Suprise!

Well maybe not that big of a surprise since I've waited so long to write about this. We discovered we are having baby number four in April and having getting over the initial shock, we are very excited!

 

I am due on my birthday and am about 21 weeks. Oh and the best news??

                                                                  ITS A BOY!!
We are so excited for a second little boy and Isak is super super excited to have a brother with his two sisters. We weren't going to find out but decided to at the last minute to find out the sex at the ultrasound. I needed to know so I could start bonding a little better with the pregnancy and its been a great decision. That and I needed to prepare Isak if he was having a third sister, poor kid would need some warning. I can't wait to meet him and I love feeling him move all the time. I hope he's as chubby and blonde as Isak was as a baby.  And I really hope that Edyn decides to like him!

Halloween

 Halloween this year was eventful as always. Lucy had a little party at school and went as Ariel. She came home with an insane amount of candy, as pictured below.  See her look of pure happiness?

 Edyn went as a butterfly and she spent the trunk or treat event at our church hauled up in our car with a sucker as the whole thing scared her. And I think she was tired.

 The kids displaying their costumes for me in our front yard.

 Isak went as Tron and we sewed on his ring with glow rings attached to it.

We took the kids to our church trunk or treat and then around our neighborhood. They had a great time and were very worn out by the end of the night. They got plenty of candy that they still have lying around the house.

Pumpkin Carving

 We carved pumpkins the Monday before Halloween. I took the kids to our local pumpkin patch the day before it happened to close for the season (I'm super on top of things these days). They each picked out a pumpkin with a couple squash for good measure.

First we picked out the designs the kids wanted and taped them to the pumpkin. Then we cut the tops and gutted the insides of the pumpkin.

 Then Lucy started freaking out because she wanted to paint the pumpkin and couldn't see that Kevin was tracing the design. So she spent most of the carving process like this.

 Isak, however, gutted his pumpkin then I helped him carve it and he was quite happy with his result. Lucy was too once she realized that Kevin wasn't destroying her pumpkin.

Glasses!

We found out that Isak needed glasses in September when they did a an eye exam on him at school. We took him to the eye doctor and discovered he is far sighted in his right eye...just like Kevin was. So he gets to wear glasses all the time and hopefully that will help correct it. He doesn't mind wearing them but has a hard time leaving them on his face. He's always playing with them but so far they've only broken twice (both times fixable) and only lost them at school once. Pretty good for a six year old. His greatest concern was "But I'm not going to be cross eyed like Lucy, right?". Not if you wear your glasses! And Lucy was never cross eyed. Her prescription actually got lessened at her last appointment which was great news since hers was a pretty heavy prescription. So now we have two kids in glasses! I'm wondering when we should just take Edyn in and get her some as well?

Princess Ball 2013

 Othello's Distinguished Young Women program puts on a daddy/daughter ball once a year as a fundraiser. Last year was the first year and I wasn't sure if Lucy was old enough so I just bought her a ticket to the carriage ride. Apparently that was a huge mistake as Kevin told me the sad tale of having to carry his little girl kicking and screaming from the entrance of the ball. So this year I made no mistakes and bought them both tickets for the carriage ride and ball plenty early. Lucy was super excited. As Lucy always is.

 She picked out her pink Ariel dress to wear and her pink bow. She even let me give her "princess" hair (brush and curl it) and put some lip gloss on her. She was ready to go!

 And guessing by the videos that Kevin took of Lucy dancing, she had a ton of fun. There was a stage set up where they introduced each of the girls as "Princess...such and such" so Lucy got called up as "Princess Lucy" and they gave her a little tiara barrette for her hair. Then they played music and the girls got to dance on the stage together. It looked like Lucy had the time of her life dancing with her friends and the older girls and Kevin had to drag her out when it was over. She and Kevin also got to go on a little carriage ride around town in a Cinderella type carriage that was pulled by a horse. So much fun!

My Girls

 Lucy has been in preschool for a little while now and it has been amazing to see her progress. She has struggled with her fine motor skills and so I was impressed when she traced my "rainbow dash" sign pretty well! She can write most of the letters in her name by herself and is getting better with her coloring. I feel like she grew so fast and so much that the other parts of her had a hard time keeping up.  She loves to draw pictures of unicorns and ponies and rainbows. She's 100% girl.

 Funny story about preschool that I'm just now getting too 6 weeks later. Lucy was having some issues with direction following there and I was called in to help calm her down one day. Apparently she made the teacher chase her around the room when she was trying to put her into timeout for not listening. So she got in trouble and as a result, became hysterical. The teacher called me and I could hear Lucy just bawling in the background. I came right over and talked with her and helped calm her down. The teacher told me that when she told Lucy she was going to call her mom Lucy started yelling, "No, call my grandma! Why you call my mom? Why you do that to me?" And kept repeating that over and over. The teacher thought it was pretty funny. Anyway, we sorted that out and she has done much better since then. Did I mention how great it was for her to go everyday and learn to listen to adults? Such great preparation for Kindergarten!

 Lucy is quite the ham and also started dance this past fall. I figured the coordination skills combined with needing to focus for 45 minutes would be good for her. She LOVES it and if she can get past the giant mirror on the wall, does a pretty okay job of following along and doing the moves. She just loves to watch herself so much...She sings to us and dances for us all day and lately her favorite songs have been the equestria girl songs from My Little Pony. Today she tried to teach the lyrics to her Sunbeam class.

 I love having my girls home with me during the day while Isak's at school.  Our house has definitely become girlier with two girls that love everything pink and ponies and princesses. Poor Isak!

 End of September. We finished soccer, Isak scored some of his first legitimate goals and was very excited. Edyn getting more into everything and ran all over the place while the kids were playing their games. I was so glad when their season was done!

 My mom's birthday the end of September. We made her a cake and the kids put her candles in and then blew them out for her. My kids wrapped presents then played our favorite "heavy heavy hangover" game when we gave them to her. It was a great night.