Holy Cow!!!!

I didn't realize how long it's been since I posted last. Well...summer is officially over as we have experienced our first Autumn snowfall on October 28th. A normal occurence in this part of the country. Yet today it is 66 degrees out. Can't we pick a season and stick with it for a while?
Anyway...some news we haven't shared yet...the third and final installment to the Pettit Family is in the works. A new baby is due on April 12th!! And we won't know the gender until delivery. The concensus is that we would like to have another girl but Lilly insists on having a "little brudder". Only time will tell.

We are gearing up to head east for Thanksgiving, and we are driving this time. Yes we are crazy. But if we don't go now...we probably won't be back until summer or later. And we haven't visited since last Christmas. We're hoping for good weather as driving through the mountains of PA in the winter is treacherous.

The girls are growing! Lilly loves pre-school. She's learning a ton. Ella is speaking in full sentences (almost). And she's on her way to potty training. They are very excited for vacation and the holidays. Mostly for holiday cookies I think.

On another note...cakes have been keeping us busy. We did a wedding for 300 in September and it came out beautifully! Looking forward to the next big cake. August was quite busy with birthday cakes almost every weekend. It's quite nice to have a break now with all of our birthdays coming up here in the next 3 months. Josh, 11/15, Ella 12/15, Melissa 1/13 and Lilly 1/28. Not too mention all the holiday baking in between.

Penny has been lovable and annoying all at the same time. We have adjusted to the barking, shedding and poop scooping. But we are ready for her to gain a few more years and start calming down.

And I suppose that is all for now. Hopefully it will not be another 5 months before I update this again, but I'm sure it will be a few. So from all the Pettits have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Summer Time

We have some summer news...About a month ago we bought our first boat! It is a 1988 SunRay open bow ski boat. It's in good shape for 20 years old. It was a great deal and we have used it countless times already. We live only a couple minutes from the lake. The kids really enjoy riding and sit very nicely while they're on it. In a few years we hope to trade it in for something a little newer and a little bigger.

The girls are really enjoying the warm weather. They play often in the kiddie pool and they are outside in the yard everyday. We all have very nice tans.

Josh built us some very nice decks to put our patio set on. It is wonderful to have a place to "live" outdoors. We enjoy having dinner outside.

Recently the girls had some professional pictures taken and they came out great.

Oops...

I just realized I had forgotten all about this blog. Alot has happened in 4 months. I guess the biggest thing is we got a dog. Her name is Penny and she is a 4yr old Chesapeake Bay Retriever.

We got her from a rescue organization and she is quite well behaved. She knew plenty of tricks and commands and she is mostly a pleasure to have around. A few weeks ago she ate something she wasn't supposed to and got very sick. She spent a week in the vet hospital but seems to have made a full recovery. We are excited to start taking her geocaching with us.

Right before we got Penny, Josh was in a minor accident on the way to Indianapolis and totaled his pick-up truck. It was a snowy and icy afternoon and the wind blew the truck right off the road into a ditch. The was not injured, but would have been if he hadn't been wearing his seatbelt. So we decided to replace the truck with a 4 wheel drive SUV. We got a 2000 Dodge Durango.

It was a great deal, and it has a fold down third row of seats incase we need room for another carseat in the future. :-) It sure drives like a truck though. I like it. We also have a wire divider so we can throw Penny in the back and take off. She loves to ride with us.

The girls are now sharing a room and not loving it. Ella prefers to sleep alone. Ands she lets us know this by waking up every morning between 4 and 5am. So I go in, lay her back down and she sleeps till 6 and at that point she is ready to start the day. We would love for them to have their own rooms, but we need a bigger house. We are also ready to get far far away from the neighbor's annoying rat dog that barks at the dust particles in the air. So we are keeping our eyes open for a new place.

Lilly is registered for pre-school now. She'll start in August and she already has 3 friends from class. Actually she knows them from church and they all just happen to be attending the same school. She seems very excited as she asks to walk by her school everytime we go for a walk. Luckily it's only one block from our house. She has pretty much mastered her first computer game. It's Jumpstart Pre-school and she loves it.

Ella is a walking, talking, climbing machine. A true daredevil. She has so many facial expressions. She would make a great actress. She's 16 months old as of yesterday, and growing like a weed. People are constantly telling me how cute she is. I can't argue with that!

One elderly gentleman came us to us at a local restaurant last weekend and told us he was impressed with how well behaved our children were. I guess we're not doing too bad as parents. They both have their moments though. Lilly has learned to parent her sister and the dog very nicely.

So I guess that's about it for now. Spring is here...finally. Check back for some outside adventure pictures.

Cheers to a New Year!

So we're back from Connecticut, well we've actually been back for what a week now? We've been busy. As much as we hated running around everywhere in CT we still have not spent one full day at home since we've been back. I think today might be that day.

We are still waiting for Christmas gifts to arrive from CT where they had to be shipped because we just didn't have enough hands to put anymore bags or boxes onto the plane. There was just so many toys! These girls are surely spoiled.

There is a new addition to our family. It's black, shiny, noisy and cost way too much. It's a mammoth television. We have gone HD. Finally we aren't the last people in the country to catch up to technology. I swear back in Akron we were the last ones in the world to get DSL (although I know dial-up is still out there). At least now we are ahead of the DTV switch (in one room anyway). It's nice. Merry Christmas to me.

As for the milestones...Ella is walking. We knew it was coming. She's also riding the radio flyer bicycle. It's so cute. Lilly is speaking spanish...oddly enough. Yesterday she told Ella to "Vamanos". We both heard it and after the initial shock, busted up laughing. Props to Dora. And they say TV rots kid's brains.

That's about it for now. Have a great New Year everyone!