We joined the mini van club!!!

Last week was a very exciting week for us! We bought this 2006 Kia Sedona mini van in Texas and my father-in-law and sister-in law were so kind to drive it to us here in Iowa last week! God has really blessed us. We love it. It needed a little love, but nothing a little elbow grease and a entire Sat. of cleaning wouldn't fix! It not only runs fantastic but it has a few really nice features like a DVD player the kids think is cool and leather which we have never had in a vehicle so we are pretty excited! Mario worked so hard on Sat. cleaning and detailing it out that I am amazed at how great it looks now!

Baby Elise update! Tom. marks 36 weeks! And we went to an ultrasound last Friday to get a better measurement because she was measuring 2 weeks behind. But God blessed us again and she is actually going to a healthy size baby. According to the ultrasound measurements if I deliver her today she would be 6 lbs 3 ounces! So she just seems to like to keep us on our toes! :) But we got to see her chubby little cheeks in the 3D ultrasound! I told Mario now I really wish I could hold her! :)

Our friend Cherish's Birthday.

Our friend Cherish came by after church today and we celebrated her 4th birthday. Cherish and Emma are great friends so it's always nice to visit with her! :) Emma even let her borrow her birthday hat!

Trick or Treat!!!

We really don't celebrate Halloween the traditional way. We call it our Trick or Treat night. We do let the kids trick or treat at a few of our neighbors houses that we know and we usually wear our costumes and go have a fun lunch and play at a park in costume. We don't go to haunted houses and we do stay clear of the more evil side to it. We went to Walgreen's last year and I couldn't believe how creepy their store looked it really scared our kids. We debated on if we would celebrate it at all but this family tradition seems to work and the kids love to dress up and go trick or treating on our street. Plus since the kids see all the Halloween decorations in the stores we have since explained the holiday and answered their questions about why the stores get so crazy with it and scary. So now we stay clear of Walgreen's and all Halloween stuff at the stores it has just gotten so creepy. This is about as "spooky" as we get! We bought this candy corn candy a few weeks ago so I cleaned out my apothecary jars and we put our fun flavored candy corn in our treat jar and Ethan's cool spiders in our trick jar. He almost didn't let me use them because he wanted to make a web for them. But since he now can get a piece of candy corn a few times a day he decided that he would "let" me borrow them he said! :) And thanks again to my friend Paula for the neat signs, the apothecary jars I think turned out very fun!

Thank You Paula!!!

I am blessed to have a truly one of kind best friend! I am so grateful for her! Thank you Paula for the nice packages. Last week we received this very "smart" looking Joe Spencer owl to add to our fall collection that she picked up for us. He has become our favorite! And then yesterday we received another package with more neat goodies in it! She made, yes made, these for us to hang over some of my apothecary jars for fall! She used a CD and then covered them with scrap booking paper and then got very creative! I love them! It was just what I needed because with baby Elise on the way soon it is all about her. So it was nice to get something new to decorate with for our house! Thank you Paula, you made my week! :)

Some good fun!

Ethan and Emma on our trampoline. We bought it last summer and it turned out to be a great investment! They burn a lot of energy jumping and playing together on it.

On Friday Emma was so excited because she had a play date with 2 girls from our church! They had a blast playing dress up, Polly, and riding their bikes! Ethan was a good sport about all the "girl" fun! He decided to be Optimus Prime the Transformer, Emma is Tinkerbell, Abbie is Cinderella, and Rebecca's Barbie! We walked to the park, ate popsicles, and Emma loved it! It was our first "all girl" play date and by the look of it I think we are going to have many more! :)

Rain, Rain, Rain!!!

We had a very rainy week last week! Ethan decided to take advantage of it and he drew every transformer he could think of. They were really good. He is getting much more detailed with his drawings but only when he wants too. Emma decided to groom Cindy, our 10 year old cat, all day. Cindy was a very good sport about it! She really is a unique cat. She will do tea parties with Emma, let Emma dress her up like a baby, and much more. And she never gets grumpy at Emma! They are quite best of friends!

Mario's Birthday!

The kids LOVE to color and draw! So of course a couple of pictures are always expected from our kids on your birthday!!!

The cake, Ethan wanted it to be a camouflaged cake. We had a great day. Since we live out of state from our family Mario and I try to make birthday's and holidays extra special with just the 4 of us! The kids have come to expect a small party now with ALL our birthday's. They planned their Daddy's as well. I let them pick out a present for him each. Ethan wanted to get the old GI Joe TV cartoon from when Mario was Ethan's age. It's so funny how much a like Ethan and Mario think!:) Because Mario thought that was pretty neat to watch them with Ethan! Emma wanted to be more practical and buy her daddy some new work shirts!

Happy Birthday Mario!

Today marks Mario's 34th Birthday! The kids have some BIG plans for him tonight! I'll post pics later! :)

Yesterday we went to our 31 week appt. and heard baby's heart beat! She has decided to get into position, finally! She preferred being "heads up" until just recently! Ethan stayed home with his daddy while Emma came to the appt. with me. After yesterday I have decided Emma loves it to be just the girls. We had to wait awhile so we just had girl time which was fun. Emma is a talker. She told me she can't wait until she grows up so she can be a "baby doctor" but asked me if I could stay the same age. Emma is concerned about me growing older. My kids are both very deep thinkers. She told me she wants "me" to start eating better so I can stay young and we can be the same age! My friend Paula and I were just talking about how funny it is with girls and their mood changes. Just the other night Emma got mad at me because I poured her a glass a milk instead of grape juice to drink before bedtime. She went as far as drawing me a picture.

The picture was of me and her holding hands and at the top of the paper she wrote, "Y R U and then drew a mean face. I thought it was pretty clever for a 5 year old honestly. I asked her to explain the picture and she said she wrote, " Mommy why are you so mean?" I responded to her, because I love you! She went to bed and woke up the next morning and requested milk to drink, go figure! :)

Me, at 3o weeks!!!

Well I put this up for you Paula! :) Yes that is some of our fall decor behind me. Ethan drove me crazy until I just caved and put it out. He LOVES to decorate for the holidays....I can't believe we only have 10 weeks left! I am starting to really feel it too. My toes look it, they are painted a few different colors. :) Painting them has become a pain. Maybe I should just spend the money like everyone else and get a pedicure??? Oh well, Emma thinks they look beautiful and that is all that matters! It is mainly my left side that hurts all the time now. I am starting to use the what we call "pregnancy card" more and more. For example I'll tell Mario I can't do something and ask him too. AND my new fav reason is my side really hurts remember I am pregnant! He has been a good sport about though!:) And the house is staying very clean these days! I am always wiping something down. We have found a couple of really good deals on mini vans so I'm hoping in the next few weeks we can buy one. We have seen so many good deals come and go so we now know we are really going to have to buy one soon! I am starting to retain water like normal in my legs and feet. I was hoping I wouldn't do that this pregnancy but I guess that is just what my body does. Oh well. The kids love to lay on my stomach and feel Elise move. She is starting to really have some power behind her kicks! She seems to get really excited at night when the kids are laughing and being crazy! I think she wonders what is going on...

More Fun!

Ethan and Emma at the park behind our house having fun at Dotti's party.

Our friend Dotti, had her 1st birthday a few weeks ago. She usually comes and visits us once a week so the kids have really gotten to know her! They really enjoy getting out all our old baby toys for her to play with. It is so sweet to watch how patient they are with her. I know they are going to do great with our baby Elise Claire! The kids made drawings of little Dotti riding on that back of their cute pug dog Wrinkie and we put ribbon around them. When we bought Dotti's present Ethan said, "Now Mommy can we wrap her present instead of getting a cheap bag to put it in?" Ethan, for some crazy reason, loves it when I wrap presents he thinks bags look cheap. He loves to help with the tape part.