Toothatina!

Alivia lost her first tooth! She was beyond excited and my usually shy girl has been mentioning it a lot to almost everyone she sees. It is adorable. Toothatina came to leave her a special note and 2 one dollar bills. She was thrilled. Alivia is such a light sleeper that Toothatina had to make several attempts before successfully leaving her goods at 2:30 am. Seeing her with that missing tooth just reminds me how fast she is growing up.

The first pic includes Alivia's drawing of her tooth.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas. . .

We put up our tree and lights this past weekend. It will be a challenge to keep John away from the fragile stuff, but overall, the house looks so pretty. And I love our tree. We decided to spend a little bit more money and get a live tree from someplace other than Home Depot!

Thanksgiving Day

We went to Mia's house for Thanksgiving dinner around 3 pm. There were over 40 people there plus around 10+ kids! It was crazy but so fun and the weather was beautiful. The kids had so much fun playing together. Matt always makes a point of taking a good picture of all the family groups which is such a blessing. I think my parents are going to use our picture for their Christmas card. Happy Thanksgiving!

The Taylor Family

Ginger Kendall, Kathy Rauert, Alice Sessi, Pris Laffey, and Tana Taylor (aka Mimi)

The Sessi Family

The Kendall Family

The Rauert Family

Attempt to get a pic of all the kids - ha!

The Laffey Family

The Baumhovers were there, too but I don't have their family picture. :-(

29 1/2 weeks

Overall, feeling OK but have had some groin pain from a varicose vein (yuck!). About 10 weeks to go! I can't wait to see what this little boy looks like.

Indian Princess

Veritas celebrated Thanksgiving by having all the kids dress up as pilgrims or indians. Alivia chose to be an indian and we got this cute costume at the last minute at Party City. All the kids did a presentation in front of the class while the parents watched. Alivia memorized her presentation and did so well. Here is what she said "My name is Rose. I am almost 6 years old. I help my Mommy fix meals. I am thankful for my family."

Amazingly she said she was not nervous because "all of the other kids have to do presentations, too."

Afterwards, they served a complete Thanksgiving lunch - it was really good! I am so glad that Matt, Mimi and I were all able to be there to celebrate our big Kindergartener!

My 39th Birthday

I worked all day and was dragging myself into the front door at 6:30 pm when I saw my sweet hubby and beautiful kids waiting for me at the front door. They all yelled "SURPRISE!!!" Matt had organized a card for me, a cake and a beautiful Gerber daisy plant. He also remembered that I love Cheez-Balls. No really. I. LOVE. CHEEZ. BALLS. I had seen a large barrel at Academy (because every athletic event needs cheez balls, right?) and said "Oh, I wish I could buy those" as we were walking out, so Matt went and got them for me as a surprise. Hilarious. The kids were thrilled - John especially. Nothing says 39th birthday than a barrel of Cheez Balls and love from my family.

39th Birthday Celebration

I have always loved that Matt and my birthdays fall within days of one another. We got sitters for all the kids and went out to eat at one of our favorite restaurants, Carmelo's. The dinner was delicious and it was so fun to just be with the adults for fun conversation and plenty of laughs. Peyton and Matt can provide some pretty good entertainment.

39 sounds SO old and it seems even more hilarious that I am PREGNANT at 39 years old. I will be 28 weeks this week.

Oh, in case you wonder where Johnny-Cakes got his baby blues, check out my Dad's eyes in these pictures!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to ME and MY SWEET HUSBAND MATT.