Julia's Big Debut

The Children's Choir sang a song at church this morning.
This was Julia's first time on stage.

(notice, no shoes)

At least she stayed up there and didn't cry.

Hopefully she'll do better on Christmas Eve.

Last look at Rufus

Wow! Has it really been a month since I blogged?! I'll have to post a few catch-up blogs before Christmas.
Anyway, I had one last ultrasound of "Rufus" yesterday to check fluid levels and his measurements. Everything looks great! Only 12 days and a wake-up to go! C-section is scheduled for 8:30 am New Years eve! We'll send out an email, post a blog and on our Facebook pages later that day.
,BTW, don't be looking for Christmas cards from us next week. We'll send out a New Years letter along with "Rufus'" birth announcement sometime in January.

Playing in the Leaves

My parents saved a big pile of leaves for the girls (and Dan) to play in so we went there Sunday afternoon.

Here are a few pictures--the rest will be in Snapfish soon.

Back Together Again

In preperation for the arrival of "Rufus"in less than 7 weeks, we moved Vivian back into Julia's room--now known as "The Girls' Room"--last weekend.
As expected, they played and carried on for over an hour before finally falling asleep together in Julia's bed. Since then, bedtime is fairly uneventful. We might check on them and find Vivian asleep in Julia's bed, but that is nothing compared to what occurs daily during naptime.
Naptime is like unsupervised playtime for them. They are bouncing on the beds, tearing up books, taking anything they can reach off of the nightstand and dresser, yelling and screaming, etc.
The worst was the day they broke the lamp (fixable), disassembled a picture frame, and had the mattress off of Vivian's bed. It was amazing nothing was broken beyond repair and neither of them were hurt. Of course, not taking a nap has taken a toll on their evening behavior. Since then I have been taking Julia out and making her sleep on the floor in the nursery. Then they both sleep. Yea! This was supposed to be punnishment and make Julia want to stay in her bed and ignore Vivi. Unfortunately, she likes it. Darn. Now I'm not quite sure what to do. They need to get used to rooming together, but they also need an afternoon nap.
Any suggestions?

Fall Fun!

The girls have had a fun fall season with all the pumpkins. We took a trip with our MOPS group to a local farm for a hayride to the pumpkin patch to pick out their own pumpkins. They also saw a pig race and lots of animals. But, the highlight was all the pumpkins!


Look at all the PUMPKINS!


Vivi found her pumpkin!


They had fum on the hayride to and from the pumpkin patch.

Vivian spent some time exploring a scooped-out pumpkin.

Pooh and the OSU Cheerleader are ready for Trick-or-Treating!

(the 2 Jack-o-lanterns, the big pumpkin behind Vivian, and the little half green/half orange pumpkin are our home-grown pumpkins)

You can check out all our October photos on Facebbook or Snapfish!

Fall Family Pictures

We had Fall family pictures taken 2 weeks ago for Julia's 3rd and Vivian's 18 month birthday.
These are a few favs, but you can view the entire shoot in our Snapfish account (just click on the link to the right), or on Robyn's Facebook page.
Thanks to our good friend, Kerri Aldrich, for capturing our family so beautifully!

Instead of napping. . .

Julia likes to take all her socks and stuff them into her tights. Sometimes she even gets the socks down into the legs and feet. Pretty clever.

Julia's Room

Here they are. . .
The pictures of Julia's comforter, pillow sham and curtains that I made.





I'm not really happy with the curtains. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to fix them yet, but I will.

Julia's Birthday Weekend

Here are some highlights of Julia's Birthday weekend!

We went to McDonald's for dinner Saturday night. She got chocolate milk for the first time and probably had it gone by the time the food came. We stayed to play in the playplace, but she wasn't that excited about it. We did get her to sit with Ronald for a photo.


Her party was Sunday evening. She did a great job opening all her presents.


Vivian's favorite part was the balloons. She carried them around all evening. (Yes, that is the Bengals/Steelers game on the TV--Who Dey!)


Julia wanted party hats.

Daddy, Uncle Keith, Uncle Jim and Josh joined in the fun!

Mommy made an Elmo cake. Daddy helped by going to the store for black icing and more red food coloring.

Make a wish!

Happy Birthday Julia!

Today is Julia's 3rd Birthday!
Where has the time gone!?!?
Here are a few pictures of her over the past 3 years.

Just Born!


1 Year


2 Years


Today--3 Years Old!

Another Pumpkin Update

We've been harvesting our pumpkins!

This is all pretty exciting for us since, when the sprouts came up in the spring, we had no idea what we were going to get.

The first one was almost 25 pounds!

Pumpkin #3 turned even though Dan accidentally cut its vine. 2 & 3 were both around 17 pounds.

We now have 5 more pumpkins growing!

No need to buy pumpkins this year!!!

New Beds

In preparation for the arrival of "Rufus" in 3 1/2 months, the girls had their beds upgraded last weekend.

Julia is now in my old twin bed. At first she said she didn't want to sleep in it because it was "yucky" (everything is yucky). But, she slept in it just fine.

Vivian is in the toddler bed. She transitioned MUCH better than Julia did. I think it took Julia 2 weeks or so before she was sleeping in the bed during naptime and not on the floor in front of the door. She was better at night--more tired, I guess. Vivian plays some during nap but eventually crawls into bed. She slept through the very first night in it with only 1 minor incident. I woke up to her crying and when I went in she was on the floor with her head under the bed. So, I don't know if she rolled out then as she was turning to get up she got her head under the bed or what. It wasn't stuck, she just couldn't figure out how to get it out. Very strange.

Vivian will join Julia in the "girls room" at the beginning of December. Hopefully we can have them cohabiting well by the time we bring "Rufus" home.

There is much redecorating to do in their room, and in the nursery.

I'm attempting to make comforters for their beds and a curtain for their window. I hope to have the curtain and Julia's comforter done by her birthday in 2 weeks. Unfortunately, I need more fabric. The comforters will be the print on one side and the stripe on the other. The curtain will be the stripe.

Posting problems

I've been trying to add some new posts, but am having trouble getting the pictures to upload to the server.

Please stand by!

2 Chairs

After a few scenes like this. . .


we decided Vivian was ready for her own chair.