a 5th and 3rd birthday party...

Since my girls birthdays are just a couple weeks apart and since both their birthdays are so very close to my due date we decided to make things easy this year and do a joint birthday outside the house. I highly recommend it.

It was the first year I've ever had a party not at the house. SOOOOO nice!

Grace and Emma had said they wanted a gymnastics party, but since we had lots of little friends coming we decided it would be easier to do at a bounce house place.

The party theme was castles... inspired mainly by the fact that the only thing Grace asked for was a castle cake. She had been talking about her castle cake since Christmas so I went with it.

Since transporting a castle cake sounded like a challenge to me, I made the cake for her real birthday. I know why bakeries charge so much for cakes...

Here is the final product. Don't look too close :)

So back to the party... here are the girls before we left!
The girls were line leaders for the day...

Having fun down the slides...

All their little friends. Yes all girls.

We have been blessed to know a lot of little girls around the same ages as our girls!
To carry out the castle theme.... I found these cute little cupcake toppers! Pink and purple per the request of 2 little ladies...

Singing happy birthday! Grace got a little embarrassed... oh the life of girls!

And when we got home the girls had a blast opening all their gifts.

They aren't spoiled at all...

Overall the party was fun, the girls had a blast and having a party outside your home is totally worth the money... especially when the mommy is 9 months pregnant :)

37 weeks and 2 days

Well I made a little progress in a week. I'm now 3 centimeters. I probably should be more excited but you see my good friend who is due 2 days before me is headed to hospital to have her baby girl today. I can't help but feel a little jealous. So excited for her but just wishing I could join her.

I know Layla will be here very soon. I'm just anxious to meet her and to not be pregnant anymore. :) hopefully my next post will be that she is here! But more than likely it will be post about my baby girl that turns 3 next week!!

36 weeks and 4 days pregnant

So it's 4am and I thought I would post a little update.

I had an ultrasound 2 days ago and little Miss Layla was measuring 6 pounds 11 ounces and 19.5 inches long. Perfect and on track to be about an 8 pound baby if I go to full term.

That said... I'm already 2 centimeters dilated. I was never dilated this far with Grace (until I was in labor) and with Emma I was about 38 weeks when I was dilated to a 2.

The doctor was asking me questions like how far I live from the hospital and she went over all the reasons I need to call her and go to the hospital.

And while yes I'm so excited to meet Layla and feel more comfortable, I feel like I have 10,000 to do. This week alone I have the girls birthday party, a dentist appointment for them, their 3 & 5 year well visits, haircuts for them and of course I even have friends coming over next weekend to hang out.

So clearly I don't have time to have a baby yet. The worst part is my following week is even busier. My big brother and his family are coming into town and we are celebrating my dad's 60th birthday!

(This also doesn't include the FIVE children's birthday parties we have been invited to before my due date. I think nearly every one of our friends have children born in February and March... and now I'm adding another to that list!)

Honestly, I've never thought for one minute that I would deliver. Based on my track record I like to cook my babies past their date.

So I made plans.

This said... I would happily cancel any and ALL plans if it meant I get to meet my precious new baby girl. :)

ps.... yes its 4am... not sleeping much these days. Tired but just can't sleep. It's fabulous :)

My 5 year old Valentine

How can this girl be five??!!

Grace is such a blessing to have in our lives. She is a such a happy little girl and is usually in a good mood.

Grace loves playing with her friends and loves going to school even more.

She loves dolls. Really I thought dolls were for little little girls, but this girl loves to be a little mommy. She has recently gotten into her American Girl look alike. Thankfully she doesn't know hers isn't real. Her doll is named "Sally". Although most of her dolls or babies are named Sally.
She is also quite goofy. She has started to pose more and more when I try to snap a picture. Here is a little proof:

And some more...

And like I said she is just a happy girl.

And she loves her sister dearly... it is so fun to see these two. While yes they do argue and fight, they really truly love each other and watch out for one another. I hope they welcome their new sister with open arms. **************************
Other things Grace is up to: (more for me)

*She can count to 30 alone and can count to 100 with help. She needs helps starting at each new ten.

*She can write about 10 words from memory. But she is very good at writing her name and Emma's name. She is also pretty neat with her writing. Her teachers tell me she takes her time and is always working hard to finsh her work perfectly.

*She has made amazing strides in her speech class. Most people are surprised to know she is in speech but it has been great to her. She has made so much progress and is ready for Kindergarten.

*She knows how add most single digit numbers (like 2+5). Maybe bound to be a math person like her daddy? Definitely doesn't get it from me!!

******************************

And for fun I always love to look at how much kids change and grow in such a short time...

Grace at 1 week

Grace at 1

Grace at 2
Grace at 3

Grace at 4
Grace at 5! (same shirt as last year...)
Happy Birthday sweet girl!! We love you and proud to have you as our daughter.

January 2011

I know it say it often but really this past month flew by. I sort of figured it might go slow being pregnant and all, but this morning when I woke up (to a snow day!) I realized it was February.

Really when you have young children the days just somehow turn into weeks and months and somehow years.

Our January was busy. So busy that I rarely brought my camera (no surprise!). We had 6 birthday parties, 3 baby showers (1 for Miss Layla and 2 for friends), a trip to East Texas, a few doctors visits (for me and the girls), preschool registration (sort of a huge deal around here), and of course we took part in a Sibling class at the hospital where Layla is going to be born.

Oh and one weekend we even had the pleasure of having the class monkey, George, come to our house. George had a busy weekend when he came to visit. 2 birthday parties and a trip to the hospital. He even got his own seat :) Also, notice Grace moved up to a booster seat. Now this might be no big deal in your house, but I liked big Britax car seat. It is the safest seat for her. But all her friends have been getting boosters and honestly she has been begging me for one. So as a Christmas present I asked my in-laws to get her one. She loves the pink trim the most. She has been telling everyone about her new seat. What a silly girl.... so excited about a new seat! I can't believe Kindergarten is just months away.

The girls LOVED the Sibling class at the hospital. Each girl made a sign to hang on the baby's crib with their picture that says "I'm a Big Sister". Emma was hilarious on this day. Most of the kids in the class were 4 or 5. Emma was by far the youngest, but that didn't stop her from answering all the questions. She was VERY into it!

Grace was a little more reserved, but was really taking it all in. I think she enjoyed the hospital tour the most. Although they both were quite confused when we didn't leave with the baby. I guess they thought we were going there to get the baby :)

With Miss Layla's arrival only 6 weeks away (can you believe I'm already 34 weeks!), some of my close friends insisted on throwing me a shower. To be honest, I've always kind of thought that showers for anything but your first baby weren't really okay. I didn't have a shower with Emma, but I really didn't need a whole lot besides diapers and wipes. But with this baby, we really had gotten rid of some key items (like our car seat!) both because they were worn out after 2 kids and because we weren't sure we were going to have another... so I was okay with it. Of course I told them to send out an evite and have a small shower with punch and cake. They didn't listen!

The shower was amazing. Every detail had been thought out. It was perfect. Miss Layla was spoiled rotten! And this is why I learned that having showers for your second, third, etc baby are more than okay. Each baby is special. Miss Layla has a lifetime ahead of hand-me-downs so it was wonderful to have some wonderful new treasures for just for her.

Here are all my SIX hostesses! Yes 6! I feel so blessed to have each of these women in my life. They really blew me out of the water with their love for baby Layla.

I wont bore you with a 50 pictures from the shower, but I do have a couple just to show you how perfect everything was.

All the guests enjoyed "mamatinis"... basically a martini minus the rum :) They were so cute and fun.

And of course a sweet cake with Layla's initials. The cake was strawberry and so yummy!

And I guess that about wraps up January. I'm hoping to post some belly shots sometime next week! You would have thought after I got dressed cute for the baby shower I would have done that... but no. Hope you had a wonderful January as well! Now off to do laundry and enjoy the rest of the day (probably week) indoors... high isn't suppose to be above 20 degrees until Friday!! Brrrrrr....