Mini Vacation

We have soooo been enjoying the warm weather outside and getting to be out on the swingset. Josie is big enough to enjoy it this year and thinks she is as big as Maggie and Owen going up and down the steps. It makes me a total nervous wreck! The kids have spring break next week so we are heading out Thursday evening to go to cincinnati and take them to the Newport Aquarium for a little mini get away.

Here they are this week one evening playing outside.














































































Owen had his easter party at school this week. He loved his bunny ears and has been wearing them still.





































Maggie also had her party at school but I have found that preschool parties are much more fun than once they get into Kindergarten. Her party was quick and I had Owen and Josie with me too....so I didn't get any pictures.







We headed out to Cincinnti on Thursday evening after meeting up with Joe. We had no plans for that evening so ended up at a LeRose's pizza place downtown. Joe and Owen enjoyed it more than the rest of us......























We went back to the hotel and let the kids swim in the pool for awhile. Maggie and Owen are great in the pool......Josie kept us busy there though. She pretty much thinks she is Michael Phelps! haha. She had no problem jumping in over and over in the deep whether Joe was there to catch her or not. Finally Joe just let her go down to try to get her to understand she CAN'T swim. You could see her face under water just smiling!!! That girl has NO FEAR. I will be one very busy pregnant woman at the pool this summer keeping her safe!

The kids were exhausted when we got back to the room.....I laid down with Josie while Joe took Maggie and Owen to get ice cream. They got back and in no time all 3 were sound asleep......I mean TOTALLY asleep!

































































The next morning we were up early, had some breakfast and headed to the Aquarium to see the penguin march I had read about online. It sounded cute and I thought the kids would like it.......just so you know, NOT worth getting there early for! It was basically the workers pushing 3 penguins in a cart and talking about them. So we headed inside after a few minutes. Josie was not herself much that day and was extremely whiney. She had no desire to get into the shark's mouth with maggie and Owen either....she preferred to lay on the floor and stretch. :)






























The kids thought the aquarium was fun, there was alot of neat things to see and their favorite was the things they could touch. Maggie and Josie both fed birds and Loved it. Owen had no desire to feed the birds. (he is his mother's son when it comes to animals)



Here are some pictures from our day at the aquarium.....






















































We headed back home that evening and had a flat tire on the way. This seems to be a trend with us on trips. :)
We had a great time and since the baby is due in the middle of the summer so we won't be headed to the beach we will probably make quite a bit of mini vacations like this over the next few months!

Baby #4..

So baby #4 is a girl. For those of you who have no clue what u are looking at it is baby's face.



My ultrasound dates got messed up with my dr. office so I wasn't going to find out until I was nearly 22 weeks along. Well, luckily I work in a hospital, and just so happens I work on the labor and delivery floor. I only work about a shift a month so when I was working one night and they asked me to stay over, i made a deal. :) I would stay over if they scan my belly and tell me what the baby is. Luckily we had a doctor there who scanned me and quickly assured me 100percent it was a girl. Nice perk of the job huh!

I had my other ultrasound last month and she also confirmed the same. So baby girl it is. We were sort of bummed for Owen, although I am thrilled with buying more pink. But Joe bought him an Xbox game which he thought was a fair trade off. And although he may wish for a brother now, i am guessing in about 10 years when he has 3teenaged sisters with lots of friends he will love being the only boy.

Spring....

So it is spring and I have once again been a major slacker blogging. Things have been nuts around here, we had a major water damage to the house....and it was NOT my fault this time. :) A pipe burst around midnight above our master closet and leaked into the walls, floors, etc of most of our main floor and basement. Turns out the pipe hadn't been glued together when our house was built. Nice huh. Anyhow, the good news is I got all new carpet throughout my entire house and basment which I was pretty happy about, and I LOVE it. It is like walking on a huge down comforter.....sooooo soft and thick! So that took a few weeks of our time getting everything dried out and then the new floors put in.

We have enjoyed the warmer weather when it shows up, a few weeks ago we got home from church and it was gorgeous so we decided to clean out the cars and wash them. Joe got started and the kids joined in.........in their church clothes.













































By the time they were done the were all soaked but they had so much fun.























The kids are so ready for spring/summer and love being outside. Maggie has learned to swing by herself, ride her scooter well, and ride her bike with no training wheels and loves practicing all 3 of these. We have gotten outside as much as we can to enjoy the sunshine.











Josie got the first major "boo boo" of the season, Maggie was pushing her in a doll stroller this weekend and she got thrown out on her face......


here is the result several days later. I am hoping it clears up soon so I can get easter pics done without her red nose!


I told Maggie a few weeks ago when she fell on her scooter and skinned her knee that the more bruises/scrapes you have it means u are having a great spring/summer because it shows u are outside playing. If that is the case I guess Josie is having a blast so far. :)

Daddy/Daughter date night.........with 2!

So this year Joe got to have 2 dates to Daddy/Daughter date night. We left the choice up to Maggie as to whether it was just she and Daddy again this year or if Josie went with them. As I have said before Maggie and Josie adore each other so without hesitation she of course said, "take Josie with us!!!"


Maggie picked out her own dress this year, which was huge (for me.:) I enjoy picking out their clothes and none of them mind at all, but she saw this dress and fell in love. It is NOTHING that I would pick but the sparkles caught her eye so I told her she could get it. She wore it all week before as soon as she'd get home from school. Saturday I asked how she wanted to fix her hair for that night and she told me she wanted to flat iron it. We painted up her nails and began on her hair, and I must just say Maggie has the perfect hair. Her curl is just the right amount and it also looks great straight, and doesn't take hours to flat iron like mine. It was stick straight in about 10 minutes. I let her wear some make-up too and when she was ready she couldn't stop looking in the mirror.




I am guessing this is a glimpse of her at 16, only hopefully with teeth. :) I know there are tons of pics of her but as her mom I thought they were all sooo cute.

































































































































































































As you can tell, Maggie LOVES the camera and couldn't get her picture taken enough. (there are many many more) Josie on the other hand was near impossible to get dressed and hair pulled up. Here is she and "Sissy". She is saying cheese here, although it looks like she is unhappy. :)





































And here is Joe with his 2 dates.
































I took Owen swimming with his friend Isaac for the evening and he had so much fun. The night began a little rough at daddy/daughter date night as Josie wasn't about to sit still and Maggie was frusterated b/c Joe had to chase Josie around instead of helping Maggie with the craft. But things got better when they began dancing, aside from Maggie telling me that Josie wouldn't leave her and her friends alone and kept getting right in with them. I asked her if she would have rather left Josie at home and at first she said yes, but than changed her mind to no and said, "Josie had alot of fun and she wasn't too bad of a bother." Joe said Josie did in fact enjoy herself. From the dinner, to M&M's on the table to dancing. I am SURE she was a sight to see out on the dance floor.. At 2 she has quite the moves. :)


We celebrated our Valentines Day on Saturday since the kids thought that is when it was. That morning I made them heart shaped cinnamon toast and gave them all their Vday gifts...which were webkins and a tin filled with candy. Maggie and Owen were thrilled with their webkinz and Josie.....well let's just say most of her diet that day consisted of candy.

Growing up...

So Miss Maggie is growing up, I hate to say it but try as I may I cannot stop it. It is just in the little things at first, the ones you can ignore like her new "lingo" and girls club she talks about being in.....

but pretty soon it comes in ways that you can't ignore.

For example, this is how my little Maggie looked a week ago......



































And this is how she looked just 2 days ago.......


































And as of today, here she is......


In one week her little smile has changed forever.

You will enjoy hearing that Maggie has wonderful self esteem. She LOVES the fact that she has no front teeth and looks in the mirror regularly and says, "gosh mommy, I am beautiful." She informed me today that she in fact thinks she looks even more beautiful with no front teeth than she did before. :) We plan on keeping her teeth nice and healthy when they come in just in case she changes her mind. haha



Oh yes, and if your wondering her "girls club" is called the ice cream girls. And just worth noting.....Maggie is the leader. (Joe and I are so proud.:)

Happy 2nd Birthday Josie!!!

So somehow 2 years have passed by, VERY QUICKLY, and our "baby" has turned 2! Josie has transformed from the sweet, passive, agreeable, EASY baby she was until about the age of 15 months into an active, opinionated, loud, FUN, personality filled 2 year old. She is like Maggie and Owen in some ways, but definetly has her own sense of style and personality...and it wont take long to hang out with her to see what it is. Like my other 2, she is not at all shy.....but although she isn't shy, if she isn't in the mood to chit chat with you...she just won't. :) She ADORES, and that is an understatment, her big "Sissy". (as she calls her) And Maggie pretty much feels exactly the same. She and her "O Bo" (as she calls him) have come along way and have their sweet moments too.

I tried on several occasions to get some pictures of Josie to send out for her birthday. She has no desire to be in front of a camera, sitting still smiling.....unless of course it was her idea to begin with. So here is a small view of that. If you got the card you saw the best shots from those days.....



























































































This would be the point where Josie totally lost interest in getting her picture taken and saying "cheese" (which probably should have been my cue to quit)......
























































But of course then I never would have gotten this next set of picutres (which were Aunt Amanda's personal favorites) that show my darling Josie in what can often be her true form.....

She wants DOWN!!!!!












































And from there it pretty much went downhill.......






(do you not LOVE the little fists all balled up though)

























And this was minutes later.....in true Josie (Jekyll and Hyde) form.....

Happy as can be building blocks....
























This is a typical animated Josie look.





















This weekend I had planned a birthday party for Josie, but the snow decided to show up, quite a big between WV and Ky. So Mom, Dad, and Amanda couldn't make it to our house. So we had a small party with us and Nana and Papa.















I made Josie a Dora cake, which she loved. She had picked out Dora and Diego plates too.





















She was so funny when we sang happy birthday to her......this was pretty much her response the entire time.
















Owen and I had been singing it to her all week in the car and everytime we would sing she would clap and say "yeahhhhh" at the end. But I guess at this point she had no response to it anymore.





She opened up some gifts as well and I had gotten her some dora panties. (Not that I plan on training her any time soon) She wanted to put all of them on at once and was quite proud of them.


































So there you have.....Josie is now 2! She keeps this house very lively and we all love her soooo much!!! Happy 2nd birthday Miss Josie!

WV and Spirit week

So we made an impromptu trip to WV last weekend. Joe was going to be out of town all week and he was sick the weekend before so the kids and I packed up to go visit MiMi and JaJa since Maggie had Monday off of school anyhow. We had alot of fun, the kids got to see TJ and Gracie, which they always love. We visited with family and Aunt Amanda was there as well so that made it even better! JaJa had had surgery on his knee that week so he was stuck resting his leg, which made him the perfect place to cudddle up and watch movies! The kids used as lap and rotated turns watching shows with him. Josie had a cough and it got worse through the weekend which kept her up at night a little. Everynight when Dad went to bed she wanted to go with him and climbed right up in bed with him, snugggled up and went to sleep. (I was sooo thankful for this!!) Mom cooked the most delicious meals, of course, every day. She says it's becasue I didn't have to cook it but I disagree and think Amanda would agree with me. My mom is the best cook, I always tell her she could pull crap out of the fridge and by the time she had it to the table it is absolutley delicious.
We had such a good time I was horrible about picture taking. The only picture I took was of Josie one night after a bath....Amanda was playing me her songs she wrote on the piano and Josie comes flying in the family room to play with her.......naked!



































We ended up staying until Tuesday, Joe was gone and I figured it wouldn't hurt Maggie to miss a day so we enjoyed everyone one last day before heading back Tuesday afternoon.

That week was Spirit week at Maggie's school so Tuesday evening I remembered that Wednesday was decade day. Maggie was supposed to dress up from a any previous decade and I had NOTHING. I began calling all my friends to see if anyone had anything and finally got a hold of a poodle skirt. Maggie was so excited to wear it the next morning and I thought she loooked like an adorable 50's girl.





















Thursday was cowgirl day, and once again I had nothing to dress her in since I had just purged the kids rooms a few weeks before and gotten rid of all the cowboy hats. But the same friends came to the rescue again and hooked her up with cowgirl gear. She chose not to wear the hat and said she liked the bandana better. :)














We are just getting ready for Josie birthday next week...she is turning 2!!