Happy Fathers Day!

Our family is celebrating double blessings this fathers day- MK and Belly Bean (due Jan 2nd 2013!!).

A more detailed Belly Bean post coming soon... I finally get to do weekly preggo posts! :)

Happy Fathers day to my wonderful daddy- you are such a fabulous example of a Christ follower, I always know I am covered in prayer by you. Thanks for showing me what love looks like in how you adore mom and your girls.

To Mike, you are an awesome daddy to MK and Belly Bean. They are so blessed to call you Dad! Love you hb!


Happy Fathers day!
Love,
The Expecting Vogs!

lessons learned...

A few of the lessons the Vogs have learned/ re-learned this week:

1. A mama who gets to sew is a happy mama. I haven't been feeling up to sewing lately (explanation to come later), but I finally got back to the old machine the other day and finished off a long awaited pillow project for our couch. The green tree pillow is from Pier One from 3 years ago, but the red and green one is one I just made! I got the fabric several months ago at a warehouse sale... I got 1.5 yards for $3! Quite a steal for high quality upholstery fabric.

 2. MK doesn't always learn by example... nope, I never put her to bed in the microwave. When I walked in to her play room to check on the independent playing she said "Shhh mama, baby seeping." She's a really good mommy... we've just got to get her baby a bed!

 3. There is nothing sweeter than watching your man love on your little girl. I heard giggles over the monitor on saturday morning and this is what I saw... they laughed and played in her bed for 20 minutes! Melt my heart you two!

 4. Slow and steady...that's how MK's hair grows! We FINALLY have enough to make a tiny pony tail! There's hope that she might have long hair before middle school!

 5. Don't ever forget... Dominos, although it tastes yummy, HATES your stomach Katy!  

6. Remember, if you ever get chemo at Baylor and you're feeling nauseated, don't look at the TV! Every TV in the infusion room had the Food Network on it. There's just something strange about that to me... if I was getting chemo, the last thing I'd want to look at is food! Seriously though, it was such an honor to watch my sweet friend endure another round of chemo. She brightens up that cancer hospital with her radiant joy... and you could tell that everyone there just loved her! Selfishly I loved having a couple hours with her all to myself... usually we've got our girls in tow and it makes having an uniterrupted conversation hard!

Hope you're learning some fun lessons this week!

Love,

The Vogs

Baby showers, sunshine and bears... oh my!

We've had a busy busy weekend!

It all started with a baby shower that I hosted with 7 other wonderful girls for my sweet friend and community group girl Jessica. I was so excited to celebrate her little boy Jude who is due to arrive in late July! There were several challenges to this shower that the hostesses creatively overcame... a 100+ invite list, a large room in our church that was severerly lacking in decoration, and a tight budget! I think we pulled it off wonderfully and I know that Jessica, James and Jude felt very blessed. I'll do a more detailed post on the shower once I get some pictures! :)

After the shower in the morning, Mike, Maddie and I drove down to Waco to watch our beloved Bears play in the NCAA Super Regionals against Arkansas. There are several reasons why I love living in Dallas, but getting to drive down to Waco (less than 2 hours away) to watch our Bears play definitely tops the list! After picking up our tickets at will call with an hour until first pitch, we checked out the bookstore (and bought a BU blanket since we totally forgot one and we had general admission seats, which means we were stuck out on the grassy knoll along the first base foul line!), went to say hi to the bears, and walked around campus.

One of the bears was out! Maddie loved saying "hi bear!"

It was super hot (upper 90s), but with some creative shade (thanks Shawn for your car shades!), slushies, sweat, and sun screen we cheered the Bears on to an 8-1 victory over the Razorbacks.

our view from the sun-drenched grassy knoll! :) (I'm eating a slushie to keep cool!)

Maddie had a blast! She loved saying "sic em" and cheered and clapped whenever the crowd did. This was her first Baylor sporting event and I'm so excited to take her to more! :)

Our Baylor Bear family! Hello squinty eyes, but Mike and Maddie look cute, so here ya go! :)

Afterwards we had dinner at the Elite Circle Grill.... can you say "Veggie Sandwhich?" It's one of my all time favorites in Waco and it was just as delicious as I remembered in college. MK had a bit of a meltdown in the restaurant, but for an almost two year old out past her bedtime who had been in the sun for 3 hours, it was understandable! C'est la vie as a parent of a toddler!

After getting home at 10pm, we got up early for chuch to watch the babies in the nursery. Mike and I were in the newborn room (3-6 month olds) and we were totally shocked at how much we had forgotten about little babies! They just kinda sit around and either sleep or cry! I remember thinking about how hard it was to have a 3 month old... now, looking back, it was a walk in the park compared to having an active, boundary testing toddler! It was so sweet to cuddle these sweet babies so thier parents could go enjoy church. Because Mike and I served in the nursery for 2 years before we had MK, we felt super comfortable leaving MK in the nursery at Watermark when she was 2-3 months old... and we felt so blessed that people loved on MK so that we could go worship and get filled up! The other volunteers in the newborn room were all different stages of pregnant, so poor Mike was stuck in a small room with a bunch of preggos and 10 newborns! :)

We have a busy week ahead of us... swimming lessons, doctors appointments, Merge, lunch with friends, pool play dates, and something mom's really excited about- Mom's Night Out! :)

How was your weekend?

Love,


The very tired Vogs!

MWW- sometimes, the thought is worse than the reality!

Here's a MWW I've been working on for a while...

I love change, always have. I loved moving as a child, meeting new people, I love new adventures. I re-arrange the furniture in our house every other month- seriously, ask my friends they always comment on it! The title of my blog is "A Baby Changes Everything"... and boy does it! Even if you are a change-a-holic, the constant routine busting changes that a baby/toddler brings can be daunting!

Bye bye crib... now what to do with that space... sound like a re-arrange is in order for MK's room! :)

One of those changes I was dreading was the crib to bed transition. If you've been tracking with us for a while, y'all know that I was transitioning her slowly, letting her nap in the bed and sleep at night in the crib. I was so nervous that she would get out of bed at night or in the morning that I was very hesitant to make the switch at night. When we visited my parents back in April, my mom had set up my little sisters trundle with a toddler rail all ready for MK and we decided to pull the plug and make the switch that week. And to my surprise (although maybe I shouldn't be because MK is a "go with the flow" kinda girl and handles change very well!) she did fantastic! She hasn't gotten our of her bed before we come into get her, which we praise and reward her for everytime! I know that one day she'll realize the huge amount of freedom she has in her big girl bed... and we'll have to deal with it when it comes!

MK loves hiding in her bed!

I've only done this with one kid, and like I said before, MK has always been very easy going and handles change well.... So I can't say if the slow transition would be good for every baby, but it certainly worked well for us! I also didn't push MK into her big girl bed, I let her sleep in it if she wanted to at first, which I also think helped with the smooth transition. Oh, and if you're a mom who doesn't have a video monitor yet for your baby... get one! I don't know what I'd do without it, especially during this transition phase. That's a post for another day... baby gear I couldn't live without! :)

MK sleeping in her big girl bed for the first time at night at Gigi and Poppy's house!

Any experienced mom's have any suggestions for my readers who have babes that might have a rougher time with the transition?

Love,
K. Vog

Finally...

We got a new laptop! Now I can get back to keeping all of my loyal readers updated.

This update will be short and sweet, but I promise that this week will filled with many more detailed posts... how's that for a cliff hanger?

We are splashing into summer in style... with a new car (yay mommy car... blog post on that coming soon too!), lots of swimming with our favorite Widemans and even a trip to the Ft. Worth Zoo sprinkled in there! I'll do a review of the zoo soon, but we LOVED it... so worth the trip to Ft. Worth.

A make shift water slide in the back yard= hours of fun in the sun and mommy getting a base tan!

How are you kicking off the summer?

Excited to get back to blogging again,
Love,
K. Vog

Update: we are still here!

I am so sorry it's been so long since I've posted on here. We have been going no stop since coming home from Florida. Lots of errands to run, Maddie and mommy getting sick, doctor appointments, and just the business of life! Also, our laptop died on us, so it's been hard to post (does anyone know how to post on an iPad, I've always had issues with spacing, picture and formatting on the iPad an, which is why this post will be so short!)I promise to update soon, lots of things going on in the Vog house... Here are some pictures to give you some clues!

Hello from Florida!

I'm not doing a MWW post today, because we are on vacation! But, I will leave you with some pictures to show you what we've been up to in the gorgeous Sun Shine State!

Maddison is LOVING the beach! 

This is what MK did the whole 2 hour flight from Houston to Orlando... it was amazing! 

We are playing a lot of Catan on this trip... Mike's kicking our butts so far, not out of character for him!

These two are two peas in a pod... she's in love with her poppy!

Playing at the park with Dada!

Swinging with mama!

She's loving her arm floaties that Gigi got her... she can swim on her own and loves it! She's turning into a little fish.

Checking out the "fishees" at lunch! 

We are so blessed to  be here with my wonderful parents in this gorgeous place!

Hope y'all have a wonderful rest of the week!

Love,
The Sun-kissed Vogs!