Preparations are underway for Luke's 4th birthday party! This being the week before his party, I had daily assignments for myself, in order to get everything finished. But we had a surprise "It's too cold to go to school" day! So I got to get ahead of myself AND do some extras! After I made his party favor bone-shaped cookies & the brownies for his preschool class, I worked on making a treat bag topper for his party favors... a doggie bag, if you will. :) I am so please with how they turned out! Makes me even more excited. The simplest things make me happy. Anyway, now I just need to wrap his gifts & make the food, which won't happen until Saturday morning before the party. :)

So the party plans are as follows:

Friday is Luke's real birthday. We always like to celebrate on the real day. He will be celebrating with his preschool class. We made star-shaped brownies in construction bags for that. Then, after work, Joel is going to pick up AJ and we're going to go to Chuck E. Cheese's. I think the boys are going to have a blast!!

Saturday is Luke's birthday party. It is dog-themed, if you couldn't tell by the favors in the picture. He loves animals, especially dogs. He has four stuffed dogs he ALWAYS plays with- Doggie-Doggie, Daisy, Juneau, & Griffey. So I thought what better theme for his birthday than dogs. This is the first year he will have one big party with more kids than his cousins. So that means my party planning goes into overdrive. Hee hee. Each kid will get to adopt a dog (stuffed animal of course... I'm not sure my friends and family would ever forgive me if it was for real). They will even get an official adoption certificate for their dog. We are going to play "Pin the Nose on the Puppy," and the kids are going to eat out of a dog bowl. :)

I will be exhausted come Monday, but it'll so be worth it!

Seriously. I could watch them for hours on end. They make me laugh. What a strong couple you'd have to be to live through infertility struggles, two multiple pregnancies & births and THEN raising them??? And they're FUNNY!!! (Have I mentioned that?) They're my heroes. Ha ha! If you don't know who they are, check out their website in my favorite links. :)

January brought a rock star, a lover of arts (@ Sesame Street Live) & our last few days with a two-year-old.





February we said good-bye to a two-year-old & welcomed a crazy three-year-old with THREE birthday celebrations!






March brought on my 31st birthday, crocuses, unusually warm weather & a brand new window!






In April I took pics of the kids for Grandma for Mother's Day, decorated Easter eggs, had many Easter celebrations, & went to Uncle Jonathan's graduation.






In May our friends from Nashville came up for a visit & I was the official photographer for my cousin Cassie's prom pictures.




In June Luke & I were officially on summer vacation! We spent the first month with our new Himalayan, Leo, playing on the slip-n-slide & we visited the Rose Garden with Papaw.






We spent the 4th with the Chupps. We also visited Nashville in July for our annual summer vacation, stopping in Kentucky on the way home to spend a day with Thomas the Train. We ended July at the fair for the Chicago concert.





In August we celebrated Daddy's 27th birthday, spent our last few days of summer at the splash park with Sarah, Brady & Hannah, & spent a lot of our time outside before heading back to school.






September brought a lot of fun-- Notre Dame's season opener, a trip to Chicago, a Good Year blimp sighting, cheering Daddy on at a 5K run (and taking some pics while we waited), and Luke's first day of preschool! Whew!








October was a crazy month- We got a new VW Passat because Daddy was hit & it totalled his car. We went to a Fall Fest in Grabill with Elijah & Christine, as well as a Medievil Fair at the Botanical Gardens. For Halloween, Luke got pneumonia!!! We didn't know it when we went trick or treating at the zoo. But after that he spent most of Halloween getting over it. We did manage to trick or treat at Grandma & Papaw Rohrer's house on trick or treat night.










November was a lot about family-- Luke made a great picture of his family & we took our family pictures for our Christmas cards. We also had a wonderful time spending time with our family for Thanksgiving, which, ironically enough, I took no pictures of! We also found out we were going to have an addition to our family come July 2008!





Finally, December, which was bittersweet... at the beginning of the month, we lost our second baby at seven and a half weeks gestation. However, it brought lots of happy things, as well, including a lot of snow & Christmas festivities, and exciting for us-- brand new carpet!












We are looking forward to a new year with lots in store! Thanks for sharing the past year with us!