Fall, Fun and Babies!

The main theme in our lives seems to be that we are constantly busy. We have (again) been booked every weekend for the last several months. Finally, our days have slowed down and I am able to post an update!

You can see from the pictures below that we visited Carter Caves in September with my family. Having walking and talking toddlers this time certainly made for an interesting and busy visit. Let's just say last year was mellow with three infants compared to this time around! Braden and Harrison enjoyed the big playground and the very friendly squirrel. Alyssa loved running up and down the hills while simultaneously exhausting both her mother and Papa.

Brad and I are still slowly putting together and rearranging our house. For those of you who haven't yet heard, we are expecting another baby in April! Clearly we do not value sleep in this house since we decided to add another baby to the mix ;) I kid of course, because we are thrilled for Braden to have a brother or sister. He is so good with the baby at his daycare that we are not at all worried about how he will react to a sibling. In fact, one of his favorite things to do is kiss my belly and tell the baby "night night" I can't say that he totally understands there is a baby in there, seeing as he occasionally does the same thing to his daddy. In Braden's defense, his daddy does have a little bit of a pooch! We will find out the sex of this baby on Nov. 19th. Of course I want a girl, but am fully expecting another boy. Brad would prefer that we not find out at all, but I cannot do that!

Some of the pictures below are from the wedding of my parent's neighbor's daughter. Stinky was so cute that night, but he was certainly a handful. I found a cute new photo editing site called Picnik and wanted to share with you what I was able to do with the photos:

Braden also went Trick or Treating again this year. He was a little devil- a costume so appropriate that he acted like one all day that day. He wasn't sure about going door to door to get candy and stayed in the stroller while Mommy and Daddy did all the work. Once we finished with our neighborhood, we took him to see his Great Grandma and Grandpa Nichting. He LOVED helping Great Grandpa hand out candy to the trick or treaters. Eventually he was fired from his position because he kept handing out giant handfuls of candy. He would get so excited each time he saw someone come up to the door and would start yelling "here, here." It was too cute!

Vacation at Hilton Head

We had a wonderful time in Hilton Head. Braden did fabulous on the plane ride down. He slept through both flights. Considering we left at 4:30 am for the airport this wasn't much of a surprise. We had great weather until Thursday, when Hurricane Bill came through. Then it rained Thursday, Friday and Saturday.








Leaving for the Airport

Random Pictures From August

Long Time No Post

Our summer has finally settled down. We have not been home on the weekends for me to blog, which was a little frustrating to me. On July 3rd we went to a Reds game with my parents, brother, Uncle Ed, Uncle Bud, Aunt Karen and Jonathan. We were really enjoying our fabulous seats until Albert Pujols hit a grandslam to beat the Reds. Boo Cardinals;)

After the Reds game, we travelled to Evansville for July 4th. I forgot my camera so I don't have any pictures of that weekend. I will have to steal some from my mom.

Brad and I went to see Mama Mia on July 18th as part of my birthday present from his parents. We met my friends Colleen and Chris Behm before the show for a fabulous dinner at a Brazillian Steak House in downtown Cincy. You get a green and red disk for each person at the table. When you are ready for meat, you flip the disk to green. We tried everything from lamb chops to pork loin to filet mignon wrapped in bacon. It was DELICIOUS!

Mama Mia was phenomenol. My husband fell asleep during the preformance due to the giant meal that we ate beforehand. I highly recommend the show for anyone interested in seeing it. It makes you wish your life could be a musical and it should be socially acceptable to break out into song at random moments in life.

Just this weekend we took Braden to the Butler County Fair. He was not super thrilled with the carosel, but he was so sleepy I couldn;t blame him. He liked the birds, chickens and rabbits. He found the goats interesting. His favorite activity by far was getting to play the duck game. He picked rubber duckies out of a pool and won prizes. Daddy insisted that he have a sword and an inflatable hammer. It did keep him entertained.

We took him to the mini-ponies and I fully expected that he would throw a fit and want off since he was exhausted. However, he hung in there like a champ and even smiled a little. As soon as we hit the car, he was out. In fact, he has been asleep for over 3 hours. I think that means the fair was a success ;)

Long Time No Post- July in Pictures

What A Busy Month!

I was not kidding when I said we had a busy month ahead of us in the last post! We managed to move into our new house over the course of 4 days, albeit with more than little bit of drama involved. We were to take possession of the house on April 30th. Our sellers had their baby the DAY of our closing. They signed documents from the labor room at the hospital. After the wife gave birth, the husband was left to pack up the house. We got several calls from our realtor saying the sellers realtor wanted to relay that the seller would do their best to be out April 30th. After many respectful yet stern phone calls, we made it clear that they had no choice but to be out on the 30th, new baby or not. We had a moving truck and no where to go!

Luckily, they managed to be out by the 30th. The place was filthy as you can imagine. I spent 3 hours just cleaning the kitchen. In fact, Brinks was at our new house setting up the alarm. He and I arrived at the same time on the 30th. He told me it would take 2.5 hours to install our security system. He finished installing and setting up before I had finished cleaning out the fridge. It was that bad people! I will of course spare you the details ;)

Anyway, thanks to the help of our family we are all moved in. The boxes are unpacked, everything is in its place. The only thing we haven't done is hang our pictures and shelves on the wall. I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of our new sofa and loveseat. Since I am picky (I know you aren't shocked!), it took me awhile to find what I wanted. Of course when I found comfortable yet stylish couches, they had to be special ordered. That tacked 6 weeks on to my purchase. No worries though, when they get here it will be worth it! I won't put up pics of the house until I have my couches. Sorry guys, I don't have the full vision yet to show everyone!

Just a side note on the pics, they are taken in the new house. Braden likes to sit in Fifi's dog beds. I don't know why, but he prefers it. I try to vacuum them often because of this. More pics to come!