Introducing.....

Carter Matthew Chrupcala
Born on July 19th, 2011 at 12:50 AM
7 lbs. 13 ozs.
20 inches long
And we all adore him.......

Stephanie - Brownies

At the beginning of 3rd grade Steph decided that she wanted to join Girl Scouts. Luckily there was already a Brownie troop formed at her school with some of her classmates and the troop leader let her join. They did some fun stuff throughout the year like attending the cookie rally, taking a field trip to the Planetarium, marching in the Halloween parade, selling cookies at Redners, having an Investiture ceremony, and Bridging to Juniors for her 4th grade year. Here are some pics.....

Weaver's Orchard - cherry/blueberry picking June 25, 2011

Trip #2 to Weaver's Orchard was to pick sweet cherries, blueberries, and raspberries. Unfortunately the raspberries weren't quite ripe and pretty picked through so we skipped them and just filled our baskets with the other yummy fruits which were plentiful......

I'm being induced at 6:30 AM tomorrow morning, so fingers crossed that the next post you see is all about our beautiful new baby boy!!!

Weaver's Orchard strawberry picking - June 4th, 2011

One of the things that I love to do with the kids every summer is hit up our local orchard and do some "pick your own" fruits. There's nothing quite like fresh fruit off the vine! One of my favorite places to go is Weaver's Orchard, and so far this year we've gone twice. Trip #1 was to pick strawberries.....

Ocean City, NJ - May 2011

Ron and I decided that we needed to fit in as much fun stuff as we could before the baby's arrival in late July so that the girls wouldn't feel like the summer of 2011 was a complete disaster. One of the first things we did as soon as the weather got nice enough was to take a day trip to Ocean City, NJ to go to the beach....which the girls absolutely love. It was the end of May and I was highly pregnant and highly uncomfortable at the time, so I was worried about it being too hot for me.....but that worry wasn't necessary. It was absolutely the most perfect weather day to be at the beach. Not too hot, not too cold. The sun was out and the sky was blue and it was perfect. We played in the water and the sand for 4 or 5 hours then got changed and hit the boardwalk for some dinner. Afterwards we spent a few hours letting the girls go on rides before we headed home. It was a wonderful day.

Bubba's visit - April 2011

Bubba flew out from Seattle for a visit in April 2011, and although there's still snow on the ground in the park pictures it was actually one of the first mild days we had after a VERY long and VERY cold winter. We got to spend some quality time with him doing some fun stuff before he had to leave again. We can't wait till his next visit! We love you Bubba!

Jen's 6th birthday - January 2011

Just a couple of pictures of my sweet little Jenny from her 6th birthday party in January. Jen decided that she wanted an ice cream social at the house for her and a bunch of friends....with all the fixings. There was 3 different kinds of ice cream, hot fudge, caramel, nuts, oreos, whipped cream, gummie bears, M&M's, bananas, and of course cherries for the top. The kids all got to make their own bowl of ice cream which was pretty funny to watch (some were very reserved about the toppings while others went hog wild!) We played games, had a pinata, ate cupcakes, and opened presents.....and celebrated this beautiful girl turning 6.

Love you Jenny!!!!