What we've been up to...

We've been up to a lot lately...mainly lots of Doctor appointments. Minnie has something called a PFO, which is a small flap that is supposed to close up when you are born, but hers stayed open. If it is large enough, they have to go in and surgically close it. We had to go to the Cardiologist to get it checked out and luckily, it was small enough that we just have to go back in 2 years and make sure it is still small. She had an ultrasound done on her heart and it took an hour. She was a trooper though and watched Tangled the whole time and was relatively still. I was relieved that we won't have to do surgery!

My doctor is the next place we go....a lot. The baby is scheduled to come April 25th bright and early, but any earlier than that would be much appreciated.

The eye doctor is the next place we've been. Minnie has had to put a patch over her eye for 2 hrs a day but with her glasses on, her eyesight has improved to 20/20! Without glasses...yikes. We are down to 1 hr a day for the patch and it seems to be helping.

We love us some Niceville Goodwill...seriously they have the best stuff and always something we are looking for. The girls have a VCR in their room that they sometimes watch movies on and we are old skool around here with VHS. I'll pay $2 at Goodwill over $20 for a new DVD any day.

We have been also doing lots of walks. This is at the local college on Sunday because there is no one there and the roads are totally open. See Facebook for Tim's trick with the older 2 on the jogging stroller. It's a hit.

We had Spring Break, and luckily it was filled with lots of friends and playing. The girls are GREAT at entertaining themselves...Minnie had each baby with 2 jelly beans next to them before their nap.

We colored Easter eggs...

We went to church on Easter...

We had friends over for Easter lunch and an Easter egg hunt in the backyard. Poor Ivy woke up too late and caught the tail end of the hunt...she was wondering around with no eggs in sight. Luckily, one of the boys hid a few for her to find too.

Andy's loot...

Minnie's loot

Andy's favorite friend Emerson....yep Anderson and Emerson...what are the odds??

Fun friends posing for the camera.

All of the kids emptied out their candy and it was a ton! 

I happened to check on Minnie during a nap one day and found her like this...that can't be comfortable! She is such a little Mom and just tells Ivy what to do all day. She even tucks Ivy in at night...all they need me for is food...and occasionally potty help for Ivy.

And to wrap it all up, we had Andy's 6th birthday! We have birthdays in Jan, Feb, April, May and June (with an Anniversary in March) so I am now officially finished with all the kids birthdays for the rest of the year!!!!

We had a simple party for Andy this year, he got to invite 4 friends and we had cupcakes and pizza at the house then Tim drove them all (finally we have enough room in our car!) to an arcade place called Fat Daddy's in Destin! Luckily another Dad went along to help and the kids had so much fun. And, it was a much cheaper route than the whole Birthday Package thing at Fat Daddy's. I think half the fun was being in the car together and riding over there:)

Last but not least, little Ivy gets a pony tail...have you ever seen cuter?

15 more days and we will have 4 kids all 6 yrs old and under....your prayers and sympathies are appreciated :)

Camping

Andy just had Spring Break so we decided to go camping. There is a nice campground about 8 minutes from our house but we decided to really be adventurous and drive to the Pensacola area to camp...so we drove a whole 1 1/2 hrs! The kids love it and it is fun to be able to do things like this. I was 35 weeks pregnant, so I felt like I was going to die after the first day from all of the walking and stuff. Luckily, I recovered.

 We went to the Pensacola light house while we were there and the Naval Air Museum. The light house was really cool and you can climb up to the top but none of our kids were tall enough, and I was in no condition to do any climbing! So we just walked around and looked at the grounds.

This is the view from the light house to the water.

 We were about 5 minutes from the beach but it was way too cold to get in. In fact, last week, there were highs in the 50's! It's starting to warm up now but we haven't even gone to our beach yet because it's been too cold.

 There was a walking trail next to the light house that looked neat but I don't think I could have walked another step that day.

 The second day, we checked out this Observatory Tower, it was a good 5 or 6 flights of stairs high...but you can't tell we are higher than the water. A jogger offered to jog up and take a picture of all of us, so we were able to get a good family shot in.

After we left the campsite, we went to Pensacola for the day and ate lunch and went to the Children's Museum. I didn't realize it, but there is some neat history in Pensacola. It's definitely a cool place!

Minnie's 4th Birthday Party

Minnie is almost 4! Since we have no family, it's about that age to start having friend parties. She has been asking for one since Andy had one last year... So, we did it. And I am EXHAUSTED. This is her first day of our little pre-school co-op we do here with some friends:)

 This is how Ivy feels when Minnie goes to Pre-School...which is the exact opposite of what Mom feels.

 So naturally, we had a Princess Party...Minnie's favorite is Snow White but she does love all princesses. So we made crowns and let the kids decorate them with jewels and stickers and hearts.

Then they got to take home a sugar cookie necklace with their first initial on it. I'm pretty sure they were all eaten before they got home...

 They also decorated some Princess wands with stickers and ribbons. We had one lowly boy...luckily Andy was here to keep him company. He had a sword and star wand...he seemed good with it!

 Cupcakes and "snow white cake".

 I tried my hand at some "fondant-like" stuff that was super easy to make and tasted almost the same. It's a pkg of white chocolate chips melted, with 1/3 cup of corn syrup. Mix it then let it sit for about an hour to harden.

 Kids table...

 I wanted to do it outside but it was way tooo cold for my AZ blood to be out there and I'm sure the Princess dresses aren't the warmest either.

 Lots of friends

I think overall it was a success! I can't believe she is almost 4.