Daddy's Little Helpers

Kaylee and Allison have really enjoyed being Daddy's little helpers lately. It started after a trip to Home Depot to get some new blinds for their room. The worker who was trimming the shades went to the back and brought out these two little aprons for the girls. Ever since then, whenever Daddy was doing anything like changing the blinds, replacing all the outlet and light switch covers or making pancakes, the girls would run back to their room and come out with their aprons on ready to help.

Happy Halloween

We had a great Halloween this year. Elizabeth and I took the girls to a neighborhood over in West Cobb. We have been checking out houses over there for awhile. It was a nice fall night, not too cold but cold enough for it to feel like fall. By the second house Kaylee had become a pro and was telling us which houses we needed to go up too and she was running around from house to house (she hadn't even had any candy yet).

Andrew stayed back here and went around our neighborhood with some of his friends.

Andrew was a UGA (University of Georgia) Fan. Kaylee was a mermaid. Allison was Cinderella and Samantha was a Kangaroo.

Thats our girl!

Samantha had her 1 year appointment this morning and this child is proving that she will NOT be pushed around by her older sisters!

Our BABY is weighing in at a healthy 22lbs while standing 31 inches high!

Allison is weighing in at a 27.4 and 33.5 in tall while our oldest angel, Kaylee takes the lead (barely) weighing in at a 28.8 and towering at 36 inches!



In the meantime, Andrew is just about to pass my 5'5 122lbs by standing in at 5'2 and bulking up to a 115!



Scott is still....well....TALL!

Happy Birthday

Today we are wishing a Happy Birthday to cousin Ashley and our little Samantha! We had the celebrations for Samantha's 1st Birthday Sunday. After church we went over to the playground for a little while before going home and watching her enjoy her very first McDonald's Cheeseburger...which she ate the entire thing! After cleaning up a bit it was time for gifts and cake and ice cream which she didn't like at all!

It's hard to believe that it was just one year ago that we were at the hospital.

Uncle Shuck's Farm

We had some real nice weather over the weekend and we were finally able to take a trip up to Uncle Shucks Farm. The kids enjoyed running through a mini-maze and checking out all the pumpkins. Allison was a little tentative at first but after walking through it with Momma she eventually got the hang of it and was running all over the place. Andrew got to shoot off a corn cannon, Kaylee enjoyed climbing on everything and Samantha was happy as always, especially with her new view of the world. After dinner we went back and went on a hay ride and walked through the corn maze. Elizabeth and I also walked through a (not-so) haunted/scary corn maze.

Getting Big

Elizabeth and I were actually able to leave the house with just the two of us and Samantha last night. Granted it was just to run to the store and spend 20 minutes waiting to get gas but still...out of the house with only one kid. We took Samantha with us and put her in an upright seat facing forwards for the very first time. I think she kind of enjoyed it.

Last Saturday I took the girls to the park where we had a little fun on the playground and we got to see the Atlanta German Shepherd Club holding a competition. The girls enjoyed seeing all the dogs and watching them actually obey their masters. I also talked them into taking a walk through the woods. Of course that walk allowed me to play 3 or 4 holes of disc golf. Bellow are the girls finishing off on the 18th cage.

Yes you are looking at that correctly...Kaylee and Allison are just about the same height.

Samantha went along for the walk too.

American Idol Warmup

Kaylee put on a small show for us tonight before bed. Notice how she works the audience reaching out to touch all the hands.

Pretty Ears

Our little Kaylee got her ears pierced the other day. It was not a planned occurrence it just sort of happened. We were out at the mall and walked past a store and Elizabeth suggested it. After talking about it with Kaylee she was all excited. There were a few tears immediately afterwards but she was over it quick...mainly once she was given a sucker as a treat.

She loves her pretty ears...

Good Friends

I recorded this video yesterday for a couple of reasons. First off...it's cute! Secondly it is always nice to see how well the girls get along and what close friends they are. I just wanted to get this on tape for future reference when they are ripping each other's hair out because they other has been in the bathroom too long.

It isn't until about a half way in that Kaylee actually notices I am recording.

One Step at a Time

Well Samantha has decided she wants to try this walking thing out. We told her that if she waited any longer that her sisters would beat her. Both Allison and Kaylee were walking by around 10-11 months and Samantha is now 10 months. Well all of the sudden she has started taking some steps on her own.

Here is one...she steps away from the couch then just stops and looks at me for a quick few seconds before collapsing.

Enjoy....we are!

Happy Birthday Allison!

While today is officially Allison's birthday we did celebrate it last night as Kaylee and Andrew will both be busy with their Church Choirs and Youth Group tonight.

Here are a couple of videos of the festivities.

MMMMMM CAKE!!!

Sleep Jumping

So you may have heard of sleep walking but how many have heard of sleep jumping? In case you haven't let this be your introduction. Apparently the jumparoo is so much fun that once you start...you can't stop...not even sleep can get in the way.

Here Samantha demonstrates the art of sleep jumping. After 5-10 minutes of straight up hard jumping the exhaustion sets in...the rest speaks for itself.

Watch at how the spectators are amazed at the art of sleep jumping.

And for the record that is "Alvin and the Chipmunks" the movie in the background NOT the Christmas CD.

A Years Difference

As I was looking through some of my old pictures I noticed these two of Allison in the swing at the park. They were in the same swing and were taken about 2 weeks shy of exactly 1 year apart.

Where to Begin

Okay so after hearing it from two grandparents and one aunt I guess it's finally time to post some updates. The question is obviously where to begin after a month of not posting anything. We've obviously had a lot going on the past 5 weeks. We had a full fledged family vacation...the first in our families history. Andrew has returned home from the summer away and has now started school, Taekwondo, band and will soon sign up for the tech crew for the school play. Kaylee starts choir tomorrow and is looking older and older and less like our little baby. Allison is going through her clingy stage and talking more (and more clearly). Then there's Samantha who I think in my last post I had just talked about how she just started crawling. A week later she started pulling herself up and now she's pretty mobile...as long as she's hanging on to the table or couch and of course continues to always be happy. Anyways here are some quick picture updates . I promise there will be a lot more to come here soon.

Our little princess.

In case you can't see there are 7 little white speckles sticking out of her gums now.

While on vacation we were introduced to disc golf. We finally got the chance to go out and play a few holes last weekend.
Allison joined in on the action.

On the Move

Okay so I just saw that our last post was actually 1 month ago today. Needless to say things here have been busy. It's summer so that means projects. We are just about completed with repainting the ENTIRE condo. I will finish the girls room today then that just leaves our master bedroom. On top of that I've changed out two ceiling fans and two vent/fans in the bathrooms.

Anyways, here is a video from back on July 2nd of our little Samantha beginning to crawl. She is now pulling herself up to her feet when and where ever she can. She is also getting tricky switching from the couch to the table and then back.

Kaylee Birthday

I finally got the pictures from Kaylee's Birthday loaded.

Her you go...

Happy Birthday Kaylee

Well our little girl has turned 3! With everyone (except me) going out of town this week we had a little birthday celebration on Saturday. Dad, Grandpa George and Andrew took the girls to the park for a little bit and let Grandma Pat and Mom get the cake and decorations around.

Here is the Birthday girl ready to help her baby sister.

A lady who was pushing her daughter started talking with Kaylee.

Everyone enjoying their cake and ice cream.

My trip to Lookout Mountain

I took a trip to Lookout Mountain, Ga. It was with my church group. I made a lot of new friends. The first day I packed and loaded on the bus. After an hour or so we left to Lookout Mountain. There was three coach buses which were very nice. They had TVs but since the trip was only two hours we didn't watch anything. That was okay though. I just talked with my friends and played a card game called BS. When we got to the camp my church group checked in. Then got our keys for the dorms since we were in a college. The college was called Covenet College. The dorms were so nice. They had A/C. (SO NICE) After we got all situated we left for worship. There was a band called The Chris Orr Band. www.myspace.com/chrisorrband. They were so good. When worship was over we went to dinner. That is what we did for four days. Then today we woke up, packed our bags, then ate breakfast. After breakfast we left back to Johnson Ferry Baptist Church. There is a site you can go to so you can see some pictures and other things. It is http://www.middleschooltrip.com/ . That is a summary of my trip.

Memorial Day extras

I just downloaded all the video we've been holding on our our Flip Video camera and thought I'd upload a few snippets. The first wasn't over Memorial Day weekend but rather a few weeks ago. I still wanted to show it though. It is Andrew giving a solo sax performance for you. Given the little he has wanted to practice he does rather well.

Do not adjust your monitor the video is supposed to be black. Kaylee gave us a late night performance with the assistance of a glow stick.

Here are some videos from the park.

Memorial Day Fun

We had a fun Memorial weekend. Grandma Marty flew in and was here over the weekend. The weather was beautiful and we were able to go to the park, twice! Of course no one had any fun. The girls even got to go outside and blow bubbles on Monday night too, of course Dad and Andrew didn't enjoy it at all.

Flashback

I was just flipping through the pictures on my phone, with an expandable memory card slot I have around 100 pictures on here, and I came across some pictures from one year ago that I just had to share.

First off Congrats to my cousin Erin on her 1 year anniversary which she just celebrated a couple days ago. Now that being said some of you may know the story I'm going to share. The pictures were taken while we were on our way to Erin's wedding in St. Louis. Thursday night we stopped over in Nashville and decided to go downtown for dinner. After eating at the Hard Rock we were walking back to our car when Kaylee got side tracked by some music coming out of a bar. She was holding my hand while we were walking and kind of stopped and pulled me over to the wide open doors of the bar. Seeing an empty bar and hearing a little karaoke being performed (one of the workers) we stepped in and Kaylee began to dance (bounce) to the music. The waitress came over and asked if Kaylee could go up on the stage with two other little kids who were up there. She was a little shy at first but started to warm up after a little bit. It didn't take her long to find the 3 steps on the side of the stage that head up to the top of the bar. Yes she is dancing with the bar tender!!! We're in trouble!!!

Yes that is Barney she is holding in her hands.

An audience started to gather.

Destiny....not just a strippers name

Who says there is no such thing as destiny?

I found this website (click here) that let's you look up certain dates in history to see what the #1 song was on that day. So I looked up my birthday and what was the number one song on April 3rd 1977? "Dancing Queen" by ABBA...yeah my first thought was oh great dancing queen...come on...give me a break...why me? So then the twist comes in...I go look up Elizabeth's and what just so happens to be the #1 song on April 16th 1976? "Disco Lady" by Johnnie Taylor! How fitting is that Disco Lady and Dancing Queen were our songs!!!

To further emphasize my point we had a tough time figuring out what our wedding song was going to be. Eventually for some reason we settled on "This is the Night" by Clay Aiken. Well guess what just so happened to be the #1 song on our wedding day? See Destiny!!!

And yes in case you were looking at the dates and trying to do the math...if you are a male then I got me an older sophisticated woman. If you are a female then Elizabeth robbed the cradle and got herself a young stud. Okay so maybe the stud part is a stretch but hey I like to amuse myself.

A Tragic Loss

I just wanted to write a quick post to ask for all of your thoughts and prayers as we attempt to recover from the tragic loss that we suffered this past weekend. We new it was a dark dreary day when we woke up Saturday morning but there was no way we could have known what exactly we were in store for. It will be a tough time but we will recover. There will need to be a rebuilding phase, hopefully it won't be too long but I suspect it will likely last a couple months before we can get back to normal. This has however given us a chance to sit and reflect and you never really realize how much you miss something until it is gone, taken from you in the middle of the night....


Good Bye my Friend...you will be missed...but we shall see you soon!

Yes that's right...our local Taco Bell burnt down early Saturday morning. For those of you that know us, you know what a loss this really is. I personally think it is a conspiracy between the neighbors Tijuana Joe's and Moe's Southwestern Grille but I can't prove anything at this juncture.

Easter

Well hello there!! I thought I would make my GRAND debut on the Family page by bringing to you some Easter pics! (....and all the Grandparents say.....YIPPEE!!!)
We did our egg coloring on Saturday night....sorry...no pics on that...and we decided to do a Easter Brunch instead of Dinner this year on Sunday. Our Easter Bunny was a little late this year. He did not arrive in the morning but rather around 6:30 in the evening. He was PLANNING on coming during the girls naptimes...BUT...Kaylee decided she did not want to take a nap. I guess the excitement was just so much more then she could really take. Andrew had to take the girls back into their bedroom and distract them so the "EB" could do his thing! So needless to say the kids were up late late late!!!
The pics were taken after we got home from church. The kids went straight to the playroom to play while Scott and I went off to make the food. Enjoy the pics!

It's Been Awhile

Okay so it's been a couple weeks since we've posted anything. Needless to say things around here have been a little busy lately. Last week I accepted a position with a new company Agility Logistics where I will be working as the Regional Controller, the position has also been referred to as Regional Analyst, Business Analyst, and Controller but I like the sounds of Regional Controller better so I'm going with that. I will be doing all the analytical work for the Southeast Regional VP. We've also been spending a lot of time house shopping and checking out some new neighborhoods. Oh yeah there are also these 4 kids running around this place who take up a little time. Elizabeth took Allison and Samantha to the doctors last week for their immunization shots and Allison measured in at 23.8 lbs and 32 inches tall. Samantha is now up to 15 lbs 2 oz and 24.5 inches. Samantha has been starting to laugh and smile a lot more as well as focusing on who is talking to her and reaching for objects in front of her.

Here are a few pictures from the park we stopped at while checking out some neighborhoods as well as a few of Samantha in her jumparoo.

The Human Beat Box

I'm not sure how many of you remember Biz Markie, he had that one hit "Just a Friend". Come on you remember the song, how can you forget that voice....."You say he's just a friend, but you say he's just a friend...Oh baaaaby yooouuuu"


Apparently Biz has been down on his luck lately and has been doing cameos on the girls new favorite show...Yo Gabba Gabba. He's got a reoccurring spot called Biz's Beat of the Day where he comes out and teaches a little beat boxing. It's kind of funny because the girls now run around the house doing the beat of the day.

May I have this dance

I know I know this is crazy...two posts in one day (after none for 2-3 weeks). I found this video from back around New Years when Grandpa and Grandma were visiting.

I'll let you decide who was having more fun...

Game Over

Well basketball season has come to an abrupt end. We ended up with a mere 2-8 regular season record and got knocked out of the tournament after 2 games. We really had a better team then our record shows we just failed to put complete games together. We would get ahead (out of 4 of our last 5 games we were ahead or tied at the half) and then we would lose our head and let the other team get back in it. This last game we only scored 6 points by half time, fortunately we played good enough defense to hold them to 6 points as well. As the old saying goes "we couldn't hit the broad side of a barn". To make matters worse one of our kids fractured two bones in his forarm during the third quarter.

Here is a quick video one of the Dad's sent me from our first playoff game of Andrew making a basket.





Team Photo

Winter Storm Watch 2008

We are in the middle of "Winter Storm Watch 2008" at least that was the cool intro they kept using on the news the other day. Yes global warming is in full effect here in Georgia. I haven't seen snow like this since the blizzard of '87. I must admit I find the heading a little humorous since they were predicting up to maybe 3 inches, we only got about 1 inch and it was gone by midnight. That was on Thursday though, we received another inch or so yesterday. It was bad enough that they canceled our basketball game...that's just plain crazy talk to ask people to drive in an inch of snow that didn't even stick to the pavement.

It was kind of odd but it didn't feel odd at all to look outside and see snow. Actually it was kind of nice. Even though it was less then an inch it didn't stop the kids from wanting to go outside and play in the snow.

Here are some pictures from the past few days of

Catching up

Well it's been about 2 weeks since I last wrote something so I figured it was about time to get back to it. Things have been very busy the past few weeks. We had a really nice Christmas and a fun New Years. Grandma Marty was in town for Christmas but left on the 27th, unfortunately Andrew had to go too. He had to go back up to Michigan for a week and a half so we didn't get to spend New Years with him. I know I know, what 11 year old kids wants to spend New Years with his parents? We did have a real fun New Years though, a little crazy but a lot of fun. Our family got together with my cousin Matt's family and had a little party. Now let me explain a little about what I mean when I say "family". First of all keep in mind both Matt and I have 4 kids (although we were 1 less without our Andrew and for those of you that don't know Matt's son is named Andrew as well) so you start off right there with 11 of us but when I say family I'm talking entire family...parents and sibling included. My Dad and Barb arrived that afternoon for their one week visit, plus Matt's parents, sister and brother-in-law all arrived that Sun/Mon as well. So if you add another 6 to the 11 that means we had 17 of us over at Matt's house. Needless to say, if you get that many Luchenbills in one place...yeah you're asking for trouble. We did miss Andrew, but we did get to speak to him shortly after midnight. All the kids (even Samantha) actually lasted until midnight, but were out shortly there after. Heck I was out shortly there after. (I'll get pictures/video up when I can)

Dad and Barb got to stay for a week. It was nice to be able to have them stay for a week instead of just a long weekend (even though I had to work over most of it). They left this past Saturday only to have Andrew return and for Grandma Pat to come in for a week. Only now am I looking at a calender and realizing that it will make about 3 1/2 weeks (less 3 days in the middle) that we will have had house guests. Actually, looking back over the past 12 weeks we will have had family here for 8 of them. That's a pretty decent run I would say.

Andrew and Kaylee both started school back up yesterday and we start basketball games again this weekend. The hecticness of the holidays may be over but I don't think we will be slowing down anytime soon. Between Andrew joining the sound crew for the Middle School play, basketball, school, and the three little ones I am sure we are going to be keeping busy.

And for those of you curious as to where we are moving...we are holding off for now. While the weather did dip to at or below freezing for a few days it has warmed back up to the upper-60's yesterday and upper-50's low 60's today. So we are going to hold off and see what this weather decides to do. We'll keep you informed...