Happy Birthday Lydia

Well I have been very negligent in updating the blog. I figured it was time to update. Life at the Rices has been busy these days. We are waiting for baby boy to arrive in January, hopefully not 5 weeks early this time. Shawn is in charge of picking a name, and he hasn't made any final decisions yet but I can tell you that I have vetoed "Vytec". I hope that is the only time I will need to use my veto power. Anyway at this point baby is healthy and growing quickly. I go on Monday for an appt and I'm hoping they will measure him and tell me how big he is. He will probably be a 12 lb baby, he seems huge compared to Lydia already.
We also celebrated Lydia's 3rd birthday today. Aunt Vanessa stayed overnight last night to help set up the birthday party and help with operations today. Lydia woke up this morning and came down for breakfast and I asked "Who's up stairs?" and she got a huge smile on her face and her eyes got big and she said "Is she still here mama? Can I go see her." She was so surprised that "Aunt Nessa" stayed overnight. We had 13 kids between ages 10 months and 5 years. It was fun, they started by painting pumpkins, one of Lydia's favorite activities. Shawn thought I was crazy for planning to paint with so many children but they did great. No major accidents. Then they played in the basement, ate, sang and open presents. Lydia had lots of helpers to open her gifts. I had to laugh at some of the kids, one told me that our insulation looks like meat. Hmmm... Not sure what to make of that. Lydia was thrilled with her birthday loot but her favorite thing was when everybody sang "happy birthday" to her. She told us later "Remember when everybody sang 'Happy Birthday' to me and I just smiled?" She liked being the center of attention for the morning.
We are looking forward to January for obvious reasons but we have a full couple of months coming up. Lydia and I are going to Florida next week with PopPop Miller so I can go to a conference for work and we'll squeeze a little vacation in too. Then we are going to be celebrating with Tim and Rhonda the first weekend in December when they get married. Fit Thanksgiving and Christmas in there and before you know it baby will be here. We are also looking forward to our new nephews coming to visit at Thanksgiving. They seem to be growing like little weeds. I can't believe they are already more than 3 months old.