Saturday, December 19, 2009

Snow Day

We had our first big snow storm last Wednesday. We got almost a foot of heavy, wet, great-for-playing snow. Both Grace and Lydia LOVE playing in the snow. Luckily Paul was home from work that day and could spend the day outside with them while I stayed inside with Ella.

Here's Grace, Lydia and Sydney eating snow. (Yes, we do feed our children)!

Here they are ready to go outside.
Our backyard. Our poor tree had lots of broken branches.

The arbor vitae looked rough that day but looked okay days later.



Thursday, December 3, 2009

December

Here's a general kid update for December.

Ella is already getting so big! She is such an easy going baby. She's smiling and cooing a lot. Best of all she is a great sleeper aside from her late bedtime. She tends to stay up until almost midnight, but then sleeps in until 9 or 10 am. She had her two month well baby check up last Monday. She's almost 23 1/2 inches long and just shy of 11 pound. That makes her about 35% for weight and 75% for length. She also had to get a few vaccines which are never fun. It might not be so bad for her if she had any baby fat on her thighs.

Lydia loves Ella. She holds her, hugs her, kisses her and nearly smothers her with love every chance she gets. When she isn't invading Ella's space she likes to climb, jump, and climb some more. One of her favorite things to climb is the recliner. She climbs up the arms and seat, then jumps off the back onto the floor.

Grace might have a rough time with Christmas this year. She doesn't like Santa. She does like his reindeer though. Do I try to get her picture with Santa this year? She also doesn't like boys... she tells me both every day! Most days more often now since Santa stuff is everywhere this time of year.

And of course, here's the pictures. Since Halloween I've been planning on making an advent calendar to use up some of the candy. My friend Janelle found a great idea online. It was super easy, even for us noncrafty, nonscrapbooking mommies. It only took a mini muffin tin, magnets, candy and paper. (And a movie, popcorn, crayons, coloring books, pb&j, and pacifiers to enterain the 5 kids while we worked. Here's the finished calendar.

I hung the calendar a day early and Lydia figured out their was candy in there. She would open the days and take out the candy. Grace tried to cover it up but put some back in the wrong spots.

Every morning we get an activity for the day and two pieces of candy. One for Grace and one for Lydia. The first day we hung stockings, yesterday we painted our toenails and today we had hot cocoa with marshmallows. We'll see what tomorrow brings...

Stories & Dress Up

Both Grace and Lydia love to read stories. It's no wonder how she memorizes library books after a couple days since we read them all the time. Here they are starting their day reading with Dad.

Last Friday Grandma and Grandpa visited for a little bit on their way back home from vacation (they really had no choice since we had their car and picked them up from the airport). Grace saw this as a perfec opportunity to show them one of her favorite things... playing dress up. Since they don't have to play this every day, I don't think they knew what they were in for, but they were great models nonetheless.

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Thanksgiving

As always we spent Thanksgiving at Grandma and Grandpa Pedersen's house. Here are some pictures from our day.





Making Cookies

Last week I thought it would be a good day to make some cookies. It was one of those days when the girls were up from their naps early and we had a couple hours before dinner. We had the Betty-Crocker-in-the-box mix. We only needed to add the mix, butter and an egg. I thought it would be an easy project. Boy was I wrong! The girls made a HUGE mess, which was to be expected. I gave each of the girls half of the melted butter to dump into the mix. Lydia, knowing it was hours away from dinner, drank her melted butter! Then half way through mixing the rest of the cookie dough must have figured out that if the butter was tasty, the dough must be delicious too. So she ate that too! After a while, we finally finished the cookies, after Dad got home from work. So
Last week, I tho

Catching up.. again

It seems like I am always catching up on the blog. Oh well, I guess that's life with three kiddos.

November was a great month for us. We had great weather so we spent lots of time outside without the bulky winter jackets, boots, hats and mittens. Here we are at the Christmas parade. It definitely felt too warm to be thinking about Christmas, but it was nice to not have to worry about keeping warm as we sat outside.


One of Lydia's new favorite things to do it stack food from our kitchen pantry. Here she is making her latest "castle." She does a great job, considering that she makes towers taller than she is.

Friday, November 13, 2009

McDonalds

It's crazy to think that we rarely brought Grace to McDonald's until she was almost two! In the past year, she has come a long way!! She knows what to order as we go through the drive-thru ("chicken nuggets, apples, milk and I'm a girl") and she can spot the giant "M" a mile away. For a while, any time we went through any kind of drive thru, she tried to order food. She has since figured out that US Bank and Starbucks don't give out chicken nuggets.

We are now frequent McDonalds guests! The McDonalds nearest our house is great for toddlers. Most kids over 4 are even too tall for the play area! Last Tuesday, they were serving free hotcakes and sausage so we headed out to their favorite dining establishment to join their favorite friends! Here they kids are on the coolest jeep ever! They all managed to get on their and stay posed for what seemed like light years in kid-time.


Baptism & Birthday Parties

Last Saturday was a crazy day! We had already planned Grace's 3rd birthday party (and it was her actual birthday), and when we tried to book Lydia's baptism Saturday was the only date available until January (since there are no baptisms during Advent). Paul had a funeral to attend Saturday so he was gone all morning. Thankfully, Grandma Borneman, Grace's Godfather David and Jenny were all available to help get ready!

Here's Grandma Borneman and Lydia. Lydia is getting her 2 year molars, they are all still below the gums yet though. I can't wait to be done with her teething for a while; she seems quite uncomfortable with teething.

Here's Ella and Godparents Ken and Sara.

After church, we ate. Then it was time for Grace to open gifts - both hers, Ella's and a few of Lydia's. Since some people thought it was only fair for her to have a few of her own things to open. Grace does a really good job of letting other kids help her open gifts. I'm sure it will not last forever, so I am grateful for her willingness to share while it lasts. Last week when she received 2 birthday cards in the mail on the same day, she gave one card to Lydia and kept one for herself to open. (Thank you for the cards Ethan, Heather, Emma, & Katherine and Bob and Lois).

The guys don't really seem to care what the kids are up too!
Opening Ella's gifts for her!!
My birthday girl! Happy Birthday Grace!!



Lydia didn't get into the unwrapping of gifts. She left that to the older girls. She waited patiently until the gift was unwrapped, then she would take it to play with while the girls moved onto the next present! Smart girl!
I had a hard time keeping track of who bought what for both Grace and Ella. The house seemed full of new clothes, toys and games.

I am already looking forward to the excitement and joy of Christmas with the three girls!!

Birthday Breakfast

What better way to start a birthday than with pancakes! Grace and Lydia both had candles in their pancakes.



Playgroup Party

There is no better way to start a week than Monday playgroup... unless it's a birthday party playgroup.

The littlest of girls (Katelyn, Ella, and Pyper) even enjoy each others company (or maybe not, since the only one that appears to be awake is Pyper).
Grace insisted on being a princess for her party and had to wear her Sleeping Beauty dress. She wore the dress ALL day including while we ran errands to the library and to church.

Grace had lots of fun and couldn't wait until Dad got home so she could share every detail of her day with him.

Here are the pictures... in no particular order.


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Halloween

It was a chilly Halloween night, but the girls managed to go trick-or-treating for a while. Ella made it to one house. Lydia went to a few more than that before she came home to the heated house and food! She had lots more fun handing candy out to the other kids. Grace and Paul managed to stay out for almost an hour! They were greeted with hot cocoa and a snack.


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Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Pictures

Just when I thought I had this three girls things down, Lydia got the flu...then Ella...then Grace. The doctor wanted to see Ella on Friday since she was so sick Thursday night and Friday morning. Even with her bout of the flu, Ella still managed to gain over a pound in the 2 weeks since her most recent visit. All the girls are starting to feel much better!

Grace had her three year pictures taken. They also took pictures of both Lydia and Ella. They didn't take pictures of all the girls together though, so I think we'll have to go back to get more taken!

Here's Lydia looking happier than she's ever been when it's her turn to get pictures taken!

Here's Ella. I can't figure out how to rotate the picture, so you'll have to turn your head.
Grace


The cutest baby since Lydia!
Paul and the gorgeous girls!
Grace with her nervous finger-in-the-mouth habit.