Do It All By Myself

Little Miss continues to be quite persistent in doing things "all by herself."  There really isn't much that mom and dad can help her with.  She is even determined to tuck herself in at night, climb in and out of the tub, and read her stories "all by herself."

Today she picked out her outfit "all by herself" and then picked out ALL the hair accessories to put into her hair.  She looked quite adorable :)

To get the full picture of all the bows she picked out, here is a top of the head shot...

Putting Up the Christmas Tree

We hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year.  The Thanksgiving weekend always brings the excitement of putting up the Christmas tree.  Dad and Little Man went out and picked out a tree for us.  Little Man had high hopes of going out into the Forest in Wyoming and cutting down a tree.  Dad had a different idea - Menard's :)

What's more fun than running around the Christmas tree as dad tries to put the lights on?

Once we got the lights on, Little Man and Little Miss were excited to help put the ornaments up.

Little Man did a great job.  He worked really hard at decorating the back of the tree, because he was convinced we needed ornaments ALL the way around.

After we decorated the tree, we enjoyed "picnic" dinner by the tree.  Dinner consisted of finger foods - fruits, veges, cheese, little smokies, and goodies such as these.

Finally we got to open our ornament boxes and enjoy looking at ornaments from years past and open a few new ones that will remind us of 2011.  This year mom found a dinosaur ornament for every member of the family.  For those who have been around the kids these past few months, you know how much they loves dinosaurs.

Slumber Party

Little Man and Little Miss had their first slumber party with some friends last weekend.  They had a BLAST!

Daddy made all the children balloon hats.

Then they ran around with their hats on chasing each other.

The boys tired out, but as soon as they stopped, Little Miss continued running and was saying "Come on boys.  Come on boys."

The next morning they were all up by 5:45am.  Before we started the day, they all cuddled up on the sofa to watch some Signing Time.

Four Months Old

I can't believe our littlest was four months old yesterday.  She continues to be Miss Content and has plenty of smiles for everyone.  We are so thankful for her.

After picture taking, Little Man wanted to hold his baby sister. 

I don't think he was prepared for her to be sucking on his arm.  He was kind about it, but he  said "Mom, she is chewing on me.  Here, you can take her."

Daddy enjoys his time with her as well.  Do they look a like?

Visitors

We had company this week.  The children always love having people visit.  Little Man was especially excited for his Great Aunt and second cousin to come. 

This was the first time our Littlest had met these family members.  She had plenty of smiles for them both. 

Since our Aunt has experience in teaching young children (just like Aunt KFell does), we couldn't have her leave without having story/song time with the children.  She had their complete attention - in the picture below they are enjoying "Going on A Lion Hunt"

Little Man was sad to have our company leave...he greatly enjoys their visits and has become very close with his cousin. 

He asked his cousin to move closer to us so we could see her everyday.  I would be happy with that too.  We are so glad they came and had a fun time.

Big Girl Bed and New Room

Life has been exciting for Little Miss lately.  She just moved into her big girl bed a week ago (she actually didn't get a new bed, but we just took the side off of her crib).  She is doing wonderful so far.

Just this past week we redid the girls bedroom - daddy painted, mom went shopping and found some decorations, and last night we put it all together.  The theme - PURPLE!  She really loves this color.

She loves this BIG stuffed purple crayon I found at a garage sale just over the weekend.  It is so funny and cute to see her carrying it everywhere.

Yes, it almost bigger than she is.

It's Monday

 Little Miss has kept me on my toes today.  We started off with a morning snack of nuts and cereal, which she proceeded to spill on the floor not once, not twice, but three times (all truly by accident).  Just a good reminder to mom that Little Miss should sit in her high chair to eat.

Little Miss goes potty ALL BY HERSELF.  She takes off her pants, find the step stool and climbs on the potty, goes, wipes and gets dressed again.  This morning she went to go, but didn't make it to the potty - so she peed all over the floor (thankfully in the bathroom).  No big deal, we cleaned it up.

Nap time - nope, not for Little Miss today.  She enjoyed talking and singing to her babies, jumping around in her bed and finally after two hours, mom decided nap wasn't going to happen. 

So, we just came downstairs for after nap snack and Little Miss made it to the pantry before mom:

At least she does clean up after herself:

How did this day end? 

No, I did not do this to her.  She found a ribbon and some how managed to tie up her wrists...she could not get it undone.  Yes, I did help her and freed her quickly!

I love this little girl so much.  She brings so many smiles to my days and reminds me that little things don't really matter.  We can clean up any mess.  I am such a blessed mommy!

A Few Random Photos

Tummy time is a lot more fun with company.  Our Little Girl is starting to want to roll over - she actually did roll over a few times the other day on her brother's bed from back to tummy.  She sure has a lot of encourager's...her brother and sister are constantly cheering her on.

Little Miss couldn't be more excited that her hands and mouth turned purple from her lunch (blueberries).  She LOVES the color purple - and no, her Grammie truly didn't persuade her on this one.  She fell in love with purple on her own.

Have I mentioned that our Little Man enjoys making funny faces for the camera?

Not sure what was up with the one above.

Finally, Aunt KFell has been making the girls some pretty hair ribbons.  Little Miss loves owls, so this is her newest one. 

John Deere Tractor

Little Man is riding on his Grandpa's John Deere Tractor.

It was a little chilly outside this day and windy.  So, we still got outside, but stayed in the garage to ride around.

The girls were outside too...we LOVE being outside when we can!

Fun in the Snow

There might not be any thing more exciting for a young child than the first snowfall of the year.  Our children woke up this morning to just that and they were very excited to get outside.  So, by 8am we had our breakfast, Bible time, morning chores and school done, and they were all three ready to head outside.

So, we got all bundled up and out we went. 

The first mission was to shovel the driveway for daddy.  The children made a great attempt, but this didn't last long.  Keep in mind, it was a VERY wet, heavy snow, as it rained most of the day yesterday before it started to snow.  (Yes, Little Miss did have a small disadvantage, since she was using a sand toy shovel, but she tried)

Next we jumped into the snow and rolled around and got nice and wet.

Finally they were all tired out and decided to put their camping chairs in the snow and take a rest.

And where was little girl...before she headed inside to stay nice and warm, we took a picture:

Sisters

Young Sisters

Older (not old) Sisters (but we are missing two in this picture)

We were blessed by grandparents who watched the children so we could have a date night (yes, the husband's came too).

Fun in the Dark

November 7th and the weather is AMAZING!  This morning it was sunny and absolutely beautiful...the kids and I were outside as long as we could be before nap time had to happen.  Then evening came and the cousins came over.  It might have been cloudy and getting dark outside - but the temperature was perfect (60 degrees) and no wind!  So, we went for a walk and took our flashlights. 

When we got back home from our walk, we just couldn't go in - it was too nice.  So, the boys had fun using their flashlights to draw with rocks on the cement (yes, Little Man LOVES to make faces for the camera).

The girls were reclining in their chairs and collecting rocks.

What, might you ask yourself was so exciting on the ground that they all came to look?

Fireballs!  Yes, you read it correctly.  For those of you who have been keeping up with Little Man lately - he LOVES dinosaurs.  His Grandpa told him he was a Supersaurus and Little Man then decided that Supersaurus' shoot fireballs.  So, now whenever we see markings on the cement - they are his fireballs. 

Mismatch Day

Little Miss dressed herself today.  She picked out her pants, her shirt and her hair ties. 

After all was said and done, we declared it "Mismatch Day." 

Thank You Aunt and Uncle

Little Man received a new shirt in the mail.  For some reason he has a lot of friends and family who want him to wear their teams clothing.  He is happy to support most any team...especially a team that's colors are orange!  Little Man says "THANK YOU" for the new shirt...He already has enjoyed wearing it a few times.



Costume Party at Grandma and Grandpa's

Before the cousins had to leave and travel home, we had one more fun night together.  It was a costume party and all the cousins and aunts/uncles were there.  Of course we had to get a group shot...can you figure out who everybody was?

We had two characters from Blue Clues, a Knight dressed in his armor, Donald Trump, a ladybug, Eeyore, a Lion and a mouse.  All very cute!

We played some fun games, one of which involved a blindfold and pinning the "nose" on the pumpkin.

Mom actually got the sweet Eeyore to pose for a picture with the adorable ladybug.

One final picture....The ladybug was examining her Uncle....

We had such a wonderful visit.  We already miss the cousins and look forward to seeing them at Christmas!

Fall Praise Party

Every few months or so we enjoy having a praise party as a family.  It gives us a chance to praise God together for all HE has done for us over the past few months.  We try to come up with a theme for every party...this time the kids choose an ORANGE/FALL party theme. Little Man helped me come up with a menu of orange foods we could eat...he did a great job...as the picture below shows.

We had:  Sweat Potatoes, Hamburgers (with orange cheese on top), Oranges, Carrots, Orange Tomatoes, Orange Juice, and Peaches. 

And for dessert:

ORANGE JELLO!