Somebody's ONE!

Our baby girl, Giselle, aka, the "cutie", or "Gigi" or "cutie pie" recently celebrated her FIRST birthday!  Our fun gal had no idea her big day was upon us, but let me assure you, her older brother and sister were practically beside themselves with anticipation.  They told everyone they met for almost two weeks prior that "Giselle's birthday is on Saturday!"  We began the day by rushing into her room and singing "Happy Birthday" as loudly and as off-key as we could (minus Will.  He can actually carry a tune quite well.  Thank goodness for him, otherwise all the singing we do around here would hurt our ears even more!).  

To say Giselle was excited about the morning singing would be inaccurate:

In true Everett-and-Juliana fashion, they wanted to bust out the party hats immediately.  Giselle definitely wasn't having that.

But she rallied when it was time for her cupcake (the birthday treat of choice for one year old Giddens kids).  Here she is in all her one year old glory:

As far as mess-making goes, she came out fairly clean.  I think Juliana was our messiest/most dramatic one-year old.  

I was impressed she kept the party hat on the entire time.  E and J tore theirs off pretty quickly.

Ta-da!  All finished.  And yes, she was definitely our cleanest eater, as evidenced below:

Everett's first birthday: November 2006

Juliana's 1st birthday: September 2008

After Giselle's afternoon nap, we took off for the strawberry patch.  Everett and Juliana proved to be excellent pickers, while the birthday girl proved to be an excellent watcher:

Our harvest.

In all seriousness, Giselle has been a dream addition and conclusion to our family.  She has been sweet and wonderful since day one.  She adores her older brother and sister and they, in turn, adore her.  There's a lot of adoration going on around these parts!  She is smiley and cuddly, a great sleeper and eater (I mean seriously, check out those thighs).  We love her.  Happy first birthday my darling girl!

Do You Believe in Magic?

I took the kids to The Magic House (the children's museum in St. Louis) a couple of weeks ago.  It was fun.  I took a slew of pictures, but have only posted a few (mostly for the grandparents and all of our out-of-state family).  The pictures pretty much speak for themselves, so I'll just let those who care (our relatives) have a looksie.  I really wish I had more to say, but this post has sat in my draft list for far too long.  It's time to publish this bad boy for all to see!

She really is so cute and sweet.  She behaved very well while we were there.  I was impressed!

I'm not sure if I like the fact that it looks like I haven't brushed Juliana's hair in weeks or that her sticker is upside down.  It's a toss up.

The oversized Legos were a huge hit with Everett.  He kept getting really frustrated every time Giselle would knock down his buildings, which unfortunately for him, happened more than once.

The more I look at Juliana the more I realize it looks like I haven't brushed her hair OR bathed her.  Poor girl.

Hands down my favorite picture of the day.  I love Giselle's face.  Like she knows something I don't and there's no way she's going to tell me.

Easily the kids second favorite part of the museum.  They love playing "restaurant" at home, so now that they had a real restaurant replete with tables, aprons, trays, and pizza, along with cups, plates and napkins.  Oh man.  They loved it. (Interestingly enough, another favorite game of theirs is "family".  I'll let you guess how that one's played.  And their favorite toys?  "Doggie" and "Cat".  Naming things obviously comes quick and easy for these two)

Ay, fuggedabouit.

My second favorite picture of the day.  Cheers to y'all too!

Who's the homeless girl?  These pictures have convinced me I need to get my girl a haircut pronto!

Empty Promises

We learned that the St. Louis Zoo was free within the first week of living here.  In our foolishness, Will and I promptly PROMISED (we're such suckers) the kids that we would take them.  The first time we tried it rained cats and dogs.  Although the kids were disappointed, it was easy to point out the window at the gusting, pouring down rain and reluctantly say, "Gosh, kids, we really wanted to take you to the zoo today, but darn the weather, we just can't!"

As ones slow to learn from our mistakes, this past Saturday we again hyped the zoo to Everett and Juliana. "Who's wants to go to the zoo today?!?!?"was quickly followed by tumultuous shrieks of excitement.  If our kids are anything, it's that they excite easily and quickly.  And have the memory of a elephant - they NEVER forget.

*(As a side note - last August on the day of Everett's preschool orientation I was running late (shocking) and in my haste to get out of the grocery store parking lot I hit a police car.  Of course, I had all three kids with me.  It was tragic and even I, with my heart of stone, burst into tears.  It was ugly.  Be glad you weren't there.  Unfortunately, nary a week goes by when Everett isn't either reminding me of that incident or telling others about it.  Just a few weeks ago after church his Primary teacher told me that although the lesson was on being obedient, Everett felt the need to share the "my mom hit a police car" story yet again.)

So after a morning of yard work and lunch, off we went to the zoo.  We were really going!  And it was a gorgeous, sunny day!  I have to admit, I was feeling pretty darn spiffy.  My thoughts ran along these lines: "Gosh, we are SO fun!  We told them we'd take them to the zoo and here we go.  They're going to remember this forever!"

Unfortunately, everyone in the metro St. Louis area had the same brilliant idea to visit the zoo, and they had one up on us because they had gotten there earlier in the day.  By the time we got there, there was literally and honestly, not a parking spot to be had.  The line of cars backed up to get in was completely ridiculous.  With Giselle's screeching, Juliana's constant questioning, "Is that the zoo?  Where's the zoo?  How do we get into the zoo?" and Everett pointing out parking spots that even his bike couldn't fit into, Will and I quickly realized a visit to the zoo had eluded us once again.  In an effort to make amends, we went to the closest "attraction" we could find: the St. Louis Science Center.

If you promise the zoo and then deliver the science center, expect your children to be a bit...underwhelmed.  But like I said, they excite easily and quickly, so after a few minutes, they were having a good time.  Inside I was thinking, "Wow, we really dodged a bullet.  I can't believe they're not putting up more of a fuss about missing the zoo.  I have the greatest kids!"  Until we were walking back to the car after it was over and Everett said, "NOW can we go to the zoo?"

(This picture pretty much sums it up.)

Happy Mother's Day to Me!

I have quite a few posts up my sleeves to catch up for the past month, but I really wanted to post this little gem.  

Last week we drove (yes, DROVE) back to Atlanta to attend the cultural celebration and rededication of the Atlanta LDS Temple.  It was wonderful to be there and we have some neat stories to share, but that's a different story for a different post.  While we were there, I called Everett's former preschool teacher, Ms. Kathy, to see if Everett could drop by his former place of higher education to say hello.  Everett LOVED preschool, Ms. Kathy, and his friends and was definitely sad to leave them.  Ms. Kathy was more than happy for me to drop Everett off at preschool for a few hours.  When I picked him up in the carpool line, he had this wrapped Mother's Day present:

My Mommy by Everett, 5 years old, 2011

My Mommy's eyes are: blue, I think.

My Mommy's hair is: black

My Mommy is 31 years old.

My Mommy likes to: play with me and my sister.

My Mommy is the most pretty when: she is the prettiest she can be.

My Mommy is the funniest when: I get home from school.

My favorite thing my Mommy cooks is: rice and beans.

My Mommy's favorite color is: red.

What my Mommy does all day is: she cleans the house a lot.

My Mommy likes me to help her: do the dishwasher.

My Mommy loves me because: I am wonderful.

The best part is, aside from the eye color (seriously, Buddy?  Blue?!?), he was right on.  I am 31!  My favorite color is red!  I rock at cooking rice and beans!  I do clean up a lot!  Color me impressed that he has been that observant to know/notice the answers to those questions.

As a side note, discussing everyone's age and favorite color is something we do quite a bit whenever we're driving in the car.  It usually goes something like this:
E: "I'm 5 and Juliana's 3 and Giselle's 11 months." (which Juliana then repeats)
and then
E: "And Mommy, you're 31, but Daddy's only 30." (which again, Juliana repeats)
And then we go through cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents and their ages.  After we've exhausted ages, we then move on to colors.
E: "My favorite color is green and Juliana likes pink and purple.  Daddy likes blue and Mommy, you like red, right?"  Once I answer in the affirmative, Juliana then repeats.
Seriously folks, we go through those above conversations probably 5-10 times a day.  Don't you wish you could ride around in our car?

M to the O

Whew!  Time flies when you're having fun.  Or moving.  Our lives have been a whirlwind of making decisions and plans, then changing our minds and heading in a different direction.  Some of you may have heard (directly from us, no less) that we were moving to Virginia.  And that was true - for a few weeks.  But then a much better opportunity presented itself and we jumped on it.  Within two weeks time Will accepted a job in St. Louis, we packed our belongings, Will drove out to find us a place to live, flew back to Atlanta where we promptly loaded the moving truck (with the help of MANY friends - THANK YOU!) and off we drove to the Gateway to the West.  We've been here for a full week and it is AWESOME.  We are excited to be here and for this new chapter in our lives.

So now for a few details.  Will's new employer:

Our new metropolitan city:

We are totally excited about St. Louis.  It's smaller than Atlanta (by about 200,000 people) and has a small-town feel, but with all the perks of a big city (restaurants, library system, parks, cultural arts, etc.).  We already have a list of things to do: the Arch, a Cardinals game at Busch Stadium, the Zoo (free!), the Science Museum, and the Children's Museum - to name a few.  We're in a great city just outside of downtown and we've discovered (in the whole week that we've been here) that's it's incredibly convenient to everything.  Yes!

The kids have adjusted pretty well.  They still ask everyday to see their family and friends back in Atlanta, but when I tell them that those people live too far away, they quickly agree and start in on the, "We live far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far away from them." Imagine that conversation about 20 times a day and that's about how our week has gone.  Thank goodness for cell phones and Skype!

We live next door to a family with four kids and a great backyard and Everett and Juliana love it.  Plus, we went to our ward's (congregation's) playgroup on Thursday and there were tons of kids there too.  Tomorrow's our first time at church and we're excited to meet people and start to make new friends.

As for the house, it's an older home, a 3/2 ranch with a basement.  It very quaint and cozy and so far, it's been nice to settle into it.  For those who have asked (mostly family), here's our new place.  But first, some gratuitous pictures of the big kids.  Giselle was already in bed by the time I took these.  I'll try to snap some of her tomorrow.

Juliana being a "ballerina".  She does this several times a day and it includes one of two things.  1) Putting her hands above her head or 2) Sticking one leg out and up very awkwardly and holding it for 5-10 seconds.

Juliana sitting on our office chair - we can't quite find the screws for the rolly part underneath.

 Everett saw all the fun Juliana was having that he had to jump on the ballerina bandwagon too.  In a few years he's going to love that I documented this.

 As for the house, here's the back driveway, patio and yard:

The garage and this time, our car actually fits!

This will be the last room to situate.  We need some bookshelves and another chair in here and it's just a mess at this point.  This house doesn't have as many closets/storage as our old place, so trying to figure out where to put everything has been challenging.

The kitchen table and family room.  See that HUGE window with no blinds or curtains?  Yeah, that's fun.  Especially at night. Or whenever the sun's setting.

Another view:

 Yet another view of the same two rooms, this time from the front door.  Apparently I got a little trigger happy photographing these two rooms.

 That's one huge window.  Good thing I don't watch scary movies or I'd be completely freaked out by it.

The kitchen, where I churn out one gourmet meal after another.

The stairs to the basement, 2nd bathroom, storage rooms and laundry room.  There was some flooding down there several months ago, so the tile was ripped up, the flooding taken care of, and there will be carpet down there soon.  Whenever that happens, the basement will become the kids playroom.  Yea for their toys being in the basement!

The three bedrooms.  All right next to each other with the master in the middle.

The upstairs bathroom

And the piece de resistance: a laundry shoot straight to the laundry room below.  This little contraption has changed my life!

Ahh, and here's the best part.  Somehow we misplaced ALL OF THE SCREWS for the kids' bunk beds.  They were all together in a big Ziplock bag, but we've unpacked just about everything (only the kids toys are left) and we can't find that bag anywhere.  Luckily, the kids think sleeping on a mattress on the floor is the best thing since sliced bread.  As a result of not putting their beds together, it's been hard to organize their room at all.  Fun times!

Seriously though, except for a few minor inconveniences, this move has been a dream.  The way everything fell into place so seamlessly really is a testimony to us that we're where we're supposed to be.  Never thought we'd be Midwesterners, but here we are.  Wish us luck!