Special visit, Bubbles, Birthday, Holidays, Parties and a Special Announcement!

 Grandma and Grandpa Draper came to visit us!  It was a lot of fun.  The kids had such a great time playing/wrestling with grandpa, baking with grandma. We enjoyed their company so much and are very appreciative for all of the hard work they did for us.  Thank you!  Below are some pictures of everything Josh and Lloyd added to the house. note: about 90% of all of this work was done by dad - he works SO hard (I'm sure Josh would've liked to have helped more, but alas, his normal job kept him from doing so).

New Window Sills!   Elizabeth will no more be chewing off the drywall.  Hooray!

New Storage for the garage!

New Computer Desk!  Yay, the printer will not shake this desk around.  It's totally stable!!

New Laundry Room!!! I'm mostly excited for this because I don't have to lug all of the clothes up and down the stairs anymore!!

We're definitely going to need child locks for this desk.

Grandpa wrestling with the kids (almost a non-stop activity).

Elizabeth was very shy with grandma and grandpa.  Here is the first time she approached grandma and reached her arms out to be held.

Baking with grandma.

Baking with grandma.

Luke snuggling with grandma.  They all really enjoyed sharing loves with her.  Isabella made sure that grandma sat and snuggled on the couch with her every morning.  It was very sweet to watch.

 Old Settlers Elementary School went to Interskate for a fun filled night of rollerskating. Isabella had a blast!  She was exhausted by the end of the night (and so were mommies feet and back).

Daddy helps Bella put on her skates.

Z

Momma and Bella a ready to go!

This device is probably the best invention EVER created!  It made things so much easier - definitely worth the $3 rental.

Bella won a raffle prize!  She chose a pen with a big hand on top.  She was SO excited about it.  What a fun night.

Fun with bubbles!

Bella celebrated her 5th birthday in March!  We were supposed to have her party at Kids Kastle Park in Highland Village (Outside).  Unfotunately, the weather was awful.  We moved the party to our house which was an adventure in itself.  I can't remember how many kids there were (probably 20 or so).  We had dancing, a pinata, cupcakes, presents, and some games.  I hope everyone had a good time, I know we did.

Doin' the Hokey Pokey at Bella's party.

This cute lalaloopsy hat was made by Janet (so talented!).  Isabella LOVES it!

St. Patrick's Day was a lot of fun.  Our ward had a pancake breakfast in the morning for us.  The pancakes were even green!  So much fun.  The kids had a blast.

Helping Daddy out in the yard.  Luke will now get very upset if I don't let him go mow the lawn with daddy.

The girls go on a walk while the boys do the yard work.  I just love my girls.

Easter was magical as usual.  Our friends the Phillips had a fun little get-together the Saturday before to celebrate the occasion.  The kids got a cup of wheat grass to take home.  They all drew pictures and faces on their cups to make it look like their drawing was growing hair.  They also enjoyed jumping on the trampoline, drawing with chalk, going on an egg hunt and eating a yummy potluck lunch.
On Easter morning the kids were full of joy.  They loved their baskets, and finding candy/eggs that the Easter Bunny had hidden too.  I enjoyed asking them about the true meaning of Easter.  Bella was really the only one old enough to grasp the concept of Jesus suffering and dying for our sins and raising from the dead to live again.  They are learning and growing in the gospel which is a fun thing to watch.

I think that the gummy bunny teeth won the prize for favorite variety of Easter candy.  I love how Luke is looking to Isabella to make sure he's doing thing right.  Silly kids.

 Recently, Isabella has fallen in love with the, "Fancy Nancy" books from the library.  She was particularly enamored with the book about Tea Party's.  So on Fun Friday we decided to have our own Fancy Nancy Tea Party.  We got many ideas from the book which includes options for different recipes, crafts and games.  It was a huge success and I have a feeling we'll be doing something like this in the future.

Okay, you made it this far in the blog.  It's time for the biggest news of all.  Drum roll please......Josh and I are surprisingly AND unexpectedly going to be welcoming our 4th child into our family this year.  At least I think it will be this year.  The due date is somewhat an unknown at this time, but we're thinking that maybe this new bundle of joy will arrive sometime in December of this year.  We're in a state of shock at the moment, but....it's a very GOOD state of shock.

The story:  This last week I've been feeling a tiny bit nauseous, really tired and also somewhat irritable.  I didn't think anything of it because the symptoms were very tame and also our whole household has been sick.  I figured it was my turn to go through the whole sick thing.
So, this past Friday we went to the temple and on the way Josh and I started talking about Isabella.  For the past month Isabella has been asking about when the new baby is coming.  I've had to tell her repeatedly that there is NO baby coming (at least not for a very long time). She brushed off my reply with, "Okay, but if it's a girl we'll call her, "Rosa" and if it's a boy, "Dilly"." I then started telling Josh how week I've been at the gym lately and how I was really disappointed with my level of performance.  Josh in response said, "Well, ya know, you do have a pregnancy test just sitting in the linen closet.  It's only a dollar.  You could take it to ease your mind." What?!?  I didn't need to have my mind put at ease.  I knew that I was fine!  I was just a little sick, and irritable, and tired, and weak and.....well.. lets just say that I thought the rest of the evening about his comment and thought, "Well the test is only a dollar.  I guess I could take it in the morning.  If not just to ease Josh's mind about it all.  So, the next morning I took it.  Almost immediately after the test began I started to see a line appearing to show that the test was indeed positive.  I don't know how many times I started repeating the words, "Oh my gosh!"  But it was a lot!!  Total and utter shock.  Josh was getting ready for work at the time and could obviously hear me freaking out.  He asked if I was pregnant and of course I said yes.  He replied, "I'm not surprised." He was very happy and voiced how it may have taken him a while but that he is at peace with whatever the Lord has in store for us (even if it doesn't happen to fit our immediate plans or agenda). I also have to add that whenever I take a pregnancy test I have admit that I  secretly hope it's a positive result every time.  Hooray!  We're Pregnant!!

Oh, I want to show this picture of the girls too.  They're so cute in their matching dresses (given to them by Michelle Johnson).

Elizabeth Waves and Blows Kisses.

Happy Birthday Bella!

Luke cleaning the church after the St. Patrick's Day breakfast with Brother Chase.

Bubbles!!

Flying Kites.

Easter Morning 2012.

Silly String.

Libby plays on the patio while the family plays with kites.

Luke's nail polish and Libby's roar. Just so you know, Luke got into the nail polish earlier in the day. Yeah, he was standing about 2 feet away from me at the time.  He got it on himself, the baby's clothes and the bathroom floor (which I still haven't cleaned up yet).  I'm totally blind - I know.

I was preparing my Mother's Day lesson for singing time and was surprised to find that I was not the only one preparing a song.