Summer 2012

Hello again.  We are all alive and well, just too busy to blog.  The last time I updated you guys it was the end of May.  Here is what has happened since then:

• Maleah started a two-day a week tennis camp for the month of June.
• Maleah went to a three-day cheerleading camp (which caused her to miss one day of tennis).
• Maleah went to a one-night stay at Oil Belt Christian Service Camp.
• Maleah started playing Coaches Pitch Softball.
• I sold the expensive stroller that I had won.
• Jason finished up his busy season at work (10 hour days, 6 days a week for 4 months straight).
• He took a vacation.
• We all went to Disney World for 7 days.
• Maleah missed two more days of tennis and two ballgames because of vacation.
• Carissa got sick during vacation.
• Silas got sick because Carissa was sick.  He had bronchitis.
• Maleah had a bad bike wreck and smashed up her face which required a trip to the ER, some skin glue, and lots of tlc.
• She missed two more days of tennis and two more ballgames because she was hurt.
• Tennis ended and Maleah got to go only one time.  :(
• Maleah finished up her ballgames and did great!
• We all had a great time celebrating the 4th of July with our friends, the Duquaine's and the Kopacz's.
• Silas swam for the first time.
• Silas ate cereal and baby food for the first time (he loves it!).
• Maleah went back to camp for another overnight stay.  She loves camp!
• We went to the county fair three times to ride rides.
• Carissa liked the rides there better than Disney World. (Hopefully, only because she was sick at Disney.)
• We went to Marion County Fair too.  They had better rides.
• Carissa got her thumb pinched at the library and has her first two blood blisters.  She is not impressed.
• Silas is now wearing 6-9 mos. clothes!
• He weighed 14 pounds, 14 ounces at his last appointment!
• He is no longer in the 0 percentile for weight, he is in the 1 percentile.  Progress!!!
• He is in the 10th percentile for height.
• His head circumference is still in the 0 percentile.  No one can accuse the Coopers of having big heads.  lol!!
• Maleah started 2nd grade.
• Calli moved out and will be going to college in St. Louis.
• Carissa went to the dentist for the first time.
• Maleah and Carissa participated in their first pedal tractor pull at the Cisne Reunion.

Carissa with Julie Atwood getting her teeth cleaned.

 

Carissa at the pedal tractor pull.

Maleah at the pedal tractor pull.

 

Okay, so that brings us up to date.  It has been a very busy summer to say the least.  I can't wait to tell you all about Disney.  We flew out on a Saturday.  We went with Jason's parents, Sherrel and Clarence, and Jason's brother and his wife, Craig and LuAnn.  The look on Maleah's face when we took off in the airplane was priceless.  The flight was fairly short and the girls liked it.  I packed activities to keep them busy on the plane and we didn't do a single one of them.  They mostly looked around, squirmed, asked for drinks, ate their snacks, spilled their snacks, buckled and unbuckled repeatedly, looked out the window and talked to me.  Silas slept.  Bless his heart.  He's the good kid.

We landed in Orlando in a thunderstorm.  We got onto The Magical Express bus and headed to our resort.  We stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort, which was quite lovely.  It was a bunch of two story colorful buildings around a central lagoon.  It was a huge place and had around 3,000 people staying there.  Our room was very nice and worked out well for us.  The only problem was that we were on the 2nd story and there were no elevators, so that means we were always carrying our strollers, our kids, and our bags up and down those stairs.  It was a workout.  I wish we could have been downstairs but the nice thing about being upstairs was that our room was right next to everyone else's.  The resort had a very tropical feel to it and there was lots of beautiful trees and flowers.  There were several pools and restaurants as well.

We arrived late in the afternoon and intended to go to Magic Kingdom but we didn't make it.  It took too long to get settled in to our rooms and to eat supper.  We ate that evening at the resort and within the first five minutes of being in the food court area, we ran into our next door neighbors' grandson.  Funny how you can travel so far and see someone from Flora right off the bat. It's a small world, after all. (drum crash)

Day 2:  We got up early and went to Magic Kingdom.  It was so fun! We got there before the gates opened and got to see the characters sing and dance and welcome us into the park.  The girls got to meet three princesses as soon as we got there.  We all rode rides and had a wonderful day.  We all rode The Haunted Mansion, which scared the crap out of Carissa and Maleah.  I really didn't think it was going to be that scary or we would've sat that one out!  Carissa refers to it as "the black ride" and says "it was reawwy reawwy tary!"  The girls loved the "green ride" (Buzz Lightyear).  We were there all day and stayed that evening for the electrical light parade.  Right before the parade was set to start a big storm came and it poured down rain.  They canceled the parade and we were sort of trapped in a Mexican restaurant for over an hour waiting on the rain to quit.  It never did.  So we all put our rain ponchos on and I put the rain covers on our strollers.  I had purchased one for each stroller from Amazon before we left and let me just say that was the best seventy bucks I ever spent!  None of the kids got wet as we manuevered our way out of the park and made it to the bus stop.  It took forever to get a bus and make it back but we did.  Needless to say, we all slept good that night!

Maleah at Magic Kingdom.

Carissa giving Belle a hug.

The girls with Cinderella.

Grandma Sherrel, Me, and Silas at the parade.

Day 3:  Carissa woke up with a fever.  I gave her some Tylenol.  (I packed for any and all emergencies.)  I thought about staying in the room with her for the day but she perked up a little after she had the Tylenol and chocolate milk, so I decided to take her and if I needed to leave early and come back, so be it.  She pretty much just slept in the stroller off and on and was not her usual perky self all day.  We went to Animal Kingdom that day.  It was fun.  We went on a safari ride and saw a bunch of animals.  It was super hot that day and Animal Kingdom was more crowded than the other parks.  We only stayed at Animal Kingdom until afternoon and then we all went back to our rooms to relax a bit.  Then we headed back to Magic Kingdom to try to see the lights parade... again.  This time it didn't storm.  The parade was awesome.  The kids all wore their hearing protection earmuffs during that parade.  It was loud!  They wore their earmuffs a lot during the whole vacation.  Everything was loud - the shows, the rides, the parades, everything!  My kids have sensitive ears and when it is too loud it just ruins it for them.  Everyone else at Disney World that night was staying for the fireworks, but since my kids dislike loud noises and generally aren't that impressed by fireworks, we headed out of the park.  That was tricky.  We had to manuever two strollers through millions of people.  I led the way, pushing sleeping Silas, while I held onto the front of the sit-n-stand stroller carrying Carissa and Maleah that Jason was pushing directly behind me.  I'm glad I had somewhere for Maleah to sit because it would have been hard for her to stay with us in that crowd.  We formed a human train and pushed our way through.  I didn't make any new friends doing that.  The bright side was that we were able to get out of the park before it rained again and we were at the front of the line to get onto the bus that went to our resort.  Our kids were tired but Jason and I were exhausted!  The busses were standing room only and we had to hold two folded strollers, two small diaper bags, baby bottle holder, a shopping bag, a sick toddler, a sleeping infant, and a partridge in a pear tree, all while the bus is moving for a 20 minute bus ride.  That was my least favorite part of the whole vacation and we did it at least twice each day.  Thankfully, Craig and LuAnn and Sherrel and Clarence were with us most of the time and helped hold stuff.  I think Disney needs to redesign their busses and add stroller storage underneath.  Maybe I could get a job as a bus imagineer...

Day 4:  Carissa was still not herself.  She spent most of the time in the stroller.  That day we went to SeaWorld.  It was super hot.  I was excited to see some whales.  After the first five minutes of the first show the girls were tired of shows.  Maleah explained it like this:  "The whale already jumped.  Is that all he does?  Over and over?  And we're supposed to clap every time?  Once was enough for me.  I want to go to the gift shop."  I thought the girls would love SeaWorld and there were parts that they really liked but overall it was not their favorite thing.  I also "lost" my billfold/small purse thingie during the day there.  One minute I had it and the next I didn't.  It had a lot of cash in it as well as all of our room keys/park tickets.  I backtracked to look for it.  Oh yeah, it also had my phone in it.  And for some reason our cell phones wouldn't work at SeaWorld.  I spent forever looking for it and talking to guest services.  Then I got separated from everyone else and couldn't call to see where they were because I didn't have a phone.  I finally found them and guess what?  They had my billfold and my phone.  I had laid it on top of the stroller and then someone (probably me) pushed the visor shut so that it was all folded up and you couldn't see it at all.  I wasted a bunch of time and it wasn't lost at all.  That evening Maleah and I went back to Magic Kingdom all by ourselves.  Jason, sicky Carissa, and Silas were all ready to rest and get ready for bed at the resort, but Maleah and I took showers, got cleaned up, and went out on the town.  We arrived at Magic Kingdom at around 8 p.m.  They didn't close that night until 1 a.m.  We rode every single ride that we had wanted to but hadn't gotten to earlier in the week.  The lines were so short.  We only waited five to ten minutes for each one.  Everyone else was at the lights parade and then at the fireworks.  We found a nice lady and her daughter in the line at the teacups and I asked them if Maleah could ride it with them.  They didn't mind and I was so happy that I didn't have to ride that.  It would have made me so sick!  It was so much fun and more relaxed at that time of night.  We had a blast!  We got back to the resort around midnight I think. 

Carissa at SeaWorld.

The girls at SeaWorld.

Day 5,6, and 7:  On our remaining days we went to Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Universal Studios.  Actually, I can't remember the order that well.  I should have written this back in June.  Hollywood Studios might have been day 5 or day 4.  Does it really matter though?  Let's just pretend it was day 5.  It was fun.  We all loved it!  There were some super cool rides there.  Jason and I, along with Craig and LuAnn rode the Tower of Terror and it was so fun!  It was the best part in my opinion.  Everybody enjoyed that day.  Carissa wasn't very active but it was a fun day.  Epcot was day 6 and we enjoyed it too.  Soarin' (a ride) was everyone's favorite.  Carissa was still a little sicky.  She didn't do anything there and was about 1/2 inch too short to do Soarin'.  I forgot to bring her tennis shoes with us that day so she would measure taller.  She had on flip flops so she was just a bit too short.  Oh well.  I felt like Epcot was stroller un-friendly because they wouldn't let us bring the strollers into any of the buildings, even into the restaurants.  Therefore we had to hold both Carissa and Silas, along with a bag, while we were looking around, eating, etc.  Not fun!  The other parks allowed you to bring strollers in to the restaurants and other buildings, especially if you had a sleeping baby.  I began referring to all of the park workers at Epcot as "stroller nazis."

Silas taking a snooze at Hollywood Studios.

The girls met Chip and Dale at Epcot.

Day 7 was Universal.  Universal is split into two parks - Universal Studios and Universal Islands of Adventure.  Each park has its own admission price.  We chose to only do Islands of Adventure because that is where Harry Potter's World of Wizarding is located.  In order to get to the Universal gates you have to walk through this free area called City Walk.  It is full of shops and restaurants.  We walked through that, went straight to Harry Potter WoW, looked around, took pictures, and we all had a butterbeer (except for Silas).  It was delicious and tasted like cream soda (it's not real beer).  The town of Hogsmeade and the Hogwarts castle were amazing.  It was so much like the movie sets.  The inside of the castle had great special effects.  Maleah and I rode a very scary ride.  We screamed our heads off and I felt sick to my stomach.  It was hot and we decided we needed to go get a bite to eat.  We exited the park (did not pass go, did not collect $200) and went straight to Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville.  I had a cheeseburger in paradise and it was delicious!  It was nice and cool in there and for the first time in days, Carissa perked up and danced her little butt off to "Volcano" by Jimmy Buffett.  She was the only one in there dancing and that was okay.  After we had a great meal and a fun relaxing lunch, we headed outside to the City Walk.  We were planning to go back into the park because we really hadn't done anything there but ride one ride and look at the Harry Potter town.  However, the girls found a really cool fountain in the sidewalk and Carissa ran through that and got soaked.  She had a blast!  And while she was doing that Maleah decided to get a hair wrap in her hair.  Everyone had so much fun and then it was time to get on our bus to get back to the resort.  So basically we spent a whole lotta money on Universal tickets and then spent the day in the free City Walk area.  Oh well.

Carissa after she finished her dance at Margaritaville.

Hogwarts!!

Jason and Silas at Margaritaville.

The next day we flew home.  We had a great vacation with the Coopers!!  But we were so glad to get home so that we could relax! 

Here are some new pics of the wonder boy himself, Silas Cooper.  He is doing amazingly well.  He is the happiest best baby in the world.  He goes with the flow no matter what.  He rarely fusses and basically he is just always happy.  He says "Mama" now.  He isn't crawling and is barely rolling over by himself but he can do it, he just doesn't want to.  He doesn't sit up by himself but he almost can do it.  He is more like a four month old than an eight month old but that is a-okay with me.  That is what he is supposed to be!

Silas in the hotel room at Disney .

He loves his bath time!!

Getting ready for bed.

The most recent picture of our boy.

He is so happy! This was taken at Great-Grandma

Rose's 83rd birthday party at Uncle Timmy and Aunt RaeAnn's.

Maleah was so happy to start second grade.  As a craft project before school started we made the teacher a box of goodies (thank you pinterest for the ideas!).  We covered a wooden box with school-themed scrapbook paper and then filled it with goodies like soda and chips.  The tag read "Soda-lighted that you are my teacher!"  We also put a little soap bottle in it that read "Soap it's a fun year!" and a lotion bottle that said "Let's have a smooth year!" on it.  There was also a chocolate bar that was tagged "It will be a sweet year with you!" on it.  She made up extra chocolate bars and passed those out to other teachers in the building that she loves.  She had a lot of fun with that.  So far, second grade is going great.  She loves her teacher and her classmates.  I hope the whole year goes great!

The gift box for her new teacher, Mrs. Greenwood.

First day of 2nd Grade!

Maleah with one of her best friends, Peyton Rose.

Maleah with one of her other best friends, Erica Weidner.

Well, I feel like I have so much left to tell you but that is going to have to wait for another day.  I promise that I am going to start updating this blog weekly again now that school has started and our lives are back into a routine.

The Much Anticipated Update...

I am sorry that I have been so behind on this blog!  Everyone has been asking me to update and a few people have actually demanded that I write an update, so here it is...

We have been really busy.  Jason has been working 60 hour weeks (six ten-hour days) since March.  He is tired.  He is hopeful that he can have this coming Saturday off.  He should be back to his normal schedule soon. 

I have been really busy just trying to keep up with our household.  The laundry keeps trying to take over.  It has won a few battles but is not winning the war.  The amount of toys and other random junk in this house continues to amaze me.  I am constantly picking up stuff and putting it away.  It seems like that is all I do all day long.  The dishwasher runs once or sometimes twice a day.  We wash bottles every day by hand.  There are six people living here who bathe every single day.  Needless to say, the city commented on the fact that our water usage has increased significantly since March.

It seems impossible to keep this house clean.  I am not going to apologize for it though.  I do the best I can and there is always at least two kids here at all times, every single day.  We live here and our house shows it.  Sigh.  There needs to be two of me - one to spend time and do fun things with my kids and the other to be cleaning up behind them.

Maleah is still working on her marble jar.  She has been doing this for over a year now probably.  Each time she does something nice for someone or helps with a chore she earns a marble or two, depending on the size of the job.  Each time her jar gets full she gets to pick a reward (like going skating, having a friend over, etc.).  She has really been trying hard lately to fill it again.  Yesterday, I asked her to dust our black sofa table (it shows dust so quickly!) and she said "What??  I just did that last week!!!"    I said "Um, yeah.  That is the story of my life."  Carissa is also working on a marble jar and she decided that she would like to help dust as well.  She has yet to fill a marble jar (even though her's is significantly smaller than Maleah's) because she gets marbles removed from the jar all the time for bad behavior.  Anyway, she wasn't doing a very good job with the dusting.  She basically did one big swipe across the table and that was it.  The corner areas were still dusty.  I told her that she needed to check it and maybe get the corners a little bit better.  Her response?  "Mom! I am just a little kid!"  By the end of the day the dusting was done though and it was not done by me.  :)

Silas is doing great!  I think he weighs about eleven pounds now.  He smiles, laughs, and coos a lot now.  He is very happy.  He loves to watch his sisters and is very tolerant of Carissa's hugs.  Maleah loves to hold him and she seems to get a lot of laughs out of him.  He lost all of his hair over the past month or so but it is now all growing back in.  He has very dark and very short hair all over his head.  He likes to suck his thumb when he can find it but he also likes his pacifier.  He is wearing 0 to 3 months clothes most of the time and has even worn a few 3-6 months outfits.  He is big stuff!  I can't believe that he is almost six months old!

One day last week we had a play date with my friend Teresa Lewis.  Here is Silas pictured with her little boy Mason.  Mason was born 4 days before Silas. 

Carissa has been acting terrible lately.  She is trying to run this household and needs a constant reminder that she is not in charge.  She is mean to Maleah and tries to be mean to Silas too.  She hits and throws things.  I think the terrible twos showed up a little late at our house.  She is a handful to say the least.  I had to break out the parenting books a few weeks ago.  Do they have summer camps for three year olds?

Maleah finished up the school year.  She loved her first grade teacher, Mrs. Prather, and will miss her very much.  She is looking forward to summer and to second grade though.  She received a reading award, a principal's award, and a 1st grade award.  Her teacher spoke very highly of her reading.  Maleah's summer schedule is a little bit crazy.  She is on a coaches pitch softball team and her first game is next Tuesday.  She will be going to tennis two mornings a week for the month of June.  She is going to cheerleading camp next week.  And she is going to church camp for an overnight stay at the end of the week.  She is also getting a part-time job to help me pay for the gas it takes to run her all over the place.  Just kidding.

Calli has had a busy past month or so.  She was in the school play at North Clay.  It was called Rydell High and was based on the movie "Grease."  She played Blanche, the high school secretary.  She did a great job!  The play was a lot of work and she had practice nearly every night and didn't get home some nights until midnight.  Some mornings they had practice at 6:30 in the morning.  By the time the play was over I think she was worn out.  She also had a senior awards night where she received an award for good grades.  And on Mother's Day she graduated high school.  Why on earth North Clay had the play and graduation all on Mother's Day weekend I'll never know.  Bad planning if you ask me and they didn't.  It was an extremely busy weekend and it was a tiny bit stressful to get everything done.  The great news is that she graduated and can now look forward to the next phase of her life - college. 

Calli with the Cooper and Duquaine kids at her

graduation party at the Duquaine's.

Calli and Hannah

Calli on the right as Blanche and

Hannah on the left as the principal.

Speaking of plays, this past weekend was the annual Depot Show at the high school.  They have it every year to raise money to restore our historic train depot in Flora.  This year I co-wrote the play with Stacey Earleywine.  I also had a couple of small parts in the play.  I played a grocery shopper in Mr. Whipple's store for a Charmin commercial and one of the old ladies in the Where's the Beef commercial.  The play was called The Wrong Show and was based on The Gong Show from the 1970s.  I spent a lot lot lot of hours watching The Gong Show on youtube while I was sitting in Silas' hospital room.  I took a lot of notes and did a lot lot lot of rewrites.  Maleah also had a small part in the show.  She carried signs across the stage after the bad acts that said things like "Are you kidding me??"  I think we had a great show though.  I am looking forward to doing it again next year!

Maleah in front of the gong.

Me selling toilet paper.

Me and Maleah.

Me, holding script re-write number 12000.

Well, you know I have been trying to win strollers and other various items from BabyGizmo.com for a while now.  I tried and tried to win their weekly giveaways and then several weeks ago they had a giveaway each day for 30 straight days.  And I won!  I finally won!!  I won a 4Moms Origami stroller (google it).  It folds and unfolds with the push of a button.  It has headlights.  It has an onboard generator that can charge your iphone, ipad, etc while you walk.  It has an lcd screen with a speedometer, odometer, timer, etc.  It is pretty cool.  The downside is that it weighs a ton, doesn't have much storage, and doesn't recline very much.  The stroller costs $850 to buy it plus they sent me an extra seat cover in green which is another $100, so altogether I have a $950 stroller.  Unbelievable, right?  I think it's awesome but I really needed a stroller that can seat two.  So, (forgive me BabyGizmo!) I am selling it on ebay and going to use the money to buy the stroller I really want and spend the rest on vacation.  I took some pics of Silas in his celebrity stroller though before I listed it on ebay.

A few weeks before she graduated Calli had her senior prom. She went with her friend Hannah Clifton. Here are some pics:

This picture is from Senior Awards Night.

This post is not in any chronological order that's for sure. Calli also had senior pictures taken by Dawn Cox. They turned out great. She snapped a couple of Maleah and Carissa while they were watching and waiting on Calli. 

One day last week I took the girls and Silas to the park for a picnic.  We sat in the gazebo at Charley Brown Park and ate hot dogs and chips.  We learned that Red-Headed Woodpeckers like Lay's Potato Chips.  We had a woodpecker that was keeping a really close eye on what we were doing.  I think he must stalk the lunch crowd at the park.  I had a hunch that he was waiting on our crumbs so I had the girls set a few chips out in the grass.  As soon as they walked off he jumped down there and ate those chips.  He was a cute little guy.  Here are some pics from our fun day at the park.

We are having a fun and busy summer.  I promise I will try to do better about keeping this blog updated!!!

Birthday Girls, Baby Silas, Easter, and a... Teenager??

Three clean Mini Coopers after their baths.

I am so way behind on this blog.  I apologize.  My life is just a wee bit crazy right now, but in a good way.  Just keeping up with the house and the family is taking all of my time.  I haven't even been on facebook in days.  Yes, I've been that busy.  So let's start where I left off last time....

Okay, so Silas is still off of the oxygen.  He has been doing totally awesome.  He weighed 8 pounds, 1 ounce last week when he saw the pulmonologist in St. Louis.  That doctor released him and he doesn't have to back.  Woo hoo!  He is four months old today.  He has slept through the night twice now.  The rest of the time he wakes up once through the night.  That makes me very happy.  He saw a physical therapist last week from Child and Family Connections.  He was qualified for services for them automatically because he had a birth weight of less than 1000 grams.  The therapist could not find one single thing to work with him on though.  That is unusual for a 25 weeker to not have some weakness or need a little help.  I really wasn't surprised though because that kid is strong.  He is all muscle.  A few days later a developmental therapist came by to decide if he needed any help on getting him caught up developmentally.  She said that she has been doing that job for 14 years and she had never met a 25 weeker that did not qualify for her services or need some sort of therapy... until she met Silas.  He needs nothing!  That is the power of prayer, baby!  He acts exactly like he should for his adjusted age (about a month now).  He really showed off for the lady too.  He was wide awake and did all of the following (a few of these I didn't even know he could do):  he tracked a toy with his eyes, he reached for a toy, he said gaa gaa, he smiled at her, he rolled over with her help, he held his head up and looked all around, and when she put him on his belly he raised up so high I thought he was going to start scooting across the floor.  Ahh-mazing.  The therapists are going to check back quarterly to re-evaluate but for now, he is good to go.

One of our ministers, Ben VanHyning, stopped by

last week to meet Silas.

Grandma Debby and Silas

Last week Maleah went with me when I took Silas to St. Louis.  We left Carissa home with Grandma.  Daddy had to work so it was just me, Maleah, and Silas.  We had a great day!  We went to his appointment at the hospital and then went and visited with Dr. Chao and our nurse Jen at the Nicu.  They were really happy to see how well Silas was doing.  After that, we had lunch at The Cheesecake Factory, shopped at the Galleria, and took a coat back to REI that Maleah had gotten for her birthday.  She took that money and went to Target and bought herself a brand spankin new scooter.  She was a very happy camper.  Silas was awesome the whole day and was a good shopper and a good lil car rider.

Maleah was a little sick when we arrived at The Cheesecake Factory and nothing sounded good to her.  She was past the point of being hungry and her blood sugar was low.  I hurried up and ordered her a hot fudge sundae (they have the best ones in the world there) and a meal.  She ate the sundae first and started to perk up.  Then she ate about 7 slices of bread and butter, a sliced banana, and then made room for some chicken fingers.  By the time we walked out of there she had her second wind and was ready to shop.

Silas at The Cheesecake Factory.  He slept through the

entire meal! 

Maleah and Silas in front of the big fountain

in the Galleria Mall in St. Louis.

Maleah really wanted to stop and walk on this bridge

over the river in Carlyle, Illinois when we were

headed back from St. Louis.  It was beautiful!

Silas on the bridge.

Let's back up a little and talk about the girls' birthdays.  Maleah's was March 22nd (Silas' due date) and Carissa's was March 26th.  Silas was my only baby due in March and the only one that wasn't born in March.  Remember that in case there is a test later.  The girls had their birthday party at Skateland Rollersport in Fairfield for the third year in a row.  It was lots of fun.  They had a Minnie Mouse theme because they are both very excited about our upcoming Disney vacation.  They loved seeing their friends and family and they got some pretty cool gifts. 

The girls before the party.

Carissa eating the layer of birthday cake that

got smushed in the car on the way to the party.  It

turned into her own personal layer!

Me and Carissa Faith

Carissa blowing out her birthday candles.

Maleah, talking like usual, at her birthday party.

Maleah had asked if we could eat at Peking Palace for her birthday.  It is our favorite Chinese restaurant and it is in Harrisburg.  We met our good friends, Jessi and Mike Hall and Becky Stafford there.  My Mom went with us.  It was a fun evening and good food.  Carissa asked to go to Lonestar for her birthday dinner because she likes their baked potatoes.  However, after she opened all of her gifts that day and got a brand new big girl bike, she no longer wanted to go.  She wanted to stay home and play.  We grilled out instead and she got to play outside with her sister and our neighbors Peyton and Sheldon Rose.  It was so beautiful and so warm outside for both of the girls' birthdays.  The highs were in the 80s.  It snowed last year on Carissa's birthday so this was a big difference.  We loved it!

Jessi, Becky, and Silas

Maleah at her birthday dinner at Peking Palace,

with Grandma Debby and Becky.

Jessi holding Silas

Carissa riding her new bike!!

Carissa eating the slice of Coconut Creme Pie from

Julian's that Grandma Debby brought her on her birthday.

Carissa after playing in the yard all evening on her birthday.

She was filthy!!!

March was fun but so is April.  We had Easter Sunday dinner at my Uncle Tim and Aunt RaeAnn's house.  It was such a good time.  The food was the best ever, especially the turkey.  The kids' Easter Egg Hunt was great.  Carissa won $10 and two lottery tickets and a whole bunch of candy and prizes.  Maleah won $115.00 total plus a whole bag of prizes and candy.  She has decided to buy an American Girl doll with her big winnings.  She found one egg that had $50 in it!  She is a lucky girl for sure!  After the kids had their egg hunt, we had a first annual Adult Easter Egg Hunt.  It was fun.  I was out of breath, I tell ya.  Some of my cousins are way faster than me.  I won $5 and two lottery tickets.  I wasn't the big winner (like my Aunt Angie!) but that's okay.  I still had a great time!  Love my family.  Silas got to meet and hang out with someone his own size.  My cousin Bryan Oestreich and his fiance Jamie Wilson had their newborn daughter, Kendyll Rose there.  She was born on March 14 and is the same size as Silas.  They looked so cute together!!!  She is beautiful and has the most adorable spiky brown hair ever. 

Silas and Kendyll

Me, laughing, and holding Silas and Kendyll

The Mini Cooper girls getting ready to hunt for eggs

Carissa hunting eggs

Maleah on her egg hunt

In other news, our family has grown again.  No, I am not pregnant.  Please do not even joke about that.  Our babysitter/family friend Calli Chadwick has moved in with us.  She is seventeen and is graduating high school in a few weeks.  She is a very sweet girl and we love her.  She really wants to become an au pair overseas in the fall, so if any of my blog readers have experience with this or know anyone who has done this, please contact me.  We have transformed my sewing room into a bedroom for her.  Unfortunately for her, there is still some sewing stuff in there but at least it is a very big room.  She still has room for her stuff.  It's a good thing we have a big house but it is busting at the seams right now.  I am gearing up for a big rummage sale on May 4th.  Remember that and come and buy all of my stuff.  I have a lot of girls clothes!!

Calli and Silas

Okay, whew!  I think I am all caught up again!  Things are starting to slow down a bit around here so hopefully I can start updating my blog on a regular basis again.  We can all hope, right?