Peter Luke

He's finally here! Peter was born at 4:34 am Sunday July 22nd. Weighing in at 8 lbs 9 oz  and 20 1/4 inches long, he was over a lb heavier than the other two were. What a difference a pound makes! The new born clothes that Sammy swam in are snug on Peter. We also realized after looking at pictures that we don't really make babies, as much as clone them. They could have taken Peter from the room without me ever seeing him and I could have picked him out of the nursery in a second. Let's play a game. Here are pictures of all three of the kids moments after birth, in no particular order. See if you can figure out which one is Peter, and no looking at ancient posts to figure it out.

Ridiculous right?! Peter has been the calmest, quietest baby ever. There will be plenty more pictures and details to follow, but for now Thad has the week off and we are all enjoying our time together.

Floors!

Okay, so the floors have been done for a couple of weeks now, I don't know why it's taken me so long to post pictures. They are everything I hoped for a more, and just open up the rooms so much. Here are some before and afters. . . a little fuzzy, but you get the idea.  Here's the entry when we first moved in.

And today with the new floors and half wall, which still needs to be sanded and painted.

The dining room with carpeting, and the beginnings of box mountain.

And today!

And probably the biggest change, from d inning room into kitchen.

So much more open!

I love them so much I don't even mind cleaning them. Yet ;)

Dear Journal

This baby is almost here, and before life starts revolving around him I wanted to write down some things about Andi and Sammy before I forget.
Sammy has really become a little boy in the last few months. He talks constantly, and is in the "what's this do? Why?" phase of life. The fun part is that when I answer his question he likes to contradict me. He would seriously argue with me that he was ever born just to be contrary. Andi can't say anything without him immediately responding "No it doesn't." or saying the complete opposite of what she just said. It makes her crazy. She was actually almost in tears the other day thinking about how Sammy is going to teach Peter to be a stinky little boy and how she'll be out numbered and pestered all the time. It's funny how quickly reality hit her and how she's not super excited about this baby anymore. Speaking of stinky little boys, did you know that toilet humor is just part of male brain programming? I have always thought that it was more of a learned behavior, but it's not. Sammy is just gross and no one had to teach him to be that way. He loves to announce "I tooted!" even in public and then laugh about it. The other day I heard him giggle in the front room followed by "Andi, I tooted, smell it." Seriously!? On a sweeter note, he could not be more excited for Peter to get here. He's always holding my belly trying to feel peter, and talking to him, and asking if he's big enough to come out now. I think he is, but I'm still pregnant, so what do i know?! Although, then the slightly creepy comes out: Sammy walked up to me a few days ago with a pen and told me he was going to poke a hole in my tummy so Peter could come out and play. That's when you take the pen from him, and walk away backwards keeping a close eye on him the rest of the day.
Andi has really grown up this summer. We came up with a summer schedule for her that includes chores and activities and she has to have them done before she gets to play with friends. She now get's up in the morning get's herself dressed and fed(and a lot of the time get's Sammy dressed and fed too). She cleans her room, including making the bed, and either cleans her bathroom or loads breakfast dishes. Not bad for a 6 year old. She is doing summer dance this year and loves it. Cathy really pushes them in the summer ballet and she is making so much progress. And since it's challenging she is dancing around the house practicing all the time. Life is going to change for these two pretty shortly, so we'll see how they adjust!

Celebrations

It has been a lovely week. The birthday festivities started Sunday with family dinner at my brothers house. Always a good time. Thad has been telling me for several weeks that he was going to be out of town the 2nd & 3rd of this month on a work trip, so I thought that Sunday was going to be it as far as birthday fun went. Monday morning Thad got up and left like he was going to catch his flight, but came home 20 minutes later with flowers and cake and told me to get dressed so we could go shopping. Not clothes shopping of course, that's just not fun right now. But he wrangled the kids in the stores while we went to World Market, and Home Goods, and BBB looking for things I've been wanting around the house. Then that afternoon he stayed home with Sammy while I took Andi to dance and finished putting in the wood floors! They are beautiful! Perfect birthday surprise. Although I do think it funny that he made up a pretend trip so that him taking a day off to hang out with me would be more dramatic ;)
The 4th was pretty low key and we had a great time. We started the day a little early with a pancake breakfast at church. Then we grabbed our things and headed over for a lunch time BBQ at Thads Grandparents. The kids put on quite a show on the diving board this time. We've been working on diving with Andi for a while now, but it just wasn't working. Then yesterday all of a sudden she's doing front and back flips off the board. Here she is mid front flip.

And the back flip is more of a back dive, but she finishes it under water.

This is the face Sammy makes every time he jumps in.

And his favorite way to jump in the pool.

Sammy discovered Grandma's veggie dip this party and ate a ton of what he kept calling carrots & salsa.

Then we headed home and everyone took naps so they would be able to enjoy the fireworks later that night. The show we usually watch was cancelled last year, so we made due with stopping by a stand and making our own fun. Our little street came alive about 8:30. We bought a ton of glow sticks, and our kids ran around passing them out to the other kids on the block, and we kinda took turns lighting our fireworks to make the show last longer. This is what happens when Thad says smile, and keep your eyes open.Nice.

Sparkler fun.

We also got some new friends for the pond over the weekend. Thad has been wanting some Koi and found a great deal on craigslist, so Saturday he brought these big guys home.

Proud of his catch of the day.

We are now on the three week countdown, and I'm crossing my fingers Peter comes sooner than later.