The Days Are Getting Warmer

We're slowly starting to see a few more sunny days here in Wisconsin (considering it's MAY!), which is delightful. Here is a picture of Rhea enjoying her first popsicle ever. We HAD to celebrate somehow! :)

Peeking around one of the bushes

And... caught red-handed (by Lucia), having a secret snack behind the chair in the living room. :)

Next up: the pictures of our family vacation to San Diego!! And then... I'll be officially caught up!!

Easter!

I'm getting so close to being caught up with the blog! Thanks to all for bearing with me. :) Here are our Easter pictures.

Lucia was very much looking forward to dyeing Easter eggs, which we did on Thursday of Holy Week. For me, it was more of a craft I was trying to survive, along with all of the eggs. And I was impressed - even though I allowed Rhea to handle the dyed eggs, none of them ended up cracking! (At first I cringed whenever she tried to pick one up, but then I realized they were just dyed Easter eggs, and this was her first experience "helping" with the fun project.) In the end... I was glad when it was all over and that the girls enjoyed themselves.

Rhea enjoying all the fun colors!

As you can tell, Lucia was VERY much into the whole ordeal. :)

The official Easter egg hunt at Mark & Julie's in Chicago.

Rhea got the hang of it pretty quickly. "More some? Check. Check. Eggs. More some."

Aunt Julie filled some plastic eggs with little treats - Rhea opened all of her plastic eggs and, after she had discovered chocolate covered raisins, rejected all the other fillings (cheese, pennies, etc). I think we opened each one of her plastic eggs at least ten times to see if more chocolate raisins might have appeared in one of them. :)

Lucia and Westen examining their bounty.

A family Easter picture at church - and Happy Birthday, Dad!

Our little family's Easter picture :)

That afternoon, we headed to the local park, where Lucia and Rhea enjoyed the sand volleyball court.

The kids had another egg hunt at the park, and Lucia was trying to snatch an egg out of the drinking fountain without getting squirted with water - everytime she reached for it, the fountain came on. :)

Happy 55th Birthday, Dad! :) The first year that we were all together for his birthday.

Another Visit

In April, we had another visit from Mom and Dad, who brought Westen along for an extended weekend. I was also the very first nice day in Wisconsin for 2011 (and there was only one if I recall correctly...), so we took advantage of it and had a little outdoor snack for the kids. I made chocolate chip cookies to celebrate the warmer temperatures, and all three kids were happy to oblige. :)
Storytime with Grandma before bed. Grandmas are wonderful, aren't they? :)

Some competitive Uno time - Westen couldn't get enough of it. Lucia picked it up pretty quickly and now enjoys playing with us from time to time.

Rhea checking out some pictures of little cousin Jaida on Grandpa's computer

Story time with Papa before bed

And... the beginning of the rest of the week... Rhea got a stomach bug and was quarantined on the couch. :( Unfortunately, Grandpa and Grandma (and Aunt Julie) had to deal with it since they volunteered to take all three kids back to Chicago with them on Tuesday since we were going to drive down that Friday for a wedding. Thankfully, none of the adults ended up getting it.

Another round of Uno. :)

All in all, a good visit, made even better by the fact that David and I got some kid-free days out of the deal!! We hardly knew what to do with ourselves! (Ok, we figured it out pretty quickly... :) )

More Happenings

Lucia, David and I had a family camp-out in the living room one weekend - something we'd been promising Lucia for a while and finally made happen. She was SO excited to go to sleep by the fireplace!
Making juice with Papa! I think, no... I know Lucia enjoyed the process of making it more than the end result itself. :)

Helping Papa clean out the laptop fan - mounds of dust had settled into there, making it overheat and possibly slower.

Rhea enjoying her afternoon "coffee time" - frothed milk.

Lucia and Rhea enjoying some Little Einsteins together. :)

And... the big and much anticipated box: David's new desktop computer!! The girls had fun helping him unpack it.

... and even more fun trying out the new keyboard. :)

Haircuts!

One Friday morning, the girls and I went on a spontaneous outing to the hair salon. Both girls got their hair cut -- Rhea's first trim (which was rather necessary :) ), and Lucia's first major chop!

It's been fun to see the spunk that the shorter hair has highlighted in Lucia - not that it wasn't there before. ;-) They took off 9 inches - and that's after I trimmed her hair myself a few weeks ago and took off about 2 inches. To all who mourn her long hair: take courage, it will grow back. :)

So Now It's Official :)

Chronologically, the next thing that happened after the last post is that David and I found out (on March 8th) that we're expecting baby #3! Since we're now almost 16 weeks along and have publicized this news on Facebook, it's ok to tell everyone one here too. We were a little surprised ourselves, but are looking forward to growing our family from 4 to 5 and meeting this new little person.
A little while after Lucia found out there's a baby in my belly again, she wanted to know if Papa and I were going to get married. I was a bit confused and said that, no, we were already married. But after a few more unrelated comments since then, I've now figured out that she thinks you have to get married to have a baby (which at some point I told her was the case). :) (After David's cousin's recent wedding she asked me too: "Mama, are they going to have a baby now?")
For now she's not showing too much more curiosity about additional details, so we'll just leave it at that. :)