It's A Boy!!!

We were very excited to finally find out who would be joining our family! I believe the way we found out were these exact words "and there's a pee pee" Ha! I guess that's a nice way of saying it? We are both amazed and excited and trying to imagine what it will be like to have a boy after having a girl. Lorelei sat well for most of the ultrasound, and eventually got this balloon because she kept on saying "ball" and pointing to it...now it is quite the favorite toy around the house. Of course we also found out that this little boy has a cleft lip. We are anxious for our appointment this coming Wednesday to find out more details with a more specialized ultrasound to know what we are up against. We appreciate all your prayers and support!

Apparently Lorelei's little brother will keep up with her just fine, because he was very active during the ultrasound, so we didn't really get any cute shots. It looked about as easy as trying to get a picture of Lorelei with your cell phone...and we saw some great views but she just couldn't seem to get them into pictures for us. Hoping maybe we can get some at the next ultrasound as well.

We had planned to go to the Botanical Gardens to make it a fun family day together since Brad took the day off, but the clouds stayed overhead and it was pretty chilly, not exactly great walking around in the garden weather, so we just came home and hung out. Got a few cute pics of Lorelei and Brad.

As for what Lorelei thinks of having a little brother, she is happy and gives my belly kisses. The cute story of that would be when I said "oh yay now I can do a jungle nursery!" She excitedly yelled "YEAH!" and threw her arms up. Ah my little shopper and decorator. :) We'll see if we agree on her little brother's room choices. :)

Side note: We are leaving tomorrow for a trip to Sesame Place for the weekend! We will leave early Friday morning to try and make it to The Crayola Factory, which is just about 15 minutes from Sesame Place, so we couldn't pass up a chance to see crayons being made. :) Then Saturday and Sunday will be a fun filled weekend with nothing but Elmo, Abby and our many other SS friends. :) Make sure you listen for the screams of excitement at about 10 AM. :) It is basically Disney World for Sesame Street fans. :) Here is the link if you want to see where we are going. Many pictures soon to come!
http://www.sesameplace.com/sesame2/Default.aspx

Happy And You Know It

Well Lorelei has been doing the actions for this song for a few weeks now, and I keep trying to capture it on film, but naturally she does not cooperate as well when I have the camera on her, so this is as good as it gets. :) Guess you'll have to try and get her to do it better in person. :)

Hide and NO Seek :)

Lorelei's version of Hide and Seek...by the time I got the camera this had happened about 3 times already. :)

Laundry Helper

This is Lorelei's favorite chore. She is actually very helpful. Usually we have a pile of shirts I need to get stains out of, so while I'm doing that, she get her clothes into the washer! Oh and it isn't complete unless she walks around with the hamper over her head after that. :)

Sorry the video is so long. I even cut off some from the beginning. :) A lot of clothes to get in there. :)

"Daey"

We have a definite Daddy's girl on our hands here. All day long I hear "Daey" wondering where Daddy is...especially after nap because she knows he gets home after that. I would say this is by far her favorite word to say these days. She is SO happy when he gets home. :)

Botanical Gardens

We love taking trips to the Botanical Gardens this time of year. Couldn't ask for a prettier place to visit in the spring. This trip Lorelei enjoyed digging in the soil and plenty of other fun things to get her nice and dirty. :)






Here we have Lorelei trying to join a group of school students on their field trip. She had no hesitation getting in line with them and then even tried to go over and join them sitting listening to the speaker. Guess we won't have much trouble sending her to school.
The following morning we also went to story time at the mall...she went to the front (other children go up there too) and then proceeded to sit in the big blue chair like she was queen of the world. :) She also went right up and sat with the story lady after she was done. Little Miss Independent that's for sure!

Having some fun with Chase in a little log cabin they have in the children's garden. She thinks he is hilarious these days and he is so great at making her laugh.


Our usual lunch on days we take an outing...peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the way home. I'm SO thankful that she likes to eat these now and she is always excited to get it when she gets in her seat. Then its easy when we get home because lunch is done and we are ready to lay down for nap. Yay!

Who Drives A Tractor?

Each time we look at the "Things That Go" page of her book, I point to the tractor, tell her its a tractor, and then say that Grandpa and Papa drive a tractor. A couple of days ago she surprised me by saying "Pa" and pointing at the tractor before I said a word! I also asked her who she was talking to on the phone (aka the remote...anything with buttons becomes a phone) and she said "Pa"...guess you Dads will have a farm hand ready for you in a few years. :)

Potty Progress

Yes we have news on the potty front! Two semi big milestones...she has now told me three times over the last few days "poo", letting me know that she is poopy! There are still plenty of "noooooos" when I ask her and she is, but at least she seems to be getting the idea. Also, first actually "potty" in the potty today! Very excited about this, but not buying any pull ups yet. :)

Baby Emma Has Arrived!

We are thrilled to have a new addition to our little group of friends here in Virginia Beach. Lily is now a big sister! We were very excited to meet Emma this week and Lorelei was very unhappy that I got to go see her before she did when we made a hospital visit and has been asking for Lily quite often. She was very excited to get to visit them today, but really had more fun playing with Lily and her toys and didn't worry too much about the new baby. :) Big thanks to Mike for playing so much with our girls so that I got to hold the sweet baby and chat with Sara. :)

"See Ya"

Lorelei has been talking more and more lately. This is one of the latest things she picked up from Brad. :)

Shhh

Every time we say the word "church" Lorelei responds with "shhh" :) The first time she does it in the video she screams immediately after...which is probably a more accurate portrayal of what she is really like in church! :) At least she knows she is supposed to be quite...next step is actually doing it right? :)

Sunday Morning Smoothies

It's smoothie season in the Stahl house again! Brad is the smoothie maker and makes them just like the professionals. :) Yum yum!

Lorelei also loves her new cup we got just for this reason...nice big straw complete with Elmo and Zoe. :)

Happy Birthday Kira!

We were able to celebrate another wonderful birthday on Saturday - Kira turned two! Oh dear, two two-year-olds in the group should be interesting. :) Kira was very excited about her "pink party" (her favorite color and really color in the universe that matters in her point of view) and I can vouch that I have never seen so much pink in the Bonfiglio household. :) The kids enjoyed playing outside with bubbles as well as inside with the various toys and coloring on the huge table covered with paper. In one of the pictures you can see Lorelei is itching to open presents while she is eating her cake. As you see Kira is playing with play-dough, which is the first gift she opened. Then she was perfectly content to play with that and did not worry about opening the rest of her presents. :) Unfortunately we had to leave early during a huge melt down from Lorelei's lack of sleeping over the week, but had fun until then! Happy Birthday Kira!

First Poptart...Enough Said. :)

Helping Unload The Groceries...I Guess???

I have stuck to our every other Saturday plan of doing my Walmart shopping early those mornings. Now that Lorelei is in her "helper" stage she wants to help unload the groceries. Today this resulted in her unloading every package of fruit snacks from the box. :) Was fun anyway and she did put them all back. :)

I Like To Eat Apples Just Like The Grown Ups!

Lovin Some Summer Weather!

Monday - headed to the beach! These last three days have been close to 90 degrees so we are taking advantage of a little summer weather in the spring. We were joined shortly by the Bonfiglio's so we had an even bigger sand toy pile. :) The kids had fun with all the toys and also loved getting their feet buried in the sand. I got a great arm work out. :)

One of Lorelei's favorite things to do in the sand is just fill up all her different buckets. Its amazing how long sand can keep her entertained. Love it!

Tuesday - second beach day in a row! Yes I'm nuts, but we have to get to the beach as much as we can before we can't go anymore. :( This was a bit more of a trying trip. We got an umbrella to help keep the sun off (our last one broke the end of the summer last year) and that caused a few problems. The first 15 minutes or so of the trip was peaceful...Lorelei in the shade happily playing with her sand...then she decided she wanted to keep going back and forth from the water so we filled and refilled buckets to take back with us. However, on one of our many trips out to the water, the top half of the umbrella started to blow away! The bottom half stayed because we have it anchored in...so then I had to grab Lorelei and chase after it and it was already quite a ways down before I could catch it. Pregnant woman carrying toddler running down the beach after umbrella...not a pretty sight! Finally it got to some people and somebody stopped it for me. :) Then after I got the umbrella back up determined to stay there in case it would blow away, every time there was a big gust of wind Lorelei would cling to me scared it would blow away again, so I had to take it down...as you can see in the picture, poor umbrella not giving us any shade. Hopefully next time we will not have such a windy day!



Wednesday - Botanical Gardens for MOMS playgroup. Of course it was just Melissa and I for the most part, a couple of moms showed up later but our kids were done with the water by then. This first picture is from our walk to the children's garden when the kids were looking at turtles.

Playing in the water fountains...LOVED it. :) She ran around everywhere and didn't really seem to mind when she would get splashed in the face from some other kids...which was great. As you can see in the video, she also loved to drink the water. :) You can also tell how she just ran all over...not really worried about where I was at, but I'm so glad she had so much fun. After we finished with the water we played in a little house they have in the gardens as well as a few other things there. Then we took a tram around the entire gardens...which turned out to be a lot of fun the first 15 minutes and after that she was ready to go. Still had a great time and hopefully we will get a long nap today! :)

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! We missed seeing our family today, but did have a wonderful day anyway. Hope you all had a great time celebrating.

First thing this morning...


Lorelei found her Easter baskets and enjoyed the goodies, including a prebreakfast Reese's peanut butter cup. :) But hey that's half the fun right? Then we made our own big breakfast of strawberries, turkey bacon, eggs and pancakes.

Then we had a photo shoot quickly before church. The weather was in the 80s so it was a perfect day outside. If anyone wants a certain picture please let me know and I can email it to you or snail mail it! :)


Blooper real...although there are only three, there were A LOT more...just thought these were the most amusing. And yes, I'm the one operating the camera who totally cut her head off.



And my favorite...just ignore the tripod we set up in the background...so much for trying to get good scenery!

Then we headed to church...Lorelei enjoyed shaking hands with everybody which of course they loved...bad part, all of a sudden she learned to say the word "bye" and then had to practice it over and over again the entire hour. :)

Then we had a wonderful lunch (although I forgot to get out the jello salad I made!! finally eating it tonight for supper I guess) and pretty well lazy rest of the day...however not a great nap, because apparently the Easter candy is kicking in around nap time. :)

Hope you all had a great day!

Pizza, Park and Productivity :)

As I am typing this Lorelei is laying in her crib to fall asleep practicing "noooo, noooo" :) As if she doesn't already get enough practice with that word!? Anyway...we had a fun and productive day today and just had to post a couple of pics and take note of it. One of those days you just enjoy being a family of three and everyone is having a good time...and you get stuff on your list done too! :) My kind of day!

After I ran to the grocery store for some of the holiday foods we are making, we decided to get a couple more errands done as well this morning, but knew park had to be on the list as well with the 80 degree weather we had today. Brad and Lorelei made a visit to Petsmart while I ran into Kohls...and what did they find there? Well not only were there dogs being groomed, but also a dog obedience class where people were walking their dogs around the store for practice...well you can imagine how many dogs Lorelei got to pet today! She also visited the fish and cats before we ran one more errand and then we ended up going out to lunch as well. There is a great little pizza place at the shopping area and they are always very friendly. You can even see them making the pizzas, and to make lunch even more fun, one of the cooks threw his pizza dough up in the air purely for Lorelei's entertainment. She loved it!

Then we headed to the park and played a good while before heading home for nap and then some cooking and cleaning the rest of the day. We are so thankful for the weekend. :)

Lorelei helping after I emptied the dishwasher. She thinks the silverware container is meant for her balls so immediately grabbed it to put them in it.

Now we are ready and excited for Easter tomorrow!

Easter Egg Hunt

We had an egg hunt today to kick off the big Easter weekend. :) Brad also had the day off, so I had to twist is arm and MAKE him go golfing while we were at the park. ;)

We had a great turn out of five moms and one nana. :) It was perfect weather for the occasion and after a bit of time playing at the park, we hid the eggs and the kids had fun finding them and seeing what goodies were inside.

The pictures above (lets go from left, clockwise) include Lorelei ready to leave and yes she looked just like that and put her basket over her arm before trying to head out the door (she is always excited about going to a park), Next we have the children all lined up to race for their eggs...as you can see by their age it wasn't too tough a race but we needed a picture nonetheless. :) Then we have Lorelei finding an egg of course, and then eating some treats. Most of us put things like fruit snacks, goldfish and animal crackers...but a few had CHOCOLATE. :) She would shake the egg, get me to open it, and then keep moving on until she found another one with the sweets. :)

We got to play a bit more afterward with the three usuals including Lily's Nana who came early just in case little sister, Emma decides to show up. :) Such a great day and wore us all out!

Some Bunny Loves Us

Oh yes, we got another wonderful package! After all, Lorelei does have two sets of grandparents. ;) As soon as she saw there was a package at the door, she ran to the desk pointing for me to get the scissors. She enjoyed more sweets and some other goodies as well, including a fun book. :) Thought the video was pretty funny. Also in the second picture above, she is feeding the bunny her skittle. :) Guess at least she shares with stuffed animals! Thank you Stahls!