My Morgan, such a contradiction

Morgan turned 8 on October 23rd. Morgan is a very unique little girl. She is not what you would expect sometimes. She is smart yet very silly(and funny), she is a perfectionist but ruins everything she wears, she is a people pleaser yet sneaky, she loves dolls and legos.
Right after Joshua was born, Morgan wanted to plan her birthday party. I was a bit overwhelmed at the thought of planning and hosting two birthday parties with a newborn. So I suggested that she call Grandma K. My mom was a life saver. She planned, organized and hosted Morgan's American Girl Doll party and it was a blast!!!

The girls played a dress up game with accessories for themselves and their dolls. It was fun to see what combinations they were coming up with.


We then decorated square cookies for Morgan's "quilt cookie cake". Lots of sugar and a great looking finished product.


My mom had made the girls each a scarf and prepared material for them to make a matching scarf for their dolls. The girls really thought that was special.




Morgan insisted we do a tea party dinner theme. So we decorated the table with the finest china. Morgan requested that we serve Halloween themed foods at the tea party??? So we had mummies on a stick and peanut and white chocolate eye balls. The girls loved the mummies, but not to sure about the eyeballs. They looked very life like!







We ended the party with a scavenger hunt that included finding keys and determining which one opened the "goodie" box. We had 9 girls running around screaming and having so much fun with this game. I loved this party, it turned out to be one of my favorites. All of my mom's help may have something to do with that.
PS-Thanks to the Knepper's for keeping Joshua and protecting him from being kissed to death by all of those little girls!

Rachel's 5th Birthday

Good bye fourth year, hello number five.
Good bye to being the baby of the family, hello to being a big sister.

Rachel enjoyed celebrating her 5th birthday(actually Oct. 25th) at Chuck E. Cheese with some of her girl friends. It was a whirlwind of fun, pizza, Chuck E. and presents.
















We love you Rae Rae you are the spice in our lives.
I can't wait to see what God has in store for you this year.

Oh what a difference 4 weeks make!

So I can hardly believe Joshua is 4 weeks old (as of yesterday). As the saying goes, "I can not imagine our family without him". It has been a joyous, hectic and memorable month. Joshua has brought so much happiness to us as a family. I have loved watching Nicole, Morgan and Rachel welcome him into our family with such sweet love and affection towards him. He has already been to a variety of soccer games, piano practice, the bus stop, church, the cider mill and even his first tailgate party(well if you count the church parking lot).

He is getting bigger and really LOVES to eat, even though his reflux just gives him fits after his feedings. He is filling out in the face and thighs which makes this mom's heart happy. Here are a few pictures from the last month.

We took the girls to Yates Cider Mill one night. He was happy to be out of the house in the fresh air.




Grandma and Grandpa Nugent came from NY to visit for a couple of days.

Joshua met Great Granny Kelbert also this month. Josh is the 29th great grandchild of Dave and Fran Kelbert-WHEW! This amazes my grandmother, she was an only child.

Oh how he hates his bath.


The best thing about being a baby, sleeping with dad!





We have been calling him scar face. He scratches his face almost daily. Finally his nails were long enough today that I felt like I could clip them without hurting him.

Can't wait to see what he is doing and looks like in 4 more weeks!