Happy Birthday Big Girl!!!!

Today is my 1st baby's 5th birthday.... I can't believe how big she is getting! She constantly

amazes me with the things she knows and big words she uses appropriately. I can't believe she will be in kindergarten in the fall. I love the fact that she still wants hugs and kisses all the time and only occasionally wants to live with another family (she is dramatic after all). Here are a few pics of her over the last few years, and one from today. She brought Hannah Montana cupcakes to school today to celebrate her big day. She was also very excited because it snowed all day today and she loves snow, she is a winter baby for sure! Sunday we will be headed to Chuck E Cheese for the big celebration with family and a couple of friends from school. So we will post more pics this weekend.

Age 2 1/2

She was almost 21 months when Grant was born, she seemed so big to me when he was born, she looks like a baby herself.

These next few were taken when she was about 18 or 19 months old.

Here she is playing with her cousins Noah and Spencer. They were jumping on the bed which they were not supposed to do but as usual they did it anyway.

What to do on a cold day.....

So today we went to the Childrens Museum of Indianapolis so the kids could run out some of their energy. They too are tired of this cold weather and are ready for spring to be here. I know we haven't posted much lately.... sorry not a lot going on around the Lancster household. So here are some cute pics that we took today. The kids had a blast and as usual were not happy about leaving but mommy and daddy were ready so we coerced them to leave by getting them some cotton candy (you gotta do what you gotta do)... Thanks to grandpa Mark and grandma Sandy for renewing our membership so we can have another year of fun at the museum!!!

The first place we had to visit was the Dinosphere one of the kids' favorite displays.

I'm pretty sure the goggles go the other way but who am I to say???

Watch out Rileigh!!!!!!

Grant watching the trains go by..... his 2nd favorite place to be.

Rileigh's 2nd favorite spot... It was nice because it wasn't too crowded today so we got to go 3 times in a row.... how exciting!!!!

Who knew Captain America would be visiting the museum today.... he looks vaguely familiar....

Rileigh at the mirror wall checking herself out... she is a girl.

Rileigh's teaching the dinosaur how to brush his teeth.

Saying goodbye to the musuem. They were doing some construction and a lego exhibit is coming soon so we had to pose by the Lego Construction worker.

Dinosaur cookie in one hand cotton candy in the other...... he may never go to sleep tonight :)

Christmas

Opening her Vsmile games


Very excited about Hi Ho Cherry-O



Play-dough!

Look I can be a scary dragon when I get out of the bathtub!!!

Well this was a very interesting Christmas for sure. There aren't many pictures because I forgot my camera at home when we went to Warsaw and Evansville/Jeffersonville. So that said we did open up gifts at our house on the Friday before Christmas (I know I know it was really early). We were really busy every day up until Christmas and since we were out of town we didn't want to have to drag all the gifts to my families house and Chad's mom's house. Anyway this whole Christmas season started off poorly since Grant had a bad habit of opening presents (not just his, everyones!!!) he opened a record 13 in a 30 min time frame. Then the Saturday before Christmas Rileigh was standing on the rocking horse instead of sitting on it and lost her balance and fell into the tree which in turn fell over. Rileigh was fine a few ornaments did not make it through the ordeal. We got the tree back up with no problems and then on Tuesday the day before Christmas eve Chad and I both came down with the stomach flu... go figure. We ended up feeling better on Christmas Eve but I will kinda be glad to see this Holiday Season come to an end. It will definately be one to remember!

Preschool Musical

Singing Away in a Manger

Rileigh's preschool had their Christmas program tonight and it did not disappoint. It was all 3-5 year olds all singing together..... I was quite entertaining. Rileigh had a part in the program where she placed a heart on a banner, she was very proud of herself. We weren't sure if the program would take place since we are supposed to get an ice storm sometime this evening. (ugh) When Rileigh walked in she was holding hands with her "best" friend Lainey, it was so cute! We got pics of her and her two best friends at the end of the program. Her class was supposed to go caroling at a nursing home yesterday but due to the weather the field trip was cancelled and Rileigh was very upset, so I am glad that there were no issues tonight with the weather.

Ok I was trying to upload a short video of the kids singing but as usual blogger does not like my videos for some reason and after an hour of attempting I gave up..... maybe another day I can get it to like my videos :(

Ri and her best friend Lainey

Ri and her other best friend Jillian

The Christmas Play

Rileigh played Mary in the church play this weekend. It was quite hilarious

since the 3-5 year olds played the part of the manger scene. Rileigh and Riley were Mary and Joseph, they were pretty good did their part it was the shepherds that were funny. One of them kept taking his staff and raising it as high in the air as he could and then lowering quickly back down. We thought he was going to hit someone on the head it was quite comical. Here are some pics of my child looking oh so innocent.

Let It Snow!

Here are the kids at Grandma and Grandpa's house on Thanksgiving. Noah, Spencer, and Hunter weren't there since Spencer is still in the hospital. We hope you come home soon! Gabe was at his dad's house so it was only the 3 kids.

We had our first snow early this morning. Grant woke up and looked out the windows and said "mommy, it's snowing where's the grass?" So after breakfast all the kids got dressed in their snowsuits and went outside and played in the snow. Cousin Lucas and aunt Ellen were down visiting since Gabe was going to other cousin Noah's birthday party so he was out playing too. We then went to the Noblesville Chrismtas parade and froze our butts off! It was very chilly but the kids had fun seeing McGruff the Crime Dog, firetrucks, police cars, and at the very end Santa!!!!! They got more candy (just what we need since we still have Halloween candy left). It was a fun afternoon and the kids are so ready for Christmas. They can't wait to open presents and make cookies. We love this time of year. Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your families!

Here they are enjoying the freshly fallen snow! They made huge mounds of snow in attempt to make a snowman it was very wet snow.

Here they are at the parade.....freezing!

Say Cheese!

Friday evening we went to get the kids annual pictures taken. It was an adventure as usual. The place was running about 30 minutes behind and there were kids and parents EVERYWHERE! The photographer said that they were 3 people short that night so that is why it was so crazy. The kids did well regardless and managed to not mess up their nice clothes while running around the store with some other restless little ones. There weren't as many good pics as in the past years but some turned out really well so here are a few. Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

I couldn't get this one to rotate sorry...

Needless to say they cropped out the purple flower..... daddy didn't really want it in the pics but it kept Grant busy :)