Beach Day at School

Surf's up, dude! Today is Beach Day at Natalie's school, despite the fact that it's March in New Jersey -- 50 degrees and rainy today.

Pajama Day at School

Night night!

It's A Girl!

We found out on Friday afternoon that we are having another girl! We are all so excited. Natalie is especially thrilled since she has been insisting that she does NOT want a brother. There is not much we will need to buy (if anything at all) since we have tons of girl stuff already, but the Big Sister/Little Sister shirts are a must-have, in my opinion!

I have a c-section already scheduled for June 30. However, that's 39 weeks 1 day, and I didn't make it that far with Natalie...so who knows when she'll decide she's ready to come. We can't wait to meet Julia Kathryn!

Happy Birthday, Natalie!

Natalie's had quite a birthday weekend! She took cookies to share with her class at school on Thursday, had a birthday party on Friday afternoon, and celebrated with Mommy and Daddy on Saturday (her actual birthday). Here are a few pictures of the action.

Maybe one of Natalie's favorite parts of her party was handing out the goodie bags that she made for her friends.
Natalie and Peter show off their best cheesy smiles :)
Paige and Juliette giving hugs
The treats I made -- brownie bottom ice cream cupcakes. Some of them were prettier than others, and of course Natalie wanted nothing to do with them, but they were a hit with the other kids!
Getting ready to blow out the candles! There is our youngest guest in the background -- Addy, only 5 days old!
Sean and Jenna chowing down
Molly giving the birthday girl a goodbye hug
We woke up the next morning and Natalie wasted no time tearing in to her presents.
LOTS of presents!
Brad and I surprised her by taking her to Build-A-Bear on her birthday. She had never done it before and LOVED it! We may never be able to walk past it in the mall again without her begging to go.
She immediately latched on to a pink bear and would hear nothing of any other suggestions Brad or I made. She loved stepping on the pedal to make the "fluffy" go in the bear, and putting the heart in.


Giving her new friend a brush and air fluff.
After we were finished, "Cotton Candy" got a house and was ready to go home!
After we finished at Build-A-Bear, we took the birthday girl out to dinner, and of course, Cotton Candy had to join us.
Happy 3rd birthday to our sweet girl! We love you!

Out With The Old...

And in with the new! Natalie's big girl bed was delivered yesterday, and she wasted no time declaring that she is no longer a baby and that she wants her crib to go away. Although the crib is still in her room...
...her big girl bed is there too!
She was just a little excited about it :)
We weren't sure if we were going to put her in it on the first night. You know...she's our only child (for now), so it's hard to let go of babyhood! However, she absolutely would not have allowed us to put her in her crib when that big girl bed was ready to go. So we tucked her in and hoped for the best. And she did great! Went right to sleep and slept until her normal wake up time in the morning. Sweet dreams!

Happy Birthday, Brad!

We celebrated Brad's birthday this weekend. He chose a meal for me to cook and I made him a cake. He bought a large item a couple weeks ago as his birthday gift, so there were no presents to tear in to. That confused Natalie a little...what's a birthday party without presents?!

If any of you are loyal watchers of The Office on NBC, then you may remember this scene. It is one of our favorites and cracks us up no matter how many times we watch it!:

So imagine the look on Brad's face when he got home from work on Friday and saw this hanging in the kitchen.

Mmm...

Ice Ice Baby

What a surprise...we had another winter storm last night! This time though, it was ice, not snow. We have this 2-foot long icicle on the back of our house. Yikes!