August- Happy Birthday Ms. Adalyn!... Surprise!!

   What a month! We arrived home from vacation and celebrated Addy's 3rd birthday the following week. What a blessing this child is to us. We are forever grateful for her and in awe of what a gift she is to us. Adalyn continues to be VERY verbal and can pretty much talk your ear off about just about anything! She is very funny and has quite the attitude! Just the other day she told me that her daddy and I were wearing her out after I had run down a list of things we had to accomplish before dinner!
  Adalyn is constantly playing with her brothers and sister which happen to be her happiest moments in life. Her favorite song is "God's not Dead", by the Newsboys, which she sings about 20 times a day at the top of her lungs with her arms outstretched to the heavens above as she worships! She loves the color pink (like her mother) and can be quite the girlie girl while at the same time she and her daddy can rough house it with the best of them. She loves to toss a "flip ball" (football), surf on her daddy's chest, learn the football refs signals for a complete and incomplete pass!, watch Nascar, and race her daddy around the house (which is against mommy's rules). Addy is convinced that she is the fastest in the family. Lately she has been obsessed with what letter words start with. It is actually quite impressive to hear her look at a word and tell you a word that starts with each letter. "Actually" is her favorite word, which Craig says she gets from me. She says it in about every other sentence! Adalyn recently learned the pledge of allegiance which she says with much enthusiasm and John 3:16. She loves preschool and is making lots of new friends. She got a tricycle for her birthday and loves riding around the driveway with her princess helmet on.
 All I can say is, since Adalyn was born 3 years ago, my life has been filled with more joy that I ever thought possible. I love this child...She makes my day...Makes me laugh... Teaches me so much about myself (both what I am doing right and so much about what I need to improve upon as a Mommy), and reminds me that each day is a gift from God.
 At Adalyn's party she got a little surprise. Her last gift was a box which she opened and a a bunch of balloons popped up! Inside was a beautiful Rapunzel doll with long golden hair. More importantly, on the outside of the box was a sign that said, "Expecting Bertsch Baby #5!! Yes...we were surprised too! With the triplets just 7 mths old, we found out I'm pregnant::) It took about 8 weeks for it to sink in before we told  our parents at 10 weeks. We feel very blessed, a bit overwhelmed, but totally in awe of God's awesomeness! Please pray for a healthy pregnancy. Due date is 3/19/2013!
   Here are some pictures from her 2 birthday parties.



  


 

            

Bertsch Family Vacation- Myrtle Beach

  For the first time in 11 years, the whole Bertsch family (with only a couple exceptions) went on a family vacation to Myrtle Beach. The gang included 20 adults and 20 kids, ages 8 months to 13 years, all under one roof! The house was gorgeous and accommodated everyone very nicely. It was right across from the beach which made it a lot of fun for all of those beach-goers. I on the other hand, was home most of the time with the triplets trying to entertain them in a house with tile floors and no carpet. At the time of the trip, they were army crawling a little but not yet sitting independently, so they spent a lot of time lying on their backs on the cold floor:(
 The crew did pretty well on the drive to and from with very few crying spells. Addy watched movies all the way down and Bella, next to Addy in the 2nd row of the minivan, kept her head turned almost the whole ride so that she too could see the television. The boys played quietly in the back oblivious of the entertainment they were missing out on. We packed our van full plus Charlie and Sharon brought some of our stuff with them in the back of their truck. Believe it or not, we managed to bring 2 swings, 1 jumperoo, several toys, 3 pool floats, 3 suitcases, a triple stroller, a pack n play, a large cooler filled with meat, a mini cooler filled with drinks, and a bag of movies and entertainment for Adalyn!
   The week turned out great. Everyone helped us so much with the kids. Adalyn was in heaven spending the week with her much loved cousins and the babies got lots of extra loving. Craig had a blast with his brothers at the beach playing volleyball and throwing corn hole in the evenings.
    Once we were back home, the babies demonstrated that they could in fact sit up independently, Mommy was just too nervous to let them on the hard floor in Myrtle Beach! They are really starting to take off. It's going to be interesting in the upcoming months as they are becoming more mobile everyday!
 

We got lots of looks on the beach with the big triple stroller and everyone was very friendly. The babies are definitely a good conversation starter.

 


       Arabella, Bronson, and Addy



    

My Little Firecrackers- Happy 4th of July

   Firecracker, Firecracker, Boom Boom Boom! I love the 4th of July and the beginning of summer. These are pictures from Craig's Grandma Rose's house for a parade.The whole family comes and eats breakfast and watches the parade. Grandma Rose is in her mid 80's and is just a firecracker  herself. Such a sweet lady. 

 The babies are 8 months old this month and doing great. Arabella's first teeth broke through early in the month and the boys finally broke through on the same day just a couple weeks later. It's so funny how Bella just breezes right through it and the boys wake up every few hours at nights with cries of pain due to their bulging gums:(

   This month the babies are sitting up with the boppies behind them. It's like it opens up a whole new world of fun when they can sit and play with toys.

  Adalyn is doing great and is excited about her birthday next month. She is a happy two year old and just loves these babies. My sister is due with her first baby in August and our family is so excited to have a newborn around. Adalyn can't wait and thinks she is going to have a little girl. Bella remains Addy's favorite, but she can get those boys laughing like nobody's business. She is such a blessing to have around. We are considering sending her to preschool this fall for a couple days a week. Addy talks about school all the time. Her daddy tells her stories about going to school with a girl named Rachel... not sure why he picked that particular name, since we don't know any Rachels, but I'm just hopeful God will miraculously put a Rachel in her class!

   Our vacation is at the end of this month, so we will have plenty more pictures and updates to come.

Summer Begins- 7 months

 As always I'm playing blog catch up. The summer has flown by. The kids are all doing great and are getting busier by the day. These pictures of June feel like they were taken a year ago. At this point they were rolling but not crawling and a lot easier to keep track of than they are these days! They tend to migrate towards each other when they are playing on the floor and LOVE for Addy to entertain them as she rolls around, runs throughout the living room and dances and sings to her favorite songs. She continues to be mommy's awesome helper and is having a great summer. Potty training started in June and carried on throughout the summer with lots of accidents and lots of pull ups. I never dreamed just how challenging it would be. Our days are full and most of the time a lot of fun! These are just random pics taken in the month of June when the babies were 7 mths old.