Our April Fools Baby....3 Already!

Can you believe it! Amberly Jane is three already. We can't. They grow up so fast. She is such a joy in our family. Amberly makes us smile all the time. She shares with her sister (not so well with her brother yet), is very independent and wants to do everything on her own, and loves to shadow her Dad wherever he goes. For her Birthday she picked Strawberry cake (possibly under the influence of Reili on this one). I couldn't get her to name a favorite food to have for her birthday dinner yet, so we had barbequed Beef on a bun which see seems to eat well. She had fun having a low key family and one friend party.

All dressed in the morning in a new outfit from Aunt Jane. I love her with pigtails.

Blowing out the candles on her cake.

A birthday picture with Daddy (and presents). He sure is handsome!

March Highlights

The month of March found us on a trip to NC to visit Tom's family. We also stopped in Raleigh to visit Tom's best friend from growing up, Andy Morris. Here are the highlights of that trip:

• a 4 hour flight delay in Cleveland got our trip off to a great start
• Reili had a fever all the way there and for the first week. It turned out she had a double ear infection...we knew as soon as her ears started oozing.
• The first day, I dropped our camera and it rolled into the pond behind Andy and Suzanne's house. Luckily they lent me their spare while ours dried out.
• A fantastic day with Andy, Suzanne and Emily...playing in the pond out back, the nature museum, and at Outback Steakhouse.
• a few days at Tom's parents just relaxing and trying to take it easy with Reili sick and Tom's eyes recovering still...we thought.
• Wesley constantly heading for the stairs....constantly.
• A friday night spent at the Opthamologist's. Tom's eye pressures were so high from a steroid drop reaction that he had to get other drops to counteract. Then his epithelial layer started to slough off. OUCH! He made at least 5-6 visits to the doctor during our trip. (He is doing better now though).
• Dinner out with the Schell adults at a Japanese Steakhouse.
• A crazy trip to the NC Zoo during easter break. There were 11-12 kids and it is a big Zoo. All the kids had fun and wore the adults out. It was just good to be together.
  
• Several games of Dutch Blitz and Five Crowns with Mom, Amy, Jane, and Rachael. We even got Sam and Tom to join us a couple times (what fun).
• A family Easter dinner and easter egg hunt for the kids.
• Family night at Amy and Nate's the night before we left. We got to hear about how Gamma and PopPop joined the church. It was great.

We had a great time and we miss all the Schells! Thanks everyone. Here are a few pictures as proof we came: