it's a girl!

and she's almost 3 months old..... Better late than never, right? I'll have to add pictures later since I have no idea on how to do it from my touch pad. So, anyway, we have a baby! Violet Grace was born on December 14th 2011. I went into labor by myself which had never happened. She waited so Hailey could have her own birthday (the 13th) but the next morning she was ready to go. As soon as I woke up, I started having contractions about 5 minutes apart. I tried to get in the tub, realized the contractions were real this time so I shaved my legs and got out. Jake was home because his class didn't start til later. He had been doing the dishes when I walked down and said "you need to go get dressed." He said ok and continued rinsing so I said "you need to go get dressed NOW" the car was already packed so he got dressed in record speed and we left. My contractions started getting even closer and were awful! Luckily my Dr loves me and let me get an epidural shortly after we got there. Sweet sweet epidural. Why on earth did I not use one with lacey? They're amazing! The rest is pretty boring. I slept a little and about 2 hours later, pushed violet out with 2 pushes. No stitches, no anything. It was awesome. We were such a rockin family, the head of nursing and the head of security asked us to help them with a drill. I'll post more on that when I have a regular keyboard. One nurse will definitely never forget us!

So much for Resolutions

Remember that great resolution I had to blog more often? Yeah....that was my last blog. Exciting things are happening too! For one, I'm pregnant! That's kind of a big deal. I guess with facebook, it seems like I don't need to blog. Everything I write on here has probably been my status at one point or another.
So...I am 29 weeks today. Yahoo! I don't know why but this pregnancy has me totally paranoid. I wasn't like this with Lacey or Hailey but for the first 5 months, I was constantly convinced that something was wrong or was going to go wrong. The 5 months of morning sickness....(wait 5? It's still going on) haven't helped either! Now that she moves, I'm less of a freak. She's (yes, girl number 3) definitely a night owl! I'll go all day not feeling much but as soon as I lay down, she goes nuts. I had to go to my 3 hour glucose test the other day and whatever I drank made her crazy! The only thing it did for me was make me want to vomit. The only thing that stopped me was knowing I'd have to come back and do it all over again. Yuck. I don't know what was wrong with the lab I went to but, have they not heard of butterfly needles? The needle they stuck into my arm 4 TIMES was huge! ANYWAY, I'm still waiting for those results. The next day I had to go for my rhogam shot so I've had my fill of needles for this week. Nope I lied. I have to get my blood drawn tomorrow for my thyroid. Blleehh.
So, anyway, besides baby news....Lacey started pre-school!


She LOVES it! I thought she might have a melt down the first day because she's not used to being away from me for so long but no, that was just me. She walked right in and didn't look back. I didn't even get a hug. Ouch. I'm relieved that she likes school so much but maybe a little tear......
Hailey is in the wild world of 5th grade

She's also doing really well. She started riding the bus as well which is a HUGE break for me. The schools here are weird. Lacey's school is pre-k through 2nd and then the high school. It's right down the road. Hailey's is 3rd grade through middle school and in the next town over so it was 20 minutes of driving every morning and afternoon. I figure when the baby gets here, I won't want to be hauling her in and out in the winter so the bus works best for us. Hailey doesn't seem to mind it.
Jake's still in school. This is his last year for this program that he's doing but he wants to keep going and use up his GI bill. He might as well. I think he knows if he stops, the chances are less and less that he'll go back. He's doing great. He tells me about what he's doing sometimes and I pretend to listen. It works for us.
I guess that's all. Maybe I'll blog again before Violet starts college.

Happy New Year!

So much for getting out of my blog rut. I've had so much to write about too!
Cool thing number 1- We bought a house!! This isn't the best picture of it, but it's all I have for now.

We are SUPPOSED to close on Friday. We were also supposed to close on December 23rd and January 3rd so we'll see how that goes. We have our letter of commitment so hopefully we can start moving things in, even if it's only in the garage. We can't wait to get out of this apartment!
Cool thing number 2- Kayla Robb and Etta came to visit for 18 days!!! 18 days with baby Etta!!!! I LOVE that baby! I'm having serious Etta withdrawls now that they're home. It didn't help my baby fever at ALL. I think it made it about a billion times worse.

We all had a good Christmas. We went overboard on the girls as usual so now we have a zillion more toys to move to the new house. A good portion of them are still in boxes packed away for the new house. It will be like Christmas all over by the time we open them up!
I guess that's all the exciting news for now. Hopefully next time I blog, it will be from the new house.

Long overdue

I am a super blog slacker! I've been in a total blog rut so I figured if I just made myself blog, I might fight my way out of it.
Life has been good. Jake's in school and the great house search continues. We went to put an offer in on one last Wednesday but our realtor failed to tell us that it was already under contract. Lame, lame lame. I wasn't completely crushed. I liked the house but I didn't love it. On the way to meet with the realtor, we actually passed a house for sale that we LOVE. When we called about that one, they told us that it JUST went into foreclosure. Now we have to wait for the bank to list the property which could take months. Do we wait for this house that we love or keep looking? I don't know. I guess we'll kind of do both. Once I find a house I really like, I don;t really give other ones a chance. So, we'll see.
Halloween was great this year. We had an Alice in Wonderland and a Queen of Hearts.

Trick or treating was so COLD this year. we didn't stay out too long and the kids still got more than enough candy! I ended up putting it on top of the fridge because Lacey was sneaking it all day long and requesting it for breakfast. She's definitely a chocoholic!
Hails just got an award at school called the Student Star award! They choose a student from each class who showed the most of that month's character trait. October's was responsibility. We are VERY proud!

I guess that's all the news I have for now. I just started a diet this week. It's not really a diet. Diets are something that you eventually stop and I don't plan on doing that this time. I'm disgusted by my weight and decided that it's time to do something about it. I'm even exercising which only makes me realize how incredibly out of shape I am. Hopefully a few months from now, I can rave about how much I enjoy working out...or at least not say that I hate it with a passion.

Lacey's Cowgirl Party (a little late)

Lacey May Smathers is 3 YEARS OLD! What happened to my baby? I had planned from about January to have a princess and the frog party for her. I was going to have Lilly pad musical chairs, pin the lips on the frog, and a whole bunch of other super cute ideas, but then I bought this dress a few weeks before her birthday

I love all the Gymboree dresses this season. So cute! Dresses are all Lacey wears so I love when I find super cute stuff.
When my sister Kayla saw this dress, her mind went spinning and came up with an idea for a cowgirl party. Since she is FAR more creative than I am, I went with it and it was awesome! I of course also went to my party icon Rachel! She gave us lots of super fun ideas! The gift bags were the most fun to make. We bought burlap and cowgirlish looking material along with lots of fun stuff to fill our burlap bags with.

All the kids had cowboy names. We had
Lucky Lacey Drawers, Horseshoe Hailey, Evil Eye Etta, Loco Lilly, Cactus Carter, Gamblin Griff, Moonshine Marlee, Tumbleweed Talia and Jailbreak Jackson. I had it at a local park with one of those huge sprinklers for 2 reasons.
1. It's hot
2. It makes my life a trillion times easier when I don't have to spend the next week cleaning up after one day.
Kayla found a great deal on cowboy hats for the kids and they looked CUTE!
Here's Moonshine Marlee

and here's Evil Eye Etta


Kayla even found some awesome mustaches. This is Loco Lilly. That's a lollipop in her mouth.


I didn't get real fancy with the cupcakes. If I had more time I might have been more adventurous but the kids liked them

We even found these guys at the dollar store!

We didn't end up playing a lot of games because the kids were busy playing in the water

and in the sand box. Gamblin Griff looked like the wolf man

My awesome husband made this awesome pinata. Lacey was VERY upset that everyone was destroying it and wanted no part of it, not even when the candy fell out.

It was a fun fun party! Here's the birthday girl

Delaware

Last week, the Steves clan took their first family vacation since.....ever maybe? We did go on a camping trip when I was little but this was our first big one. Everyone was able to make it except for Owen and his family and KK's husband Robb. :( New jobs and the mean old navy mean no vacation. Boo!
The ride there was hot! The ac stopped working in the van despite all our attempts to revive it. The 98 degree heat combined with a packed full van made for a very sweaty ride. Gross. When we got there, it was worth it. The beach house was awesome!

It was right on the bay and huge. We had 18 people there (11 adults and 7 kids) and we fit comfortably.
The first day we were there we went down to the beach. It was hot and there weren't any waves so we thought it would be great for the kids to swim. We weren't anticipating these guys.

They were everywhere! Almost everyone now knows what it feels like to get stung by a jellyfish. I didn't get stung. I was a big chicken and didn't go in past my ankles. I'm not a fan of swimming with sea life. The kids, despite the stings didn't want to get out of the water. They're tough. There also were a lot of these

These are horse shoe crabs. They're pretty cool. If we saw them flipped over on the beach, we "rescued" them by flipping them back over so they could get back into the water. I guess they're used a lot for medical research so it's important to not let them die!
One thing I LOVE about Delaware is no sales tax! It's amazing. It's also amazing that they have tons of outlet stores with awesome deals. I may have gone a little overboard at the Disney outlet. I couldn't resist. The day we went to the outlets we also took the kids to the go carts. They Loved it. Well, the ones that would actually go on loved it. Lacey and Griff preferred watching.

We even got to see some old guy challenge 2 young guys to a fight in the back lot for bumping his kid. He was kind of psychotic.







The kids LOVED being outside all day and it was nice to go back into an air conditioned house.








Here's my mom with a bunch of the kids. They LOVED having grandma and grandpa around all week!


On our last night we all went out to dinner which of course meant...matching clothes for the kids! You know I can't resist matching clothes. I found SUPER cute dresses at the Old Navy outlet and super cute outfits for the boys at The Childrens Place.


Of course we have a picture with a screamer (my kid. she doesn't like to share the camera) and a nose picker. Would it really be a Steves picture without them?

I'll miss the beach, the ocean, the outlet shopping, Sonics and Rita's Italian Ice. It was a GOOD GOOD vacation

Etta's debut

KK, Robb and Baby Etta finally made their way to NY for Etta's debut. She was a BIG hit! I totally lucked out and got the most baby Etta time since they stayed with me. (not to mention the fact that I already met her back in January) I LOVE THAT BABY! She is so good! She's happy and sleeps good and is adorable. What more could you ask for? I even got her to giggle before they went home. So now my baby fever that was already through the roof has once again increased.
Here's a picture of Lacey shushing us so that baby etta could sleep

Here's Carter and Lacey at one of the get togethers we had while they were here. He just loves hugging Lacey! She is pretty squishy.

Here's my Hailstorm and KK. She was SOOOO excited to see her and Robb. She tells all her friends that Robb's a rock star because he plays Guitar Hero on expert


Here's one of the few pictures I got with Etta.

We went to the Bronx Zoo on the last day they were here. It was one of the rare warm days we've had so it was packed! The monorail wasn't open yet so for the second time I didn't get to see the elephants! Grrrr! I just want to see one darn elephant! Some of the cool stuff like the tigers were behind a bunch of glass that you had to shove through people to even get a glimpse. Lame. Although I guess I prefer a completely covered surface between me and a tiger.
When we started going home, our stupid GPS started taking us through New Jersey. (Jake HATES New Jersey, mostly because he got 3 tickets there on his way to Walter Reed a few years ago) When we turned around we got stuck in a TON of traffic. There was a lot of stopping and going which was not good for Lacey. We all laughed when we heard the huge burp. However, the laughter ended when she vomited all over. Poor Hails was sitting next to her and gagging herself. We couldn't stop or pull over so Lacey was screaming about being covered in puke and Hails was ready to puke herself. For some reason, the extra clothes I brought ended up in a different car so we stopped at the first exit and found a store where we bought Lace some pajamas to ride home in. We also lucked out because we had an extra car seat in the car so we were able to just move Lacey to that and Hails moved up a row. Natalia slept through the whole thing. Sometimes I really love having a van. If Hails hadn't been able to move, she would have barfed shortly after Lacey and then I probably would have. We've done the barfing domino effect before. It's not my favorite. Last time it started with my dog. ANYWAYS, I'm totally rambling because it's after midnight and I need sleep. Hopefully at least parts of this make sense.
Here's a quick picture of the calm before the storm. Good night!