kind of tired of the neutralness, is that even a word? The only pictures that seem to be on the laptop at this moment are Halloween pictures, gasp! Yes, Halloween pictures. Like I said, I have been beyond HORRIBLE! Here are a few of my precious little Strawberry Shortcake:

Showing off her "ware".

Thanksgiving was kind of hectic this year. Travelling to two different places can get kind of tiring but it is all well worth it. Due to us living extremely close to Jeff's family, we had lunch with them Thanksgiving day. It was nice to see his family ,but hated that we could only spend a limited amount of time due to trying to make a 6 pm dinner in De Queen with my family. I def. could not handle having two Thanksgiving meals in one day. Needless to say, I lost a good amount of it. Dang "Wally". We were able to spend the rest of the weekend with my family. We even were able to partake in an alumni football game against the Scrappers. It was great to see so "old" players out there again. Saturday night I was actually able to get dolled up and going out with my brothers and Jeff. We just went to the Country Club to "hang out" but it was nice to sit back chow down on a cheeseburger    visit with everyone and being the trusty DD. :)

Now its time for the Christmas Countdown which is in 13 days for me! I am literally dreaming about this 12 day break I am about to have. Kids are super duper restless and I am getting that way too. Hopefully I will at least have a Christmas post when the time comes! Until next time!

Wow! What a break!

After hearing several friends tell me that I needed to update my blog, I thought it was time to oblige. There have been quite a few changes going on with the Stearns family and I am proud to share them. Our summer was pretty uneventful to say the least; it was filled with job interview after job interview. Finally, about a week before school started, I was offered another job back in Pine Bluff. Not exactly what I had been working so hard for, but I will graciously take it. We also had another nice little surprise a few weeks ago that I am excited to share. We are going to have another baby. Parker was very excited to hear that she would be a big sister. Obviously there have been some adjustments around the house, but we are all extremely excited. Looks like the due date will be June 6, so unfortunately, I'll have to go the whole school year. :/ Very soon I will post some updated pictures of our little brood.

Down this aisle!

I don't know how many of you parents out there are dealing with an overly honest child... I guess this is the stage when a child observes everything and decides she wants to tell you about it. There is absolutely zero filter with this kid, and I have found myself to be embarrassed, mortified and just in shock. I am pretty sure that this is a daily occurrence for us now. A day or two ago she and I were in Target, minding our business, doing a little shopping; we see a man in a motorized scooter in front of us. I guess I didn't clearly hear what Parker said to me but I just heard "walk". I automatically assume that she doesn't want to walk. Perfectly normal for her. Not even close. She repeats and tells me "that man needs to get up and walk!" "what's he doing in that chair?" I was hoping and praying that he hadn't heard us; but he did.He stopped the cart, turned and stared at us. I froze. What the hell was I supposed to do or so? I did what any grown up would do. I grabbed Parker by the arm and darted down another aisle; sprinting walking briskly. As we are briskly walking down the aisle, we see an employee putting things on the shelves, he has corn rows in his hair, no big deal, right? Wrong! "What's wrong with his hair?" "I hate it!" By this time, I'm completely speechless. Who's kid is this? While walking very quickly to get out of Target, I tried to talk to Parker about not always saying what you think or what you see about someone else. I tried to let her know that it hurt people's feelings.I was pretty sure I got through to her and we were going to make an improvement.

Move a few days ahead. Scene: Moe's Southwest Grill, eating our nice dinner, enjoying a 4 year old conversation. It's kids eat free night, so there are quite a bit of people strolling in. Parker notices a couple of girls waiting in line with their family, one of the girls is about 14 years old and is suffering from some severe acne. When I say severe,I mean  it was really bad. Anyone could see it. Leave it to Parker to notice it, observe it, digest it, and then come down with a case of verbal diarrhea. "Mom! Look at the girl's face!" She curls up her mouth and noise, puckers her lips, fans her face as if she has eaten something disgusting and says, "EWW". I guess our "talk" didn't have much of an effect. When does empathy set in???

Few Family Pics

For once while we were in Florida, we had some pretty decent pictures taken of everyone. Usually we are all spread out or no one is really interested in taking them. Our little family DESPERATELY needed some family pictures, so I was game. Some of the pictures turned out really good and some are eh so-so. I lifted these from my aunt's facebook page, so I didn't get all of the pictures. Hope you can digest these little beauties.

How cool is that!?

The last morning we were there my dad had noticed that there were a few dolphins swimming really close to the shore. No one else had really been able to see it until the middle of the morning. He came back up to the house and told us to come and look at the 8, yes 8 dolphins that were swimming a few feet from shore. I grabbed my aunt's camera and took tons of great shots. I tried to get some with my camera but all the jerks curious tourists had scared the poor things off. I was able to get a video of the dolphins swimming. Disregard any of the talking that you may hear. Grant is trying to tell Parker where they are and some of us are probably engaging in useless chatter.

But I don't wanna go...

We spent our final day on the beach getting our last bit of sea, sand, and sun. Parker had finally had her fill of the beach and was done about half way through the day. We had been meaning to take her to the pier at least once while we were there, and decided that today was the day. We loaded up in the church van and headed to the pier. It was nice to look out into the ocean and watch everyone attempt to fish off the pier. A few people were fishing with bait that was the size of a small fish, so Parker thought they had actually caught a fish each time the reeled in their line. We had to explain over and over again that their bait was the fish and not what they caught. We were able to see someone's pretty big catch and Parker really wanted to touch it but I thought that wasn't such a great idea. (It had large teeth!)

Once we got back to the house, Jeff and I went back down to the beach with Uncle Brian and gimp wing to enjoy the last of our beach trip. It was nice having a little adult conversation while relaxing in my chair. We noticed that everyone was getting ready for our family pictures and we decided to head back and get the show on the road. Everyone was in their white and khaki and ready to take some awesome shots. We got some good group pictures, family pictures, and random pictures. Those were taken on my aunt's awesome SLR camera, so I am still waiting on those, but for the most part they turned out okay. Hopefully I can post those very soon. To hold you over until then; I'll post our pictures from our last day at the beach.