Have you noticed my lack of blogging motivation?

Yeah, it's really been for a while now. It started out that I just didn't have much to blog about. We weren't going anywhere or doing anything interesting. And then, I found out I was pregnant and any other blogging motivation that might have been hiding deep inside of me became non-existent.

This go around I have been really tired. I think that might have a lot to do with the fact I have two other kids I have to look out for now. When I was pregnant with Lana I could nap whenever I wanted. When I was pregnant with Tanner I could nap when Lana napped. Now that I'm pregnant with #3, Tanner naps intermittently and Lana can only handle quiet time for so long so I'm lucky if I can squeeze in any mommy time that doesn't require me locking myself in the bathroom.

We talk to the kids about the new baby every day, especially Tanner so we can try and get him acclimated. The other day I asked Tanner where the baby was and he poked me in the tummy and yelled, "Hey baby! Come out already! Come out!" The kid cracks me up on a regular basis.

As I mention in Lana's birthday post, we tried to time it so we wouldn't have another holiday baby. My estimated due date this go around is January 30th so hopefully the kid won't think of coming 4 weeks early and we'll be fine. Since we already have a girl and a boy we're not really picky about what this one is but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I think it's a girl. The pregnancy has been very reminiscent of Lana's so that's the only reason but we'll find out for sure in about 9 weeks.

Feel free to guess the gender, name and actual birthday. With Tanner, Paul's boss actually guessed the name and his birthday. It was impressive!

Happy Birthday my sweet Lana!

I think I am in denial that my little girl has turned 5. More especially, that she will start Kindergarten this year. (Big sigh.) Anyway, due to the fact that Lana's birthday is right around the 4th of July we are usually out of town for it. (One of the many hazards of having children around the holidays and one that I will try to avoid in the future since Tanner's birthday is around Thanksgiving...) This year we were on the road up to Nashville to see one of our nieces baptized and another niece blessed. I tried to make the morning as special as possible but we also had promised her a friend party for the big #5 birthday which we scheduled the following Saturday. I have heard nothing but things about her Gatti Town birthday party since we told her about it. In hinds sight I wish we'd kept it a surprise because it was driving me crazy! Some of her conversations went like this:

"Hey mom, when I have my party at Gatti Town is it going to be all Tinkerbell?"

"Hey mom, when we go to Gatti Town, will I get to play all the games?"

"Hey mom, when we go to Gatti town can we invite (insert a billion names here)"

"Hey mom, how many more days until my Gatti Town party?"

"Hey mom, when we wake up will it be my Gatti Town party day?"

Yeah, it's not like I had much to stress about since it was all taken care of by the restaurant but I'm still glad it's done. Now the question is "Hey mom, can we go back to Gatti Town tomorrow so I can get more prizes?" Uh, no. Not for a long time.

I don't know if I would ever do a birthday party at my house. This was just so stress free. I didn't have to worry about cleaning up before or after or entertaining the kids.

Homemade strawberry cupcakes were Lana's birthday cake of choice. (Good choice Lana!)

The birthday girl!

The birthday girl pretending to be grouchy.

We had our own little party helper from Gatti town who played games with the kids, did face painting, and took care of everything else. This is the kids playing the balloon game, not many of the girls were willing to pop the balloon.

Playing "Red light, Green light". I was impressed at how good Tanner was at this game, he even understood that yellow light meant go really slow!

More games.

Tanner anxiously waiting for a cupcake.

Funny story: So the Gatti town helpers come in and sing their own up beat version of the Happy Birthday song. Apparently Lana thought it was wayyy tooo long because she blew out her candles in the middle of the song, so one of the helpers had to come back and light the candles so she could do it again. It was hilarious!

Everyone enjoying the cake. Afterwards we herded the kids out to the games area and set them loose, I think my kids had more fun putting the tickets in the ticket maching than playing any of the games. A big thanks to everyone that came and made Lana feel so special. She really had a great time! Happy Birthday Lana! We love you!