Friday, May 14, 2010

The Past Two Months

Gees, alot has happened in the past 2 months, I don't know where to begin. Let's start with a quick update on Fisher. He went for his shots and 2 month checkup on Wednesday. He weighed in at 11lbs 12oz. (50%) and was 23 3/4 in. long (75%). He's a sweet, sweet baby and is really the easiest part of this whole transition from a family of 3 to 4. He sleeps well (5 - 6 hour stretch @ night), he eats well (every 2 hours during the day), and he's overall pretty laid back. He lets his big brother run and jump all around him and he doesn't seem to mind a bit. He's recently started lighting up the room with his smiles. My biggest fear in all of this was not being able to love another the way I love Trace; but somehow, the Lord made some room in my heart. And did I mention how cute he is? Most people never make it past how much hair he has, and yes, he has a lot; but when you look past all that hair, you see one of the cutest babies I've ever seen (and I'm not just saying that).


Now, to update you on the Ballard Family happenings over the last 2 months. We celebrated our first Easter as a family of four which began with an Egg Hunt, or "Egg Hunk" as Trace would say, at Highland Road Park with our church family. It was one our first family outings and although Trace was a bit sick, he still had a blast finding all those eggs.


It gave him good practice for the Egg Hunk's to come. A few days later Trace had an Easter party at school where they hunted eggs again and ate beyond his limit in candy and sugar coated snacks! :)


Then came Easter Weekend, where we celebrated with all the family in town on Saturday. Of course, the Easter Bunny ran several times including Easter Bunny Rhiannon bringing baskets for everyone.


The next morning, we all woke up bright and early to see what the Bunny had brought. Trace must have been extra good this year! ;)


That evening, we went to Easter service at the Ring. Here's one of our few pics as a family of four:

After the holidays, we had lots of fun things to do. We had Ernie’s 31st birthday then we went to Tiny Tiger Fest, which is held annually at Trace's school. It's always a blast and there's so much fun stuff for the kiddos. Some of the things we did: Sidewalk chalked, made sand art, pet animals, made a super hero cape, played play dough, got a characature drawn, ate, and ate, and ate, and jumped in the bouncies, of course.




We've also had lots of birthdays to celebrate! Beginning in April, all of Trace's classmates start turning 3. It seems like we've had a birthday party every weekend. Too bad Trace is the youngest and his is last. He keeps asking if it's June 27 and I tell him it's coming, but I'm starting to think he doesn't believe me. :( Poor Buddy. Also, our friend, Baby Cole turned 1 recently, and Trace got to test out his new swing set! He even did the monkey bars semi-all by himself!



Another big milestone in the Ballard family news is we all went on Trace's first class fieldtrip! We went to AgMagic at LSU and got to see all sorts of plants and animals. Among Trace's favorites were the crawfish, the new baby chicks that hatched while we were there, and a Madagascar hissing cockroach (I still get the willies just thinking about it). We took all the kids from the Child Care Center in wagons over to the Ag Center. It was a really fun trip and I'm definately looking forward to all the field trips yet to come!



Well, that's about all I've got for now. We're doing great, keeping busy, and enjoying life as a family of four. Hopefully, it won't be this long before another post. Until next time...here's a picture of the Ballard brothers watching Curious George together.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Fisher Job

Fisher is here! He was born on Friday, March 12, at 8:10 a.m. He weighed in at a whopping 9 lbs 1.3 ozs and is 20 3/4 inches long. Mom and baby are both doing great, and we hope to be going home on Monday.

Here are a few pictures from Fisher's birthday:

Our first family photo:Fisher's first bath:
Trace being a great big brother:
It's been an long, eventful day:

Check out more pictures on Facebook.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Last Night Out as a Family of Three

It's T-minus one day until baby Fisher makes his debut. We're all set for a section tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. and we can't wait to meet him. We had our last ultrasound on Wednesday and despite the tech's best efforts to keep his weight down, Fisher still is a whopping 8 lbs 15 ozs. So our newborn outfits may not be fitting him for very long.

As our time as a family of three is winding down, we wanted a hang out night with just us and Trace so we took him to Chuck E. Cheese for one last hurrah ... and I think you can see from these pictures that we had a great time. Trace rode just about every ride and checked out most of the games, but his favorite thing was climbing up the play tubes and sliding down the slide. We'd get him distracted with a game or ride and as soon as it would finish, he'd run back to the slide.

He also liked to be able to put the "money" in the games himself and in a few of the games, he would add more tokens than were needed. We won 150 tickets too, so he had fun picking out a few prizes. It was a great night, and it's weird but exciting to think about this being our last night out with just us and him. I know he can't wait to meet his brother, and we can't wait to see his reaction to finally getting to meet someone that we've been telling him about for months. I know how hard its been for us to wait to meet Fisher, but for a two-year-old, I can't even imagine. Luckily, he doesn't have to wait much longer.

Here are some more pictures from the night:

Trace riding the monster truck:

Momma beating Trace at the water gun game:

Trace dancing:
Trace beating daddy at air hockey: