just updating

I was really surprised when I saw the date on my last post.  then I thought "should I be surprised?"  so for those of you who have faithfully checked in on our little family I have some updates.

we finally got our family pictures done and we even used Fiona's idea (see previous post)
Halloween was fun and everyone was pleased with their costumes:

unicorn, viking, ladybug and Frankenstein's monster

red riding hood

and we've celebrated two birthdays:

Ian turned 7.  He had a really fun 'drive-in movie' party with his friends.  We borrowed a projector, popped popcorn, had licorice and soda and sat in our own little cardboard box cars.  Unfortunately, the day we planned for the family to come over and celebrated the flu hit and we had to have a quiet little celebration with cake and ice cream a few days later.

the next week was Lydia's 3rd birthday.  and I guess we are starting a new birthday tradition of being sick on your day.  She loved her cake and by the end of the evening she finally felt better to enjoy some of it, too.

In the midst of all these fun celebrations we also discovered that we are expecting our 5th children.  Yes, I'm pregnant!   woohoo!  we are very happy and the kids are excited they have even picked out names.  Ian and Austin are both voting for Dragonslayer, Fiona and Lydia want a sister so they can name her Fluttershy, and Wesley likes Angus (I think he had just watched a hamburger commercial).  It's been a rough couple of weeks.  I've had morning sickness for the first time, and I'm not sure how much of it was the baby and how much was the flu that camped out at our house for over a week.  I've also felt exhausted and very, very unambitious.  Naps have been a daily event.  It seems to be passing now and the last couple of days I've been catching up on Christmas projects instead of sleeping during quiet time.  We are still quite a ways away from finding out the gender and I'm not due until the beginning of summer, but we will be finding out this time and I will let you all know how it goes.  Just keep your fingers crossed that the rest of the family will agree to a more normal name, I'm just not too sold on Dragonslayer.