What a great day! January 12, 2010.  Our newest edition to the family, Ella Lin Price was born.  She joins her older siblings, Caden and Amelia in the price household! 

Baby Statistics:

Born: 5:23pm EST
Weight: 6lbs 6 oz’s
Length: 18.5 inches

The past 2 weeks have been great with the kids loving on their little sister and being very helpful around the house and just everything.   We can’t wait to continue sharing our little one as she grows over the next year.  Additional pictures can be found of her here at my Gallery site. We try to take pictures daily as we did with the other 2 children and post them.  It’s fun to watch the children grow in the first year. Watch for updates.  I will have her own little website up and running soon as well.

Lots of fun memories ahead for baby Ella (aka. Mushroom) as her brother calls her.

She is now nearing the 7 lb mark just over 2 weeks old today.  She’s done amazing at eating and all those baby things she needs to do. :)

Just when we thought that two kids might be enough, we decided to go and have ourselves a third.  Yes, we are expecting our third child to arrive in the new year.  Sometime around January 10th, 2010 is the estimated time of arrival of our third munchkin.  Just when we thought 2 kept us busy.  Now, we’ll be outnumbered.  Scary thought.

You can watch the count down till baby price arrives on the right hand side.  Will post updates from time to time as milestones in the pregnancy are reached.   Ultrasounds, etc.

Now on to figuring out some names.  That should be fun. :)

If I get bored I’ll throw up a poll with a few names and see which one gets the most hits.   We’ll see.

I’ll really have to step up the workouts so I can keep up with them all. 

This was a good weekend all in all.  Went down to my Mom's and step-dad's on Friday afternoon to spend some time with them and keep the 'old' man company while he continues to recovery from his surgeries.  It's pretty tough, but he's making progress. About all you can ask for in a stubborn 72 year old. :). Anyways, kids always enjoy spending time down at the grandparents house.  Take a few golf cart rides, play with the dog, and when my sister is home (not this weekend, their usual 2 week hiatus up north to their cottage), they spend the time with my 3 nephews.

Saturday was a fun, but LONG day for the kids.  We went to my Aunt Shirley's for a graduation party for Matthew. Matthew completed his schooling this year and it is an amazing accomplishment and we are very proud of him.  A wonderful kid that can put a smile on your face.  They had way too much food, a bounce house for the kids, water balloons that were quite interesting when the game turned into something more for the adults.   Lots of the usual games and did I already mention too much food?  Just take a look at yesterday's food journal.  Way off the mark for what I am shooting for.  But I will say I probably would do all over again. Well worth it.  There isn't a time you can pass up the great food you get at an Italian family gathering.

So being the 4th of July, you can go without fireworks. We ended up then heading to Aunt Geraldine's house on Whitmore Lake and watching their firework show.  They didn't disappoint, even though getting about a 45 minute delayed start.  Kids kept busy with some sparklers and playing with other kids till the time came. Got to see an old friend, Dave,  and his girlfriend and her 2 children.  So worked out to be a very nice evening.

Sunday, a bit of a rest day, we got back late Saturday and had to deal with an incredibly over tired young man who kept us up for an extra hour.  Got a couple items done for my mom at the house and made the journey home where the kids then spent the rest of the day outside playing various activities.  Got to love summer time.

Can see the gallery of pictures from the July 4th festivities here.  Couple of my favorites below.  Have some video’s but haven’t had time to get up on Youtube yet.  Check back later for some links.

So went on vacation last week.  Was a great time. Family headed down to Florida for a week. Stayed in lakeland and got out to do various activities.  One day went ot he florida Aquirium over in Tampa.  Kids and everyone enjoyed that. They do a pretty good job.    Went over to see the giant rodent, Mickey Mouse and his friends for a day at Magic Kingdom. that was cold.  Yep, cold.  The beginning of the week while we were there was a bit chillier.  That day was the coldest.  We pushed through and made the best of the day and in the end everyone had a great time.

Another day we went over to a nature reseve and saw alligators and turtles out in the wild.  Was pretty neat. There are pictures over in the gallery.  Might get adventurous and post some video when i get a chance.  Other than that, rest of the week was off doing odds and ends and such.  Turned out nice.  Always enjoy trip down to florida.

 I was thinking about this the other day.   Mainly becuase I think personally you can take a few different meanings out of this.  For one, we can go with the standard answers of, yes I enjoy food and enjoy all the time it takes to make a nice meal.  Taking the time to relax with the family or others and get the most out of the hour or two that you spend on it. On the other hand, some just like to eat something to get them from hunger pain to the next.  Quick bite to eat here and there.   It is so much easier to go grab a quick bite, spend like 15 minutes and be done with it.

Let us take a deeper look into this.   In today's fast paced world, many people forgo the enjoyment of taking the time to eat their 'food'.  When i was growing up, it was a requirement for us to have a family dinner.  We'd sit down for dinner every night and have the meat, potatoes, vegatable, etc. kind of meal.  This stemmed from the way our parents were brought up and this was the way to do things.  Sure there was fast food restaurants, but it was never really an option.  The time we spent together eating, was time we wouldn't gain back.  The seconds, minutes, hours spent were gone.  Were they worth it?

'food' is really nothing more than a generic term for anything in life that you find interesting or are working on or anything that consumes our time during any given day.  Do we utilize the time that we have everyday in meaningful ways? do we utilize that time and dedicate periods of it to the people that we should? 

 I myself, know all to well that we get caught up in our day to day lives to not take a step back and appreciate the finite amount of time we have to enjoy the world around us?  So it is important that we utuilze every moment we get.  There is this prhase 'every second counts' that we use at work.  That on any given day you have 84,600 seconds every day.  How are you oging to utilize each and every second you have for this day?  what are you going to accomplish? what are you going to do today, to make those seconds meaningful.  something to think about.  The time it took me to write this, what else could I have been doing?  Could I have been reading a book to my child, expanding their love of reading? Could I be spending this time learning a new skill?  You just never know till you take a moment to think about how you are spending your time.  Enjoy every second of the day as they are precious and you can't get them back.

NOTE: So I was talking with an English friend of mine this evening, sir tigerfish, he read my little post here today and said that I ended up sounding like the 'Jerry Springer' thought of the day. hehe.  Not so sure that was what I was trying to do.  May have to adjust the way am writing these up. I thought that was pretty hilarious though. :)

Tomorrow is my eldests birthday.  Should be fun. The usual Family and friends coming over to hang out.   Lots of little ones roaming through the house.  always a good time.  Hopefully if i get this photo gallery piece finally setup, i'll have some stuff posted afterwards.  Took a little tinkering and learning, but finally got it in place.

Updated: 

She had a great time today with everyone coming over and her being the 'center' of attention.  Here are some photo's up on the Gallery.

 http://gallery.kevinprice.com/default.aspx?g=album&aid=64