Long overdue- A video post!

What's new with Lauren? Her language has totally taken off.

Yesterday, she counted from 1-10 perfectly without a word of help from Chad or I. We both heard her and nearly fell off our stools!! Of course, I grabbed the video camera and the above video is the result of that second attempt. Not as good as the first, but that's okay.

Well, anytime she falls, she giggles and says "Booby trap!". We have her daycare provider, Christa, to thank for that :)

After Culvers frozen custard tonight, Lauren exclaimed "Me happy!". Then she proceeded to dance in the booth and sing "La la la, Elmo's World, la la la, Elmo's World!"

When you ask her what's in her tummy, she says "A baby boy". I have no idea where this came from!

Anytime you try to help her with something, she responds with "No, me do dat." She's become little miss independent!

We taught Lauren what green and red stop lights mean. Now she tells you at least a block away what color the light is and she's either yell "Stop!!!" or "Go baby go!!!". Just what we need- a backseat driver who's only 2!!!

We had Lauren's friend Sophie come over to play today and when Rachel Sophie's mommy knocked on our door to drop off Sophie, Lauren yelled "My friend! My friend!"

I'm sure there's more but that's all I can think of right now :) Have a good rest of your weekend!

Love,

M & L

Accepted Offer!

Yay! Today we reached an agreement on the sale of our house with a scheduled closing date of April 9th!!! The buyers would like us to rent back from them through the end of May, which works out well for us anyways. I'm glad we don't have to hurry and move out right away. It'll be sad to leave but as Chad reassured me....it's time for bigger and better things :)

We plan to build our next home which is why we're okay with renting back from the buyers for awhile. We've picked a lot that we really like in a subdivision about 25 minutes northeast of where we live now. The lot is a corner lot on a cul-de-sac and it's directly across from a large neighborhood playground. I'm SO excited about it!! I'll let you know how things progress. I'm guessing we may put an offer in on the lot soon (contingent on the successful closing of our current house).

G'night!
M & L

Happy Belated Valentine's Day!

I took this photo this week when I let Lauren have her first taste of candy hearts. Too fun :) The following pictures are all from Lauren's 2nd birthday photo session.I took her there by myself and she started crying hysterically as soon as they called her name for us to come be photographed. This was the same reaction she has every time we go to the pediatrician. Luckily, the photographer was able to distract her and get her smiling in no time. Still, I can tell that she had been crying by looking at some of the pictures. Oh well.

We are looking forward to Sophie's first birthday party this weekend. Lauren picked out her present....nobody will be surprised when they see it!!!! Also, BIG Dinner Club news came early this week. Another baby will be joining our Dinner Club family in September to the proud parents Derek and Sara. We're so happy for them! That brings the Dinner Club up to six couples and six kids. It just may be time to start hiring babysitters when we go out to dinner. Either that, or we're in for a future of Chuck-E-Cheese and Stonefire Pizza!

Have a good weekend!

Love,

M & L

Teaser...

New pics coming this week, I promise. Sorry it's been awhile. Hopefully these three can hold you over while you wait :)Have a good night!
Love,
M & L

Belated birthday party pics :)

Sorry this has taken me so long. We've been busy and we got hit with a major stomach flu bug that kept all of us home from work/daycare. We're feeling better now and it's time I updated the blog! For Lauren's birthday, both sets of Grandparents came to celebrate. Mimi and Boppa Steighner had to leave early Saturday morning to return to Indianapolis for the Colts' playoff game. Meanwhile, we spent the morning at a nearby indoor waterpark (Country Springs Hotel). Lauren had a ton of fun running around with Mommy, Daddy, Boppa Lucas and her friend Cade from daycare. Mimi Lucas took some cute pictures for us. That's my dad (Boppa Lucas) up there. He's squirting poor innocent children with a giant water gun as they walk by unsuspecting.Following our morning at the waterpark, we had the dinner club over for a party that night. I'm not sure what Lauren loved more....her Elmo's World cake or having her three dinner club baby friends over to play :)Reading her new book with Jackie.
Need I say more about the theme of the party?
Jason and Jackie's son, Braeden. He and Lauren played together for awhile that night and read lots of Elmo books. She also shared all of her Sesame Street stuffed animals with him. I think she's trying to turn him into a groupie too.

Lauren loves babies. Here she was enjoying a conversation with Tyler.

The following pictures are from our attempt to get a picture of the four dinner club babies. We had lots of laughs trying to get all of them to look at the camera at once!

Girls will be girls. "Chatting" when they are supposed to be paying attention!
(L-R: Braeden, Tyler, Sophie, Lauren)

Lauren's friend Sophie (also from the dinner club) came over for their first sleepover last Saturday night. Love the matching jammies....and the almost matching outfit the next day. The girls had a blast playing together. It's so fun to see their friendship begin.Story time before bed.

Sophie loves Westin almost as much as Lauren does. We had to watch them closely because Sophie kept trying to offer her hands to Westin, who was VERY happy to oblige and "clean" them.

Again, making sure her friends know all about Elmo.

Have a good night!

Love,

M & L

What do you get...

when you take an Elmo-obsessed child and celebrate her 2nd birthday???Yep! 8, count them, 8 of the exact same card!!! Plus a giant Elmo card AND a card that has Elmo talking to her. So funny :) This'll be one of my favorite birthday memories for years to come :)

I'll post pictures from her birthday party soon and also pictures from her very first sleepover (her friend Sophie slept over at our house last night). Right now, we've got the flu in our house tonight and I need to get to sleep early so I can hopefully sleep off the bug that I think I got from Chad. Yuck. G'night.

~M

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

We had a wonderful birthday celebration for Lauren. We spent yesterday morning at a local indoor waterpark and then had friends over for cake last night. I'll share those pictures very soon. I can't believe Lauren is two years old now!!! Time has just flown by. I made her a very special book for her birthday. I wanted to share it with my blog readers (unless you saw it on my Facebook page already...). Just click on the link above if you'd like to check it out. It was so fun to make!

For New Year's Eve, we enjoyed our annual Dinner Club NYE get-together at Molle's house. Last year, Lauren was the only little one in the Dinner Club. This year at the New Year's party, there were FOUR little ones and another on the way :) Busy year, huh?

Story time for Sophie and Lauren before bedtime on New Year's Eve at Jason and Jackie's house.Playing Tim's video game drum set. (Sorry Tim, I have no idea what game this is for. Rock Band, maybe?)The above three pictures are of Rob and Carla's adorable son, Tyler. He's fun to photograph :)
Playing basketball with Daddy at the Big Backyard (indoor playground).

(Holly and "Big" Matt, this one's for you!)

Not sure how she climbed in here by herself. I don't think I want to know.

Have a good start to your week. I'll try to add more pictures soon :)

Love,

M & L