The final countdown!

We've made it to 36 weeks!  In the next month, we will have a new baby in our house.  That is SO crazy to me.  I've had a sudden spurt of energy lately which has been so nice.  We try to stay busy so we don't sit at home and go stir crazy.  Everyone is definitely much happier when we have places to go and things to do!

Ellie had dance pictures this past weekend.  Who is this teenager and where is my 3 year old??

She LOVED putting on makeup and having her hair rolled.  She is a girly girl for sure!

My babies.  We are so ready to meet you Miller!

The whole "pick your battles" saying could not be more true for us these days.  Ellie is probably getting away with more this last month than she has her whole life.  Princess dress to Wal-Mart?  Sure!  Why not.

She is SO busy, SO independent, and constantly on the GO GO GO.  I feel like I am accomplishing a lot these days just by keeping her clean, fed and happy.  Some days go better than others!

Miller's nursery is finally coming together.  We've still got curtains and blinds to hang, artwork for the walls, and a few finishing touches left to find.  I also need to get busy washing clothes and cleaning up all of our baby gear.

He will be here before we know it!!!

Lots of pictures

We are down to 5 weeks (maybe less!) until baby Miller's arrival.  Are we ready?  YES.  Are we ready?  NO.  Ha ha.  I am so ready for him to be here but there is still much to be done before he makes his debut.  Granted, if he showed up tomorrow we would be just fine.   Although I would love for the unorganized, cluttered mess that is still his nursery to be a little more put together before he gets here:)

BIG thanks to my parents for coming up last weekend and spending the entire weekend with us!  I don't think that has ever happened.  We loved having them here and we managed to get quite a bit of work done as well.  Of course Miss Priss wouldn't let them work too hard without giving her most of their attention while they were here.  Here's some proof:

This girl can convince anybody to do ANYTHING!  I think in the span of about an hour DeDe was a ring master, right rope walker, dance teacher, gymnast, and circus clown.  Hilarious!!!

After a long day of turkey hunting, painting and curtain sewing we headed out for Mexican.  Once again, she can even convince the boys to color with her in the middle of a restaurant.


Our sweet church hosted the nicest baby shower for us on Sunday afternoon!  It is still an overwhelming feeling to have people we (I) don't know very well host such a nice shower for our baby.  I am very grateful for them, our families and their generosity!!

Allergy season is among us.  BOO.  This poor girl has been miserable and had ANOTHER ear infection.

 

 With the final countdown until baby brother underway, we have been in search of some activities to occupy our days when I am home.  Hooray for story time!  It was a hit and we will be back!

 This week also marks the annual Fiddlestick Festival in town.  This girl waited VERY patiently for her Daddy to get home from work so we could go.  We had a lot of fun and she rode all the rides this year with no fear or hesitation!

 I guess you can tell she is in dance because all of her poses include a lovely pointed toe.  This just cracks me up!  I promise I do not prompt her to do this.

 Looking so sweet in matching PJ's with Bitty Baby.

"Big Sis" Weekend

Since Don has been on Spring Break and my traveling days are becoming numbered, we decided to take a little trip to St. Louis to do a few fun things before baby brother arrives.

We had the BEST time and I am so glad we were able to get away for a couple of days!  We pretty much did everything centered around Ellie's interests, but we had lots of fun and enjoyed our time just the three of us.

On our way up, we had to stop at the home of the "Throwed Rolls" and eat at Lambert's Cafe.  It never disappoints and I am pretty sure Ellie ate her weight in fried okra.  This girl doesn't eat much, but she LOVES fried okra.

Our first stop once we were in St. Louis was the AMERICAN GIRL STORE!!  I don't know who was more excited...me or Ellie.  It was little girl heaven.  She dragged me all over that store for over an hour and kept saying "let's shop some more Momma!".  Don just stood there shaking his head and checking the price tags.  Ha!!

Caroline's hair was in desperate need of a new do, so that was our first stop.  Ellie of course chose the "princess package" complete with tiara.  

We managed to make it out of there with a new outfit for Caroline, a replacement pair of glasses for Molly, a matching set of bitty baby pj's for E and a set of Caroline paper dolls.  I'd say this little girl had a BIG time!

 She insisted on carrying Caroline AND her shopping bag all by herself.  Such a big girl.

 We had planned on having lunch at the AG Bistro but there was a 90 minute wait.  So we walked next door to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch. Caroline came too, of course!

The AG store was connected to a great mall, and we couldn't go all the way to St. Louis without doing some shopping!  We also managed to ride the carousel and do the spider jump.  I still can't believe she did it!

Poor girl was worn out so we headed back to the hotel to rest.  

Our hotel was great and full of kids!  I am glad we packed her swimsuit last minute.  It was the perfect thing to do that night.  And for the record, I have nothing to do with the poses she has been coming up with lately. They are all her own.  Can we say MESS????

The next day took our time getting ready and made our way over to the Magic House Children's Museum.  We stayed over 3 hours and had a great time!

Future President?

She could have scooped ice cream for HOURS!

After Magic House, Don indulged me in a few more stores:)  Then we ate lunch, had a fro-yo treat, and headed home!

Nothing makes me happier than to spend quality time with these two!  I cannot believe we will soon be a family of four.  Ellie will always be my baby and I wanted to do something special for her before her little world is rocked upside down.  We cannot wait for Miller to be here but I am starting to feel a little sad about her "only child" days coming to an end.  I know she will be just fine and this is totally normal so I am glad we got to have a special weekend with just her!

Easter Weekend

We had a busy, fun filled Easter weekend!  On top of celebrating at Miller's shower, we had all sorts of Easter events and activities to take part in.


I don't think we have missed a BUMC egg hunt yet.  Ellie is at the perfect age for this and I am glad we were able to attend the hunt at "DeDe's church" again this year!

Sweet girls, Ali and Ellie.

Concentrating on that cookie!

After the shower we helped DeDe cook and prepare for Easter lunch.  We even made from scratch butter cookies, and decorated them to look like bunnies!  We are most definitely NOT experts, but we sure laughed a lot and made some fun memories!

Our bunnies!

Sunday morning Daddy joined us and we went to church then came back for a yummy lunch.  We managed to snap a few pictures and then relaxed and enjoyed visiting until it was time to head back to Greenfield.


The Easter bunny did not forget to stop at DeDe's house! He brought Ellie a couple of new bathing suits, some sandals, sunglasses, a new night gown, and quite a few other little goodies!

Our sweet girl looking pretty in her favorite color.

32 and 33 weeks!  Growing by the day...

Our last Easter as a familly of THREE.

I love coming home to visit my family and I am so glad we were able to spend lots of time with them this weekend!!!

Baby Miller's "Sprinkle"

I am so lucky to have such a sweet sister-in-law!  I honestly did not expect to have any type of shower or celebration for baby #2 simply because I didn't think we needed anything.  Rachel insisted, however and she went all out to celebrate baby Miller.  We had such a fun afternoon chatting, eating delicious food and spoiling our boy with all sorts of fun things!  I cannot believe how close his arrival is getting and we are getting more excited by the day. 

Ellie acted SO sweet throughout the entire shower and is just so excited about her baby brother.  I am sure she will have her moments of jealousy and "acting out" but overall I am not that worried about her at all.  She is so excited and will be a great help I am sure.

I still cannot believe we are having babies NINE days apart!!

It was such a fun afternoon and we left feeling very blessed by so many wonderful friends and family members.  My babies sure are loved and that makes me very grateful.