Re-Entry

I've been meaning to post for the last 5 months, I swear. I've thought about it at least once a week.
There are all sorts of excuses - new job, crazy kids, and of course, I'm expecting baby #3!! But really once it went for a couple of months the biggest obstacle was the re-entry. There's just no graceful way to say, "Hi there, all four of you who still check in. I'm back!" So, graceful or not, that's what I'm gonna say. I'll post some highlights from the time I've missed. They'll probably be slightly out of order and a little stream of consciousness, but hey, it is what it is.
In the spirit of out of order and stream of consciousness, I give you a photo of me at 20 weeks pregnant. This was taken almost six weeks ago now, so I've grown a bit, but it'll give you an idea at least.

First Bandage

Last night Penny lost her balance and grabbed onto the dishwasher door for support. Somehow she scraped the skin off the inside of her teeny tiny pinky finger. I couldn't convince her of the importance of leaving the bandage on. That is, I couldn't convince her until it was Perry the Platypus guarding her boo boo!

Fake Birthday!

That's what Norah called today, the day of her birthday party, because her real birthday was last Sunday.

This will be a photo heavy post, so buckle up!

The invitations! Sorry for the blurry photo. I took this in the car, with my phone, on our way to give the last invitation away. Then I cropped it so you can't see our address. Leave it to me to realize last-second that I'd totally forgotten to document how cute they turned out! I made these using my Silhouette machine's print & cut function. I can't say enough about how much I love that thing! Seriously. I'm working on a post about all the stuf I've made with it.

The upstairs decorations. The banner and all the letters were cut on my Silhouette. The upside down balloons were meant to look like bubbles. Added bonus: no buying helium!

Lunch was "sushi-wiches" and "baby whales"

Dessert

The cupcakes were blue with pink frosting. Like the banner, I cut the cupcake toppers out with my Silhouette machine.

I made the downstairs deck into an underwater lagoon, complete with bubbles and seaweed. Norah LOVED it!
It was adorable until the breeze kicked up. Then the tablecloths started blowing around and getting in everyone's way. They were just tacked up, so the came down pretty quick. Still, for less than $1 each, totally worth it.

I made all the girls mermaid tails. Here's Penny modeling hers.

After the girls got their tails, they went to the underwater lagoon to dig for sunken treasure. I also made the girls personalized buckets to keep their treasure in (another Silhouette project). Each girl got a bucket with her name and a picture of her as a mermaid on it. Jazzy decided she'd rather stand back a watch for a bit.

Hannah was the first to shout, "I found something!"

The girls really had fun digging for treasure. For the cost of an under bed storage box, two $3 bags of sand, seashells, and some dollar store toys (see the sunglasses in Elise's pink bucket?), this was a GREAT activity. I saved the box and sand to use for my kiddos later.

Norah in her tail. Elise inspects her new ring.

The little kids loved digging too! That's Penny, Isaac (Elise's little
brother) and that hand behind him is sweet, 6 month old Levi!  

He's not sure who made that mess of sand around him. :) To be fair,
I think it was mostly the treasure hunting big girls who did it. 

Norah shows off her seashell find.

Hannah found lots of bracelets!

Penny has a future as a sunglass model.

We wanted to take a pic of everyone in their tails with their buckets. The girls weren't into it.

Except for photo-bombing baby sister. She was definitely into it!

After the dig, Norah opened her presents. Personalized mermaid
dolls from Elise, dress up gear from Hannah (see the awesome
flower headband) and an A-frame tent from Jazzy!

Thanks for comin' to my fake birthday guys!

Birthday Girl

On Sunday my firstborn baby girl turned four. Four years has flown by and I don't imagine they'll be slowing down any time soon.
Speaking of flying, even though it was taken over a month ago now, I think this picture perfectly represents her personality these days. She is fearless, insightful, loving, and strong. I'm so proud of my sweet, sweet girl.

New Outfit Photo Shoot

A few weeks ago, we got an envelope in the mail from Mark's Aunt Cathie with some new outfits! Of course, part of getting new outfits as gifts is taking pictures in the outfits to show the giver how much you love them (and the girls do LOVE them!).

My lovely daughters may have taken the New Outfit Photo Shoot
as an opportunity to make as many funny faces as possible.

She thought the whole thing was hilarious.

Penny has to concentrate pretty hard to stick out her tongue.

Apparently, Norah really has to think about it too.

I was persistent enough to get a good picture... eventually.

For this one I asked her, "Do you like your new dress?"

This one of Norah is my favorite.

Thanks for the new clothes Aunt Cathie!

Kids in Hats!

Actually, it's two kids sharing one hat, but whatever.

Who knew wearing a hat was so exciting?

I couldn't get a clearer picture of her, she was so excited to be wearing a hat.

Despite what this last photo might make you think, Norah did not knock her sister down and steal the hat. Penny was just so excited she bounced herself right over.

Crazy kids.

Library Time!

The same day we went to the museum, we went to the library. Again, Norah was busy showing Grandma her favorite computer game and I didn't get a picture. However, here's a picture my mom took a couple of weeks later that'll give you a pretty good idea of what she looked like.

"This game is SOOOOO cool!"

Penny worked on her puzzlin' skills. My mom says this is by far
her favorite thing to do at the library. 

Laser-focused concentration...

"I did it!" She was so proud!
She got the chain lock off the green door and placed the chain
in the holder next to the door. Not bad, kiddo! I suspect
that there's a few of her dad's engineer genes in her little head.