Disneyland Part 1

Blowing fishy kisses with Ariel.



"Baby of Mine"



We were SO hoping to meet Sleeping Beauty, but at least we met Belle, Pocahontas, and Ariel.



Sammie loved hugging cousin Gwen. Thanks for being such a great sport Gwenie.



We went on It's a Small World and when we got off there was a crowd forming for a parade that was starting. That's right, it was Kobe. Talk about luck. This picture is not zoomed in. We were that close. Pretty cool.

East meets West

In June, we headed to California for a family reunion for James side of the family. It was a whirlwind of a trip. We just crammed so much into a week. It was really a treat for us to see Mom & Dad Kewish, all of the siblings, spouses, and cousins. We miss them so much and don't get to see them very often, so it was really great. In fact, I asked Sammie the other day what her favorite part of our trip was , thinking she'd say, "Disneyland", "Sea World", "the plane ride", "staying in hotels", or "the beach", but she said that her favorite part was playing with her cousins. So cute.

We drove by my old house and inconspicuously took a picture. Anybody remember this place?

Catching Up. This should be the title of all of our posts.

It has been a crazy few months for our family. We have just had so much going on, so here is our attempt to try to catch you all up.

Sammie and James both celebrated birthdays. Sammie turned 5 and James turned 30! As you can see, I let Sammie decorate her own cake. It wasn't my original plan, but what the heck, it's HER birthday right?

We went on an adventure (as we call them) to the Chesterfield Berry Farm. They had the most beautiful strawberries. We only picked a few for the experience because it was so blazing hot. Since we had a baby in tow, we just filled a small basket and headed out. Before we left though, we played in the corn pit, since it was in the shade. We couldn't get the girls out. I think they liked that more than picking strawberries. We were finding corn in crazy places for days.

More Izzie Pics

Here James is giving the girls instructions on how to handle the baby.





These girls love their new sister.

Isabelle "Izzie" Marie Kewish

Our little Izzie was born on April 27th, 2009 at 10:14 am. She weighed in at 8 lbs., 10 oz. and was 21 inches long. She has been such a great baby and loves all the attention that she gets from her big sisters. Here are some photos from the past week.

0 days to go...

So when I logged in to do a quick post and send the link to everyone (since nobody knows we started this new blog) I noticed that the widget Natalie added for the baby is at 0 days. Crazy...it's 12:23 am and I'm still up getting some last minute packing in. We head to the hospital at 6:30 in the morning tomorrow and the c-section is scheduled for 8:30 am. We still don't have a name for her (which is really weird) and we are definitely looking forward to being in the hospital. Sammie and Lexie are extremely excited to meet their new sister (who Lexie is adamant we should name JC Penny) It will definitely feel like a mini-vacation to be there for a few days. We can't thank Mom Pettitt enough for coming down to take care of the girls and hope they don't drive her too crazy. We will let you all know the name (as soon as we know) and all the other pertinent baby information tomorrow. Wish us (mostly Natalie, that is) luck!

Catching up.

So, I created this blog in January as you can see in the last post and never really told anyone about it. You all missed out on a lot, huh? The last four months have been the most hectic of my life I think. Here's what we've been up to in a nutshell.

We started house hunting in January which consumed every minute of spare time that we had. Then the girls and I spent literally the entire month of February being sick. I can remember feeling the first symptoms on the 1st and finally feeling better on the 28th. We just rotated the cold symptoms around and around. It was pretty awful. Being pregnant and not being able to take much for relief, combined with many interrupted and virtually sleepless nights, made for a long and miserable month.

We survived it though, and made it to March, which we spent trying to catch up on packing and then closed on our new house on March 24th. We feel so blessed that we had a great team of people on our side and amazing support from our very generous parents. (If anyone wants to move to Richmond, we have the best agent for you).

Since then, we have been trying to get settled as much as possible before our little girl arrives. Our days consist of moving boxes around (unfortunately not always unpacking them), rearranging furniture, searching craigslist for random things that we need/want, trips to Home Depot, trying to keep up with housework, James working long hours and lots of overtime, and the list goes on.

Somewhere in there I stop to remember that I'm pregnant. It's usually at the end of the day when my ankles and hands are totally swollen and my back is about to break.

So, that's what we've been up to and why we haven't blogged in ages. I hope that didn't come off too negative. I often stop and think about everything that makes my life hard right now and realize that they are all enormous blessings. They just happen to be huge life changing blessings that I am very thankful for.