Starry Starry Night

Natalie may not be a budding Van Gough ... however, I think these are just fabulous!

"Mommy"

"Daddy"

She got done with this one, then she said, "Oh, wait! He needs arms!" And boy did he get arms.

"Me" (me being Natalie)  I didn't title them.  She did. 

Here's some pics of Grace to tide everyone over. :)

She's talkn'!

And these are pictures of my two best buddies. 

 I mean they have to be .. we spend all of our time together. 

A man and a woman had a little baby...

.... that makes 5 in the family!

Introducing Grace Effie aka Baby Grace, Gracie, Gracie Rae .... Born March 28, 2013 at 5:45am.

Easter, March 31st, 2013

Now almost six weeks later ... she looks like this.

We love her!  She has brought a sweet special spirit into our home.  Benjamin and Natalie are always asking to hold her and they love her so much.  Natalie is the best helper with her too.

(If you get the title to this post then you will love this video!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeCAaMBpGGI

The Ducks!

Wednesday I took the kids to feed the ducks.  They loved it.  

 

In other news, I learned that I need to teach Benjamin how to throw ...  but he does do a 

pretty cute version of the underhand. 

Ice Cream with Daddy

Natalie has been having a little bit of 'wandering' trouble at night since we moved into the new house.  We have been trying lots of different things to get her to stay in bed all night and not come sleep on the floor in our bedroom.

But ... nothing was working.  And we were resigned that we would have to wait until she 'grew out of it'.

However, last Friday night, Natalie stayed in her bed ALL NIGHT!!  We were so excited and told her as a reward that evening she would get ice cream with Daddy!

Here's the proof.

She even got to pick the place .... "I wanna go to Donalds!"

Since that night she has slept in her bed all night.  We told her if she slept in her bed for six nights (we kept track with stickers), she would get ice cream with Dad again. 

That's where Natalie and Kevin are now.  Such a lucky girl!

Megan's Baby Shower

Over the Valentine's weekend I left Kevin .... 

and took the kids up to Idaho. 

My sister Megan is having a baby in April and we wanted to throw her a baby shower.  

We had a great time!

The kids and I took two days to travel up and two days to travel home.  They did really good and we had a blast visiting Grammy, G-Pa, Aunt Meg, Aunt Emily, Grandma Great and Mackie.

We stopped in Vegas for lunch on our way up and found a little rock spot to play in the parking lot.  

There was a lumber yard over the wall from us and Natalie liked throwing rocks over to it.

  

We spent the night in Ely, NV at the historic Hotel Nevada.  They claim even Jimmy Stewart stayed here!

We slept well.  But we were very happy to get to Idaho for the party!!

This was the diaper cake game.  Guests had to guess how many diapers were in the cake and 

the winner got a prize.  

We spent a lot of Friday decorating my Grandma and Grandpas house for the shower.  

Grandma and the pretty quilt she made baby Layla.  Such a talented gal!

This was wishes for baby.  People could write down wishes for baby Layla and tied them to these branches. 

People also could decorate baby bibs.  I got this idea from my cousin's wife's baby shower where we decorated onesies.  (Thanks for letting my copy, Annie).

This is the Raggedy Anne doll mom made for baby Layla.  Aren't those the cutest colors?!

Bottle Chug game.  Natalie got to play this one and she loved it!

It was so much fun!  We loved seeing everyone but we missed Kevin very much and couldn't wait to get home to see him.  He missed us too!