Welcome Baby Ella

Luella Joyce
April 10
7:30am
7 lbs 9 oz
20.5 inches

She's 4 weeks old today and she's definitely not that little anymore...Growing like a weed.  Speaking of weeds, do we have the catnip at our house!  Luella enjoys being outside, but she likes to be with me, not up on the deck out of the wind.:)  She gets mad if we leave her in the house by herself for long.  Even if she is sleeping hard when we go out, she knows when we leave her inside by herself.  Everyone else enjoys being outside too.  The forecast for this past week was for rain, but we've been able to get outside everyday.  We're in the process of demolishing our yard right now.  We're ripping out bushes and the old privacy fence to put in a new fence that will contain the children.  We have big plans for flower bed, gardens, and berries.  It's amazing what you can do with such a small amount of property.;)
Luella is a "good baby".  I'm not sure why everyone asks that, but she is.  She cries when she's hungry or poopy and loves to be bounced and sang to by her siblings.  It's fun having a little baby again.  We all love snuggling with her, especially Mommy.  I'm very sleep deprived, but I don't have those awful aches and pains of pregnancy anymore.  It's amazing to be able to play on the floor with the kids for a while and be able to get up again.:)
Jeremiah loves being called a big brother.  He's a big helper when he wants to be.  He always puts the dirty diapers in the garbage for me, but he also almost always takes something else out.  He still has a terrible habit of putting everything in his mouth (except healthy new foods) like rocks, dirt, Kleenex, chalk, crayons, play dough...  He's a ham and loves to make me laugh.  He is also growing like a weed.  I just went through his drawers and got the next size of Johnny's old clothes out for him.  He's so excited to show me that he's wearing something new, especially the Cars clothes.:)
Lu Lu loves to play pretend.  Her new game now is playing "Anna and Elsa" from the movie Frozen.  She is Anna and her pretend sister is Elsa.  I think she'll like it when Ella is big enough to play with her.  She loves to color and make pictures for everyone.
Johnny is growing up too fast.  He's been learning is letters and numbers and is definitely ready to start school in the fall.  He and Lu have really stepped up to help me since Ella was born.  John is very helpful with Jeremiah.  Since we don't have that fence up yet, John does a lot of chasing after Jerry for me to keep him corralled in the yard.  He loves playing ball sports.  He tends to get into trouble if I don't keep him busy with something - planned games, activities, or just chores to help me out.  He loves helping me.

Alright, I better get some pictures posted, so I can get something else done today...

Pictures are a little out of order since they are from 3 different cameras.  Hope you enjoy.
Ella's baptism is on May 17th at 5:30 mass.  All friends and family are invited.  I'm not sending out invites, so consider yourself invited:).
Okay, better get back to getting something done:)

March-April new pictures

Here's some more pictures.  Maybe now I'll be up to date before the baby comes on Thursday.:)
After supper entertainment...

Yes, he's upsidedown

Johnny's hurt finger.  He pinched it in Lu's bedroom door.  It was pretty nasty.  Josh came home from work to take him to the doctor.  They sterry stripped it up and it healed really well.

Last time in the crib

Escaping from the crib.  We moved the crib into our bedroom for the new baby and Jerry is sleeping with John in the fullsized bed in the boys room.  They are pretty cute in there together.

My three cuties

 Weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's Farm
When we pulled into the driveway, Jerry was saying, "Granpa, Granpa."  Lu Lu said, "Where's the mud?"  We finally found some puddles down by the truck garage by accident before I had the camera here.  John and Lu really loved it.  Johnny especially got pretty dirty.:)

Seeing the new baby calves

Playing with the baby kitties

 As you could see in the last pictures, we had no snow and it was completely dry.  Then, a day early for April Fools we got a big blizzard with 14.5 inches of snow.  There was a lot of snow out there.  The kids had fun, but they are happy that it's almost gone again.

The kiddos all climbed into the toy box and asked me to take a picture of them.

 Susanna's birthday
We spent the last weekend heading out to Jake and Ruth's for family fun and Susanna's birthday party.  We had a lot of fun.  Here's some pictures of the boys little and big playing outside.

 Sunday fishing trip.  Josh wanted to try his hand at some fishing in Valley.  He bought some minnows and we all went along.  We stopped at two different spots on the river, but he didn't catch anything.  We had a lot of fun anyway.  It was such a beautiful day!

Torturing Minnows

Here comes a train.  We tried to pose for it, but the minnows and actually seeing the train go by was much more interesting than taking a cool pic.:)  The train engineer honked at us...Pretty cool.

Jerry finally got to play in the water.  He was playing with Grandma and looking at the cows when me and John and Lu had discovered the puddles at the farm.

Well.  I think we're pretty much ready for the baby to come now.  Just waiting for the big day.  Lu Lu is convinced it's a girl and Josh is pretty sure it's a boy.  I guess we'll find out who's right in a couple of days.