End of January....

I can't believe that tomorrow will be February and that January is already over!  We had a great month!!  Ice Fishing, Zoo, Losing a first tooth, a new niece, and Kaylee's Birthday was just a few of the highlights.  Here are some pictures to finish off the fun month we had.  First, Carson with his 2 dollar bill he got from the tooth fairy for losing his tooth!

 Carson and Kaylee have come up with a fun way to entertain Alivia....they put her on a blanket and pull her around the kitchen.  They did this several times last week...and the all just laugh doing it!

 Alivia's new obsession is the pantry.  She loves to crawl in there when the door is open and just stand in there and play with whatever she can get her hands on!  She thinks she is pretty sneaky!  She also likes to click her tongue, especially if she see food or something she wants.  She is such a cutie!!!

 Kaylee is always dressing up in her princess costumes or tutus or any costume....totally a girl thing!

 Alivia is loving her independence when it comes to eating.  I like it too, but I just have to realize that it just means a little bit more clean up when she is done!  I think she had eaten a piece of bread while waiting for dinner.  She has also learned how fun it is to drop things on the floor...including cheerios, fruit loops and raisins!  Silly girl!!  Also, she almost always sits in her chair with one leg up....all the time.  It is hilarious!!!

We sure love our kids!!  I can't imagine our lives without them!  It makes for a lot of work, but A LOT MORE fun!!!!  I can't wait to see what February brings!

Zoo Time!

Last wednesday, I decided to enjoy the beautiful sunny day and take the girls to the zoo.  Hogle Zoo has a free day the last Wed of Nov, Dec, Jan & Feb.  So it was FREE!!  I called Natalie and she was awesome and came down with her two girls to join us!  Yes, even with her cute little 2 week old baby!  We bundled up the girls, but it was such pleasant weather it made it very enjoyable!  The girls had fun seeing some of the animals.  Not all of them were out, but our favorites were the monkeys and elephants!

 Alivia was a peach and just chilled in the stroller the WHOLE time and didn't make a peep!  She really is such a good baby!!  It makes my life so much easier!!!!

Before we left, the girls spent some time on the playground!  Even with all the snow they had fun!  It was a fun day and I was so glad Natalie was there with us!!

Birthday Girl

I have so much to post from before Kaylee's birthday, but I wanted to make sure I could post a Happy Birthday Post for her today!  We had a blast at her Princess Bday Party on Saturday (see future post)!  We also had fun celebrating it today with monkey bread, donuts, and some classic fun!  (again, see future post).  But for now...we want to wish Kaylee the HAPPIEST FOURTH BIRTHDAY!!  I can't believe it has been that long since I held the sweet little baby girl in my arms!  It seems like just yesterday, yet every day she reminds me of how big she really is!  We are so blessed to have her in our family!  We love you Kaylee Bug!

My Girls!

I wanted to post these cute pictures I took yesterday.  Kaylee had requested to wear a headband, so I recommended putting it in after doing a pony tail.  She loved it!!!  She looked super cute and had no problem posing for the camera to show off her new look!  I actually took her to get her hair trimmed yesterday afternoon, but I can't believe how long her hair is getting.  I was looking at pictures the other day of her 3rd bday, and her hair was barely down to her chin.  I know that most kids her age have hair to the middle of their back, but for us it is a big deal to have LONG hair!!!  I just thought these were cute pictures of her, especially her pretty smile and sparkling eyes!  

 Oh Livy...where to start with this cute girl?!?!  She is such a sweet baby and I adore her blue blue eyes!!!  She is crawling like crazy and can get around the house quite fast.  That gate is a constant fixture at the top of the stairs while she is awake because you just don't know how fast she is going to move!  She loves to hang out in the dishwasher while I'm loading or unloading it.  She also loves to drink her bottle and watch tv.  It is the cutest thing, especially when she tries to hold the bottle with her feet!

We sure miss Carson during the day, but we always find something fun to keep us busy and entertained with just us girls at home!!!  

Lazy Days....

It has been awhile since Kaylee was in a daily napping stage, but every once in a while she will zonk out in the middle of the day.  It is always by her choice or her request.  The other day she fell asleep while watching tv and waiting for dinner to be done.  I had to take a picture, because I think children sleeping is the cutest thing ever!!!

Just yesterday Kaylee had spent the morning playing and was being a good little girl.  I had an appointment with some financial planners to go over some boring retirement mumbo jumbo and so I let her play Kidzui on the computer while I was in this meeting.  About 20 minutes before they left I noticed she had left the room and it was very quiet.  I just assumed she went downstairs to play.  After they left I headed downstairs to find her and she wasn't there.  So I went into my room thinking maybe she turned on the tv and decided to lay down on my bed to watch it.  But she wasn't there either.  Finally I opened her bedroom door up and found her laying on her floor taking a nap.  I just had to laugh.  She wasn't in her bed and it was obvious she knew what she wanted to do when she got all the pillows and blankets out on her floor to lay down.  Our boring finance meeting must have bored her so badly she just couldn't take it anymore and she had to take a nap!

She is such a sweet little girl, when she wants to be.  We had a fun day today playing out in the snow, just her and I, while Livy took a nap and Carson was at school.  We built a fort (using bread pans) had a snowball fight, and then came in and had hot cocoa!  It was a fun, relaxed, lazy afternoon compared to the busy day we had yesterday doing laundry, cleaning, my Visiting teacher came, the boring financial meeting, dinner prep, dinner, and then FHE.  We reviewed and tried to help the kids memorize the 2nd Article of Faith.  Then we topped off the busy day with a visit to Orange Leaf!  Seriously, yesterday I was on fire to get a ton done, and today I had NO energy whatsover.  I am typing this and it is almost 8:30.  I am hoping to get this done and go to bed.  I hope tomorrow I will find that motivation again and get a lot accomplished tomorrow....but if not, I wouldn't mind another fun lazy day with my two cute girls!  They are only little for so long!

First loose tooth!!!

Last month at Carson's dental check up and cleaning, they told us that Carson had a loose tooth.  And sure enough his bottom middle tooth WAS loose!  Last week it started getting very loose and by Saturday night it was so loose we thought we would try and pull it.  Carson thought it would be really fun to tie a string from his tooth to his remote control truck and then to his tooth and use that to pull it out.  After several attempts of tying floss around his tooth we decided to wait a few more days until it was more loose before trying to pull it out.  So these first pictures are from Saturday night.

 He wiggled it non stop Sunday and woke up this morning saying it hurt.  I told him we would try tonight again to pull it out.  So right before dinner we convinced him to let us try so it would make eating dinner easier.  So as Nick was tying the string around his tooth, the tooth was so loose that it just came out!  (Nick might have actually pulled it but since it was so loose it practically popped out!).  We got it all on video it was so funny!!  Carson didn't even realize the tooth was out until we showed it to him!!  He was so excited and started running around the kitchen jumping up and down!!

It bled just a little and it made his mouth feel so much better having it gone.  After dinner and after FHE, we headed to Orange Leaf to celebrate his first lost tooth!  We have been saving this little tooth box for at least 2 years.  He made it in preschool with Miss Wendy.  When he went to bed tonight, he was so excited to put the tooth under his pillow!  I can't believe my baby is getting big enough to lose teeth!  What a fun milestone!!!

Alivia...10 Months!

As I was balancing the checkbook today I realized it was the 18th!!  Which means Alivia is 10 months old today!!  So I grabbed the camera and tried to take some pictures of her, but she was so busy playing, crawling, or wanting me to hold her that it made it a little tricky.  But I got a few pictures of her.  I tried to also take a picture of her laying down next to the pink giraffe, but that didn't fly either.  She is such a stinker when it comes to looking at the camera!!  But someday she'll figure it out!  At 10 months old she is finally crawling, has 2 teeth, one on top and one directly below on the bottom.  The 2nd top one is going to be coming in any day now!  She loves to stand up next to anything she can hold on to.  She loves to eat, but can be picky about what she eats.  We decided she hated baby food so she usually eats what we eat, but ground up for her.  She loves noodles and spaghetti, crackers, cheerios and fruit loops, and drinking from a sippy cup.  Even though she usually soaks herself when she drinks!  She still gets up about once a night to eat, but since she doesn't eat a ton during the day the Dr said that it is okay to feed her at night since she is still so little, under 15 lbs.  It takes a lot to make her laugh, but when she gets excited or really happy she will squeal.  She is still very much a momma's girl and loves to cuddle with me, especially before going to bed at night.  Here are some of the fun pictures from today.

She loves to put everything in her mouth and is always drooling...probably the teeth!  She is constantly getting picked up and moved by Kaylee, or getting attacked and loved by Kaylee, or Kaylee will just be in her face all the time.  It is all out of love, but Alivia can get very annoyed and will scream and cry at Kaylee.  We have to constantly remind Kaylee to leave Alivia alone.  We sure love our Livy Lou, and it is crazy to think in just 2 short months we will be celebrating her first Birthday! Wow!

Ice Fishing

On Sunday, after we got home from Church (We love 9 AM Church!!), Nick took Carson and Kaylee down to Holden. They were going Ice Fishing with Grandma Karen and Papa bright and early Monday Morning.  It was Martin Luther King Jr Day, so they didn't have school or work!  They drove over to Otter Creek to do the fishing.  Nick and Karen did a great job taking pictures for me since I wasn't there.  Livy and I enjoyed just staying home and hanging out!  Here are some fun pictures from their fishing trip.

 It was a pleasant morning to begin with.  They had caught two or three fish before it started to get windy.        Then it started snowing and before they knew it they were in the middle of a blizzard.  I guess Karen was inside the tent with the two kids when a gust of wind came up and actually blew the tent with everyone inside across the lake about 20 feet.  It was a little scary according to Carson who said he cried.  But he was crying mainly because he didn't want to loose his new spiderman fishing pole that was still in a whole and actually had a fish on it when the blizzard hit.  They managed to get a total of 5 fish, including 2 that were on the line when the blizzard hit.  They scrambled back to the truck and loaded everything up in a hurry!  Despite the trip getting cut a few hours short because of the weather, they had a great time and they have been talking about it non stop since they got home!

Nick said they had a blast and they can't wait to go again next year!  They have been ice fishing on this same weekend for the past three years.  I think it is going to be a fun tradition to continue!

Jr. Jazz

Yesterday, Carson had his first Jr. Jazz instructional league practice at the rec center.  It starts at 8:30 and runs every Saturday for 5 weeks.  Since Nick was working I had to get up earlier than I would prefer to on a Saturday to get us all out of the house on time.  But we made it and all the kids did great and Carson had a blast!  Here are some pictures from the practice.  (Carson is #25...and he LOVED getting a jersey!).

Carson had a kid from his class, Ben, who was also there, so that will be fun to get to play with him every week.  He wore his jersey the rest of the day and he can't wait to go back next week!