Happy Halloween!

The official Halloween festivities started out with Halloween party day at Cathy's on Friday. We got the kids treat bags together on Thursday night...pretzels, airheads, a toothbrush and toothpaste!

I woke Emilia up on Friday morning wearing my witch hat and asking her if she was excited for party day at daycare. She, of course, was excited :) We turned on some Barney music and she "marched" while still laying down in bed and then got up so we could transform her into the most beautiful little Dorothy. All of the kids went to daycare in costume for a morning of fun :) We took some pics of our little Dorothy in her costume for the first of three times over the weekend.

We have this same picture of her from last year! You can see it here.

My beautiful little Dorothy :)

There's no place like home...

Group shot at Cathy's! For some reason...Emilia is always crying in these group shots! When I asked why she was crying in the picture, she told me, "I didn't want to get my picture taken...I went, 'Boo hoo...' like that..."

Our Halloween day started out with a fun party at Tommy's house with all the kids in costume and all kinds of fun activities to keep them busy...decorating cookies and a scrapbook page, painting pumpkins and snacking on yummy treats were among the favorites :)

That night, it was officially Halloween and time for Trick or Treating! We had plans to pull Emilia and her neighborhood friend Emma in the wagon for trick or treating, but Emma came down with a fever and a runny nose, so we took on the neighborhood as just the 3 of us :)

Dorothy on the little brick road!

Halloween night! All dressed up and ready to go!

Bundled up and ready for some treats!

A quick stop at Emma's for some giggles and a cute pic of the girls :)

Trick or treating with Daddy. She wasn't quite brave enough to approach the houses on her own...and she insisted on being picked up after we knocked on the doors.

Emilia did great! A little hesitant, but that's okay. Knocking on doors for candy isn't something she does everyday! She was exceptionally brave seeing the "scary guys" in costumes like Darth Vader and the Scream mask. Here's a video of her reflecting on the "scary guys" and helping Daddy answer the door for Trick of Treaters :)

After trick or treating, we headed home to eat some dinner and watch a little Gopher football before heading over to the Bickett's new house. When we got there, they filled her basket with LOTS of Skittles, much to her delight...and of course what better treat than some fun with Farley to finish off the night!?!

Almost Famous!

This afternoon, I received a message from Kate (Tommy's Mom) asking, "Would you be OK with one or more of the Halloween pics of Emilia and Thomas to be on our Fox 9 news at 5 sometime this week? Our Executive Producer was looking for some and I thought I could share some from last weekend. Let me know!"

I, of course, replied, "YES! It would be so fun to see them on tv!"

She followed up with, "They are going to put them on TV tonight on the 5pm news. She has 3 so I don't know which one they will use. I even included the smoochy one :-)"

So from there, I emailed Jeff and told him about the big tv debut that Emilia and Thomas were going to have that night. I asked him to set the Tivo so we would be sure to catch it!

We got home and got dinner started before settling in to watch the feature presentation...

How cute is this?!?!? Jeff's a little worried about, "the paparazzi that will be following us around from now on since she's so famous." Ha ha! For 15 seconds of fame, we'll take them on!

Halloween Fun

We had an action packed weekend full of all kinds of Halloween Fun!

On Thursday night, we visited Grandma and Grandpa's hotel for some fun running in the hallway and swimming in the pool. Emilia tried out her water wings, bonked a beach ball around off of her head and relaxed a little in the hot tub.

Friday night, we met up with a bunch of friends at Edinborough Park for a Halloween Party. Emilia had a great time and stepped right up to all the little games they had set up for the kids. She showed her perfectionist side by insisting that she get ALL the bean bags, rings, balls, etc through the hole or on the peg before she walked away with her prize. Such a sweetie!

She was SO EXCITED to see Thomas at the party! As you know, Thomas is Emilia's BFF from daycare. Seeing the two of them together just melts your heart. It's great to see Emilia completely out of her shell around a little friend she is totally comfortable with and has known since she was just 11 weeks old :)

We'll have to keep an eye on these two over the next 16 years...

Saturday, we spent the morning with Sydnee getting some fall family pictures at the park. Syndee did an amazing job capturing our family and Emilia was a happy, cooperative 2 year old! She smiled and explored and posed and played and we all had a great time :) We are looking forward to getting some pictures printed and actually displayed in our house!!

Sunday, Emilia and I had a party to go to - Elizabeth's Baby Shower! Elizabeth's baby is due November 26th - Thanksgiving! Woo hoo! At the party, we had fun decorating onsies and playing a diaper dash game. With a couple big pregnant belly's in the room, Emilia made it a point to hug my belly (which isn't really there yet) and make sure people understood that HER mommy had a baby in her belly too :) So proud, so cute. She did great at the party, enjoyed lots of punch and adopted a new baby from the diaper dash game - thanks Heather!

Later that afternoon, while Emilia was napping, we got to work carving pumpkins. My mom got a kit with patterns to make the Sesame Street characters. We each picked out the character we wanted to carve and off we went. We were all hoping that after all of our work, Emilia would actually recognize who these pumpkins were made to be! Here they are...our FIVE labors of love :)

Girlie Fun

Emilia was treated to some gumball machine, SUGAR gum this weekend while at the mall with my mom and I. She of course was all smiles and LOVING every last piece! We got home and Grandma (a dental hygienist for those of you that didn't already know...) made sure we brushed her teeth right away! So funny!!

Emilia has just recently gotten REALLY good at smiling for pictures!!! We love it!

A quick pic with Gram after lunch at Ruby Tuesday's. Mmmmmm, salad bar!

A tea party with a few of her favorite friends...babies, Elmo and Grandma :)

Here she is showing off her first pair of undies! She isn't ready for full time undies quite yet...but we couldn't pass up this pair with orange polka dots and a black Sophie cat on the front! In other potty related news...she has been using the potty for #2 before bed every night since last Tuesday! I think a lot of the interest has to do with stalling bedtime...but little does she realize, we've got our own motivations too...

Fun with Mila and Eva

We had a fun night with play time and dinner at Mila and Eva's house. My friend Janelle and her husband Sergie invited us over for a YUMMY dinner (Emilia had seconds) and to celebrate Eva's half birthday!

Mila did a great job sharing all of her toys with Emilia, who was just loving all the new stuff she got to play with. The dress up shoes were the show stopper. This little gem was the toughest one to share, but we convinced the girls to each wear one shoe and then dance around the coffee table doing funny things like, shaking their buns, sticking their tongue out, wiggling their ears, stomping their and just giggling :) The other shared favorite was "pretty lips." They each got their lips loaded up before we snapped these pics :)

Mila also impressed us with being potty trained! I think Emilia thought it was pretty cool too, because she used the potty twice while we were there! And after she went #2 before leaving, she got the treat that Mila gets after using the potty...a gummy bear :) YUM! She loved it and talked about using the potty and gummy bears the whole way home.

We're looking forward to many more fun, cozy nights in with friends this fall and winter!

Jamie's Baby Shower!

Erin, Christina, Stevie, and I hosted Jamie's Baby Shower this weekend and it was so, so fun :) We made sure there was good food and fun games for lots of laughs.

Jamie had a great group of friends and family there to help shower Brady with gifts!

We can't WAIT to meet this little Brady guy!! If he's like his Mom and Dad, he is going to be fun and energetic and so easy to love :) Count down to 10/26!!

Baby #2!!

This pregnancy has been much more eventful than my pregnancy with Emilia. It started out much the same - with a positive pregnancy test...but this time, I didn't take the test at home in my bathroom...I took it at work after running to the store over lunch to buy a single test. We had a work event that afternoon - tailgating before a baseball game - so I needed to know if I could have a beer (or two...) or not. The faint positive test told me, "No." I stared at the test and kept blinking, wondering if my eyes were playing tricks on me. My hands were shaking. I looked at myself in the mirror to see if I looked any different. I had a secret and it was GOOD one!

Afternoon Test - 8/20/09

I got back to my desk and thought about emailing Jeff the picture or calling or emailing him with the news... But I decided, this time around, I want to share the news a little more creatively. So, I got home that night and laid in bed with my mind saying over and over - "I'm pregnant. I'm PREGNANT!" but I somehow kept my mouth from saying it and went to sleep. The next morning, I took another test just to be sure the results from the day before were accurate. I waited until Jeff was out of the bathroom, took the test, put it in the cabinet and hopped in the shower while waiting for the results. I got out of the shower, opened the cabinet and taaa daaa - 2 lines!

Morning Test - 8/21/09

So, off to work I went with my very special secret! I was out at 2pm that afternoon, so I planned to pick up Emilia from daycare and find a Big Sister shirt for her to be wearing when Jeff got home from work. I found the perfect shirt, dressed her in it and got the video camera ready to capture us revealing the secret to Daddy :)

We decided to not hold back and shared the news with my parents that weekend. They were, of course, thrilled! More to love!

I went along feeling good, much like with Emilia. No major pregnancy symptoms - just two positive pregnancy tests as proof that I was pregnant. The next week went by...I registered Baby #2 and the due date on babycenter.com so I could start getting updates on baby's development and what fruit or vegetable represented the size that week. Poppy seed, sesame seed, lentil bean, blueberry, kidney bean, grape, kumquat...

Well, around 5 weeks (sesame seed), I woke up in the morning, went to the bathroom and realized I was spotting. I was terrified. I had not experienced this with Emilia and despite everyone telling me this is very common and each pregnancy is different, I was really scared. I tried to take it easy that weekend with the advice from the OB Nurse Line. But every trip to the bathroom all weekend was like dooms day. I was preparing myself for the worst.

Once Monday arrived, I decided to call the doctor to see if I could be seen. The stress was getting to be too much to handle and I felt I just needed some kind of explanation as to why I was experiencing this and what I should expect, if anything. The doctor was able to get me in that afternoon. She examined me and confirmed that my uterus was slightly enlarged, my cervix was closed and also that I had a small cervical polyp which may be cause of the spotting I had been experiencing. She sent me down to the blood lab for them to check my HcG levels and asked that I come back on Wednesday for another blood draw. A doubling of these numbers over a 48 hour period is a good indicator of a viable pregnancy. So, after my blood was drawn on Monday, I asked the lab what time they were open in the morning and planned my return visit on Wednesday as SOON as they were open.

I kept my phone in my pocket all day on Wednesday, waiting for the call from my nurse practitioner with the results that I prayed would put me at ease. When my phone rang, my heart started beating double time and my hands shook. She told me that she had the numbers and they were very reassuring - they went from 10,800 to 19,400. She said given how reassuring the numbers are that an ultrasound wasn't necessary. We were thrilled and felt extreme relief. We were ready to get off this roller coaster of emotions and just be happy!

That weekend, we were heading to Jeff's parents for a relaxing Labor Day on the lake. We planned to share the news with them, again, with Emilia wearing her Big Sister shirt. We arrived on Friday night but decided to wait until Jill got there the next day before revealing the news. That night, I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and saw what I feared...more blood. It was more than before...more than I would classify as spotting... I quietly called for Jeff to come into the bathroom...he was scared too. I got back in bed and said a prayer. I prayed for God to take care of this baby. I pleaded that I would rather have bloody noses than to have to see blood on my future trips to the bathroom. We shared the news with Jeff's parents the next afternoon, but also said that were cautiously optimistic. We could use all the prayer we could get!

We got home Monday afternoon, unpacked and prepared for the week ahead. I woke up before my alarm on Tuesday morning and wiped what I thought was a runny nose... I opened up my cellphone for some light and to my surprise, I had a bloody nose!!! I got in the shower and realized, this was God's way of telling me, "I'm here. I hear you. I'm listening." I felt extreme peace after that morning and am happy to report that there has been no more spotting since then. I went to the doctor that week as they instructed me to call if I did experience more spotting. I went in at 6 weeks pregnant and got an ultrasound. We were able to see our little blueberry complete with a beautiful beating heart!

2 weeks later was my first official prenatal appointment and everything looks great. Below are the ultrasound pictures were got to take home :) The baby was the size of a grape at this point and already had little arm and leg buds and was moving all over. We are so, so blessed to be experiencing this miracle again in our lives and reminded daily that life truly is in God's loving hands.

Orchard Fun

On Sunday afternoon, we decided to get in the fall spirit and headed out to the apple orchard. It was almost exactly a year ago that we visited the same orchard with Addie and Erin. We made sure to get Emilia measured up to see just "How Tall This Fall" she really is. WOW, what a difference a year makes!

We had a great time checking out the silly pot belly pigs...

And the crazy goats up on the roof!

We got a little muddy in the corn maze...

And frolicked among the pumpkins.

We took advantage of the great photo opps on the bails of hay...

And among the apple trees.

It was a great family day full of fun and adventure. Welcome, Fall!

Little Miss Sister

7 months from today...Emilia is going to be a BIG SISTER!!! We are so blessed and excited to be expecting another baby!

Due Date = May 1st, 2010

This time around - Emilia is helping to spread the news!

Details on the pregnancy, videos of sharing the news and ultrasound pictures coming soon...