Lankford Love

We are just so excited to know what Lilleigh sibling is! Will the baby be a boy or a girl? Watch the video to see for yourself! Eeek! We are just smitten! Here are some great sonogram photos of our Sweet Pea! Sweet Pea is doing a summersault. Some 3D sonogram photos of Sweet Pea. Why yes that is the placenta in baby's face. Just using it as a pillow. Baby's head and arm

So much is still happening each month that I feel I owe you a Lilleigh update! So here are some things of note... Lilleigh is a little parrot these days , repeating many things you say and then blurting them out randomly. Really awesome to hear her sharing a friend's birth story then later. Or the other night, I huffed/grunted at Brendon because he cut me off, and he jokingly turned to Lil and said "Did Mommy just poop her pants?" And guess what Lilleigh keeps talking about... yep, awesome. For the record, no, I didn't. I still have bladder control, thank goodness. When it comes to getting dressed, she has an opinion on what she wants to wear, so she now gets choices. Also, we finally found a way to do her hair that is not a constant battle. For one, we switched to "Tita's brush," which has softer bristles. Another thing we started is doing her hair at the sink, in front of the mirror. So she sits on the counter, while I do her hair. She really love...

One more week Two more days till we find out the gender of baby #2! (That's Thursday! There is a story to the date change but too complicated for the blog.) We did decide to find out, and I'm really glad about that. I think it will be great for Lilleigh to know a little more about her sibling. Just for the record, in the future, I'd love to have another surprise because I just think the suspense makes it so fun! But this time, finding out just seems right. Here's a shadow of my tummy at 19 weeks. I love how sweet Lil is standing next to me in this photo and looking at her daddy. How sweet is she? Movement : I have been feeling the baby move! With Lil, I felt her at 17 weeks. With this one, it was 18. Maybe this baby will be a little calmer? (Knock on wood.) Hard to imagine a calmer child though, really.  Not sure what this means... hmm. Cravings : I have been drinking a little more milk than usual. Last pregnancy, I almost doubled my milk intake! Changes: W...

Today is the big day. Three years since Austen's passed away. We released three balloons in his memory. It wasn't quite as emotional as I had thought it would be. Really, it just felt sweet and right. I am thankful to have a neat way to remember her with my family, especially since we are 4 hours away from the rest of my family. It's nice to have our own tradition to carry on. The three balloons for Austen, plus one extra for Lil, so as to avoid any meltdown that may occur when the other three are released in the sky. Can you guess which balloon is hers? The three balloons. I did write a few things on them - Bible verses, answered prayers, and snip-it's of God's goodness. Explaining to Lilleigh how we were going to release the balloons on the count of three and that she would get to release one of them also. She didn't quite understand the releasing of the balloons on the count of 3... Watching the balloons float away. She...

Last week I joined my dad and Anabelle in New York City! My dad had his annual work conference there, and he invited the girls to join him. So Thursday, Grammy drove up to help Brendon out with Lil and get some quality time with those two, and I flew to NYC! As always, NYC was so fun! I was seriously missing the warm weather, but we did get to see some snow, do some shopping, eat great food, and see Once! At dinner one night Shopping is always fun with Anabelle! As fun as NYC was, I was reminded of why I do not wish to live there! It's not really even the people, though my cab driver did pee in a cup while I was in the car... ugh. It's really the crowds, the smoking, and the smog. Yuck! But it's super fun to visit and has amazing food!

The third anniversary of Austen's death is coming up on Monday. And his birthday on Wednesday. Part of me can't believe he has been gone that long, that he's still gone. And another part of me feels it's been so much longer. This year I've been thinking about how to integrate my brother's memory into my family, specifically this time of year. I want my kids to know how important my brother was (and is) to me. I want them to know they had an uncle, who was constantly nagging me about when he would get the title "uncle" and who would have adored them. And really, especially this time of year, I need to do something . I need to know that even if my brother is gone and I now have my own family, in a way he isn't gone because he's still very much alive in my memories. Of course, I talk about Austen year round. And I have his photo up in many places. But the anniversary, more so than his birthday, has been a day of sadness for me. I know it's...

My sweet friend Randi was on CNN Headline News a couple weeks ago sharing about her Rock (Jesus!) and her experience as a young mom battling breast cancer. Just wanted to share in case you missed it! See her interview here . It's so fun to see how God uses these things to bring Himself glory!

Just some photos from life lately... Our trip to the Dallas Zoo - Lil had just fed the giraffe lettuce A tea party with Aunt Morgan and their American Girl dolls at the American Girl cafe in Dallas Eating her first sundae! Blowing bubbles with her Dora bubble gun Sitting on Papa Larry's lap at Hunan By the way, I may have mentioned this... but Blogger decided that I've uploaded too many photos. Sooo basically unless I have a photo uploaded to Facebook or Shutterfly or someplace else on the Internet, I can't post it. So no offense to you if your photo isn't on here. But uploading the photos elsewhere first isn't always a quick or easy thing to do... Which is another reason I haven't blogged a lot. It takes too long to upload photos one place and link to them... I just don't really have a great solution to this issue. If you know of a free solution, let me know!