Home Sweet Home

Finally, we have bought a house. We found it Wednesday and bought it Friday. Of course, we have lots of waiting to do until we can actually move in, but we should be in no later than July 1, if not a week or two sooner. Here are some pictures of the house, but that furniture is not ours - the people still live there. In order, they are Ellie's room, 2 outside pictures (and the toys stay), out front, living room, dining room, kitchen, and our bedroom. We don't have pictures of Ava's room, the girls' bathroom, or the office...but I'm sure we'll post more when we actually move in.

Ellie's reaction

My friend was asking about Ellie's reaction to the baby and what she thinks about the whole situation, so I thought I would post some of the cute things she has said.

~"I want Ava Claire come out right now, Mommy!"

~"It's not Elmo anymore, it's Ava Claire." (she said if it was a boy, his name was going to be Elmo)

~"I want you have baby too, Daddy!"

~We were shopping and we saw a tiny baby girl. I explained that Ava would look like that when she gets here. Ellie asked where here Mommy was and I pointed and said her Mommy was pushing the cart. She said, "No, where's Ava Claire's Mommy?" I explained that I was her Mommy and that she was going to share me with Ava. Later, she was retelling the story to some college students and she was very clear in telling them that I was Ava's Mommy, too!

~Ellie loves to hug my belly and she's starting to talk to the baby.

Needless to say, she's just about as excited as we are! I don't think she always understands things, but she's learning how to ask good questions about what she doesn't know or understand and she's figuring things out. She loves to be around other kids and is such a good helper with the little girl I babysit right now, so I think she'll be an amazing big sister!

It's a...

GIRL! Things look good and she is healthy and ACTIVE!!! I'll post more pictures soon.

Funny Phrases

Ellie is trying so hard to use complete sentences and is really doing a great job, but she comes up with some funny stuff sometimes. Here are a few of her latest phrases...

~What's that Daddy's got in his right hand?

~Are you like that? (instead of "do" you like that)

~Sometimes, I go Nonee's house.

~(When we ask if she needs to go potty...) "Well, I might pee-pee in my panties."

~When we ask what's in Mommy's belly, she says "Baby"...when we ask what's in Daddy's, she says, "FAT!" When we ask what's in her belly, she says, "Not baby, not fat."

~And last but not least, this is one of my favorites... We were eating downtown with our friend Jamie and we could see people walking during their lunch breaks outside. She noticed some women walking and asked what they were doing, then someone else walked by, then a guy was running for exercise and had his sunglasses and headphones, shoes and shorts...but no shirt and Ellie yelled, "Him NAKED, Mom!"

Hugs

Ellie is going to be such a good big sister! She's always so sweet and she has been giving the baby hugs lately, along with dolls, books, and toys. Since I babysit a 7 month old, she's pretty good at knowing what babies can have and what they can't, so it's cute to see her bring my belly a baby-safe toy!

Pictures Galore

Cade with his "Gran-Gran" and "Dan-Dan" ,
















Issie, Ellie, and Dizzy,

and last but not least, Baby Cade in his Easter outfit.

Easter pictures

We spent Saturday with Jeff's family and Sunday with mine.

Easter Eggs

Ellie had a blast tonight coloring Easter eggs...but she said, "I coloring my Easter bunny stuff". After she used all of the characters, she wanted more. When we told her that was all of them, she said, "That's fine. We get more at Wal-Mart."

Good news!

From what I understand, Lista and Tishie actually both just got good news! They both still have a long road ahead of them, but it's the first time since either of them got sick that there was much hope. Tishie's counts have been either too high or too low, so she hasn't qualified for a stem cell transplant, but they started a new medicine and it is actually chemo and it's working, so we're hoping maybe she can have the transplant this summer sometime. The other medicine they started her on didn't work. Lista didn't have much hope at all because they hadn't found treatment that worked on anybody. They just found someone with another kind of sarcoma and used an experimental drug that killed all of the tumors, so they are going to try that on Lista in 3 weeks! Pretty exciting! Thanks for your prayers!!! (keep it up)