Birthday Girl!

 Ok I have so many birthday pictures I'll have to break it up here a little. 

Lou slept in a little and woke up happy on her birthday. After nursing we came downstairs. Peanut and Peaches had gone to spend the night with Noni so the rest of us sang happy birthday to her over breakfast. She seemed quite baffled as to what was going on. :P

Boo helped her blow out the candle. 

And she was happy when we finally stopped singing and she got to eat. Bananas are a new favorite. She can eat a whole one in no time flat.

 

After breakfast we headed to town for a field trip to the aquarium! Pictures from that on Monday. 

After the aquarium we had lunch and ran some errands with Noni and Mama. 

I had to grab a picture with my birthday girl when we took a time out for her to eat. :) 

We recently started up our "young" marrieds bible study (the young part isn't quite so accurate these days, haha) and the first night fell on her birthday. Since she's only one I figured she wouldn't care if we celebrated the next day. We have eleven couples and I think 37 kids between us!! Buggy, Boo, and a couple of the other older kids are going to be our babysitters. We are looking forward to the study this winter. 

 

The next morning Peaches and I made Lou's birthday cake. She was quite the helper. ;) 

Daddy had taken the big girls to help the Youth Group decorate the town gazebo for Christmas. They did a great job!

Then Daddy, Grandpa, and Mr. G worked on the roof for the afternoon. After Lou woke up from her nap she practices her walking with Grandma and Buggy while waiting for her other guests to arrive.

 

She wouldn't let go of Grandma's arm but wanted the balloon. Haha. :)

Lou has learned that Grandma = safety. Whenever her sisters get too wild or loud she hightails it over to Grandma for protection. :) 

Here I go, Grandma!

Papa, Noni, and Mama arrived for the birthday party and brought in Lou's birthday present...which Peaches immediately claimed. Haha.

We got her off long enough to give Lou a chance to at least sit on it. 

And have a little ride with help from Noni.

Look Mom!

 

Lou LOVES the trike! She thinks it is awesome! By next summer she should be big enough to ride it and I'm sure she'll be tearing all over the farmyard!

Ok I'll have to up the rest of the birthday pictures up on Tuesday! 

Funny Friday!

Leftover Thursday

I went to dance class to video Peaches so she could practice every day, and it was too cute! I love watching those little ones!

I was also impressed with how well behaved they all were! Miss L said it's her calmest and quietest preschool group ever!

We had the roofing materials delivered one day and the machine was really cool!

It's hard to get a sense of how huge this thing was, but it was pretty amazing!

And after hauling 11 of these bundles up the stairs one day (they weigh about 65 pounds apiece!!) I was SUPER thankful that we were able to get these 152 bundles delivered straight to the roof!!!

We got a load of gravel delivered one day and were able to back fill the garage. So nice because now we can park in there for the winter! Next summer we'll pour a concrete floor, but for now I'm just happy to have a covered place to park.

Uncle J and Aunt C were visiting Grandma and Grandpa and drove all the way out to see us and the house! So nice! Uncle J is so much fun and always takes time to play with the girls. 

What started as a simple game of catch-the-stuffed-animal between him and Peaches turned into every stuffed animal in our house being launched into the air. So funny!

The girls LOVED it!

They were so sad to see him go. As they drove away Peaches said, "I love Uncle J!":)

Happy Thursday! 

Wordless Wednesday

One Year!

 Phew. I'm kind of glad the monthly picture taking is over. Lou is SOOO hard to keep still! We took these the morning of her birthday. We were on a time crunch because we had to leave for a field trip and she would just not cooperate. Daddy thought it was hilarious. :P

Look at that grin. :)

I don't want to stay here, Mom!

Bucking bronco. :P

She was thrashing about so wildly her hair started standing on end with the static. 

Daddy tried to take pictures quickly after I set her in place but that didn't work out so well either. :P

You can see it was quite an adventure trying to get just one good picture. :P I finally gave up because we had to leave or be late. 

I tried again the next day and she was a little more cooperative.

 

We sure do love this busy little girl! 

I took her to the doctor for her checkup a couple days after her birthday. There was a bit of a wait but she did okay at first. She loved the crinkly paper and ripped through about six feet of it in the course of our 30 minute wait. :P

But eventually she got tired of waiting...or just tired. She missed her nap while we were there so she ended up crying hard before they even gave her the shots. :(

 She looks great though! For all her rough start and poor weight gain at the beginning she is doing great now! 

Her stats are: 

Weight: 19lbs. 10.2 oz. 48%

Height: 29.5 inches 62%

Head circumference: 45 cm 52%

Yay for our healthy growing girl!

:)

OCC

We were able to pack six boxes at home for OCC this year. We ran into town one night after Daddy got off work and got dinner and then spent a LOT of money at the Dollar Store. Haha. We finally got organized this year and let the girls carry around their own handheld basket so everything wasn't all jumbled together when we got home. 

A couple nights later we had time to pack and spent the evening sorting, stacking, and re-packing the boxes until everything fit.

 

I took the above picture and said, "cheese girls" and all four heads whipped towards me with picture perfect smiles. They are well trained. Haha. 

 

A couple of items didn't fit, but Daddy is really good at managing to cram a ton of stuff into them!

Buggy and Boo chose a 5-9 age girl. 

Peanut and Peaches did a 2-4 girl, and Daddy and I did boys. Lou stayed in her walker for a long time so we could pack and then when we were done we let her out. Of course all she wanted to do was unpack what we had so painstakingly packed so there were some tears. :P

We prayed over our boxes and took our traditional picture. It's so fun to think about the journey the boxes will take and where in the world they might end up! 

The next morning (Saturday) the four big girls and I took our boxes to church and joined the packing party there. Daddy stayed home to work on the house while Lou napped. We packed about 100 boxes between all of us. 

Peaches ran around with her friends for most of the time. She did help me pack one box.

The older girls had fun doing theme boxes. Mostly colors...like a box with most things red or yellow, etc. 

They wrote notes to go in the boxes too. 

OCC is such a cool program. We pray these boxes will be a blessing and further the Kingdom of God here on Earth!