So, life in the Sealy household is significantly better this week.  We made it through one of our trials from the last two weeks and it has been MUCH better here.  Still stress and such, but that's life, isn't it?  We have been busy with school, church, and other things.  I believe I mentioned in my last post about us not having our first snow yet.  I had "spoken" too soon.  Just a day or so later, we got that first snow.  It wasn't a lot - maybe 4 inches - and it is all gone now, but it was still snow!  The kids were SO excited when they woke up Sunday morning to it.  They wanted to go outside and "make a Frosty" but alas, to church we needed to go!  It was a very wet, heavy snow - but not enough to do much damage or cause many power outages like it did a few hours south of us.  We are thankful that we didn't lose power at all!

About two weeks ago we had a baby shower for a girl in our church who was pregnant with her third child.  We always laugh because she and I always seem to be pregnant at the same time.  Her first two are boys - the ages of Leila and Libby.  Well, they found out they were having a girl and we were all excited.  So we had a fun, girl-filled shower for her where she got all kinds of cute pink and purple stuff.  So much fun!  Our church really does love baby showers, and since they don't happen all that often (even though there were three of us preggo this year - I'm the last one left now!) they love to have one - even if it is your third or fourth child!  They already are talking about one for me in January, to which I keep telling them we don't really need to have one.  But they insist we have one!  So I guess maybe we will have a diaper and wipes shower!  Ha!

Anyways, we had the shower which was lots of fun.  Matt and I did all the planning, and my sweet, pastry chef wanna-be husband took charge of the cake.  We decided to go with cupcakes since there is much less waste than with a whole sheet cake.  He searched all kinds of ideas on the internet and decided to try his hand at fondant.  This was his first ever experience with decorating with fondant, and I was quite proud of how well he did.  (Just a side note, Lena, the mommy, is the pro cake decorator in our church who does wedding cakes and has done several of our b-day cakes for us.  So Matt had the "pressure" to do a good job on him! :-) )  He wanted the cupcakes to each have a baby sleeping under a blanket, and here is the final result:

I'm pretty proud of him and they were a big hit!  So I now willingly pass on the baking and decorating torch to him.  I don't have the patience to decorate stuff.  Just not my thing.


Well, Lena had her baby on Monday, October 31!  She didn't really want to have her on Halloween, but we just reminded her to just think of it as Reformation Day.  Anyways, Abigail Faith was born healthy and beautiful.  Matt and I went to see them today and she is just so sweet and precious!  I think she already has her Daddy's heart melting for her, as most baby girls do!

Seeing a sweet newborn just reminded me of how, in just about 12 weeks we will have another one of our own!  I still can't believe we are gonna have 4 kids, but I am so happy and getting really excited!  January 24th still seems like forever away, but I know it will be here before we know it and I will be even more busy looking after my sweet little ones.  We still need to decide on a name for her.  I was trying to convince Matt to use Faith as her middle name, but Lena and her hubby, Rob, obviously took that for little Abby, so we will think of something different.  But I think we have agreed on a first name.  I think.

So now our schedule looks pretty "normal" until we go to NH for a few days for Thanksgiving, then it is off into the Christmas season.  With all these fun things to look forward to, I know that the time will go by fast until January is here!

Speaking of the Christmas season, we have been attempting to snap some family pictures lately to use for our Christmas card.  We are not doing professional family photos until Baby "L" is here, so we just had Matt's dad snap some today.  Instead of telling you in great detail of how that went, let me just show you...

Matt was testing the camera, and the position.  Liam, is the sun bright at all?

Mommy concentrating really hard.  How dumb do I look here?!

Still testing.  Don't think we actually knew a pic was being taken for real.

Okay, lets start.  All kids, look at the ground.   Good.

Daddy, close your eyes and Leila, make Mommy almost fall over. Perfect.

Now, kids, look off to the side a bit.  Perfect.  Mommy, have a weird shadow on your shirt.  Great.

Cue Nana.  Stand WAY off to the side and distract all three kids with something cool.  Wonderful.

Now, Liam look at the ground and Mommy, adjust your sweater.  Love it.

Let's try a different background.  Libby, cry when Daddy holds you.  Great.

Now Libby, scream when Mommy takes away your pacifier.

Now I want Daddy to squint really weird, and Mommy adjust your hair.  Kids, look strange too. Perfect.

Now Leila, look really cute but Liam look grumpy.  And Libby's turn to look at the ground.

Now Leila, look fed up.  Superb.

 Leila, suddenly realize you have numbers on your shirt now that everyone else is looking.  Exactly.

Now it's Liam's turn to look fed up.  And Mommy and Daddy have stupid looks on your faces.  Great!

Okay, everyone look somewhat normal except Daddy.  You start to stand up during the picture.  Love it.

There's a reason we only do family pics once a year!  Guess we will have to try again in a day or two!

Until next time....