Baby #4, oh, and #3 too

I feel like I am completely bypassing our baby Number three if I announce we are having baby Number four! Our baby Number three was born April 28th, 2009. She is soon to be two and she is such a joy to us. She is spunky and loving. She keeps up with the "bigs" and is holding her own in this house. We all love her beyond measures! That's our Izzy.

Soon, but not soon enough, we will meet our baby Number four. We are anxious to meet this lad or lady, but we are patiently waiting until August. Our family is growing by leaps and bounds (as am I!) We couldn't be more excited!

Have You Done Anything of Value Today?

This question is one that crosses my mind frequently. Did I do anything today that was worth value to my family? Definately, there are days that go by and that's all they seem to do is....go by. These are the days usually when I work and rush home and fix dinner and do bedtime routine and shut out the lights. They go by in a blur and I wonder if I did anything that made Mason, Mallory, or Phil feels special or good about themselves. I know that just taking the time to smile at the kids, or phone Phil at work, or wrestle around with Mason, or play Cookin Cookies with Mallory makes the time valuable. Sometimes it's very simple, and sometimes the simple things take to most effort! I hope I can leave an impression on my family that when they look back at the "days gone by", they are valuable and know that I truly kept this question in my mind.

Pre Birthday

Just a few day before my 32nd birthday! I've been trying to get the kids to crack and give up the goods about the birthday gift I might get. They are not giving it up! Mason says I'm getting a Duck and Mallory says I'm getting Simba and flowers. I think I could do without the animals and flowers would be great! They only other thing I might like better than flowers would be white cake. I love CAKE! So, the count down is on...3 days and we will really see what the kids and Phil have up their sleeves!

Guilty

Here it is December 3rd and I am amazed at how quickly time has passed. I have been hounded by a couple of friends (you know who you are) about keeping up with my blog. My intentions are good, but I have failed. I haven't failed my followers, I've failed myself! With a sincere apology, I can forgive myself and move on and give this blog thing one more try!

Lots has happened in the last few months. I left off at Mallory's birthday. Then came Mason's Birthday, Number 4! He had Jedi-good time! We visited Mamaw and Papaw in Santa Clause Land in July and saw that there is really Christmas in July. In August, we went to Vevay for the annual Swiss Wine Festival, the house I was selling had an offer place on it and we found out we were expecting. I slept through much of September (first trimester, is all I need to say). I started to come out of the fog is October to celebrate Halloween with a Tinkerbell fairy and Darth Vader. November included a much enjoyed trip to St Louis (Chateau Lack has the finest accommodations) and we had a feast at home which included a substitution of cornish game hens instead of a turkey.

We are up to date and now we are 3 days into our Advent Calendar. We are counting down the days until Christmas and the days are filled with Advent stories, shopping, music (Mason loves the song Baby It's Cold Outside), decorations, chocolate covered anything, and many a threat that Santa will receive an email if You are naughty!! Toddlers are so much fun this time a year and I'm not being facicious!

Lazy!

Okay, as you can see I haven't blogged in months. No excuses, besides, potty training, work, marathon vomiting and diarrhea (the kids), crammed packed weekends and evenings, meetings, etc, etc, etc. I said no excuses. So, here I am again for a second attempt at blogging. I want to journal so badly. I think it will be so neat for the kids to read about all the madness of their childhood and so I can read back and remember! At our Mom's group today we talked about intentionally creating memories for our children and how we typically just live to get through the day! Boy, I know how that is. I desire so much to slow down and design my day instead of living through default. So, maybe I'm really not lazy, more just busy and time is slipping by. I know you can't stop time, but hopefully I can learn some tricks to savor what's here in the present!

We're BACK!

Yes, we have been back for awhile now, but it does take time to recover from a Disney trip. Well, maybe not a month, but whatever! Our trip was awesome, the kids ask frequently when we can go back and I dream about the same. We hit all the parks, including Sea World, so we have great memories and pictures to prove it! We ate with Cinderella, played games on the Boardwalk, enjoyed yummy muffins from the bakery, drank till we floated on soda, swam in the pool, rode rides (even the scary ones), hung out with our buddies, Liz, Joe, and Lauren, and sister Brenna, danced to the Chicken Dance in Germany, sat in awe at the Nemo musical, and basically just lived it up. It was wonderful! I've got a great many story so I'll start posting.