Lauren Nicole

Lauren also deserves a post since she turned 3 last month! She visited a nail salon for the first time and her fingers and toes painted. She wore a little tutu skirt and looked just adorable. Both grandmas, Aunt Aileen, and Reese were able to join her at the salon. It was a regular girls' day! Afterward Aileen, mom, Lauren and Reese went to California Pizza Kitchen and the mall to complete the girly fun. She also had a birthday party the following Saturday and had lots of friends come over to decorate jewelry boxes and jump in the big jumper outside. Lauren loves being 3 and LOVES to talk. She often opens her mouth to talk before she even knows what to say, so it's interesting hearing the things that do come out! She loves to talk about Jesus and has much of Psalm 100 memorized (her brother has the entire thing memorized, thanks to Grandma Laux). Here are pictures of her in March.

Reese Elizabeth

Our newest baby girl, Reese Elizabeth, has joined us. Yes - I am 6 weeks late in announcing this! She is very precious, sleeping right now, while her older brother and sister are watching a movie at the theatre with their Aunt Aileen. That means I have time to write here!

Reese arrived on March 16, weighing in at 7 pounds and 19 inches - I think everyone always wants to know statistics...... Labor was a little longer than with the other two, but pushing was the shortest I believe. One big push, lasting about 15 seconds, according to the nurse. We were VERY surprised she was a girl, although we didn't know either way. Sean thought for sure she would be a boy. I thought she was a boy too, until about a month before I delivered. We are delighted she is a girl and Lauren's excited to have a little sister to teach (yikes). Grant and Lauren are amazing with her and not jealous in the slightest.

Having Reese means I can finally do some things again! I can sleep on my back and stomach (oh the joy!), blow dry my hair without stopping to rest my arm (it always fell asleep and cramped), eat sushi, wear my normal clothes (I feel like I have a whole new wardrobe), tie my own shoes, etc. I didn't realize all the things I couldn't do! Now I just can't sleep, but that will hopefully pass soon enough.

Getting ready

We are getting ready for the new little one set to join us any week now. I'm 37 1/2 weeks pregnant and ready to have this baby! We don't know what it is, so I do have more of a feeling of being unprepared, but it's exciting too! Lots of friends and family are having babies too, so this one will have lots of little friends!

I also took Grant's 5-yr-old pictures today and they turned out pretty well. Here is a little sampling and a bonus one of Lauren. She turns 3 at the end of this month.

Life is going well here. My parents have been here well over a month now, helping and waiting for the baby to arrive. It's been such a blessing to have them here and I'm a little nervous about them leaving me all of the household chores to do when they go back to Missouri!

my little bro's visit

Ryan, Tiffany and Cadence came for a visit last week and we already miss them dearly! These are some photos of the fun time we had together. The kids were cute and loved playing with one another. Grant and Lauren even got a little taste of Christmas! The Lauxes brought their gifts for the kids so they could see them open them. Lauren loves her shoes and likes to wear them around the house. She's wear them everywhere else too if I didn't stop her. As you can see from the picture of her in the pink dress, she's wearing pink dress up shoes (and she kept falling). Hopefully we'll see the Lauxes again soon, but right now they're busy building their new house. Check out their blog here.

Finally...a new home

We did it. We got a contract accepted on a home. Yay!! We are moving around the beginning of December, assuming everything goes well while it's in escrow. It's kind of a big house, so I guess I'll be teaching the kids how to clean sooner rather than later. They are really excited and have picked out their rooms and already want to go swimming, although it's too cold now.

We're putting in new carpet and a pool fence before we move in. Can't have the kids drowning! That wouldn't be good.

A Return to Greenville

Last weekend Sean and I flew to St. Louis for my 10-year college reunion at Greenville College. It was a lot of fun and I'm glad we decided to go. Above is my good friend Jennie. We went to a bar/restaurant on the Landing and were hit on by a couple of young drunk men. When they found out our age one of them told the other that they were a "generation off." So, is one supposed to feel flattered or put down about that? Well, at least we still look good!

Homecoming/Reunion weekend was fun. We saw some friends and were able to reminisce about old times. The campus looks different because Hogue is gone. Although it looks nice, I loved Hogue Hall and the presence it had on campus. It was COLD though, especially for this Arizona girl. I think Sean had a harder time with the cold. Since I'm pregnant, I tend to be warmer anyway! 45 as a high is not very high, especially when we left 90 degrees!

Pumpkin Day!

My kids are super excited about "pumpkin day" every year. We're not big into celebrating halloween, so it's what I started calling the "holiday." This year we actually made a special pumpkin day though. We did everything pumpkin. We had a pumpkin breakfast (I cheated and went to Starbucks though....), we went to a pumpkin farm, painted pumpkin crafts, ate pumpkin chili, carved pumpkins, and made toasted pumpkin seeds. It was a fun day! Here are some pics to highlight the moments.

Eating pumpkin chili! It was yummy! Sean ate two bowls.

Lauren is proud of her pumpkin.Grant's finished pumpkin.


We started off with breakfast....Grant was very excited about the corn maze.

Grant practiced for the corn maze by doing the kiddie maze first.

yep, milking water from a plastic cow.