Penny's First Road Trip, Hanging out with Conners, Meeting Olivia, and Evanston FINALLY!

I was SO proud of myself for getting everything packed and loaded in the car so we could leave on time: 3am Saturday morning!!!  The boys slept some more in the car, and then we started a pretty good travel day of snacking, movies, books and toys.  We had a fun stop at a Chick fil a in Ohio for lunch and powered through the last few hours before arriving at the Conners!!!

We were SOOO happy to arrive for lots of reasons, but this sweet face was #1!  Miss Olivia May :)

Everyone was excited to hold her :)

Graham LOVED the "bay-bee" and holding her!

I put myself on baby-holding duty while all of the kids played together and Josh was able to finally relax after a ridiculous work schedule AND driving us part-way overnight all the way to Indy--everyone wins!  ;)

I suppose this is what life would look like if we had one more...  Good thing we aren't finding out!

There was some fun game playing!

More baby holding

And, Christmas cookie baking!

Katie was a brave woman, and she gave each of the kids a little mound of dough to "roll out" to then use a cookie cutter with.  It was pretty funny!

CHEESE!

All of the kids were asleep, and I happily continued my baby-holding duties :)

Right back at it in the morning!

This was the cutest!

We bribed the kids with present-opening and ice cream at lunch to get a nice picture :)

Caleb (3 1/2), Lexi (5), Graham (2 1/2), Paige (7 1/2), Jackson (6), Olivia (1 month)

So excited it was his turn :)

Ice cream faces!

Quite pleased with his own cone!

LOVE baby faces!

Pretty tree at Mom and Dad's!

 Vacation in Chicago officially commences: Lou Malanti's while wearing bacon pants :)

"M" is for Matthias!

boy oh boy!

An adorable baby boy is on his way

Let's shower the mommy to be with gifts before her big day!

Please join us for a baby shower in honor of Rachel Bashore! 

Aimee, Hallie and I put together a baby shower for Rachel as she prepares to welcome Baby Bashore #4 (Baby BOY Bashore #2!)  

Hallie made this A.MAZ.ING cake!  Isn't it too cute???  She is quite amazing!  So amazing in fact, that she has her own website: Hallie's Cakes  The cake is really yummy too!

It's a Boy!

"M" is for: Mail, Map, Matchbox Car, Milk, Mittens, Mom, Monkey, Monster 

"M" is for Motorcycles and Matthias!

Gift table, diaper wreath and Game #1: Guess if the baby is Rachel or Jake and how old she/he is!

Diaper Wreath--I have yet to attempt a whole diaper cake, but I have had a lot of fun making diaper wreaths!  All you need is a wreath form, diapers, clear rubber bands (Dollar Store), ribbon and any other embellishments you want to add.  I am a huge fan of the Target store brand of diapers because they have a design ON them already!  You can make it more girly by using pink and purple embellishments, or keep with the blue theme for a boy wreath.  You can use any size, but I used size 2 on this one, so it doesn't have to be dismantled right away :)  You open up a diaper and fold it back over the wreath and secure it in place with a rubber band.  The more you squish the diapers together, the better it will look!

Lemonade and personalized water bottles

Favors

"M" is for Microwave Popcorn!

Thanks for POPPIN' over to Rachel's baby shower!

Game #2: Put a paper plate on your head and draw a baby on it (while plate stays on your head) in 90 seconds or less!

It's like a bad version of Win, Lose or Draw!  LOL

Present time!

The hostesses and the Mama-to-Be!

Rachel and her adorable baby bump!

Rachel's mom came in last minute and was able to come to the shower--SO glad to see her there!!!

Matthias is scheduled to enter the world on Monday, November 4th--can't wait to meet him and snuggle his little guy-ness!  Rachel and I clicked as soon as we met, and I was THRILLED we were able to put this together and shower her with fun and love!

Memorial Day!

 We had the Yanceys over for a Memorial Day barbecue!  This was also our last chance to hang out all together since Joe leaves at the end of the week for a five-month deployment to Guantanamo!  We had a nice relaxing time to end the long weekend.  

We made brats, brat-burgers and macaroni and cheese cups with Ritz cracker crusts!  YUM!  

 Ben enjoyed a little bouncy seat action outside on the deck :)

Good Friends, New and Old!

We are some lucky people since we just took off for Evanston AGAIN! It hasn't been much more than a month since we left!  We are in town for my dad's retirement party, but we snuck in some visits with friends too!  The boys did SO WELL in the car!  We picked Jackson up from school on Wednesday and headed out.  We stopped for dinner and the boys slept most of the time after that.  We got into Evanston after driving for just under twelve hours--not too bad!

 Our first stop once we got to Mimi and Bampa's was meeting up with Kim and Baby Mia!  Jackson was super excited to meet Mia since he was too little to visit her in the hospital a month ago.  He wanted to hold her as much as possible :)  Graham didn't think too much of her, but he did enjoy the train table!  He was so cute standing there "playing" with the trains.

 Kim was amazing and helped keep an eye on Graham so I could snuggle HER baby! Such a good friend :)

 We headed back home to meet Josh and Larry at Herms for lunch--the first time Josh had had it since New Year's--it was a long time coming!  I escaped during naptime to get a manicure and pedicure--it was a lovely treat--and then we got to get ready for our date!  

We went out with Mom and Dad and Larry to celebrate Larry's and my birthdays--it was a really fun night and delicious food!

 On Friday we met up with the Buerstattes at Chick-fil-a!!!  We were SOOO excited to see them, play and catch up!  Kaitlyn, Jackson and Liam got to eat at a table all by themselves!

We got three out of the four in the picture...  

On the way home, we stopped at Barnes and Noble to spend a rainy afternoon playing at the train table, reading books, and drinking tea--Mimi was able to meet us there after work.  That night we FINALLY got some delicious Lou's pizza in our bellies :)

Spring Weekend!

These two little guys were MUCH prayed and waited for--I can't believe there are EIGHT of us Smiths and Yanceys :) :) :)  Graham did a great job eating and Ben did a great job snoozing! 

SWEETNESS!  We love getting to hang out with our newest friend :)

Tiny fist

Snuggles with Josh

Yesterday we took advantage of our beautiful spring weather and went for a hike in the Prince William Forest.  We took the train that leads to the waterfall.  Josh, Jackson and Pax did a little hopping around.

Checking out the water

LOVE :)

Daddy moves big stick

Josh posed Jackson on this rock and then went further down stream to take the picture

I made it one rock out with all of the boys for Josh to take a picture, and that was great.  Then Jackson and Josh found a little turtle they were looking at.  Jackson was super cute crouched down, so I got out the camera to take a picture...and I dropped the camera in the stream :(  New camera is headed this way later this week as an early birthday present from my parents, but that is where the photos of this outing end...