Our little "monkey"

Can you believe our beautiful daughter is all grown up? I can't, and I can't believe I actually have a moment to blog. Life has been busy but wonderful with our newest addition. She is full of love for her family, especially her big sister. She loves to smile and cuddle and play all day long. She is rolling around everywhere and will probably be crawling before I know it. I hope to be able to blog more but for now this is what you are going to get.

Lots of love between sisters

All smiles

Drooling is permitted

Don't you just want to gobble these up? I had to do a post on the delicious crescent rolls that I made from scratch today with some amazing women/friends to show my sisters and mom what I did. The best part is that these rolls turned out so well and now I have two huge ziploc bags full of them in my freezer for me to use whenever I want or need to. Ok, so actually the best part was spending time with my friends who make life in Connecticut absolutely wonderful. I don't know what I would do without them, I truly treasure their friendship! Delicious rolls + friendship = priceless

30 weeks and counting...

I just hit 30 weeks and can't believe it. This pregnancy has flown by so fast, probably because I am chasing after a toddler. We are excited for this one to come join our family especially her BIG sister!

Winter Wonderland

What a crazy winter so far here in the Northeast. I feel like I am back in Colorado; our neighbors have blamed us for all the snow we have received and said we must have brought it with us! Maybe we did :) I think this is the most snow they have seen here in years and I am loving it. It is fun to wake up every morning after a storm to see how much has fallen. Last night another storm hit and I swear we have another foot of snow but I don't know because I haven't attempted to step outside to measure yet. The crazy thing about the snow here is that it hasn't been warm enough to melt it, we still have about 3 feet of snow that fell a few weeks ago along with what just fell last night which makes it difficult to see when driving around corners, you can't see anything because the plows have made mountains out of the snow! I am definitely going to be ready for the warm sunshine come Spring but in the meantime we will enjoy making snow angels, sitting by the fireplace and sipping hot chocolate!

Beautiful Winter Wonderland

What we woke up to this morning

Snow halfway up our light pole

We are so blessed

I missed out on posting something around Thanksgiving expressing how thankful I am for ALL that I have, therefore I am doing it now. For two weeks we were able to visit beautiful Colorado and spend time with our families and friends. We were reminded how important families are and how fortunate we have been to have had the love and support they have given us in our transitional years. We miss being close enough to visit more often but it made this visit sweeter than ever. I am grateful for the pampering and Cap'n Crunch party, helping hands for the Princess Party, the hugs and laughter, a girls' lunch, dinner with "D", staying up late watching movies and playing games and having ALL of the family together.

I am grateful for a husband who works hard to take care of his girls; we are so proud of him and for all that he has accomplished. I am grateful for a beautiful daughter who makes me laugh and smile every day and reminds me of why I love being a mother. I am grateful for the good health we have had this year and the blessing of being pregnant and being able to bring another "princess" into this world. I know that all of these things are made possible because of the love of a Heavenly Father who watches over us and blesses us with those things that we need, and sometimes with those things we don't even know that we need.Swimming with daddy

Cuddling with uncle "D"

Best Buddies Family Picture Day My beautiful sisters
Princess/Prince Birthday Party Baby bumps

Halloween Fun

I don't know what it is about Halloween, but I love this holiday especially now that I have a child of my own; it brings out the child in me. We enjoyed a couple of activities this Halloween and made sure that we collected plenty of candy...for daddy. On Friday we went with our friends to an outdoor mall that was passing out treats to all the ghosts and goblins that visited them. I didn't want to ruin the costume we had planned to wear for the Fall Festival at the church on Satuday so we dressed the little one up in a Japanese dress we received from a friend of ours and attempted a bun with "pencils" instead of chopsticks. Because it was so cold all you can see is the jacket and good ol' Pooh bear. Oh well, it was a blast and we had a great first experience in getting candy and saying Trick-or-Treat.
On Saturday we dressed up for the Fall festival/Trunk-or-Treat at the church and enjoyed every moment even though my feet were killing me. I wore high heel boots with my costume, they looked good, but I paid the price. We were going for a family theme again this year but keeping it low budget so I was the witch, and E was my black cat and not pictured is my husband who was my broom. Well at least he held my broom for me! The festival included games situated in rooms around the church and you had to use tickets to play each game, which E loved giving to the people in charge of the games. One of the favorites was the cupcake walk because E loved running around on the colored pumpkins and dancing to the music until it stopped, and you can't go wrong when everyone ones a cupcake. We also loved watching E at the bowling game, she had great aim but not enough gusto so we had her kick the ball at the pins instead. The cutest part was her helping pick up the pins after she knocked them over which earned her a second prize, we have taught her well. The next best game was the winning of the goldfish or 3 goldfish in our case (we gave one away so we ended up with 2). The hubby wasn't too excited about it but I was so proud of her for winning them and knew she would love her first pets! They are still alive just so you all know and are being fed my "special" food until we get to the pet store to buy fish food.
On Halloween daddy carved E's pumpkin and we played games and colored Halloween pictures we got from the library. It was such a fun weekend and I already know what the family is going to be next year...all four of us!

Visits from Family

This is such old news, nevertheless, it is news. Since living out east we have been visited by many of our family members and it has been so much fun. In June we met up with my in-laws in upstate New York and visited several church history sites in Palmyra, Fayette and Pennsylvania. My favorite was the Sacred Grove and standing on the Susquehanna river.

In July we had a surprise visit from my sister and niece. The moment we picked them up the two girls were giggling and screaming with excitement. I guess they missed each other. It was fun having them around all day and night playing, watching movies, grocery shopping and the best of all was the picnic and concert in the park the night before they left. There was a country band playing that night and both the girls were up front and center dancing and singing. We sure miss them a lot!!

In August my parents came for a visit and tried to squeeze as many fun things in as we possibly could. The best part of the visit was going to Boston for the first time to see a Red Sox game as well as walk the Freedom Trail. I've missed going to baseball games with my dad during the summer so this was a treat since it was in Boston and in such a historic stadium. During the game the fans started doing the wave which our little girl loved joining in on. However, when they stopped she kept looking in the direction that it was supposed to come from and kept saying and signing "more". It was the cutest and saddest thing ever. I swear she kept looking and asking for 5 minutes so we decided to do our own little wave for her enjoyment. The Freedom Trail was incredible. The two stops that I really enjoyed were the USS Constitution and the Old North Church. We took the guided tour of the USS Constitution by an active-duty sailor in an 1812 dress uniform, it was totally worth it. We heard stories of "Old Ironsides" and how it never lost a battle. The best part was watching as my dad had the opportunity to raise and fly the American flag he had just bought over the USS Constitution, then lower it and fold it with one of the sailors. He was like a child at Christmas time. It was priceless!!

We made a couple of pitstops along the trail to enjoy some ice cream, chase pigeons and play at the splash park.