St. Patrick's Day

We spent St. Patrick's Day in Madison at Jenn and Pat's. Pat's siblings and families came over for the evening and we had a house full of basketball, green, and corned beef and cabbage. Lots of fun!

Guys on the couch

The kids decided these storage cubes were great toys.

More shower weekend pics

Some additional pictures from the rest of the shower weekend...

Thomas and Annie took great delight in running circles around the house wearing fancy hats. Nonstop.

Thomas liked playing with Annie and second cousin Lucinda, but for some reason he seemed to relish piling on Lauren. He'd give her a hug and kiss and then hang on her until she fell over, turning the hug into a tackle. She was not a fan of Thomas on this trip.

Friday night we assembled Alli and Micah's wedding invitations. Assembly-line style, they didn't take very long, and they turned out beautifully!

Lucinda and Annie model Alice's bridal veil and her first communion veil. This was definitely a weekend of headpieces!

Speaking of headpieces, whether it was a little pink derby hat or this larger straw hat, Thomas spent most of the weekend with his head covered too. This picture cracks me up.

We also celebrated some spring birthdays while everyone was together. I love this--Mary Beth made Thomas a "Super T" cape. It's so cute!

For her birthday, Annie got a flower girl dress from Alli, which she's modeling here, and an American Girl doll from Grandma and Grandpa. She was a happy girl.

The requisite belly shot; Mary Beth is 27 weeks and I'm 17. She's having a little boy; we're remaining on the "green" team and not finding out the sex until the baby's born. Our next group belly shot will be in our bridesmaid dresses in May (Thank you, Alli, for picking slimming black dresses!).

Alli's bridal shower

We recently traveled to Cincinnati for my sister-in-law Alli's bridal shower. Most of the Ruble and Demko clans descended on Mickey and Mary Ann's house for the weekend. In addition to the bridal shower itself, the Siscos hosted about 17 people for dinner, twice! It was a jam-packed weekend, full of preparation, food, and fun! We had a great time and can't wait for Alli's wedding in May.

Alli models her mom's veil. After careful consideration, she decided not to wear it for her own wedding.

Alli and the shower hostesses: me, Aunt Mary Ann, Mary Beth, and Aunt Peggy. We're all wearing hats because the shower was Kentucky-themed: derby hats, mint juleps, chocolate horse favors, Kentucky delicacies, and grass centerpieces (more on that debacle later).

Mary Beth planned a delicious brunch-y menu for us: quiche, strata, fruit salad, scones, muffins, cheesy potatoes...yum!

Check out all the presents!

The little girls decorated their derby hats before the shower. Notice Thomas, who did not stick around for the shower itself, crawling on a table while the girls all play so nicely. It's no wonder no one questioned the "girls and ladies only" shower policy!

Alli received an afghan made by Nana, Alice's mom.

The shower centerpieces were supposed to be "Kentucky bluegrass." However, the seeds didn't grow as fast as promised, so the aunts cleverly augmented the pots with blue daisies to "save" the centerpieces. And check out the chocolate horse favors frolicking on a merry-go-round base. They were delicious!

I included this photo to show everyone what the grass should have looked like on shower day. Oh well...

Videos

Happy Friday!
In honor of the second week of March Madness, check out Thomas' basketball skills!

And as an added bonus, here he is riding a horse.

The Cooks come to visit

Dustin, Kelly and Abbey came down from Chicago for a weekend visit recently. We hadn't seen Abbey since she was 8 weeks old...now she's 5 months and smiles constantly! After seeing the Cooks most weekends during the summer, we miss them in the winter, so we were glad they could visit. Thomas liked Abbey, except for when she tried to play with his toys. Abbey liked trying out all of his big-boy toys and chilling in the bumbo.

Holding hands

Giving Abbey a ride on Lightning

The Cook family

After the Cooks left, Thomas helped Daddy assemble his new table and chairs.

Swensons/Ellestads come to town

Mom, Dad, Jenn and Pat came to town to celebrate Thomas' birthday--we packed a lot of fun into a quick weekend!Family pose with Lightning cake #2. I am so done with frosting for quite a while...

Pat shows T how it's done: face first in the cake.

Ed gets in the action too. If you look closely, you can see T squished between the two guys. He's busy chewing his first faceful of cake, almost ready to go in for bite #2.

Jenn and Pat got Thomas a drum/music set for his birthday. Lots of fun! He bangs the drum very enthusiastically and a little wildly, but it's so cute with the drum hanging around his neck!

Thomas checks out his new laptop with Boppa.

Playing in the tunnel with Boppa. Unfortuntely, not long after this photo was taken, there was a tipping incident inside the tunnel and Dad ended up bloody, in need of a forehead band-aid.

Thomas squishes his nose against the top of the drum.

Pat and Ed spent our time in the park sitting on very small seats and playing with Ed's Iphone.

Thomas has something to say...

We're expecting baby #2 sometime around August 24th!