Christmas Festivities

Oh boy...Christmas!  We started Christmas on Christmas Eve morning!  We went to Carey's parents' house for a late breakfast.  The kids got to Skype with Auntie Kelly and Brannon (their cousin).

Grandpa Steve and Grandma Jackie got the kids (and Carey and I) lots of nice gifts, and Haley, Abby and Seth did a good job of being polite as they opened them!

Ohhh...all these gifts are so exciting!

Seth dragged his bag of opened gifts to the computer to show Brannon (on Skype)!

Abby enjoying one of her gifts!

Watching a movie with Grandma Jackie!

 Later that afternoon, Auntie Laura came over and we exchanged gifts and got to spend some good time together:)

Seth threw a little fit that the gifts were for Auntie Laura and not for him.

WE LOVE AUNTIE LAURA!

 Christmas eve we went to our church's candlelight service.   Carey went early, 'cause he was playing guitar, and Laura, the kids and I came a little later and brought cookies to share with everyone!  The service was great, and all three kids did so good dancing around, singing, making friends with the little girl next to us, and even holding their candles (yes, I let the girls each hold their own candle).

Christmas morning, we had a good time at home.  We took our time opening gifts, played, had some delicious breakfast, and played some more.

This year I decided to have the girls get each other gifts, so that they could (hopefully) learn that it can be SO fun and exciting to give gifts.  This is what they picked out for each other, and they happened to be both of the girls favorite gifts this year!

Seth loves his new drum!

 After a while we decided to go on a bike ride and enjoy being outside before the rain came.  When we got back, uncle Nate came over and we played some more!  Then, when Seth woke up from his nap, we had doughnuts (instead of cake...because I forgot to make one) and sang happy birthday to Jesus.

It was a perfect day to take the girls for a ride because there weren't many cars on the road!

Late Christmas afternoon we went to Grammie Lori and Poppa Phil's.  We hung out, had a delicious dinner and opened more gifts.

Playing dress-up at Grammie Lori and Poppa Phil's.

Princess Party Extraveganza

This past Saturday we had Haley and Abby's birthday party.  I totally cleared out the garage so that we could mostly be out there.  I put all the dress up stuff out there with a full length mirror next to it, and a table with jewels and markers and things to decorate cardboard crowns.  Inside the house, Auntie Becca and Auntie Laura  were the face painting fairies!  They were AWESOME!  We had about 17 kids, two cakes, two pinatas, about 700 gifts, and SO MUCH FUN.  It really was a super fun party, and I am SO thankful to Josh and Becca and Laura who came early and basically got all the food prepped and out, and to my mom, who took my kids from 7:00 in the morning until just before the party started, and then stayed after and gave our house the most thorough vacuuming it's EVER had!  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Good old Uncle Nate "The Prince"!

The face paint table:)

The face painting fairies, Auntie Becca and Auntie Laura

Our best shot at a group photo!

Happy 5th Birthday!

Haley and Abby turned 5 years old this week!  Wow!  I can't believe my sweet, little girls are a half a decade old.  For their birthday, we got them umbrellas.  I know...thrilling!  Little do you readers know that it WAS thrilling.  I really don't like kids with umbrellas, 'cause they are always bumping into people with them!  The girls have really been wanting them, and I always say that they'll never get to have them, since their mother doesn't like them.  Anyway, they LOVED them.

They were supposed to have their birthday party on Saturday, but Seth got a virus, so we had to post-pone it.  To make up for it, we took them to the movie theater for the first time.  We saw Tangled and it was SO fun.  They loved it (Carey and I did too), and Abby was SO cute sitting in her chair, cracking up at the funny parts.  On the way home, Abby told Carey "thanks dad.  That was so fun.  I loved it.  Thank you.  From Abby"!

Haley Joy, we love you to pieces.  You are so sweet, helpful, artistic and fun to be around.  Abby Faith, we love you to pieces, too.  You are so forgiving, creative, friendly and funny.  You girls will never know how much you bless us:)

Christmas Tree Adventures

Oh boy, this year our Christmas tree has been troublesome!  At the Christmas tree farm, Seth fell into some plants that looked like poison oak, so when we got home, I was very anxious to get all our clothes into the washing machine.  In my haste, I ended up washing our camera in the pocket of my jacket (hence, no pictures from the Christmas tree farm).  Such a bummer.  Anyway, a couple days later, we decorated the tree, which Haley named Shelly.  It was really fun, with Abby just laughing with joy, Seth "playing" a little guitar ornament, and Haley decorating away!  After we got it all decorated and the kids were in bed, Shelly fell over.  Yep, fell over, stand and all.  Carey ran out to Home Depot and bought a new stand.  Oh, and there were only two ornament casualties in the fall.

The finished product, pre-fall!

The fall!

Carey had to saw off a little of the bottom of Shelly to try and make it fit in the new stand!

Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving was super fun this year!  We went to Grandpa Steve and Grandma Jackie's (Carey's parents) and the kids had a blast playing with their cousin Brannon, playing ping pong with Auntie Kelly and her boyfriend, Rick, playing with the cat toys, and eating, of course.  Carey and Laura and I had a fun time visiting with people, eating, playing with the kids, eating, going on a walk, and eating, eating, eating!

Oh, one funny thing to note (it won't really be that funny when I write it, but it was funny if you were there) is that Grandpa Steve and Grandma Jackie have a little remote control Elmo train that the girls love to play with every time we're there.  Abby was like the queen of the remote control this time.  She took it with her wherever she went.  The funny thing is that Laura and I would suddenly see the train just starting to move, even though Abby was not in the room.  She was just constantly pushing the button on the controller, so when she would walk close enough to the room the train was in, it would move until she walked away again!

The hand eye coordination (or lack there of) was SO entertaining!

Abby's faces as she was trying to hit

Auntie Kelly's boyfriend, Rick, was a really good sport about having an almost 5 year old teammate!

The girls LOVE auntie Kelly.

Good-bye Tonsils (and Adnoids)

Abby had her long awaited tonsillectomy this past Wednesday.  We had to be at the surgery center at 6:30 a.m.  Abby was pretty excited, although she told me she wasn't sure if she would recognize her doctor (the ENT we had been seeing) with his mask on!

We went back into the pre-op room, where she got to change into a cool robe and socks.

Then they started hooking up some different monitors to her, to check and make sure everything was in good shape for surgery.  She was completely charming the nurse with her sweet little voice, her excitement, her comments, and her curiosity! 

That white tube thing is blowing warm air under the covers.  Abby and I agreed we'd like one of those at home!

Bunny/Lightning/Jess (it's name changed every time someone asked her it's name) stayed with Abby the whole time:)

Once she was declared good to go, we said good-bye, which wasn't anywhere near as hard as I expected (probably since she was all smiles and cheerily said good-bye to us), she was wheeled off into the surgery room, and we went into the waiting room to read some magazines in peace!  About an hour later they came and got us, told us the surgery went great, and let us go back into the post-op room to see Abby.

Now, I don't know why, but when we went in and saw Abby I started feeling very light-headed.  She looked a little out of it, and was reaching up, wanting me to hold her.  I picked her up (once the nurse gave me the okay) and then I really felt like I was going to pass out.  They brought me a recliner, put a towel on my head, and had me put my feet up.  Carey got me water and Abby shared her ice chips!  Oops...we were all supposed to be taking care of Abby, but I was having to be cared for (I kind of wished I would have really passed out, then I would have had to stay there and been cared for longer)! 

 Anyway, other than crying a bit, which they said is totally normal when people are coming out from anesthesia, Abby was fine and really wanting to go home. 

At home, a few hours after surgery, enjoying the promised popsicles and movies!

 The recovery has been SUPER quick.  The day after her surgery she was wanting to play at the park, and by Friday (two days after surgery) I was calling the doctor to clarify what he meant by having her "lay low for 10 days".  Now, 5 days later, she's almost completely back to normal.  She's still healing, but the moments that we can tell that are few and far between!  Oh, and she's sleeping really well.  Now let's just hope all this good quality sleep helps with the potty training!

Enjoying some tomato soup:)

Family Photos

I'm finally getting around to post photos from our family photo shoot back in October.  The only reason it's really taken me a month and a half to post them is that there are SOOOOO many great ones, I was over-whelmed with trying to pick a few favorites to put on the blog! 

Our friend Jessica is an INCREDIBLE photographer, and is so fun to do photos with.  She pretty much just had us play and hang out, while she snapped away with the camera.  Her website is www.gigglebean.com if you want to find out more, or just see more of her amazing work!  Anyway, we met her on a Saturday morning in a local park and had such a blast playing together for an hour and a half!  Here are some of my favorites: