The arrival of Little Miss Smitty #3 could be any day so it is time to start the countdown! I have left the comments open on this blog so that anyone can leave their guesses when this Little Miss Smitty will get here.

Here are some key facts that may or may not influence your guesses:

My due date: May 18

Norah: Born 13 days after her due date; weighed 7 lbs 11 oz; length 2o inches

Stella: Born 6 days before her due date; weighed 7 lbs 12 oz; length 2o inches

Here is my guess//
Who Am I: Candyce (her mom)
Weight: 7 pounds and 10 ounces
Length: 21 inches
Birthday: May 4; 9:00pm
What will she look like: {Hair} Blonde {Eyes} Blue

Friends and family you all should fill out your guesses//
Just highlight mine and copy and paste them into the text box when you leave a comment. But make sure you replace my answers with your own.  In other words, leave the bolded words in your comment and then you fill in the rest {smile}.

Would you believe that these hats were busted out because we got ready this morning to Outcast’s Morris Brown (edited version of course).

The girls felt fly in their hats jumping on our bed!

{note: Stella loves to pose for the camera and after she is done putting the puzzle together she sees me and thinks I am going to take her picture and so she poses…so so so cute!}

It is undeniable that we can not wait to meet our new daughter, to see her face, to hold her tiny body, to feel her warm breath on our necks—and for Norah and Stella they smile with delight when I talk about how soon it will be until they will get to see their new baby. On one end I just want this time to continue to fly by so we can finally meet her face to face, and then on the other I want this time to almost just stand still.

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I look at my Norah, my first baby. She has gotten so big. When I look at you dance around the room, spell your name by yourself, and count out your green vitamins at night I try to blink away the thought “she will be turning 4 this year” at my best attempt to keep a tear from running down my cheek. Norah, when I look at you I see a little girl who loves life and whose life I love! I still see my baby who I met for the first time on Sept 12 and who changed my life and opened up a piece of my heart that was finally set free when I became your mom that day. I can see how much you have grown, Norah my Norah!

I look at my baby Stella. Unlike what I remember when I would look at Norah when I was pregnant with Stella, I can not help but get a little emotional when I hold Stella or see her playing quietly with her dollhouse upstairs and I think, “where did your babyhood go?” Why did this most precious time of your life seem to pass so quickly compared to the time I remember with Norah? I see how your little face has grown and how you completely fill up the space between my arms when I rock you to sleep. I see a dynamic personality full of life, joy and a sense of humor come from a docile newborn baby, whom what seems like just a few months ago I held tight close to my heart underneath the yellow glow of a street lamp along the side of a silent freeway. I can not believe how much you have grown my baby and so fast.

I have enjoyed every—single—stage of your life Norah and of your life Stella, and I know with conviction that I will enjoy every stage to come, but there will always be a part of me that wants to hold on to the right now. And that is the hardest part that I found in my 3 and a half years of motherhood—is the letting go! Letting go and surrendering to the uncontrollable fact that on this earth time passes. Norah wants to learn, she wants grow. Stella wants to join right in with her big sister. You both will most likely one day want what I wanted back even at the age of 13 or so…to someday have a holy marriage and be a mom herself one day. Because my own mother did such a graceful job of letting go of me in all the right ways I am able to have my heart be the fullest it has ever felt as the wife of a wonderful man and the mother of my own children today…so…deep down I know I can do the same thing for my children but it is so…not…easy {and right now tears are rolling down my face and I am a blubbering mess}.

Stella…Norah…I do not want to trade you now for the baby you once were because I would miss the you now too much! But can I have the you now, you as a newborn, you as a 9 months old, 13 month old…etc all at once?

I do not want to be that parent that looks at a first time mom or dad and feels the need to forewarn them that “time flies by” and that their once 2 year old is now in their final year of college and then remark “where did the time go?”

I know the feeling I feel in my heart is not because I did not spend enough time with either of you or take your babyhood for granted. I have made sure and make sure to look you in the eyes and be in awe of the life in front of me. I try really hard to not be “too busy” and I have really tried to spend quality time with both of you—so why do I feel this way? Why do I feel so weepy when I think about time passing too quickly or I feel like Stella became 18 months overnight?

I know there is some possible explanations for these emotions: it is possible that I am more emotional because I am a woman…a pregnant woman in fact; that my time is spread between two little bodies which makes it feel like my quality time with each of them has been cut in half; that Stella’s babyhood felt like it went by faster than Norah’s because it did {Stella was sleeping in her own bed by 3 months-Norah slept with me until she was 10 months; Stella crawled by 5 months and walked by 8 months-Norah crawled by 10 months and walked at one year}; that Little Miss Smitty and Stella are closer in age (18months) than Stella and Norah are (25 months) so I have had shorter time getting to know Stella before we start to get to know another little baby; or maybe this is the way a heart feels when it is in the middle of learning a lesson and growing bigger and {hopefully} wiser.

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Matt finished the play refrigerator, part two of a three part gift for the girls, just in time for Easter.

Easter dresses. - 

Easter brunch with our family. - 

Easter wouldn’t be complete without an egg hunt! -  - 

The creative process went like this: found the puff balls on the sales rack at Michaels; Norah wanted bunnies; I helped create the bunny, the first prototype; Norah assembled the rest; then Norah wanted them to fly; Norah wanted to make one for everyone in her whole family; then she got tired and I took over; then we ran out of sparkly puff balls!

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It was such a joy to see you so excited the morning of, during the play, and afterwards. Both Matt and I agree that in choosing whether to either go to a movie or a play with the girls it is more worth our time, money and experience to go to a play with live action characters. It is just so much more satisfying. This was the first of many plays we will be enjoying with our daughters {smile}.

{note: we also took you to a special lunch afterwards to Positinos before we reunited with Stella later on that day}