Happy 1st Birthday Emma!

Emma turns 1 today!!  We love this little girl so much...

She's a little spicy...very cuddly...a lover of kisses, food, her dad, stairs, and getting dirty ;)...a hater of getting clean, sharing ;), and getting her hair done. 

She's crawling fast, cruising, and saying a things like "no", "one", "bow-wow", and can make a good fishy face!  

To celebrate her precious life, we had a little party for her and her cousin Neiko (who just turned 2) a few nights ago.  Livie helped me make decorations, fill party favors, and make the cakes...she was SO excited to have kids over and eat CANDY ;).

Big girl!

Ready to party :)

The kid table

 The babies...2 and under ;)

Opening presents

After she opened that pink ball, she wouldn't let it out of her hands until it was cake time...

Being a good dad ;)

She had the blowing thing down a few weeks ago, but when it came down to this moment she froze, acted a little scared of the candle, and just wanted to touch the cake.  

 Oh well...what she didn't do in blowing out her candle, she made up for in eating her cake :).

She literally ate it until she could get the plate out from under it!!  And then she proceeded to lick the plate!  Yep...that's our girl :).

Happy birthday sweet Emma!!  We love you and are so thankful for your life!

mudathlon

First, a disclaimer on my previous post (since I've had a few questions on it).  No, that cuba farm is not Chad's personal hunting/fishing get-a-way.  Nor does it belong to anyone in the Herman family!!  Although they may wish it did ;).

Now, to showcase some of the fun we had last weekend.  Chad and I, along with 6 of our friends - aka the posse - went to northwest Indiana (without our kids) for a little vacation and a mudathlon.  Yeah, we paid to jog 3 miles and go through about 40 obstacles in the mud!  And the name of our team was "the posse is getting old"...which proved to be true as we embarked on this race ;).

We definitely were not the fastest...but we had fun!!

Here's some pictures before the race.  In the parking lot, they immediately "painted" our faces with mud, you know...to get us in the mood,  so we are a little dirty here.

But that "dirt" was nothing compared to how we were during and after the race.  Chad was in his element for sure ;).  Some of those pictures can be found here:

http://photos.valpolife.com/Sports/Events/2012-Mudathlon/24301348_pr6nLk#!i=1979142449&k=xrFvDnv&lb=1&s=A

http://www.racephotonetwork.com/QPPlus/Proofs.aspx

Without our kids, the rest of the weekend could be described as VERY RESTFUL.  Some of that was because we were recouping from what we just put our bodies through ;)...but honestly, I think most of it was because we were just in shock from not having to take care of our babies and toddlers!

We were very thankful to Chad's sister, Michelle, who watched our girls for us while we were gone.  I should probably mention that Michelle and Dave have 5 children of their own.  So, what's 2 more right ;)?  Our girls were entertained for sure...and from what Michelle said...everything went well!  Here's some pictures she texted me while we were gone.  I was glad to get the pictures, but they made me miss  them so much...

The few days before we left, Emma was in tears A LOT...and I thought it just had to be teeth.  I mean, she was drooling, had a small fever, not sleeping well.  But it turns out, over the weekend Michelle noticed some small sores in her mouth and on her hands and feet.  Yep, she had hand, foot, and mouth disease :(.  Poor girl.  With that, and the fact that I decided to wean her from nursing while we were gone, I would have thought she would have had a rough weekend.  But I guess she hardly cried.  Isn't it amazing how resilient kids are?!?

day to day...

I've had some of these pictures on file since before we moved.  But I wanted to post them because they are memorable ;).  Please bear with the randomness of this post!  There's A LOT of pictures...I'm just trying to catch up.

Emma's gummy smile...yes, she will be 1 in a week and half - and still has NO teeth!

Chad was buying donuts on a regular basis near the end of building our house.  This also was when Livie was still OBSESSED with pink and sugar!  I'm happy to say that her love of pink has died down a bit (it no longer motivates her every decision)...but her love of sugar still stands :).

Emma helping me pack ;)

Some of our amazing friends from our moving crew. I couldn't say thank you enough that day!

And the boys...seriously, they blessed us SO much.  Pretty much helped from 8am to 8pm...moving EVERYTHING from our old house and helping UNPACK almost every box!!!

Chad's cousin, Jenny, had the girls the day we moved...another huge help :).  

Like I said before, that first week we moved was crazy.  I did take a few pictures during the few "down" moments. 

The move did not effect this little one's eating habits ;).

Chad showing the girls around...

And the above one is Father's day morning....Chad finally got to sleep in ;).

Since the move and the parade, Chad and I both did get strep throat (we think), which wiped us out for awhile...but we're feeling much better now.  And life is getting more and more normal every week. We're loving not having much planned, catching up on appointments, relationships, summer activities, and just enjoying each other.

The girls LOVE playing in the pantry.

Livie with her first "bike".  She's getting the hang of it!

A week ago, Chad took me and the girls to the "Cuba Farm"...a personal hunting/fishing get-a-way lodge he's been working on for the past 14 months.  It's not finished yet, but it's extravagant for a personal lodge.  And very cool!  There's a reason he didn't take me to see it until after we finished our house ;).

The great room

The fishing garage...

More garage...

Still garage...yeah, I mean check out all those barn doors in just one of the garages!!

the refrigerator!!

A vintage looking built-in in the dining room

Love this laundry room...

The sunroom facing the lake

Love all the old wood finishes

one of the guest bathrooms...they all had barn door shower doors!  crazy...

Hallway...

Outdoor kitchen...yeah, everything about this place is pretty much an outdoor man's dream...

Sooo...here's some more random pictures!!

Love that smirky smile...

She LOVES her dad

My baking assistant 

Had to take a picture of this moment, cause it happens A LOT..both girls wanting me at the same time.  Result?  Me getting smothered and at least one of them in tears.  It's so nice to be loved :).

And last one of this post...Livie with baby Zion (just over 2 weeks old).  She LOVED holding her !!  Not sure if Zion felt the same way tho :(.  Maybe next time...