Getting ready for Halloween!

Look, I'm really helping!
You have to eat cookie dough when you are making cookies, it's the best part!
MMMMMM...
hey mom, where did the cookie dough go?

I want more!!! PLEASE?!?!?!

Maddie, Lucy, Ava and I made cookies today. :) We decided to be somewhat festive and make pumpkin cookies since we have not been to the pumpkin patch yet nor do we have any Halloween decorations up.. (Does this make me a bad mom??) Everyone had fun and everyone helped out. Maddie wanted to make flower cookies after we had done a tray of pumpkin cookies. We added a bunch of different color dye to try to make a kaleidoscope effect. Aren't these cookies the cutest you have ever seen? J/K of course...

Happy Birthday Jeffrey!!!

Yes, my brother is 28 years old today! It is so hard to believe that we are all getting older. As a kid I can still remember thinking that one day we are going to be in our 20's and 30's! LOL And here we are! Tonight Chris and I went to the Oasis for dinner to celebrate with him. Chelsea was there (of course) and so were Eric and Amber. It was a really nice adult night out. Jeffrey insisted that we not make a big deal out of his birthday at the resteraunt, so we didn't... Amber didn't listen though! :) We sang Happy Birthday and has some awful cake...

A gift from Grandpa Siler!

The girls got a surprise gift from Grandpa Siler today! Maddie was beyond excited when she saw the box on the front porch and I told her it was for her and the girls. When she first opened it up she wasn't quite sure what it was... a play tent that can either be a school bus or a fire engine! Once all the girls got in there, they had a blast. Maddie ended up making it a home and "school" for her stuffed animals. Thank you Grandpa Siler!!

Visiting the fire station

Chris has been working a lot lately so we went to go visit him at the fire station. The girls missed him! When we first got there Ava freaked out when she saw Chris... I am still not really sure why. They are usually all over him! Anyway, once we got into the engine room, they had a blast. Lucy, Ava and Maddie were chasing each other all over the place. The twins were not so excited about getting their picture taken though. :) Maddie loved climbing up the dozer and sitting inside. Overall it was a very good visit.

Almost every night after dinner we go outside to play. All the girls have a great time. Maddie usually will ride her bike with all the neighbor kids, and Lucy and Ava like to push their toys around or do something mischievous like crawling way under the orange tree where I can't reach them! And then laugh at me when I ask the to come out! LOL

Anyway, we have these two tress in our front yard called Autumn Purple Ash. Every time I see these trees I am in awe. I love these trees (maybe that is why I wanted to plant two?) and I just had to capture their beautiful color. They start of with green leaves, then turn to dark purple and and the last stage is this fiery red orange color. They are just gorgeous! At our old house we lived in we had about 20 rose bushes.. seriously! I really miss my roses, and I only have two rose bushes at our new house. This particular rose smells so good. :)

Eric and Amber got married!

On Saturday night we went to a friends wedding, Eric and Amber. They have been together for a while now and have a son together. Maddie loves their son Gavin and it is really fun to see them play together. Poor Gavin always gets stuck playing girl games when he comes over though. They play princess, baby, Dr., wedding, and other fun kids games. Anyway, I forgot my camera the night of the wedding.. I was so bummed. These few pictures of Maddie, Kaitlyn, Jeffrey and Chelsea were taken from my brothers camera phone, which I guess was better than nothing.

Silly Ava

We had spaghetti last night for dinner. Lucy LOVES spaghetti! She ate so much food last night and she completely cleaned her tray. She will usually throw food off the tray and onto the floor when she is done or when she does not like a particular food. LOL Not tonight!

Ava made such a mess. Her new thing to do while eating is to put her face to her plate and eat. Last night she picked up her plate and decided to lick her dinner off that way! She made a huge mess, but it was so funny. She thought it was funny too. She kept on laughing and doing it over and over. LOL What a silly girl. :)

A fun new toy

I bought this climber for the kids today, mostly for Ava. I am trying to focus her climbing on other things than the furniture, toilets, the fireplace, stairs etc. When we woke her up from her nap and showed her this toy she was beyond happy. She was screaming and laughing the whole time, she was SO excited. Ava and Maddie play on this together all the time now. Lucy is just content to sit in my lap and watch the other two play. LOL

Well, the results of our test came back today... Negative. We are not pregnant. :( I really am sad... I don't know how to explain this feeling that I am having. I have 3 beautiful children, I shouldn't be sad, but I am. I really did want one more baby. What hurts me even more is that Chris says he does not want to try again. I had SO much hope for having another baby, and now he doesn't want to. My heart hurts... I am sure it will heal in time... or maybe not. I am sure I will always long for one more baby. To be given the hope of possibly having one more child and then having that hope torn away without the possibility of hope again is a feeling beyond what I am able to express right now......

I thought it would be fun to post some pictures of my 3 babies when they were babies. The babies that bring me such joy and so many smiles to my life :)

Lucy is officially walking

Lucy has been taking a few steps here and there over the last few weeks, but I would definitely not say that she was walking. Well today, completely out of the blue, she started walking! LOL She had just woken up from her morning nap and we were playing together in the family room. She was holding both silky blankets, stood up and then proceeded to walk across the family room! I was in such shock. For now Lucy is much slower walking than she is crawling, but I know it won't last long!

Today is the day!

Same picture, different light

OK, it is 6:20 in the morning and I am waiting to go to our fertility clinic appointment. Today we are unfreezing the one embryo we have left and transferring it. I have such mixed feelings right now. I am happy and excited and I am scared and nervous too. I happy and excited because this means the possibility of one more child.. I am scared and nervous because I don't know if our embryo will even survive the thawing process, and if it does, it is not a guarantee that I will get pregnant. I really want this to work. This is our very last attempt at having a child. Maybe that is why I am feeling so much pressure? It this does not work today, that is it! No more chances... I hope that later today I am posting a picture of our little baby and that I am writing good news. Only a few more hours.......

As you can tell by the photos I posted our little baby survived the thaw. This is what an embryo looks like at only 5 days after conception. Isn't it just amazing? We transferred our little baby and now (as it always has been) it is in God's hands. I pray that it will take and we will become pregnant with a healthy baby. We will find out on Sunday October 7th!

Couple time

Oh my gosh, Chris and I had about 5 hours to hang out together today. I know that 5 hours does not seem like a long time, but for us it is! We had a babysitter come to the house to watch Lucy and Ava, Maddie was in school and then had a play date with a friend. So what do??? Chris and I decided to go kayaking! I really think this is my new favorite thing to do. It was so incredibly relaxing to just glide along the water. No crying babies, no whining, no stress... just Chris and I all alone. We worked up an appetite from all the paddling we did so we then went to Chevy's for lunch. This was great day and a day that I will remember for a long time to come. It is days like today that Chris and I can reconnect and remember what we liked about each other before we had kids. :) Not that we don't love them, it was just nice to be a couple again, even if it was just for 5 hours. :)

Sorry, no pictures...

Maddie can read!

We have read a book, or books, to Maddie every night since the day she was born. She loves books and will often read them by herself. Of course, she is not really reading, she is just making up words according to the picture. But tonight, Maddie read Biscuit all by herself! We have been working on sounding out words and learning new words for a few months now, and tonight Maddie surprised me by reading the whole story out loud. I am seriously impressed!