Birthday Weekend!

The Big Four. Festivities began on Friday night, with a Birthday Dinner with friends Jon, Michelle, Ezra and Tirzah...and the unveiling of "the big box from Grandpa and Mimi". A very large box arrived on our doorstep a full week before THE day, creating a week of torture and angst for the soon to be 4 year old. Weather didn't permit us to set up the bouncer outside, so all the stuff in the basement was shoved to one side, creating just barely enough room for the super toy! Good pictures were near impossible with four jumping, jostling, wrestling and wriggling bodies bounding around and the ugly basement light, but maybe you can get the idea. At one point, Abby threw her arms in the air and declared, "I LOVE THIS THING!!!!!"

Thanks Grandpa and Mimi, the bouncer was the hit of the weekend. My kids are spoiled.

Saturday, the actual day of the birthday, began with this:

I know, right? April 26th??? Good grief. Anyway, it was a good day. Aunty Karen had her birthday party in the afternoon (they share a birthday), which was fun, then Blue Grandma, Grandmama and Uncle Rick came over for lasagna and cake. More fun, sugar and presents!

Sunday we played hooky from church and headed down to the Mall of America...Abby loves the rides and had birthday money burning a hole in her pocket! We had a blast, it was so much fun to be together with no big agenda and the entire day to kill!

So, what does a big 4 year old spend birthday money on? These:

And lipgloss. Blue lipgloss. Lots of blue lipgloss. Doesn't she look glamorous? The big girl fell asleep in the car on the way home from the mall, but not before putting on her makeup!

Season changes feel so great--the excitement of finding out what's around the corner and what this new time will bring, the changes in schedules and pasttimes--a chance for something fresh and new! Good times, good times. The snow if finally gone, the air is warming up and the sun is coming around a little more, things will be green soon! Finally.

We're busy at home--it feels wonderful to feel like myself again after what felt like months of just feeling "off". Laundry is caught up after weeks of living out of clothes baskets and I'm back to grocery shopping after weeks of pizza and cheeseburgers.

Abby is so creative and loves anything involving "making". I love being able to do "big girl" things together and hold conversations while we work together-- she worked so hard on a necklace while Alex napped one afternoon:

We've fallen into the habit of having "chocolate coffee" or tea most afternoons...fun times...

Here's a sleepy boy, post-nap:

He's so huggable. Hmmm...what else? He repeats "Mom! Look at ME!" 100 times a day, or 10 times that if we go to the park. He's excited to be such a big boy this year, and truly, I'm excited about it too, because it means more bench sitting and less damage control/following/helping/pushing/pulling for me at the park! :)

Things we're looking forward to:

• A 4th birthday in a week.
• The end of Sunday School and Homegroup for the summer (for REAL?? EVERY evening of the week will be open??).
• My last day at work next week.
• Swimming lessons.
• Watching business come in for IGS, and the first summer in 10, 11 or 12 years that Bj hasn't spent climbing ladders and installing gutters.
• Walking/biking to the lake and spending whole days at the park.
• Blogging regularly again.

For Pete's Sake

Snow. Again.

Really, when will it be spring??? Oh, and we're the "to the west and north" who's lucky enough to get the 10 inches rather than 4-6.

No new pictures to share...to be honest, it's been a very hard few weeks or month. I've really felt very crummy for a long time, nauseous all day, very emotional and so very tired, all. the. time. The house, the kids and Bj have all suffered along, but this week finally feels like a fog is lifting, and life will carry on. Work is picking up again for IGS, which is good--the housing/economy slow down doesn't seem to be affecting business too much.

The kids are learning to clean up their room, and that work comes before fun. They can actually be quite handy at cleaning windows and mirrors, Alex "washes" dishes, and Abby is great at wiping down and setting the table. They enjoy helping out, which is an attitude I hope we can foster and maintain for quite a while. (haha, right? I can dream anyway.) We've become firm believers in the "less is more" philosophy of toys--if there's so many that they can't clean them up themselves, there's too many. Especially when working with the limited amount of space we have. The upcoming new arrival has made me mindful of the amount of work I do for the kids that they're capable of learning to do for themselves--hopefully we're setting ourselves up for an easy transition--being outnumbered is a little daunting.

There's the glamorous update. I'll find something cute to take pictures of and get back in the swing of blogging pretty quick.

Easter '08

Dying eggs...

(Abby wiped out in the bathroom giving herself a black eye a couple weeks before Easter--this looks worlds better than it did! She's forever biffing it and giving herself bumps and scrapes.)

Dying hands too...

Easter cookies from Grandpa and Mimi make everyone feel the love...

Hastily taken picture of Easter finery...

I'm still working with the painfully slow desktop, so that's it for now as my patience has reached its limits. Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Self Portraits

Hello from the wilderness of fatigue and nausea that is first trimester pregnancy! If you care enough to follow along, check the bottom of the page (the only place it would fit), where I've put a ticker counting down the days and weeks 'til Newbie joins the crowd. It gives little interesting tid bits about development and such.

I've also discovered that comments were open only to people with Blogger accounts--I've switched that up so anyone can leave comments if you care to.

Original artwork by Abigail C., titled "Self Portrait in Pink: a Study of the Belly Button"

Updates

Here's our news:

Baby is due to arrive at the end of October.

We're very excited.

My laptop crashed hard, so my computer time is very limited right now. I have Easter pictures to share, but they may have to wait for a little while, I'm sorry!

Sunny Days

Here we have (from left to right) a rose, Cousin Kristine and Doot-doot, Dad and Abby, and "We're all hanging out with my Dad, see?" :)