The Easter Bunny is on his way!

Today was my company's annual Easter Party for the employees' children. Although the hospital I work at isn't a huge one, it amazes me how well these parties are attended and how well they are planned. It included a wonderful breakfast, pin the tail on the bunny, coloring, face painting, egg race, jugglers and the Easter Egg Hunt.

The big hit was of course the Easter Egg Hunt where the girls were allowed to find as many eggs as possible. I did limit the amount of eggs though (I know, mean mommy) because each egg was stuffed with candy. As much as I wanted to eat all of their candy, I figured anything they collected they could eat (well, most of it) :)

Lately, Jason and I have found ourselves saying (very frequently) how big our girls are getting--with Ella riding her bike, Laney climbing up the jungle gyms, Laney painting, Ella spelling her name, Laney telling me the "family rules" on the way to a friend's house.....no crying, no whining, no backtalk and listen--but today was another moment that we just cherished. These types of events used to almost be a hassle when the girls were younger. Between the large diaper bags, the schedules, the extra outfits needed, etc sometimes it didn't seem worth it. They are now at the age where these types of outings are tons of fun. They ask for certain activities (the egg race was asked for multiple times), they love to see their friends and thoroughly enjoy these outings as much as we enjoy taking them. I just love being a mom to these wonderful ladies.

I had to get a close up of this outfit.
Check out the ladybug tights (thanks mom)!
I could have just eaten her up she looked so cute.

Ella was ready for the Easter Egg Hunt

Ella loved her Easter Egg Hand Painting

Laney happily jumped in the chair to get her face painted.
She was so serious!

Admiring the juggler.
Ella kept saying, "My daddy can do that."
Girls think their dads can do anything :)

The girls were very unsure of the Easter Bunny (played by our Chaplain).
And really? Rightfully so.
But they did get a stuffed animal bunny which quickly won the girls over.

Our baby boy has a name!

So it's official....our baby boy has a name. A name which Laney loves and says perfectly but Ella keeps saying, ewwwww :) I love it!

You know it's official because on Friday I am going to Hobby Lobby to buy the letters to hang above his crib. We are going to get plain letters and then modge podge scrapbook paper to the front of it. Jason saw this idea on a blog and thought we could do that. It really doesn't look that hard (good for me as I am not the most artistic) and the end result looked amazing! I can't wait to get started!

Now, you know I can't just tell you what the name is. I would love to see your guesses!

The two clues I will give you:

--The first name is a biblical name
--The middle name is the first name of the best husband and father ever (hmmm??)

What do you think?

Great Wolf Lodge

This past weekend we went to the Great Wolf Lodge in Mason, Ohio. We have had this trip planned for months and were beyond excited to get there! The girls have been asking to go to the pool for weeks so when we headed out to the Lodge, the anticipation was very high. Now, the girls have excitement often for such outings, but we never know how it will actually play out (who will melt down, how long the melt down will last, will the meltdown ruin the trip). But this trip truly exceeded our expectations! They LOVED the pool, and I mean loved it! Ella can be cautious (a girl after my own heart) but was anything but scared this past weekend. She rode big water slides with Jason as well as the smaller kid slides. Laney would go up to the kid water slides alone and ride them with such excitement. I was so proud of them and it was fun to see their adventurous side come out; they continue to amaze me!

We went on this exciting adventure with the Springborns, the Powells, and the Harlows plus Jason's parents met us there for pool time. The kids all did amazingly well and got along great! I am so glad we were able to share this fun time with friends and family. We look forward to doing this next year as well.

We also got a new camera lens last week so this gave us some good time to practice using it. It is supposed to allow you to blur out the background and keep the item you want in focus. What amazing pictures it will allow us to take, once I get the hang of it :)

Ella, Carly and Abby

Three hot mamas!

Abby enjoying the pool

Troy and Jack

I will get this thing to work!

Weeee...that small blob is Ella!

And the even smaller blob is Laney
Laney went down this slide over and over and over again!
She is quite the daredevil.

Carly was all smiles

Ella's favorite slide

You can't make me leave, mom!

I love this video! Ella telling Abby and Laney what order to go down the slide..too funny!

Almost in the double digits, so drink some green beer for me!

I was just checking out our blog and noticed that fake baby on the left has only 100 days left. Almost in the double digits! I guess that means the real baby boy in my belly only has 100 days left too...hehehe.

My official due date is June 25th but I think we should all guess when he will actually come. Whoever is closest will win an awesome prize (example: you bring dinner to the Willetts for a week, you change baby's diaper, you play with Ella and Laney, etc). I mean, who wouldn't want those prizes? But just joking...you will get my unconditional love and congratulations :)

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My guess is June 12th (my 31st, cough, cough, birthday). And it's my Grandma Jean's birthday so it would be so great to have another 6/12 in the family !

What's your guess?

Who are you calling a chunky monkey?

This past weekend I went to Chicago to see some of my best friends in the world! We went to Miami University of Ohio together and although I hate not being able to see them as much as I would like, I do like that they are a quick 3 hour drive. It's always fun to get together with people who have known you 10+ years, and those you feel extremely comfortable with. Plus we know lots of black mail about each other which is always fun to bring up. :)

My main reason for going to Chicago was to get a baby fix! Liz had her son, Ryker, back in December, and this was my first chance to visit. He is now 10 weeks and weighs 12#. He is obviously growing well and is such a happy camper. Auntie Leslie was in love spoiling this cutie. Plus Liz had to show me some tricks to changing a boy diaper!

I also got to see Kat and her adorable daughter, Emily. Emily is just beautiful and ridiculously happy. How could one girl smile so much? Kristi and Jess came over as well and as always there were many laughs and just good catch up time.

Thank you girls for making my quick trip so enjoyable and relaxing!

Kat and adorable, smiley Emily

Liz bought baby Willett the cutest monkey sleeper
and I couldn't pass up the "W" shirt.

The girls--thanks for a GREAT time!


Liz and Le were so sweet and bought baby boy a cake!
I happily ate it for him :)

My little baby graduated!

Graduated from what, you might ask? She is only 26 months?

Laney has been in physical therapy for the past 9 months. She didn't walk until she was 18 months and although the pediatrician wasn't worried about this, she qualified for the government funded program First Steps. Due to her late walking, she then was late in other motor activities (jumping and kicking especially) and her feet rolled in. When they evaluated her 9 months ago, the physical therapist said she would qualify for braces to help stabilize her feet and this would also help her gain more muscle tone (picture of the braces below). Laney sits in the W position, which we have been working on, but I knew from her gross motor skill progression the sitting position was the only area to work on (for the record, Ella still sits in the W position and I remember sitting that way into first or second grade).

So the physical therapist and speech therapist came out ~3 weeks ago to evaluate if Laney still needed First Steps. They always send two therapists to do evaluations/re-evaluations so no area of development is missed. Although these evaluations are about 1 1/2 hours long, I love to see the toys they bring and games they play to stimulate the kids. From this eval, I realized Laney knew many more of the colors than I thought and can stack blocks amazingly high! Then the PT asked the ST to hand her the caterpillar toy. Laney turns around and says "which caterpillar toy?" They both chuckled and said, well, I guess her speech is good to go. Which it is! She amazes me daily with her vocabulary.

9 months since her initial evaluation, she can now walk up and down steps unassisted, jump up to a 6-8" platform, jump off of couches, climb up ladders and slides, kick, throw, hop, skip (kind of), run, jump....all are age appropriate and my late walker has caught up beautifully!

A funny little story from this past Saturday. I was upstairs blow drying my hair when I looked out the window. Laney was outside in our (fenced) backyard climbing up our large play set. She can climb up the big ladder all by herself! Yeah, she doesn't need any more physical therapy and apparently didn't need clothes either (she was climbing up the ladder in her diaper and NOTHING else).

The official paperwork came in the mail which said that Laney was to be discharged from Physical Therapy and from First Steps. She scored above average on everything (speech, motor, cognitive, etc). It's a bitter sweet moment because although it is a time commitment (one hour a week with a physical therapist) I always loved to see the new toys and activities the therapist would bring for Laney to play with.

But all in all, I am proud of my baby girl. She has worked very hard on her gross motor skills and is now so strong!

Lions and Tigers and Chairs, OH MY!

Today we went to the Shriner's Circus at the Fairgrounds with those wonderful Worthingtons. I don't have any great pictures as the camera I took 1) was the back up camera so it doesn't take great pics anyways 2) had battery issues. Be it as it may, we had a wonderful time and although we didn't get to sit down and actually watch a ton of it (having four kids from the ages of 2-5 sure keeps you busy), what the kids did see they enjoyed :)

The hits of the show were

-- the trapeze artists,
-- the elephants,
-- the popcorn (Reese's favorite...who can blame her?)
-- the 10 year old girl in the show (Ella's favorite),
-- the dogs (Laney's favorite)
-- the seats (Ryan's favorite)

The seats you ask? Well, we sat in a great section (thanks Joel) which was mostly empty so the kids enjoyed running around and pulling the chair bottoms up and down....what excitement! My girls enjoyed hugging on Kristy and Joel more than anything and although the circus was fun, we could have probably just gone to a stadium where there are seats to fold up and down and stairs to play on and save ourselves a few hours :)

I am certainly glad we went to the circus as it's always fun to see a child's reaction to the high flying trapeze artists, the tigers, the elephants and the clowns. Thanks for joining us, Worthingtons!

They were so excited to see the next act.
Ella kept saying "where is the little girl in the show?"
The cute 10 year old girl was flying high on the trapeze.

Laney's second favorite thing? Sitting on daddy's lap, eating popcorn.
Who can beat that?

Kristy showing Ryan and Laney the clowns.

Notice all the seats around us?
It was great! The kids could just run around and play as there
was a fair amount of downtime.


It's pictures like this that made me wish I would
have brought our good camera. I will have to "steal" Kristy's pictures, if she doesn't mind :)


I can't decide who is more enthralled?
Ryan, Joel, Reese or Ella

What a great way to end a fun day....with a sucker!!

The baby shall be named Tupac!

Today was my 24 week appiontment for baby boy Willett.

Baby heartbeat: 155

Measurement: Right on schedule

I got a stomach bug last night so last night was a loooooong night. I feel much better today and baby did not seem phased. He was kicking like crazy.

Next Appointment: 4 weeks where I get the 1 hour blood sugar test and my rogam (spell) shot. I have a negative blood type, which requires a rogam shot to help prevent my body from rejecting future pregnancies. After that appointment, I start going every 2 weeks.

Although it's tough to tell in this view, I am carrying him much lower than I did the girls. My back kills most of the time and sitting in one position for more than about 30 minutes hurts.

So what's up with the name Tupac, you might ask? Steph was driving the girls to our house earlier this week and she asked them what the new baby should be named. Ella said baby (are we surprised?) but Laney kept saying --upac?? We were not sure what that meant or what she was saying but it sure sounded like Tupac. So Ella ran out of Steph's car saying, the baby's name is Tupac!! Tupac is the new name of the day and both girls keep repeating it, as if the more times we hear it, the more likely we will choose it.

Something to think about girls :)