Conversations with Julie...the drama queen

Tonight while I was doing up the supper dishes Dave gave the girls their baths. After baths Dave was trying to get Julie dressed for bed, and he was trying to put some Aquaphor (lotion) on her, to help with her dry skin. Julie determined that she wanted vaseline instead of Aquaphor, and began to argue with her dad. This earned her a "time out" on her bed. While in her room she was mumbling about her unhappiness and then we heard this outburst of "daddy hurts my feelings when he makes me use Aquaphor." Life is just so stinkin' hard when you're 4....

Not even 10 minutes later Dave was being silly and calling Alayna a "curly doodle." Julie proceeded to explain to him that calling people names is not nice and it hurts. She said that he should not call Alayna a "curly doodle," and he should not call her "sweetie." We were both kind of chuckling about this, when she ended the conversation by saying "You might call people names when you're mad, but I know you're the Pastor." Where does she come up with this stuff?

Pictures

Julie recently had a field trip for school to go pumpkin picking at a local farm. Dave took her on the trip since Alayna had her one year check-up the same morning. They had a really great time, and Dave captured some fun pictures, except her forgot to actually take one of her picking her pumpkin. Details...

The kids were able to go on a hay ride, pet farm animals, pick pumpkins and play miniature golf. They also had a cow that the kids could try to milk. Julie came home wearing a sticker that said "I milked a cow at Kelder Farm." I was so surprised and when I asked them about it Dave said she got that sticker because they didn't have one that said "I pet a cow at Kelder Farm." LOL! He said it took her a while to warm up to the idea of even petting it. Oh well, I'm proud of her for getting close to it.

 

Julie with the cow.

 

Julie playing mini golf. Dave said they had to play the 9 hole course twice because she was very disturbed by the fact that you lose your ball at the last hole.

 

Here's a picture of Alayna. She has a new obsession with wearing daddy's hats. She actually puts them on herself, which I think is pretty good. She's now started to put on some of Julie's dress-up necklaces too. I don't have a picture yet of that. I realized yesterday after I got her up from her afternoon nap that she actually slept with a necklace on, and I never realized it. She's a fashion icon in training. :)

Have You Heard???

 

For those of you that may not know yet, we are expecting baby #3 in May! Yes, you read that correctly. He or She was a little bit of a surprise to us, but what a wonderful surprise! We are very excited! I had this ultrasound a week ago, and everything is looking very healthy at this point.

So far I am really feeling pretty well. I could not say that with my first two pregnancies. I was really sick. I am having moments of nausea, and I'm very tired at times, but overall it's not too bad. (Yes, maybe it's a boy this time...who knows). I'm so thankful, since the girls really require a lot my time and energy.

We are in the beginning stages of looking for that family mini-van, and thinking about selling our car. The Focus has served us well, but it will never be able to fit 3 car seats in the back. Since kids now have to be in car seats until they're at least 25 or 250 lbs., whichever comes first (my sister-in-law can verify this, as she was a car seat inspector...I get all of my knowledge from her...thanks Andrea!), we will definitely need more space. :)

Please keep us in prayer if you think of it. There's lots to do between now and May. At some point we need to put Julie & Alayna in the same room, and figure out where we'll put more baby gear. Buy a mini van, a double stroller, a super-sized diaper pail (okay, maybe not that...but it might be necessary). Alayna will still be in the crib, and I'm not sure she'll be very close to potty training when the baby comes. They'll only be about 20 months apart...AAAHHHHH!!! Yes, I'm having those "what have we done?" moments...but they're few and far between, and we're truly very excited!

Family

I just had to share a few pictures from this past weekend with my family. We had such a wonderful time with them. It is always really special when we can all be together for a few days. Living 8 hours from each other makes it hard to have a lot of "quality" time.
 
Here is an adorable picture of my niece, Danika. This is my brother, Doug, & his wife, Andrea's little girl. Check out the eyelashes on her!
 
My parents with their 3 precious granddaughters. Alayna had just had a bath, since her hair had icing in it from the birthday cake. Julie was enjoying the new book that Uncle Doug & Aunt Andrea bought for Alayna for her birthday. We're still have a little trouble getting Julie to "share" Alayna's gift.
 
Here's a picture that Andrea took of my mom, brother & me after church on Sunday. I thought this was such a nice shot of the 3 of us...can you tell we're related?

1st Birthday Party

Saturday night we had Alayna's "official" 1st Birthday party at our house. Both Dave's family and my family were able to be there. Below are some pictures from the evening.

 

Panda Bear cake that I made her.

 

Alayna enjoying her gifts.

 

Alayna sitting on Uncle Doug's lap. This is where she spent most of the evening opening her gifts.

 

Enjoying the taste of her cake!

New York City

My parents came to visit us this past week. We had a wonderful time! I was sad to see them leave this morning. As well as my brother, sister-in-law & niece, who were able to come for the weekend. We celebrated Alayna's first birthday. I'll post pictures of that later.

This past Tuesday we took my parents to New York City for the day. We had such a blast! My dad had not been there since he was 5, so he remembered very little. My mom was there a couple times several years ago, with school field trips where she worked. So, it was fun to go and be tourists for the day. Dave's mom and grandma graciously watched the girls for us, so we didn't have to take them with us. They would have been miserable, and in turn, so would we.

We opted to take the train from Poughkeepsie into the city (a two hour train ride). Much easier than driving and finding parking for the day in NYC. The train took us right into Grand Central Station. From there we did a lot of walking around the city. After quite a bit of walking we made it to Times Square, & we decided that there was so much more we wanted to see, but just couldn't do it all in one day. So, we decided to take a bus tour. The ones where you ride on the roof of the bus. That was such a great decision! It was worth the money, and we got to see so much, and hear the history of the buildings, and so on. We saw Greenwich Village, Soho, Tribeca, Ground Zero, China town, Little Italy, Wall Street, Central Park, United Nations, etc., etc. It was so interesting. On our way past the UN building my dad spotted Rev. Jesse Jackson standing out front. The tour guide confirmed it was him. It was just fun to see someone famous.

After eating dinner in the city we walked back to Grand Central and we were able to board an express train home (it only took an hour & a half). We were exhausted when we got back, but we had a great time. Below are a few pictures from our fun day.

 

Mom & Dad waiting to get on the train in Poughkeepsie.

 

Dad & Dave in front of Madison Square Gardens.

 

Me & my parents in Times Square.

 

Me & Dave...a closeup. We were in Grand Central Station, but I guess you can't tell in this picture. :)