Three cheers for visitors!!!!

This spring has been flying by in our house. We have been lucky to have a lot of visitors come to town. The beginning of March brought Matt's sister Courtney and her busy bunch of kids for a week. Wheeler was in heaven, and we packed the week with ton of activities including a first trip to the splash park. The homegrown Texans were looking at us like we were nuts. I guess 75 degrees is only hot enough for crazy Canadians to bust out their swimsuits. And by those terms it looks like Wheeler is a Texan after all. He said "it not sunny enough" and was content to watch Sam and Sophie get wet. Here are a few pictures from our week.

Movie Night at Grandma & Papa's.

For Christmas 2011 all the grand kids got their own Ipods... they are hilarious to watch playing on them, and are clearly all hooked.  I guess at least they all play on them alone, together...

Walking to the park with my little buddy.

Crazy kids!

Best buds. Poor tiny Daphne is 7 months older than Wheelie and he is at least 3 inches taller and 15 pounds heavier. Occasionally he tried boss her around, but in the end her sweetness won him over and he was just happy to be her buddy and hold her hand. 

  Court and I are both pregnant and due within a week of each other the end of summer. This is how we felt about being in our first trimesters of pregnancy and chasing after crazy kids all week!

The following weekend Matt's other sister Megan and cousin Kelly came to town. We hit some yummy restaurants and suckered kind Meg into babysitting on her vacation. It was fun to see them both and catch up on their busy lives!

Cousin Kelly (Meg was camera shy, so no pics documenting her trip)

Shortly after our Swan visitors left, we had my sister Jill and her family come to visit for a week! Their visit was equally packed with fun outings, including a trek to the zoo, splash park, an Astros baseball game, and a 2 day trip down to San Antonio! We had been planning on taking Wheeler down to Sea World in San Antonio for a while, and were excited to get there before the baby arrives. Here are some pictures from our little getaway!

 We stayed at the historical Emily Morgan, which is said to be one of the most "haunted hotels" in the USA. It is right across the street from the Alamo and was used as a hospital in the 1920's. We didn't see any ghosts, but it sure was pretty!

Daddy and Wheels posing at the Alamo.

Daddy chasing Wheeler off the "do not walk on the grass" grass at the Alamo.

The Flockhart's first visit to the Alamo. The day we got there it was over 90 degrees. I think maybe a little bit of getting used to for our Utahans.

Excited about the "big gun".

A Riverwalk boat ride

My favorite video from our Sea World trip... Wheeler and Ella feeding fish to the Dolphins

Shamu (or "shampoo" as Wheeler calls him)

Rides at the Elmo world area

Matt won the dad of the week award as he chased Wheeler around and around the climbing park with huge sections of tiny tunnels he had to sqeeze through. 

Tired, but happy after a long day! 

A huge THANK YOU to all of our visitors over the last +month. We had a great time visiting with everyone, and appreciate your love and efforts to come all the way to Houston to see us! Thank you for helping our spring go by so quickly... time flying is a priceless gift when you are pregnant!

Potty. Trained.

We have been working on potty training in our house for a while. Our little dude decided sitting on the pot was a cool thing to do last summer, and we arrogantly figured that in his obviously genius state it would only be a month or two before he was out of diapers and going about his "business" like a big kid. Wrong. Rookie parenting mistake. Nine months of reinforcing peeing in the potty with jellybeans later we were no closer to wearing undies, and the only thing our genius child had learned to do was manipulate our desire for him to use the potty into stretching out bedtime, delaying nap-time, and earning as many beans as possible. A master negotiator, Wheeler would shut down mid stream request his bean, eat it, then push out some more and demand another bean for his efforts. After we wised up and closed the free bean factory interest in using the potty diminished almost completely. Not wanting to scare him off we figured we would back off, stay encouraging but positive, and he would show us when he was a little bit more ready. Well... that proof of readiness came like a smack in the face the Sunday Wheeler decided to fake a dirty diaper to get out of nursery class.  This kid knew exactly what he was doing and was playing hard ball... and since both of his parents share his competitive genes, we stepped up to the plate. Undies were purchased and a giant box of favorite Cars characters was placed on the ledge beside the toilet. The deal was as follows: You can open one car for keeping your undies dry all day long, and one car for pooping in the potty. 3 weeks later all the cars on the ledge are earned. Diapers are gone (except for nighttime) Accidents are few and far between, and we are basking in the next 4 1/2 months until we get to start changing dirty diapers all over again.

Wheeler's News

Wheeler has been waiting patiently to share his big news. At the end of this summer he is going to be a big brother!  He has let the cat out of the bag on a few occasions by casually lifting up my shirt and asking to "see it". And pointing out "my baby" ( an ultrasound picture on our fridge) when guests come over. And he has already decided that the only two acceptable names for Swan baby #2 will be Finn McMissile for a boy and Holly Shiftwell for a girl. (Yes we watch Cars2 just a little bit too often in our house).
Matt and I are also very excited about becoming a family of 4. For those who don't follow, we have trouble getting pregnant and so we feel relieved and excited to have made it successfully through another series of fertility treatments. Similarly to our efforts to conceive Wheeler, we used a combination of Metformin and Clomid medication with a trigger shot and this time around an IUI. By fertility standards it is a fairly non-intense treatment, although when you are in the middle of it all with the emotional swings and constant Dr. appointments it doesn't feel like such a walk in the park. The entire process took about a year as we had a few other health complications to address before starting the medication.
So now it is the fun part! And this pregnancy has been going very well so far! Wheeler helps to keep me busy and active and the first trimester has flown by with nothing more than a little feeling overtired and the constant desire to stuff my face. It is a catch 22 for me when I am pregnant... I feel sick if I don't keep something in my stomach, but all the eating makes for early weight gain and a less than lovely looking pre-bump bump. Oh well, c'est la vie. Time to bust out the belly band and pretend that it is just a really big baby. With this pregnancy I have craved my usual lemonade, big glasses of milk, mashed potatoes, and this time around bagels and pickles.
We don't know if it will be a boy or a girl yet. My hunch changes on a weekly basis. But we will find out soon and keep you posted. Updates and pictures to follow!