So thankful...

A cousin of mine is having her first baby in about a month, and the hard part is that the baby is not properly formed and will not make it. :( It has a disease called anencephaly, which means that this baby does not have the back of its skull or brain.

I have been praying SO MUCH for her, her family and the baby... I just cannot imagine this happening, especially since it's your FIRST baby.

It's made me praise the Lord even more for my kiddos, and as weird as it may sound, thanking Jesus for forming their brains... There's so much that we take for granted...

Go hug your kiddos!!!

Taking the "Mommy Show" on the road....

So we decided to take a little road trip this weekend....

Our good friends Amanda and Sam, who currently live in Russia are in Pennsylvania visiting her parents for a couple weeks. We thought "Well if they can make the big trip across the big pond, we can drive 9 hours to see them!"

So, we left Dayton at 4:30am with an Emma Williams in tow and made the long trek to Lititz, PA to visit! Our drive went fantastic, especially with 2 little ones in the car! It definitely was smart getting up that early to go, as we drove 4.5 hours before we even stopped once!

So far, we've hung out at Amanda's parent's house, had a FANTASTIC dinner there, then went back to our hotel and CRASHED by 9pm... We had a much needed good sleep!!

This morning we had a tour of the local pretzel place, then a trip to the local chocolate maker.... AMAZING STUFF. Lunch was wonderful, and now my two ladies are sleeping while Michael hangs out with everyone else...

We'll leave tomorrow morning, which makes it a VERY quick trip but very well worth it. We love hanging out with Sam and Amanda!

Please pray that our trip home would be even better than the snowy drive out here. :)

Quest still continues...

So I found the glue trap.... WITHOUT a mouse in it! It had squirmed behind my spice rack and wriggled free.... I'm just glad I didn't find a 3 week old dead mouse...

So the quest still continues; no mouse caught....

I got some new traps last night, so we'll see how it goes; they crawl in to get the food (I put in chocolate this time) and then it closes on them and they can't get out... and I don't have to see it!!!

Here's a video of Lydia that I took yesterday... such a cutie. :)

Busy, busy, busy!

Busy, busy, busy!

I've been suuuper busy with photo shoots, which is a great thing! I guess when it rains, it pours...

We've also been busy occupying ourselves with summertime fun; trips to the zoo, the pool...

We've been working on our house more and more, getting it the way we want it to be. We're almost there and ready to plan our party!

Lydia was sick last week, with an ear infection... poor baby! It was the first time she was sick, though; not too bad! She got some antibiotics, but they proved to be not strong enough and warranted another visit Monday morning... sure enough, now BOTH ears were infected. We got a stronger antibiotic and a steroid. I'm not 100% convinced that it's working all the way, but we'll give it a few more days.

So it looks like all we are doing is FEEDING this mouse that has invaded. Every morning I come down and see whatever treat we left to entice this mouse has been taken, and the trap remains. We even had purchased the 'snap traps', but they are still not doing the job!!! Oye. Any suggestions? And NO, we are not getting a cat...

WAR

This mouse has declared war. Nothing in either traps set out for two days... and he pooped ALL over my countertop last night.

Today we go out to buy some SERIOUS mouse traps.

I tried to play nice....

...but this is WAR.

I've had sooo many photo shoots lately; two yesterday, and one today! Man, I love my job!

Evasive Little Booger....

So I should have taken the big hint when we moved into our house when I found a set of glue mouse traps on the shelf in the closet. I remember thinking "Oh how nice; just in case we need them..."

When really, I should have been thinking "Mouse traps??? Why????"

So when we went away last weekend, we came home to find 'evidence' of a mouse on my kitchen countertops... and trust me; those countertops were clean and food-free... but the little booger must have found something yummy.

Usually, when you come home from a trip the first thing you want to do is sit down on the couch out of sheer exhaustion... but despite that urge, the urge to strip everything off my countertop was greater, so I did!

I'm not super surprised that a mouse exists in the house; it was built in 1901, after all... old houses are bound to have old live-in guests... Not that I'm OK with it.... I just know it happens.

Two nights ago, Michael set out one of those glue traps, but didn't put anything on it because the package said it was 'baited'.... but no such luck. No mouse.

Last night, I put some peanut butter on the trap just to entice him just a little bit more.... So this morning, I was extremely satisfied when I came into the kitchen to find no trap!

'Awesome,' I thought.... 'We got one and Michael threw it out already before leaving for work!' So I called Michael and said "I assume we got one?" He said "Nope. The trap was GONE this morning." "You're joking." "Nope." "No, really....tell me you are joking..." as I frantically look around for a dead mouse in a glue trap.... but nothing.

Oh no.

Where is he?

So now, I'm super paranoid that I'm going to find a mouse stuck to a glue trap, rotting somewhere in my house. I'm even MORE paranoid that he's mixed himself amongst the toys, and Liddy will find him.

Ew.

8 ALREADY???

And there you have it. 8 teeth before she's even 8 months old...

I am SO BLESSED to have the best teethers; both of my girls aren't bothered by teeth punching their way through the gum line... most of them I don't even know they are coming until they are all the way through!

Thank you Lydia for being such a big girl with such a big milestone!