2011 Wrap-Up

Dear Friends and Family,

Every year of our marriage/family seems to get better and better, and 2011 did not disappoint. We spent the first part of the year preparing for the birth of our 3rd daughter, Elizabeth Claire. We welcomed her into our family on Saint Patrick's Day, and have been a happy family of five since. The transition from two children to three children was a whole lot easier than one to two for us! Elizabeth is a lot like Christa, in that she is laid back, likes to sit still in a bouncer or swing, likes to sleep in her own crib, and likes to hit those important milestones just about the time I start to worry about her :). She is the perfect addition to our family, and fits right in with our talkative bunch! At 9 months old, she babbles "da-da," "ma-ma," crawls, sits up, eats all kinds of baby food, and is starting to try cheerios and soft table foods. She loves her big sisters, and loves to smile, but can be very serious if she doesn't want to pose for a picture or open her mouth to take a bite of food!
Christa is a precocious 4 year old, who is getting more and more personality every day! She continues to be the sweetest, most caring big sister I could imagine. She readily offers her most prized possessions (her duck and blanky) to both Abby Kate and Elizabeth when they are upset about something. She plays so sweetly with Abby Kate and loves to get a hug or a high five. In fact, that is my latest method of discipline - positive reinforcement with a special gesture. I kneel down on her level, tell her how proud of her I am, and give her a big hug; she beams! If I give one of the other girls a hug, she will come over to me with her arms outstretched and a smile on her face, non-verbally asking for a hug, too. Those are the moments I wish a photographer followed me around to catch :) She's learning to clean up after herself, and can be helpful with some house chores. She can hang all of the kids clothes on hangers, once I separate out what needs to be folded and what needs to be hung. She's a little "too" sweet to Abby Kate sometimes, offering her candy or soda without asking my permission first. She is in official pre-K this year and loves it! She practices her handwriting and will soon start memorizing sight words. We have been working on memorizing bible verses the last few months, and she loves the dry-erase board that we write them out on. She loves our church and gets very excited when I tell her we are going to see Mrs. Jacqueline - her special Sunday School teacher! She's also taking ballet again, and continues to enjoy that as well.
Abby Kate continues to be our active 2-year-old! I won't lie - the first year of her life was tough, trying to keep up with her. She's been determined to do everything her big sister could do since she was born! It was quite a challenge to keep up with her as she learned to crawl and run around on her own fast time schedule. Now, though, I am so thankful for her independent streak! She is the easiest two-year-old I've ever taken care of. She can do almost anything Christa can do without assistance. She freely walks up and down the stairs, plays with toys around the house without constant supervision, and can verbalize anything she wants to very clearly. She is obedient most of the time, and understands when she gets in trouble for something. We are starting to dabble in potty training, and she has tee-teed in the potty two times. She ended the year with a broken ankle, and, as my uncle pointed out, this might be the first of many broken bones for this child :). A little boy jumped on her at the mall play area, but she learned how to walk, and eventually run with the cast in just a few days. She goes to the same school Christa goes to 2 days a week, and loves it, crying on the days we drop Christa off while she has to stay in the car. She says she wants to be a ballerina, too, so maybe we'll have two next year. I am looking forward to Kindermusik classes with her starting in early January. I plan to leave Elizabeth at home and have a little special time each week with just my middle daughter!
Cline continues to love his job at the hospital, and I think I might be finally getting the hang of this whole stay-at-home mom gig :). For some reason, it seems to take me about 5 years to master new skills. I felt really confident as a nurse at about the 5 year mark (ironically, around the time I quit). Christa is 4 and a half, and I'm finally feeling like I know what I'm doing in a few areas such as discipline, home organization, and making time to just play with the kids. I'm sure that before long, they'll all hit new phases and I'll be back to my clueless guesses about how to handle the new issues, but I am loving their ages and personalities right now!
As a family, we traveled to Disney World this August. We had a blast, but I have no intention of ever going in that heat again! It rained most of the days we were there, which we were grateful for since it gave us some relief from the heat! We also took the girls to see my sister in Miami and had a fun few days in South Florida. Sadly, or not-so-sadly, depending on how you look at it, we had to replace both of our cars within a month of each other. Our Honda minivan lost it's transmission on the way down to Miami, so we got a new(er) one while we were down there. A month later, Cline totaled my Honda Accord, so he splurged on a nice truck that we found in the paper.
We are looking forward to good things in 2012!

Happy New Year!

Christmas 2011!

Hello all! We had a fabulous Christmas this year!! It's always a crazy couple of days since we live close to a lot of family (and Cline's family is quite large). It's always fun, and we love getting to see everyone! It is getting to be too difficult to shuttle the kids from one Christmas meal/present unwrapping session to the next, though. (We had FOUR on Christmas Day, this year, plus church)!! We are trying to think of some creative ways to simplify the process next year. How do you teach kids that Christmas isn't about presents when you spend two days straight unwrapping presents?? While we want to enjoy these fun years of buying cute toys, and we want all of our family members to feel loved and appreciated on Christmas Day, we are trying to find a better balance for next year. I'm not sure what we'll come up with, and I welcome any suggestions from people with big families and small children!
Anyway, here are some pictures from Christmas this year! Enjoy :)

Ready to meet Cline's brothers/sister-in-law/niece/nephews at the mall for the annual picture with Santa Claus. Poor Abby Kate caught Strep the week leading up to Christmas Day. Fortunately, we called the Dr. a little earlier than we would have normally, and I'm glad we did, because it allowed us to get the antibiotic in her 24 hours before all of the family functions began! Abby Kate was a trooper, with her broken leg, two antibiotics (one for ongoing stomach issues we're having with her and the other for her Strep), and a viral rash of some kind.

Our family on Christmas Eve. My side of the family attends a Christmas Eve candle light service each year, so we went with Mimi and Pa, before coming home to our house to open presents with them. My sister works retail in Miami, so she was not allowed time off to come home for Christmas. We missed her so much, but we're hoping that maybe she and her husband can come next year! Alicia and I have a long-standing tradition of blowing out each others' candles at the candlelight service, and it's just not the same without her.  Christa held a candle for the first time this year, and did great with it. I (maturely) let Christa blow mine out, too, since Alicia wasn't there for me to wrestle over it with :). Made momma proud!

The girls are ready to open presents!

Elizabeth loves a shiny piece of jewelry to chew on!

We used up all of the girls' cooperation with our family pictures, so Mimi and Pa had to take what they could get.

Looks like Christa is excited about her Disney princess color set! (Just in case it hasn't been obvious before, we have totally drunk the Disney Kool-aid. It looks like Disney World threw up in our house, and it only gets worse with every Christmas and birthday. We've made some happy memories playing with that stuff, though, and it sure is cute!)

Abby Kate looks adorable in her "ballerina dress." My fashionable sister picked this out along with coordinating outfits for the other girls. The girls also got some Rapunzel/Dora dress up clothes, a Hello Kitty coloring bag, The Princess and the Pea book and game, a castle block set, and some cute nightgowns.

Christmas morning - looks like Santa was good to the girls this year! He left Abby Kate a Dora the Explorer dress up chest, a hula hoop, Lion King figurines, and some stocking stuffers. Christa got a cardboard castle that she can color, a hula hoop, Lion King figurines, and stocking stuffers. Elizabeth got a Cabbage Patch doll and a book of bible verses (which Mommy is using for Christa until Elizabeth gets big enough to memorize them herself :).

Christa checking out Santa's leavings. We actually recreated this moment for the still camera, since I was video taping the "first" time she came into the room.

Abby Kate loved this stuffed "Boots" from Dora the Explorer. For 3 days she walked around with it, saying, "this is my friend, Boots." I felt so bad for Abby Kate - she was so sweet and had the 100% right attitude about the Christmas presents. She was so excited with each present, and just wanted to enjoy that one thing. I felt horrible asking her to put it aside so that she could open another one. That's not at all what I want to teach my kids! Another reason we are going to change things up next year :)

The girls in their matching pajamas. Abby Kate has a pair, too, but she really wanted to wear a ballerina outfit on Christmas Eve night. We took one look at her broken leg after forcing antibiotics down her throat, and decided that I would have to miss out on the adorable Christmas-morning-matching-pajama-pictures I'd envisioned :)

Our family after church on Christmas morning.

Getting ready to start the day with Cline's side of the family. If only I were allowed to blog about the happenings of the day! It was hilarious - think National Lampoon's Christmas, hilarious. That movie is so much funnier once you're an adult living out some of that stuff! The day was an experience, for sure, and it was chaos keeping the little ones fed, napped, entertained, and out of trouble with Cline's large family in homes that were neither childproofed, nor large enough for everyone. I did us all a favor in the late afternoon and loaded my littlest two in the car for an hour long drive. They got a nap; I got a few minutes of personal space :)

I took about two pictures of the kids opening presents, and gave up. It was too hard keeping the camera out of little hands when I wasn't using it and trying to find a safe place to set it down where it would be out of the way while feeding Elizabeth while picking up the wrapping paper while making sure Christa and Abby Kate properly thanked the giver of each gift.... you get the idea. The girls got some Madame Alexander Dolls (the Wizard of Oz set to match this year's Halloween theme), some barbies they could play with, some Disney baby dolls, a cd player, some My Little Pony and Strawberry Shortcake toys, a Vtech Apple learning toy, and some other small things from LaLa's side of the family.

Trying to make sure the 3rd child has a picture for the baby book on her first Christmas ever :)

Cline had to work Christmas night, so I took the girls to his other grandmother's house (and our fourth and final celebration the day). The kids did remarkably well - both mine and the cousins they played with all day! Momese's house had a better layout for the large crowd and was very child friendly, so we were able to relax a little more by this point. Christa and Abby Kate got sleeping bags and LOVED them! They pulled them out immediately and began enjoying them. Christa had her first sleepover at Mimi's house a few days later and used her Hello Kitty sleeping bag! Abby Kate sleeps with her Dora sleeping bag every night. Elizabeth got pajamas, because that is the one and only thing she needed for Christmas. Between her two older sisters and sweet friends, she has more clothes and toys than I know what to do with! We are blessed, and I look forward to the idea of being able to bless someone else with our collection of baby things one day.

Uncle Chris holding Elizabeth so I can get our car loaded up to head home.

The pajamas Abby Kate was supposed to wear on Christmas morning! Oh well - Christmas night will have to do.

Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!

A Week of Elf Fun

So, I'm sure most of you have heard of the "Elf on the Shelf." I am amazed at how much fun and widespread this little gimmick is. We jumped on the "elf" bandwagon a couple of years ago, after I read a blog about it, although our elf is a plush, female elf. And we can touch her, hold her, and love on her as much as we want, and she does not lose her magic, unlike many elves out there. Christa remembered our "Chokey Nokey" from last year, and specifically recalled that she dressed up in Christa's Cinderella outfit one night. This year was our most fun yet, as Christa could really laugh at and enjoy our elf's little antics. Here are a few things that our elf did this week:

She had a snowball fight with a few of the Disney Princesses. Not sure who won, but Christa and Abby Kate had a ton of fun cleaning up their mess by eating the marshmallows!

She brought a Disney Princess tree and left a note explaining that it was for all to enjoy, but it was to go in Abby Kate's room, since Christa already has a princess Christmas tree.

Chokey Nokey didn't think that the tree was appropriately decorated, so she added some of Christa's underwear. Christa thought this was particularly hilarious!

Another view of the underwear decor!

The girls and our elf before she goes back to the North Pole! It sure was a fun week!!

(I didn't get pictures of everything, but one night Chokey Nokey was here, she drank a whole can of Sprite! This was one of Christa's favorites, seeing the empty can with the straw in it. Chokey Nokey also put the kids' picture in an ornament for the Christmas tree. Another night, our elf strung some outdoor Christmas lights in our bushes. We all say, "Merry Christmas" every time we drive by a house with lights. Christa said that we should put lights in front of our house so that others could drive by and say, "Merry Christmas," when they saw our house. We are so glad our elf took care of that for us, because we are much too busy this time of year to put out extra lights! The other night, Chokey Nokey had a dress up party with Dora (from Dora the Explorer). The elf dressed up like "Dorothy," and Dora dressed up like the Scarecrow.)

Elizabeth's Acting Debut

Hello all!! Elizabeth has not let the Christmas chaos slow her down one bit. About a week after she began sitting up on her own, she figured out how to move her little body in a forward motion. She has spent the last 3 days perfecting her mobility, and it is now a coordinated crawl. As of today (Dec. 19th), she must be watched constantly. She is increasing her speed by the moment, and doesn't hesitate to put tiny, inedible objects in her mouth. She had no problem destroying the Little People Nativity set that Christa and I were playing with earlier today, and she is no longer content to sit in one place with a few baby toys. I have a strong feeling that as soon as Christmas is over, I will be going through the house, moving all toys with tiny pieces upstairs to the big girls' rooms. I also foresee some new rules about food only being eaten in the kitchen for a while.

The littlest one is all ready for Christmas, and sitting up like a pro!

We spent her 9 month birthday (on Dec. 17th) celebrating cousin Maggie Beth's 5th birthday. All of the girls had a blast playing together at Funhouse.

Happy 9 month birthday, Elizabeth!

She loves making this face, especially when I'm trying to feed her and she doesn't want to eat :)

Elizabeth got to play the role of "Baby Jesus" in my mother-in-law's church's children's Christmas program. She did a great job, and Cline's cousin, Hannah, played the role of "Mary." She fussed a little toward the end, but considering that she sat up there, still, for most of the program, I was very pleased!

I had a small part, myself, as an angel, handing "Baby Jesus" to his mother.

We are almost ready for Christmas. I'm taking Christa Christmas shopping for a few more things, and then I think we'll be good to go. I'm trying really really hard to enjoy the season and not succumb to the stress. It's hard, I'll admit, and I'm sure I've been a little snappy at Cline lately as I've tried to do all that is expected. My goal is to finish up everything I'm doing this year tomorrow, and just enjoy a few days with my family, preparing for one of the two biggest days of the year for us!

Pink Casts and Christmas Parties

Hello all!! We've had an eventful couple of weeks around here! It's been crazy busy as we have been preparing for Christmas, while celebrating with the kids' classes, going to several birthday parties, wrapping up bible studies and other activities for the year, and unsuccessfully trying to find a moment to switch out the laundry. I'm starting to give up on the whole illusion that "if I can just make it through this week, next week will be nice and calm." I've decided that "nice and calm" went out the window the moment I became a parent, and things will be no less than hectic until my children are out of the house. But I wouldn't have it any other way! Life, though busy and crazy most of the time, is more fun than I've ever dreamed of, and if that means I have to Febreeze my clothes once in a while because I can't find time to give them a proper wash, then so be it :)
Just as our Christmas season preparations were getting into full swing, Abby Kate decided to complicate things a little by... well... breaking her ankle. She was playing in the mall play area, having a blast on the slide, when a little boy decided to jump off of the slide, landing on her foot. After Abby Kate refused to walk on that foot for a good day or so, Cline and I thought it might be a good idea to get some X-Rays. She held so still while we "took pictures" of her foot. After the "pictures" confirmed what we were pretty sure of, we made arrangements to get her cast on. She chose the hot pink wrap, of course, being the girlie girl she is. I was leaning towards the red so that it would match her cute Christmas outfits, but I wasn't the one with the broken leg, so I didn't push the issue. At any rate, here she is, sporting the cutest little cast I've ever seen:

Even with a broken bone, she's still all smiles! (She is also wearing her "pirate princess" dress. I have no idea what makes that dress a "pirate princess" dress, but you will likely see it again and again, because she wears it constantly!)

The girls had their class parties, and we made it a family affair, because we like to do that. Cline was off, so we all celebrated the season of Jesus' birth together with their classmates.

This is one of Elizabeth's favorite things to do - lean upside down and grin from ear to ear!

The broken leg will not stand in the way of our ballet practice. Arabesque!

Have a great night!

Trimming the Tree

Hello all! We decided to decorate our Christmas tree this evening, and the girls had a blast! Christa was really helpful putting her ornaments on, and Abby Kate dove right in to the project and hung all of the Disney ornaments she could find! This was our most fun year, yet. Christa jumped up and down for joy when we told her we would decorate the tree. The pictures are pretty self-explanatory, so I'll just let them speak for themselves.






Have a great night!

Santa Brunch

Hello all! We are busily getting ready for Christmas around here. Just when I think I'm almost caught up on my "to-do list," 10 more things get added on. Oh well, we are having fun with it. Here are some pictures from our first couple of Christmas activities.

Cline and I got away for an evening and went to a Christmas party over the weekend. We try to have a date a couple of times a month, but this was a fun time to socialize with some of our friends. We ended up staying "out" until 11:30 p.m., which is super late for us, but we had a great time.

On Sunday, we went to a Santa brunch and scored this great picture! Christa told Santa that she wants a Rapunzel dress and a color castle (a cardboard castle that she can color and decorate herself).

Cline's twin brother and his family were able to join us, and we had a blast with them! Maggie Beth is almost 5 years old. Charlie is 3, and William is about 18 months. Baby number 4 is due in early May.

The cousins had a blast together! We are looking forward to next summer when they move a little closer to us.