Four-Year-Old Wellness Visit

This morning Leah had her four-year-old wellness visit with Dr. Sherman!

Weight:  36 lbs (57%)
Height:  40 1/2 inches (64%)
BMI:  15.42 (54%)
Blood Pressure:  90/52
Vision:  20/20
Hearing:  Passed

She's perfect, just as we knew it!  Dr. Sherman asked that we make an appointment with the allergist to reevaluate/retest her egg white allergy so we'll be doing that soon.  The bummer of the visit.....FOUR shots for the big four-year-old!  Two nurses gave them, each pricking an arm at the same time twice as I was asked to hold her legs and arms as she set in my lap.  She was a trooper and only flinched on the first set but shed some very well deserved tears after the second set of pokes.  I didn't blame her one bit!  One of her friends was getting his shots just across the hall so it really didn't help that she had just seen and heard Jay having a melt down.  I must give her credit, though, she was much tougher and cried way less than he did!  Ha!

 After her check-up, we picked up Lane so that Daddy could go to work (he was home with him) and went out to lunch.  You'll never guess where!

We had several errands to run this afternoon which couldn't have come at a better time as far as the radio is concerned!  My favorite band in the whole wide world was debuting their new album on XM!  I made the kids sit in the car and listen for a bit before we went into a store!  They were both good sports!

 

On our to do list was a visit to the dance store to get new tights and leotards for dance class!  This year's classes starts next week!  Last year we had a pink and a purple leotard so this year we went with black and baby blue!

This little guy was just as content as could be sitting in his stroller watching Sissy model all of her new outfits!

 

Our final stop of the day.....Toys "R" Us!  Four shots deserved a visit to the toy store to pick out any toy my girl wanted!  Surprise, surprise, she picked out a Barbie!  Before coming home we picked up In 'N Out for dinner!  Now the kiddos are in bed, Luke's working away on the iPad and I'm catching up on House Hunters!

A Visit From The Baxters

We are blessed with the BEST friends!  I mean, seriously!  Our best friends, the Baxters, flew out from Texas to spend a few days with us!  This was a business trip for Shawn, but Jennifer, Emily and Evan tagged along so that we could spend some time together!  We love these guys so much!  We haven't seen them since they came out this exact time last year when we all went to Tahoe, but it felt like no time had passed at all (except for the addition of two very precious baby boys of course)!

They arrived on Wednesday afternoon.  I could not WAIT to get my hands on their precious baby boy Evan!  He is the cutest two-month-old little guy!  (I'm already missing his snuggles!)  Emily and Leah were so excited to see each other and were off playing in seconds!  Of course, we were excited for them to meet the newest addition to our family as well!  We spend the evening relaxing, grilling out, playing, snuggling (babies), chatting and laughing!

Thursday the guys were both out the door for work while Jennifer and I stayed home to tend to the kiddos!  The girls spent hours playing on the water slide!  I'm pretty sure Emily needs one of these at her house now!  :)

 

There was lots of Barbie playing after lunch!

 

Jammies and Spaghetti-O's for dinner!  We feed our guests pretty gourmet around here!

 

A tub full of cuties to end our day!  Evan will be able to join in the fun next time!

 

Friday morning the Daddies worked and then played golf that afternoon but not before taking their favorite little girls to the park to play and have a picnic!

 

There was more swimming that afternoon.....

 

.....followed by a tea party!

 

We spent lots of time playing outside!

 

On Saturday, it was time for Jennifer and I to escape while the Daddies tended to the littles!  We were able to go out to lunch and get mani's and pedi's!  Oh, and cupcakes for dessert!

 

This is how we left the group!

 

And this is how we found them when we returned!

 

The girls watched Cinderella for a little down time that afternoon!

 

Saturday was picture day!

Mamas and their boys!

 

I see many years of fun with these four!

We already have our next two adventures planned!

 

All the boys!

 

Shawn and Jennifer cooked dinner Saturday night!  It was delicious!  Shawn gave Lane a quick lesson on the grill!

 

One last party in the bath!

 

This scene reminded me of a picture I took in Tahoe last year so I had to snap a pic!

 

Shawn is a master on the grill!

We ended their visit with a fantastic dinner, yummy dessert and lots of laughs!

 

*A couple of hilarious moments that I want to remember from their visit.....Leah and Emily are both strong-willed, "like to be in control" little girls.  For the most part, they got along very well and shared as well as any almost three- and four-year-old can share.  On the first night that they were here Emily was pushing a baby in the doll stroller and Leah was following her every move waiting for it to be her turn to have the stroller (even though she NEVER plays with the stroller when she's home without friends, of course).  Leah's not used to someone holding their own with her and not giving in to her commands so all she could think to say to Emily was "I'm still taller though" and lifted her chin up on top of Emily's head (as they were walking laps with the doll stroller) to measure how much taller she was than Emily!  It was hilarious!

 

Leah also kept begging Emily to sit in her lap to go down the water slide.  Emily, being the big girl that she is, kept telling her no!  She finally agreed to sit in Leah's lap one time just to get her to stop asking!



Movie Night With Mommy

Last Friday night, Luke had an overnight in Fresno so that left just me and the kiddos here at home.  Once Lane went to bed, Leah and I had movie night and watched Barbie Pegasus (her choice of course)!  Daddy and Leah have movie night quite often when I'm out and about, but tonight was the first time that Leah and I had a movie night with just us girls!

I popped our popcorn in the Whirley Popper and then we were off to Mommy and Daddy's room to get the movie started!

One very fun thing we do when Luke is out of town.....we have slumber parties in Mommy's bed!  Lane joined us around midnight!

Somebody was getting very very sleepy and fell asleep mid-movie!

 

Lane made up for not getting to spend one-on-one time with Mommy Friday night by waking up and wanting to start his Saturday at 4:45 AM.....I repeat 4:45 AM!  He and I were in the living room playing at 4:45 AM, I repeat 4:45 AM.  Thank the Lord he went down for a nap at 7 am.  And lucky for this Mama, his Sister was up ready to start her day at 7:30!  It was a very long day for this very tired mama!  I crashed when Luke walked in the door at 4:00 that afternoon!  He was a sweetheart and took over all parental duties and let me relax for a bit!  He's the best!

 

I texted Luke these pictures of my early morning playdate at 5:21 AM!  Laney Bug was just as happy as could be!

Happy 35th Birthday Daddy

Yesterday was Luke's 35th birthday!  His morning started off with a breakfast date to Mike's Diner with his favorite girl!

The birthday boy spent his afternoon playing golf!  Leah, Lane and I needed to get ready for his party, so we asked him to go play golf!  He didn't mind this one bit!

 

One of my very favorite traditions that we do as a family is for each birthday (Mommy, Daddy, Aunt Kelley), we take Leah to the party store and just let her go nuts!  She gets to choose the theme of the party, which decorations to get, what goes in the goodie bags, etc.  No, we may not need the silly goodie bags or centerpieces when it's just the four of us celebrating, but she gets so very excited to do this, so both Luke and I look forward to taking her to the party store for each others birthdays!  Even Nana took her to the store to pick out decorations to her hearts content for my birthday when we were in Texas in March!  These are moments that she'll never ever forget!

 

For Luke's birthday this year, Leah chose "Jake and the Never Land Pirates"!  We always keep the theme of the party a surprise for the guest of honor until time for the party!  While at breakfast, Leah told her Daddy that she would give him some clues (even though he never asked for them).  She told him that it was "sandy"!

Leah was in charge of wrapping all of the presents!  I hid all of his cards that had come in the mail all week for the party including his card from Southwest and Starbucks (signs we either spend entirely too much money there or that we're getting old.....not sure which I like better)!

 

All ready for Daddy to come home!



 

The birthday boy finally came home so it was time to party!



 

Luke's birthday gift from me was a new Weber charcoal grill (who am I kidding.....this was his gift to himself, I just gave him the okay)!  He wanted to break it in tonight, so for his birthday dinner he chose to grill out ribeyes and asparagus.  He also wanted to have cheesy hashbrowns and mushrooms!  Everything was delicious!

 

Time for cake!  Luke's cake request.....my chocolate chip pound cake!

 

The celebration ended with presents!  Leah said that she wanted to get her Daddy clothes for his birthday so I took her to Mens Wearhouse and let her pick out exactly what she wanted him to wear!  She chose two silky Hawaiian shirts and two ties.....two pink ties of course!  She had so much fun shopping for her Daddy!

 

One final memory from the evening.....we decided we all needed pirate names as we were celebrating with a pirate party after all!  Leah was in charge of naming each of us!

 

Mommy - Captain Laundry

Daddy - Captain Lightbulb Changer

Lane - Captain Cheese Puff Thrower

Leah - Captain I Want Daddy To Open Presents

 

Happy Birthday Daddy!  We love you so very much and had so much fun celebrating YOU today!  Here's to the next 35!