Happy Birthday (late) My Sweet Girl!!

Since we were out of town the week of Emily's birthday, I did not have a chance to make a Happy Birthday post. It is so hard for me to believe that our sweet little girl is already 3 years old. She makes us laugh everyday with her cute personality and her wild imagination. She may be sweet but she is also a VERY hard-headed and independent. We know that one day we will be thankful for these qualities too! Emily is very excited about being a big sister and has been playing with "her baby" ever since finding out about Lucy. I can't wait to see her in action with her sister.



Emily had a great birthday with lots of fun gifts. She got a pink Leapster.....


The big gift of the day was a new pink bicycle. I did not take a picture of the bike once it was out of the box so I will have to take some and post later.


We have been at the beach for the last week and we had a great time....well, all of us except Emily. She did not like the beach AT ALL. I will be making a post later this week all about our trip. I did manage to get a few pictures where Emily was actually smiling instead of crying!!

Birthday Party

Since Cooper and Emily's birthdays are only 12 days apart, we decided to have just one party for both kids this year. We had it at our church playground and it worked-out perfect! Almost 20 kids came to the party so it was lots of fun. Cooper had a Spider Man cake and Emily picked a Winnie the Pooh cake. It was a very hot day so most of the kids spent their time playing on the indoor playground instead of outside. Of course with me being big and pregnant, I was happy to stay indoors!

This is a picture of Cooper and his best friend from school...



This is Emily and her boyfriend. They go to school together and they kiss at least 10 times a day! SO CUTE!! (she was so happy that he was able to come her party!)


Cooper blowing out his candles


Emily getting ready to blow out her candles (she was very serious during her song)


This is a group shot--a few friends had already left before I remembered to take a picture of the whole group. I'm going to try and remember to do this every year. It will be fun to look back at these when they are in high school!


The kids got SO many fun gifts, but the favorite of the day was the puppy dog that Emily received. The puppy has gone everywhere with us since the party.


Thanks to all our friends and my mom for helping to make Cooper's 5th and Emily's 3rd birthdays one to remember!!

Happy Birthday My Sweet Boy!!

Today is Cooper's 5th Birthday!!! I can not believe that it has been five years ago that we had our first child. It feels like it has flown by! Cooper has been such a blessing in our life and it is exciting to think about what the next 5 years will be like. Happy Birthday Cooper, we love you more than you could ever know!!


We had a party for Cooper and Emily on Friday (I will post those pictures tomorrow). Since my mom was in town we went ahead and opened all of Cooper's presents yesterday.







He got WAY too much stuff, but the big gift of the day was a Wii. He was so excited about it (I think daddy was even more excited) but he is still trying to figure out how to play the games. I going to go look for some games that are kid friendly and easy to play. I think he had a great birthday!!

Big Cedar

We took our annual trip (this was our third year) to Big Cedar Lodge up in Branson, MO this past weekend. We always have the best time while we are there. The kids did not want to come home. The whole trip really centered around them so we have been having to work on our "spoiled" attitude since we have been back home. We played putt-putt, rode go-carts, ate really good food, went swimming everyday, and I even got to do a little shopping!! We are already looking forward to next year!!





Emily was tall enough this year to ride go-carts!! She was so excited for her first ride and she had the best time with her daddy!


Cooper on the other hand, was not excited that he had to share "his" go-cart time with his sister (remember the spoiled attitude I talked about earlier).....


But of course, in the end he still got to do something fun "just for him"....



Back at Big Cedar, Cooper had the best time going down the water slide...




For some reason, Emily has not been as daring this summer as she was last summer. She has not wanted to jump off the diving board very much and the water slide did not interest her either. She stayed by the kiddie pool and made friends with all the kids that were there (especially the ones that had brought lots of toys with them!)



What trip to Branson is complete without balloon animals....



After going through all of the pictures from our trip, I am so sad that I did not take more pictures while at Big Cedar. One of the funniest things this year was that Emily was TERRIFIED of all the dead animals (if you have never been to Big Cedar, they have animals everywhere!! It just adds to the rustic feel of the resort). There were a few animals in our room, so to make Emily less afraid of them she and Richard gave each animal a name--we had Freckle the Fox and several other new friends in our room. Down the hall from our room there was a huge bear, some raccoons, and several large deer. The only way Emily would walk past the animals was with a blanket over her head while holding mommy or daddy's hand--I SO WISH I HAD A PICTURE OF THIS!! It was so funny. After we were safely in our room she would take the blanket off and say "I'm not afraid anymore!!". Hopefully by next year she will be over her fear of dead animals!

It's Showtime!!

The kids had their final "show day" at The Little Gym today. They have had so much fun going to gymnastics class since January but I think we are going to try some new activities in the fall. I did not get many "action" shots, but I did get a few cute pictures of the kids. Enjoy!!






By the way...we had our follow-up ultrasound last week and everything looks great!! Little Miss Lucy is growing (she already weighs 2 pounds!) and the 3D pictures looked just like Emily's. The kids ask me everyday "when is Lucy going to be here?". I am so big that it is hard for me to think that I still have the WHOLE summer to go!! We are still planning for a c-section on August 19th (eleven weeks left)--it can not get here fast enough!