Libbys 1st of 3 birthday parties

Yes I know what you are thinking... 3 birthday parties? But first of all let me explain that my child was born on December 23rd so its very hard to just have one party and everyone be able to come. We usually try to do one big party but with me having so much family out of town and the holidays right around the corner we just decided that we couldn't do that this year. So we settled on having 3 smaller parties :)

The first one was with Jimmys family who all live about 3 miles away from us. We had everyone over on Sunday dec. 18th for Taco soup and Libby was SO excited!!

I made her a cake (which you can see in the pictures that I definitely did not inherit my dads cake gene).

She loved opening presents and she was so grateful for each thing she got!! Every time she would open something she would say "Oh thats just what I wanted!!!"

Jimmys family was SO good to her and she got a lot of good stuff!! It was a great way to kick off her Birthday Festivities!!

The best Christmas present ever!!!

Three years ago tonight at 8:00 pm Jimmy and I welcomed our precious little girl into the world. Libby was a stubborn thing and didn't want to come out so we had to do a c-section after about 24 hours of labor. She was a big girl weighing in at 8 lbs 4oz and 21 in long. She was SO sweet right off the bat and for the most part was a really good baby.

Since that night she has blessed our lives and our families lives SO much. She is so kind hearted but definitely knows what she wants and when she wants it. She is very social smart and can figure pretty much anything out. She loves movies of all kinds but her favorites are Veggie Tales and Shrek right now. Her biggest fault however is night time... it is quit a struggle at our house because Libby never gets tired!! I always enjoy hearing what her newest reason for not wanting to stay in bed is. So far I have gotten the typical I'm thirsty and hungry and I have gotten the not so typical my teeth hurt? haha.

This has been the best and quickest 3 years of my life and I cannot wait to see what this year has in store for us, I have a feeling it is going to be a BIG year :)

Libby, I love you more than words can describe and I feel so blessed that God chose me to be your mommy. You are so sweet and loving and I can see that you just have a heart that melts for people and that you already have such a love for God. Happy birthday sweet heart you will forever be my BEST Christmas present ever!!

Christmas time with a 3 year old...

Libby is loving Christmas time this year!!! She has her own pink tree in her room that she got to decorate and every time we go to the store we have to get something new to put on it. She got bored with putting our tree up, but loved putting all the ornaments on it. She liked to hold up all the special ornaments and me telling her the story of how we got them or who made them... etc.

She definitely gets the whole Santa thing this year. Every time we are in the store and she wants something I always say "what do you need to do" and she always says "ask santa clause!!" haha its actually kind of nice!!! She has seen him 2 times and both times walked right up and sat on his lap and was SO excited about it!!

Last year we had an elf on the shelf come visit us and this year he came back. At first his name was miss piggy but then libby told me he changed it to strawberry cake!! So strawberry cake hides in a new place every morning and Libby has had so much fun finding him as soon as she wakes up. Her favorite candy is mints and so last week she found our elf hiding in the mint jar and she just thought that was the funniest thing ever!

We have been so busy that we just got started on our holiday crafts today. We painted a Christmas tree picture and did a Christmas hand wreath, which turned out SO cute!! She loves any kind of arts and crafts and I cannot wait to do a ginger bread house with her. We went tonight and bought a bunch of stuff to make cookies and other holiday treats so that will be tomorrow night.

She has really gotten into the holiday movies to. She loves the Grinch but her favorite one is the Santa Clause, with Tim Allen which mommy and daddy just happen to love to. I tried to watch the Polar Express with her the other night because neither one of us had ever seen it but I think it was a little to scary because she made me turn it off after 10 minutes haha.

There should be MANY more posts to come in the next couple weeks because Libby's birthday is just around the corner which involves 2 birthday parties and then whatever we decide to do on her actual birthday. And then 2 days later we will have all of our Christmas fun :) I love my baby girl and all the many memories we are creating together!!

It's a girl :)

So we found out on November 17th that Jimmy and I are going to welcome another sweet baby girl into the world on April 11th. I was So excited to find out and the fact that everyone felt like it was boy kind of made me have that feeling to. We walked into the room and the ultrasound tech went straight to find out what it is!! She looked at me and said "Well, did you keep all of Libbys clothes?" And I said "Yes... is it a girl?" and she said " yes it is"!! Libby just lit up with excitement. She wanted a sister So bad!! We have had the name Marlee picked out since I found out I was pregnant. My grandpas name (my moms dad) was Marlon and I was very close to him when he passed away 5 years ago. I was playing around with family names and then it just hit me to name her Marlee :) Her middle name, Lynn, is jimmy's mom and sisters middle name so that was something I had planned all along. It is So much fun to start getting her room ready and to pick out bedding (monkeys) and to start buying clothes. Libby finds all kinds of stuff in the store to buy Marlee (which gets us in trouble with daddy).

My belly is getting bigger and bigger everyday!! Marlee moves like CRAZY and I love it!! feeling her move is such a blessing from God. We have less than 4 months to go which is so crazy to me. I am so excited and cannot wait to have 2 sweet baby girls!!

Our sweet Sophia....

On October 27th EARLY in the morning my cousin and her husband welcomed their sweet baby girl Sophia Lowe Cassetty into the world. My cousin and I are very close so i felt like I was getting a niece. Sophia was very stubborn in getting here so when she finally decided to make her appearance we couldn't contain ourselves!! She is so perfect in every way and it has been so funny to watch libby with her baby cousin. I think in Libby's mind she feels like she is 10. She thinks she

hold Sophie and pick her up just like anyone else, so we have to keep a close eye on her. She loves Sophie so much though. She loves to give her her bottle and she HATES when she is fussy, it makes her so sad. It just shows me that when Marlee gets here she is going to be such a good big sister!! Before Ashley had her baby I had matching cousin t- shirts made for the girls, don't they look SO cute :) Well I can't wait to watch Sophie grow up and be apart of her life, she is such a sweet girl already and such a blessing :)

Nana and Pop Pop zoo time :)

So of course one of the most important things to do in Louisville around Halloween is go to the Louisville zoo. They do a big Halloween party and we have taken Libby every year and its always So much fun, but of course this year she really liked it!! She was Strawberry shortcake and my mother in law and I made her costumes by ourselves this year and it could not have been any cuter!! She loved getting dressed up and loved getting candy even more!! At each station she wanted them to put the candy in her hand and not in her bag so that she could see what she got! haha. One of the biggest differences I noticed in her this year was how excited she was to see the dressed up characters. She couldn't wait to get her picture taken with the princesses, Toy Story gang, and Shrek!! She loved the zoo and of course by the time we got home she had almost eaten all her candy she got that night. haha, its okay Halloween is only one time a year :

Some much needed daddy time!!

So Jimmy has worked for UPS for the past 5 years and to say that they are good to him would be an understatement. He gets about 4 weeks of vacation a year and with his job change and everything he hadn't really taken that much of his time. So when he found out he had 6 days left he took every Tuesday off for the last 6 weeks!! So if you combine that with my schedule all three off us were off together ALL day on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday for 6 weeks!!!

We took full advantage of this because we know that the days of just the 3 of us are few and far between!! So the first thing we went and did was a good ole trip to Hubers farm. Libby has never been there and we were So excited to take her!! She had so much fun playing on the swing set and feeding the fish!! But of course what she loved the most was picking a pumpkin. She looked so close at every pumpkin and of course it had to be HER choice!! She picked a good one though :)

So the next place we were off to was the Louisville Science Center. Libby had also never been here, so we were very excited to take her. The featured exhibit right now is about colors and they had it where they could paint by themselves, which is right up libbys ally!!! She had a lot of fun in the kids place to, playing with the water, and by the looks of these pictures you can tell that daddy had just as much fun if not more than Libby!! haha. We ended the trip that day with going to gattiland, also a Libby first. She also loved that and we got a bunch of tickets that got her a volleyball and a couple bracelets!!