This is post is FULL of pictures, so get ready.  I'm giving you advance warning...haha

I know it's been a while again since I posted, and I didn't really think most people would care, since pretty much everyone is on facebook now.  But I have had some people actually griping at me for not posting.  So I am trying to do better.

We are down to the final week of school.  Lexie's teacher sent home an announcement on Friday saying that their awards assembly will be next Friday morning.  She wrote me a note at the bottom saying that she hoped I would come, because Lexie will be receiving two awards, but she isn't aware of it.  How exciting!  I know one of the awards is the Reading Counts award.  That kid has worked so hard for that this year.  To give you an idea of how well she did, let me compare her points to what Kaleb had in the 1st grade.  Kaleb had the most points in the 1st grade when he won his award with 195 points....and that was a very impressive total in comparison with the rest of the kids' scores.  Lexie will be winning the award for the 1st grade this year with a total of 305 points.  I could not believe she did so well.  To earn points, they have to not only read a book, but they also have to take a test on each book and pass it in order to receive points.  Points are awarded based on the level of difficulty.  When Lexie started the program in January, she wasn't motivated at all, and she was behind.  I have a surprise already wrapped up to give her on Friday after she gets her award.  She will be so excited.  I don't know what the other award is that she's getting.  I guess we'll both be surprised to find out that one.

As everyone already knows, Ryan and Shannon will be moving in about a week.  We had a farewell dinner for them last night at Famous Dave's.  I made them a little going away gift.  It made Shannon cry, of course. lol  Here she is when she was starting to open it:

And here she is when she peeked inside and saw the front cover (It was a photo book that I had made for them.)  This picture doesn't totally capture how much she boo-hooed.  Becky was sitting across from her, snapping pictures, so I'd say she has some that show more emotion. lol:

Here's what the front cover of the book looked like:

And yes, those are our feet. lol

She actually closed the box back up and didn't look at it at first.  Then she blew her nose and composed herself:

Later on she was able to pose with me and the book.  We got Kaleb to take the photo, but apparently he has the same photography skills as his father:

So we got Tami to do a re-take.  Much better:

And I took some pictures of everyone visiting and chowing:

It took about 20 tries to get a picture of these 3 with their eyes open:

We went over to Ryan and Shannon's on Memorial Day for a cookout.  Emma, Lexie and James played Guitar Hero:

I'm not sure what Joseph and Roxie were doing, but they were downstairs being very quiet for a looooong time:

Roxie has a new favorite word.  Yesterday she did something....I can't even remember what it was....and then she said, "Oh, fiddlesnot."  Now she says it all the time.  Every time she drops something, or trips, or makes a mistake, she says fiddlesnot.  lol 

I took a picture of Roxie before church this morning.  She was wearing the outfit that Donna (and Bob) got her for her birthday:

I had Jamie take one of me with her.  I figured I should try to have a few photos taken of myself during the pregnancy, even though I really don't want to. haha:

I took a few of Jamie and Roxie:

And Jamie took another one of us...not so good:

This is a little better:

Our living room is getting closer to completion.  It's still a big mess, but it's all painted, and the new baseboards and crown moulding are all up.  We bought 2 new recliners that we'll pick up tomorrow.  I'll have to take some pictures when it all gets finished.  I have several pieces of furniture that I need to get rid of.  I was going to sell them in my yard sale, but I think I've decided to put them on Craigslist.  Has anyone else had any luck selling stuff on there?  I thought it would be easier to do it that way, because whoever wants it can come and get it, and I won't have to haul it over to my parents' house for the yard sale.  I hope I can get rid of it soon.

I'll close with pictures of the photo book I made for Shannon.  I took pictures of some of the pages, so here they are:

***Edit:  A blog site that is devoted to kids birthday parties did a feature blog on me and my cakes.  Check it out if you are interested.  Here's the link:  http://www.birthday-parties-for-kids.com/?p=599

Okay, it's official.  I'm a xanga slacker.  I was feeling so bad for a while that I didn't do much of anything.  This house was a mess, and I was waaaay behind on my laundry, but I've spent the past few days trying to get things caught up.  I have made quite a bit of progress.  So I guess now it's time to bring xanga up to date. 

For those of you who have asked, I am feeling a lot better.  I am now 16 weeks, and the nausea/sickness is pretty much gone.  I do have headaches a lot for some reason, but I'm hoping that gets better soon too.

School is getting close to the end.  Our kids have to go until June 5th, because they have so many snow days to make up.  So I guess they have a total of 12 days left.  Lexie is still trying her hardest to win the Reading Counts award for her class.  She is doing really well, although the boy in 2nd place is trying his best to give her a run for her money. lol  His mom came up to me at school the other day and asked me if I knew about their little competition.  haha  I told her that I knew about it, but I didn't let on about how much I knew.  Little does she know that I'm the one pushing Lexie to win. lol  I'm so sneaky.  Lexie does have a LOT of points, though.  I have a feeling she is going to win for the entire grade.  That's my girl. lol

Kaleb has been playing baseball.  Jamie is the coach this year, so that is taking up way more time than I would like.   (I feel like I've mentioned this before...)  Anyway, the students are having state testing this week, so there are no ball games scheduled.  Not to worry though....they start back up as soon as the tests are over at the end of the week.  Yay.

Roxie is still as entertaining as ever.  She has been saying the funniest things lately.  She is three years old, but her vocabulary is unbelieveable.  The other day, I heard her arguing downstairs with Kaleb (this is a constant thing with those two.  Kaleb likes to make her mad just so she'll say something outrageous.)  Anyway, it sounded like she had had enough of whatever he was doing, and I heard her scream at the top of her lungs, "YOU'RE AN OBNOXIOUS LITTLE BROTHER!!!"  lol  I had to go get her and make her repeat what she said.  I had her say it over and over because it sounded so funny to hear her say it.  She says big words all the time.  She talks like an adult.  I took her for her check-up a couple of weeks ago, and the doctor asked me if she could talk okay, and if she could put together sentences, and if she made sense.  lol  I thought, if this lady only knew who she was talking about. 

One night a couple of weeks ago, Jamie was downstairs on the computer, and I was up in my room sitting on the bed.  Kaleb and Lexie were already in bed asleep.  Roxie had been running around playing.  When Jamie came upstairs to look for Roxie, this is what he found in her room:

She had fallen asleep in her baby doll's playpen.  lol  She is so little that she can fit into a toy playpen.  When they weighed and measured her at the doctor, she was in the 10th percentile for height, but for weight, she was just barely on the chart.  She is so tiny.

Okay, speaking of Roxie, she just came downstairs in some kind of princess costume and said, "NOW INTRODUCING THE GLORIOUS......ROXANNE!" lol :

That kid is full of it.

Roxie also says that she has a baby in her belly too.  And whenever you ask her what the baby's name will be, her response is always "Bella."  If you ask her what its name will be if it's a boy, she says, "It's not a boy!"  I have no clue why she thinks its name is Bella.  I guess I've let her watch Twilight too many times. lol

I went to the doctor today for a regular check-up.  They didn't do much except listen to the heartbeat.  They did make me an appointment for my ultrasound.  It will be June 12th.  I guess we should find out then what we are having.  I get kind of nervous about that ultrasound, because when I was pregnant with Roxie, the ultrasound showed some abnormality with her nose, and they said it was possible that she could have Down's Syndrome, which obviously she did not....so that just made me panic and worry for 5 months for no reason.  So I am hoping we don't have the same problem this time around.

We are still trying to decide where we want to go on vacation this summer.  We were planning a big road trip out west.  Jamie wanted to drive all the way across the country (I'm talking to CA and back), stopping several places along the way.  But that was before we found out I was pregnant, so now I'm thinking we should plan something else.  I don't think I want to drive that far and that long while I'm pregnant...not my idea of a good time.  We haven't come up with a destination yet, but I wouldn't rule out the possiblity of another dead president or two somewhere along the way. lol

I still haven't been doing a lot of cakes, but I have done a few.  It's been nice to not be so busy.  I did have one really big cake order a couple of weeks ago.  It was for a gumball machine and 60 candy cupcakes:

When I went to deliver this cake, a bunch of little girls hovered around me while I was setting it up.  They were asking, "Is it real?....Can we touch it?....Can I have some gum?...."  I tried to patiently answer their questions while I was trying to put the cake together.  Finally, they all left.  Well, at least I thought they all left.  One little girl was still standing there (the girl who was asking all the questions), and when I turned my back, she turned the knob on the machine to get her some gum.   Of course this is not a REAL gumball machine or a REAL knob, so it broke off.  I was not a happy camper to say the least.  I told the girl, "you do not touch that...see you broke it....you need to go....you need to leave."  Oh, I was so upset.  I mean, I wanted the mother who ordered the cake to actually see it before it was demolished.  I scrambled around trying to fix it as best I could.  I finally did get the knob back in place.  It was a little bit crooked, and I'm not sure if it stayed put after I left....but it was better than no knob at all.  I did feel kinda bad for getting mad at the little girl.  And after she did it, I heard her mother tell her, "go tell the lady you're sorry you broke her cake."  haha  Oh, and Shannon was there when I was setting it up, and she saw my face after the kid broke my cake.  That's a story she loves to tell. lol

I also did one for Lucas' 30th birthday:

I tried to make the pictures on the cake as true to life as possible.  Don't you think that looks just like him in the USPS shirt? lol

Nobody touched or broke anything on Lucas' cake.  All the kids at church know better than to touch cakes.  lol

And I did a cake for my cousin's little girl's birthday:

So that's most of what's been going on around here.  Oh, and also, we are doing a little bit of updating/remodeling in our basement/living room area.  We got new furniture, so we decided to tear down some paneling that was down there, paint, replace the baseboards, and basically get rid of everything that was in there.  I'm into de-cluttering this house.  I'm tired of knick-knacks and trinkets and junk.  I just want to simplify things.  It feels cleaner that way.  Less is more.  That's my new motto. haha  Maybe I will go take pictures of how it looked before Jamie gets too far into it.  He just started tearing down the paneling today.  I'm hoping this whole process won't take too long, but you know how that goes.