My Cup Runneth Over (and so is my blog today!)

August has been a pretty quiet month here. Spending nearly 2 1/2 weeks in bed isn't my idea of fun but thats how the first of the month panned out for me. Unfortunately, the house is still showing signs of those 2 1/2 weeks hahaha! And, I had to remove our cruise countdown from my blog; we're faced with canceling our cruise :(
All that makes August sound kinda rotten but really, things are going great for us, honest!
Aside from Eli's birthday party, and Sandy's birthday today, here's what we've been up to-

9 weeks

Baby # 3 for the Lilya's will be here around the 29th of March!! We got to have an ultrasound today (happy birthday Sandy! good gift huh?!) and everything is looking good. We are beyond excited, especially now that my "morning sickness" has subsided some. Livi is young enough that she hasn't quite grasped what is going on--yet. I'm sure all that will change once the baby is actually here and her little world is turned upside down. Eli is ecstatic! She can't wait to have another brother or sister. The concept of time will be the hardest part for her; right now she is constantly asking how big the baby is and how it's doing, whether it's eyes are open yet, if it can laugh...it's been fun! She is disappointed about not going on the cruise but has decided that we will still be going to Disneyland, even if it's not til after the baby is here. I can handle that. This will be a new experience for me, pregnancy in the winter, maybe it'll be easier to find clothes I can actually wear! So there's our big news, finally out in the open!

Hau'oli lā hānau Eli!

For Eli's 5th birthday she decided she wanted to party Hawaiian style (or Lilo and Stitch style), so this past Saturday we had a Luau. (Hence the title of this post, hawaiian for Happy Birthday)
My mom did much of the undertaking for this shin dig and it turned out great; beautiful weather to boot!
My little girl is growing up! 2 loose teeth, starting kindergarten in 2 weeks, already starting to read, and such a good little helper and big sister. I can't believe we've had her with us for 5 years! Here's some of the highlights from the party:

The day started out with Eli's order for breakfast; pancakes with strawberries, chocolate chips, and whip cream

After breakfast we gave her a present, Extreme Makeover Home Edition Style, "Move that CAR!"
This was her surprised expression-priceless!

And this was her present-


Here's the cake-

Enjoying the cake



And some presents!

We sure do love this little girl!

Fear and Loathing

There seems to be a lot of bugs around here lately. The girls, oddly enough, love em. I tolerate them, outside, with the exception of the caterpillar in a jar and a ladybug, which was kinda fun.
A few days ago I was outside with the girls when Eli noticed a bug on our fence. Upon the discovery of said bug I quickly made my way inside and didn't go back out the rest of the night. I'm sure you're now dying to know what creepy crawly made me want to confine myself...

A preying mantis. I HATE these things with a passion and can honestly say there's not much else that scares me as much as they do. The fall of my junior year in high school (or maybe my senior year?) there seemed to be more of these insects than normal. At a football game one night a friend noticed one on my pant leg. He brushed it off before I had time to think about it, thankfully, but I still had the heebee jeebees the rest of the night. That same year my dad brought one in the house. I kept telling him to keep it away, to take it outside etc...the horrid beast ended up chasing me down the hall, people! I got to my room and slammed the door shut but since that year preying mantis's and I don't get along. I've had a few run-ins since then, probably the most memorable was when Sandy thought I was going to jump over the stairwell at our apartment when we were first married. I hadn't noticed the stairs were covered with them until I reached the top. Not a good night. So now you know one of my biggest fears. A not so little, really quite ugly, completely gross preying mantis.

It All Makes Sense

Tonight Eli asked me, "Mom, do you want to know why me and my sister made messes all day?" Intrigued, I said, "You bet!" She said, "It's because today is Mess Day."
Oh, Mess Day! From this evidence I surmised that Mess Day must be like Unbirthdays. They occur every day of the year, save one, giving you an excuse to party whenever you feel so inclined. Then, that one day a year that's the exception, it's your birthday, so you still get to party, no questions asked. It all makes sense now! I wish they'd both figure out Clean Day or Sleep Day. Wishful thinking. Silly girls!

Bugs!

Back in July, over Independence weekend, I found a caterpillar on the side of our house. At first I was excited and wanted to show the girls, let them hold it and then put it in a jar to hopefully get a butterfly out of the whole thing. But this was no ordinary caterpillar, people! Holy moly was it mean! I managed to get it off of the house with a stick and over onto a chair; my mom and dad took turns holding it down with a stick and keeping the girls back just enough so they wouldn't get pinched (yes, pinched!) but close enough they could still see it while I got a jar. I wish I had taken pictures, oh well. The ugly lil fella was about 2 inches long, grey, and had pinchers on one end. And he knew how to use them! Luckily we were all chickens (or smart, depends on how you look at it) and we would only touch him with a stick. He was a violent sucker, too! He would flip and twist with a surprising strength for a caterpillar. Well, in the jar he went, and he had himself wrapped in a cocoon within a day. And there he sat on my window sill for the next month. I tried to look the critter up online and what little I found suggested it only took 2 weeks for the things to turn into moths. OH GREAT, a moth?! I came close to just throwing it away several times; I thought it had just died in the jar. So, yesterday I happened to glance at "the jar" and I noticed a change inside- a big, ugly, grey MOTH! UGGH! The girls were excited, at first. Eli would have much rather discovered a butterfly and decided quickly she doesn't like moths. Livi was indifferent. Here's some pics-Eli didn't even want to hold the jar so lucky Livi got to, followed by a pic of the ugly beast that was promptly released after the picture-

On a more pleasant note, we also had a fun few days with a ladybug in our possession. I found this little "Ladybug Playground" in Texas but it got packed in a random box, so it just barely surfaced a while back. The girls have been diligently hunting for ladybugs whenever they play outside but hadn't had any luck. Then, one day last week, both girls came bursting in the house screaming and yelling so I ran to see what was wrong, only to find out all the commotion was over a ladybug! They had finally found one! So here's some pics of that, too.