Our Family of Five

Last weekend, we made our twice yearly trip to Louisville for pictures at Portrait Innovations.  As usual, we were very pleased with the experience and the pictures, plus we enjoyed lunch with our good friends, and an afternoon of shopping.  However, even though we always enjoy our trips to Louisville, I am thrilled to say we may not be going back for a while now that a Portrait Innovations just opened here in our own town!!  Just in time for our new baby to come!

We've had an eventful week, but the majority of the pictures this week are of Ella and Lucy's new bunk beds.  Moving Lucy into Ella's room was one of the first steps in preparing our home for the arrival of our new baby in February.  We bought the bunk beds for Ella's birthday in May, but only set up the bottom twin bed at the time.  Now that Lucy is 3, Jeff built the rest of the bed and both girls moved up!  They absolutely love their beds and love sleeping in the same room together.  They have done a great job at going to sleep with out *too* much talking at night.  The only less than desirable effect has been that they have been getting up way too early in the morning!  Hopefully once they get used to being together, they'll get back to sleeping to more normal times in the morning!

 

We had the girls' professional Christmas pictures taken on Saturday, so I'll be posting those soon!  They turned out great!

We had a full weekend of birthday celebrations!  My dad turned 66 on Friday (we celebrated with him twice!) and we had Lucy's party on Saturday, complete with all the family.  I think the pictures pretty much explain it all!  Lucy was SO happy with all the puppies everywhere.  When she came in and first saw all the decorations, she said, "Awww...thank you, Momny!"  What a sweetheart!  She had a wonderful day and went to sleep with a big smile on her face.  Couldn't ask for more.

After all the Halloween festivities last Saturday night, we came home and began preparing for Lucy's week of birthday celebrations by making confetti cupcakes with "pink icing and sprinkles!"  Since we wanted to wait one more year for a "friends party," we brought cupcakes to Lucy's Sunday School class so she could still get to celebrate with her friends. 

 

Monday was her actual birthday.  I walked into her room that morning singing "Happy Birthday" to her and she smiled from ear to ear.  When I finished, she said, "Am I 3?"  I happily told her yes and she jumped out of bed ready for her day.  As I was getting her breakfast ready (birthday pancakes Daddy had made), she asked quite seriously, "Am I still little or am I big?"  She is such a sweetheart.  She blew out the candles on her pancakes and we had a fairly quiet day around the house.

 

When I had asked her what she would like to do on her birthday, she said she wanted to "eat pizza at CiCi's and ride the black horsey at the mall."  Thankfully, that wish was pretty easy to grant!  After school, we took Ella to her dance class, then came home and met Daddy and took off for our birthday evening.  She had lots of fun showing everyone three fingers and proudly telling them how old she was.  When we got home, we all had birthday cupcakes and she got to blow out candles again, this time with Daddy and Ella home to sing to her as well as Mommy. 

 

Then she FINALLY got her present, which she had waited patiently for all day.  Her little toddler bed had been traded for a big girl bed, complete with Care Bears comforter and pillowcase (thanks to our friends who handed it down!).  We explained (again) to her that as soon as Daddy found some time to build the bunk beds, we would move that big mattress onto the bottom bunk in Ella's room and then it would become "Lucy and Ella's room."  They are both pretty excited about this upcoming change.  Personally, I'm enoying having them in separate rooms as long as I can, but I know they will enjoy being together.  After the move, we'll have about 3 months to very gradually transition Lucy's room into a nursery again.  Hopefully, without making her feel replaced in any way or like we were taking anything away from her.  That is the goal, at least.

 

She had a great first night in her new bed.  As I was saying goodnight to her, she asked me, "Am I still 3?"  Yes, Lucy.  And you are SO big.  

I was disappointed when our church decided to not to have an event on Halloween this year.  I always love getting to see all the kids from church in their cute costumes, and for our kids to get to be seen by their friends and teachers, too.  But since that wasn't happening, we made the most of it by finding lots of other places for them to wear their costumes and get candy, even if nobody really knew them.

 

On Friday night, we went to the bible book store to meet Larry Boy and get a picture, but that didn't turn out so well.  The girls both refused to go anywhere near him.  He was just way too big.  I thought after having been to Walt Disney World and taking tons of pics with all those characters, they would be okay with this, but I guess I was wrong.

 

We left there and went to a fall festival at one of the largest churches in our area.  They had all kinds of games, rides, balloons, candy, etc.  There would have been even more, but it was raining so the outdoor stuff was a bust.  We ate dinner in a giant tent outside.  Ella thought it was cool that we were all standing on a parking lot.

 

On Saturday, we had a nice morning around the house, complete with banana-chocolate chip pancakes made by Daddy.  Then we started our Halloween tour!  We went to a local pumpkin patch and found our way through muddy mazes, went on a hayride, and picked out pumpkins to keep.  After that it was Toys R Us, Walmart, and Border's - all in costume, of course! 

 

Saturday evening, we went back home and did some trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.  It was our first time to do this and I think it was Ella's favorite part of the weekend.  Lucy, having not had a nap, was pretty tired and got bored with the whole thing after a couple blocks.  She didn't want to walk anymore.  We went home and sorted all the candy from the day, took out the candy they REALLY liked, and put the rest in a big bucket to start giving away!  Ella and Lucy sat on the front porch and gave candy to lots more trick-or-treaters.  That was fun for them, too. 

 

After a quick dinner, we finished the evening with a quick trip through a trunk-or-treat at another local church and came back home.  We had an enjoyable Halloween, but the next few days were even more exciting!  Check back next week for LOTS of pictures of this week's exciting events!