Mabelle turns 5!!!!!!!!!!!

We had such a wonderful day for a Barbie Pool Party!! It was in the high 90s, and we only had 4 kids show up…which was totally fine for a swim party :) She loooooved all the decorations, favors, cupcakes (which I ordered out this time…way less stress and they were far better than I could ever achieve!), and especially all her gifts!! There wasn't one thing she didn't looooove!! I put over 100 pics on Facebook, but here's some of the highlights :)

I ordered out on the cupcakes...they were FABULOUS!

Jason's friend works at the Cupcakery and put these amazing cupcakes together for us..complete with Barbie jumping out of cupcakes!

The backyard set up and decorations, with pennants and flowers in the trees!

The beautiful, Barbie birthday girl!!!

And Cashy :)

The birthday song :)

Enjoying cupcakes with some of her besties!

After the pinata...they are too stinking cute!

Opening gifts!!!

She loves Star Wars almost as much as Barbie!!!

And of course, then there's Justin Bieber ;)

*kkkkhhhhh....Mabelle, I AM your father.....kkkhhhhh*

We look just like these Barbies!!

Hiding her eyes for her BIG birthday gift...

...soooo HAPPY for her new Barbie dreamhouse!

"Oh no...it's Dar Bader!!!"--Cash

Thank you to everyone who helped celebrate with us! And she loves all her gifts from her Star Wars gifts to her Barbie ones...to her awesome Coach bag...and of course, the dreamhouse :)

GIfts Arriving by Mail!

We've received several packages for Mabelle's birthday…take a look!

Our first set of gifts arrived from St. Charles...and the Velardes!! Her face says it all!

We all know this girly's love for the Statue of Liberty :)

From my phone...she got a dress, 2 amazing barbies, and a barbie print for her new Barbie room! She loved it ALL!!! Thank you, Jerry, Jenifer, Nic, Tailia, Christian, and Frankie!!!

Next set from Grandma Teresa and Papa Joe

Opening the card first...

A super fancy, light-up jewelry box!! She loves it!

And a new bracelet!!! Thank you, Grandma and Papa Joe!

Another set from Nana!!

Gift card and a new movie...which she loves, Sandy is her favorite! LOL!

And the last so far...from Rylee!

Love her face!

Moon sand!!!!!

Thank you so much, Scott, Robyn and Rylee!!! She looooooves her Moon Sand!

Pregnancy: 12 weeks!

The first official trio comparison!! I hit the 2nd trimester feeling good…occasional back pains already and still have some stomach issues…but all in all, I'm feeling great! I've lost 5lbs since I found out we were expecting, but feel really good.

And the pictures have begun!

Mabelle figured out what I was doing and got in on the action! Love it!

The first trio comparison!! I look way better this pregnancy ;) LOL!

Kindergarten has begun :)

Mabelle has started Kindergarten and had a rough first week of dropoffs, but is now like an old pro! She loves her teacher (and so do i, after being apprehensive after our first meeting). Mrs. Stella is a wonderful teacher and Mabelle is a star student…she has gotten stickers for all her homework packets, and has earned great behavior stickers for every single day of school so far. The only thing she has a problem with is the dang uniform/dress code…blah colors and blah choices right now, I did score a beautiful navy twirl dress…just gotta find about 20 more to really get us a good happy clothing rotation going ;) Because I wasn't sure if you knew this, but khaki is NOT a color according to Mabelle ;)

The day before Kindergarten special treat :)

Cash thoroughly enjoyed his too!

Posing with Cash...or putting him in a choke hold on the first day.

Mabelle and her teacher, Mrs. Stella

3rd day of school...

2nd day of school

4th day of school...ran out of skirts and she had to wear shorts, she was not so happy ;)

First Spirit Day was jersey day for the first weekend of football! She sported her old (but fits so much better now) Chiefs jersey!! She hated it, we loooooved it!

Brooklyn in his jersey with the kids...this is their older brother :)

I love this picture so much!

The only outift she loves for school, her American Eagle blue twirl dress :)

A new way to blog for me :)

So I've been slacking really bad on the blog this year and I think I've come up with a great solution. My problem is that it takes so long to upload pictures to Blogger…hours to do slideshows and since I take MILLIONS of pics, it's so hard to update. I'm going to keep blogging, but limit my pics to 5-10 per post…that way there's no overload and it doesn't take hours :)

I'll upload the whole event's pics to Facebook (which literally takes minutes) and that way all pics are online but not taking forever to upload here.

I hope this works out…and takes away any excuses I have of not blogging :)

Thanks for being patient!!

Vacation to Missouri

We took a vacation to Missouri this past week and had a blast. The kids loved seeing all their family and we kept super busy with swimming in the pooooo, a Cardinals game, the STL Zoo, a Lake trip for dinner (including a round of very hot and sweaty putt putt golf), 3 sick kiddos and one sick mama. It was awesome :)

I really hope you look at Facebook for all the pics…there were really great ones and we had such a great time! And these 10 aren't even the tip of the iceberg :) I'm going to post 270+ on Facebook! Here's a small, teeeny tiny taste of the fun in pics.

Cash found himself another bully to love, Faith.

Lots of swimming while we were there...I think every single day!

And we got to meet the new addition to the family ;) Darin, Noelle's new boooooyfrennnn.

At the zoo...it was a hot day! Mimi and Cash had to go back to the car it was too hot for my sick baby out there.

Mimi's birthday with her 3 grandbabies.

More zoo pics...can you tell we are a tad hot and sweaty? LOL!

The Cardinals game (after the hot zoo), I had to take Cash back to the car this time...poor sicky.

Lots and lots of swimming :)

Papa Joe reading the Stinky Face book...a very popular book.

Grandma Alma, Grandpa Don and their 8 great grandbabies...make room for one more in about 7ish months. LOL!

"I've got a secret!!!!!" --Mabelle Grace

"Mommy's got a baby in her belly!!!!!" This is how Mabelle announced to almost everyone the big news. We are pregnant!!! I'm almost 8 weeks, we go to the doc August 11. From my calculations, I would be due March 22, 2011. Eek!!! We also had fortune cookies made and gave them out, with 3 fortunes inside:

'Luck is on your side, a new addition to your family is coming soon.'

'Three is the key to happiness.'

'A pleasant surprise awaits you.'

And only one person (Jason's Aunt Sissy asked if we needed to take a pregnancy test...lol! I replied with "I've already taken two.) got the fortune cookies...there were many curious faces on why the fortune cokies had the same fortunes. LOL! But in the end, Mabelle got to make her announcement to everyone :)