A close to 2014

I know I always say this but 2014 really went by fast! It was a fantastic year for us. We welcomed Eve and Annabeth into our lives! Although we lost Eve physically, I feel she is with us more than ever. I feel so blessed to have someone like her watching over our family. And Annabeth...what can I say! The joy she has brought to our lives. The excitement Ella and Luke feel every time she does something new is amazing to see. They truly adore her and the way her eyes light up every time she sees them enter a room makes my heart swell with gratitude. Thank you Thank you dear God for letting us experience this one more time! It seemed impossible a year ago.
     A little 2014 recap.... Ella is in the 3rd grade and doing awesome. Still playing piano and soccer and will begin swim team soon. She is making all A's in her classes and loves her teacher and friends. I really couldn't ask for a sweeter girl than her. She is the best big sister Luke and Annabeth could ever have asked for.
   Luke is in Kindergarten and doing awesome as well. We haven't been just thrilled with his teacher but she loves Luke so he doesn't mind. He got a great report card as well so we couldn't be happier with how he is doing in school. He is reading really well and having lots of fun with his buddies at school...despite being too rough on the playground:) He did soccer and football in the fall and will begin spring soccer and baseball in March. Run Run Run! Luke and Ella are best of friends. It is really amazing how close they are.
   Annabeth is doing great too. She is almost 10 months now and has just with in the last week started to pull up on everything. She is so proud of herself! We are too!! She always has a smile!
   Lyle is wrapping up his last year of residency. That is really hard to believe! In June he will be finished and we will be gearing up to head to San Francisco. He is doing really well but is really ready for it to be over! We are still working on our research together. He got funding through the surgery department which pays for my part time salary, a technician and any reagents we need for experiments. We submitted a paper recently...keeping our fingers crossed!
   After having the twins, I decided to stay home part time. I only work M-T. I have really enjoyed being able to focus more on the kids. I think that is where I am at in life now. Focusing on them while they are young and need it. I am hoping to get back in the lab full time once we get back from SF. Its funny how much I miss it...never thought I would say that back when I was working full time and running with Ella and Luke.
As for 2015....here we come San Francisco! I am pretty sure that will be the biggest thing to happen to us in the coming year. We are planning on moving there sometime in July. Lyle should start in August...they keep moving his start date so we still aren't sure. We have the kids enrolled in a fantastic school and have talked with a realtor to find us a rent house. We are sooo excited about it! A little nervous but mostly excited:) It will be the adventure of a lifetime for this little family of ours. As I look back on 2014 with all of its surprises both good and bad, I wonder what will we see in 2015. After losing Eve, I sometimes find myself very scared of the future. Scared of what we will have to lose again. So, I am trying very hard to remember to be grateful. For every moment together. For every second. To appreciate the people God has put in our lives. Grateful for God. He will help us through all of it.
Happy New Year to you all! May your 2015 be full of moments you are grateful for! Keep watching over us, my little Eve!

Christmas Day 2014

I always love a Christmas at home. Not having to travel and getting to hang out in your pjs all day is the best! Since it is most likely our last Christmas in this house I was glad we got to be home for it.
Here is what the kids woke up to Christmas morning:

At around midnight, Luke ran into my room saying Ella was throwing up. I pulled myself out of bed to help her...I was sick as well not throwing up but very nauseous. She was sick and so sad because it was Christmas Eve. Luke was ready to go and couldn't get back in bed with out taking a peek to see if Santa had came yet. He ran into the room whispering, "Mom, Santa came. He really did!' He didn't want Ella to hear because he knew she was too sick to go see herself. Although he was very excited he climbed back in bed and waited until morning to dive into the presents. He slept with me while I let Lyle handle Ella. I was really too sick to deal with her. It was a rather long night but we got to lay around the next three days so it was ok.
Around 7 the next morning the kids were in the living room tearing into presents. Ella stayed on the couch and let Luke bring her presents. She really felt terrible but was too excited not to open presents! Poor girl!

Luckily Annabeth didn't get sick and had a very exciting first Christmas! Doesn't she look excited??

 We didn't forget about our sweet Eve and how this would have been her first Christmas as well. She was definitely with us.

Our Elf, Herman, left us a note in our tree!

The kids got some pretty good gifts this year from Santa. I think everyone was happy! Here are a few of the things I can remember:
Ella: bunk beds for her AG dolls
         AG clothes and accessories
         Knitting kit
         remote control car
         laptop desk
         clothes
         books
         Shopkins
Luke: bike
           POGO stick
           Football tire toss
           Tackle buddy
           remote control car
           Duke shirt and Cowboys hat
           Disney Infinity Captain America and Spiderman
AB:   Diapers
         Wipes
          Puppy dog
          Bouncy ball

          

The kids also got these cool lights to go on their bikes.

Lyle got me a beautiful set of black diamond earrings and necklace. I love them. I got him a new jacket, wireless headphones, Duke clothes and a new iphone 6 and case that he opened back in November.
Besides our unfortunate case of the stomach virus, we still had a great Christmas! It will be interesting to see what next year will be like in San Francisco!

Christmas Eve 2014

Christmas Eve was finally here!! The kids were more than ready for it! They got out of school on Friday the 20th at 12:30 so we did our traditional run to the grocery store where we load up on everything we need for the break including Christmas dinner. Lot so yummy snacks! The kids love this part. This year we got two carts. Ella pushed one with AB in it and I pushed the other.
We always send a pic to daddy of our loot so he can get excited too. He had 5 days off this year!!

We did a little caroling with our cousins the next day and had a hay ride with my mom's family.

It was a lot of fun but unfortunately Luke got the stomach bug on the way home and as you can imagine it made its way through our family. Ella got it on Christmas Eve night! She was a trooper though and still had a lot of fun!
Here the kids are at my parents' house Christmas Eve morning...before Ella got sick.

We usually go to my grandparents but we got to Paris late because of some stuff Lyle had to do for work so ended up getting them just in time to go to church with the family. We snapped a quick pic after mass.

It was such a fun night but unfortunately I didn't get any pics because well I wasn't feeling to great either and tried to stay still as much as possible! I HATE the stomach virus!!

I laid in the back of the car on the ride home while Ella and Luke tracked Santa on Nortrack with daddy. They were soooo excited!

Hotel fun

A couple weekends ago, Lyle had to teach a course all day in Texarkana. He had to drive down the night before because it was starting early the next morning. The kids and I decided to go with him thinking we would just hang out in the hotel the next day until he was done. We got to the hotel around 9 Saturday night and when checking in to the hotel (this hotel room was being paid by the school) the lady said, "Sorry we have no rooms with two beds available and the crib is being used." This idea instantly became not such a good idea. Then that sweet lady said, "why don't I upgrade you to a suite for free. It's got two separate rooms and a middle living room and kitchen." Perfect! I could have reached over that counter and kissed her!! She definitely had the Christmas spirit! Now it wasn't a fancy hotel but perfect for one night. We had more than enough room. The kids got in their pjs and watched Christmas shows in their room while Lyle and I relaxed in the other for a couple of minutes. Can't you see how excited they were?:)

The next day, Lyle went to his class around 7 and the kids and I just hung out. We got breakfast and then played board games (Catopoly was the favorite) all day till around 3 when we had to check out. We killed another hour eating a late lunch then it was time to pick up Lyle and head home. It was such a fun day, that I just wanted to make a post about it to remember it down the road.

Jolly Old St. Nicholas

Can't believe the holiday season is here!! So exciting....especially cause Little Annabeth is with us this year to celebrate! Watching her eyes light up with every new thing she sees is so amazing. Just like when she got to sit between her siblings under the Christmas tree we just put up to watch a Christmas carton. Of course the kids have to have cookies and hot chocolate! Wouldn't be Christmas without that!!

St. Nicholas Day was just as exciting too! As usual the kids wrote their lists and put them in their shoes outside...all lined up in order with little Peep's shoe right there at the end.

St. Nick didn't disappoint. When we least expected it we got a huge knock on the front door that scared all of us. Ella and I hid under a pillow but not Luke. I had to hold him back from running straight to the door...I want to see him, Mom!!

At the front door was a bag of goodies and Daddy shoe thrown into the front yard...a little joke St. Nick plays every year!!

Again this year, he got the kids their Christmas Pjs and some yummy candy! He even got them hot chocolate thermos to take their hot chocolate with them in the car on cold school mornings...a huge hit!!

Come on Santa! The kids are eagerly waiting!

Annabeth 9 months!

 Time for a little update on my sweet baby girl. She turned 9 months today! She had her check up and is doing fantastic. She weighed 17 lbs and 9 oz (I have no idea what her height is because they measured it wrong so will have to get that at her 1 yr checkup) which is only the 13%, so she is pretty little but that isn't stopping her! The picture above is her first time sitting in a high chair at a restaurant. She was very excited about it!

My proudest update to share with you is that Annabeth's official first word was Mamma!! The first time we heard her really say and actually with a purpose was when I was in the kitchen and she was trying to crawl to me from the living room. MammaMammaMamma! It was great!! Now she crawls all over the house looking for me saying Mamma!!

And speaking of crawling...her most exciting news though is that she is fully mobile!! Crawling everywhere! She is still doing what we call the army crawl but she is super fast now and starting to really get up on her knees. The other day, I accidentally stepped on her finger because I sat her down in the living room next to her toys and walked into the kitchen to make dinner for the other two. I didn't realize that she had crawled to my feet in about a minute. She just followed me right in there! Ella and Luke are thrilled with her new activity. They can get her to follow them all over the house!

She is eating basically everything now. Lots of table food and still some baby food. Still taking about 5 ounces of breast milk every three hours or so. Pics below are her first times eating eggs and spaghetti. She loves both of them!

 

One of the greatest things she can now do is hold her own bottle!! Yeah! Makes life so much easier! I am still nursing her about twice a day but I have cut back because I have a lot of frozen breast milk I want to use up so she is getting more bottles now.

 She has two teeth on the bottom and two big ones starting to come through on the top. Poor thing! I can tell they are hurting her.
She is doing a great job of sleeping. Usually about 4 nights out of the week she sleeps through the night without us hearing a peep from her but the other three nights I either have to stick a paci in or just get her out and feed her. However, this morning she woke up at 4 am and was ready to start the day! Luckily that is the same time Lyle is starting his day so I gave him to her to deal with while he was getting ready and went back to sleep. Unlike Luke, she really isn't a big paci baby, more like Ella. The only time she really wants it is at night. I still stick it in though...especially at church when for some reason she is the noisiest!
Speaking of sleeping...she was sound asleep in Luke's room one morning when I snapped a quick picture before I had to wake her up to get ready for the day. She was so cute I had to take a picture. She is always so sweet when I wake her up. Such a big smile!

She is also just starting to pull up on things. She was trying to pull up to the table the other day so I propped her up there. I snapped a quick picture because I also have a picture of Ella in this same outfit standing next to the same table at about the same age. Love it!

Bath times are also a little different now too. She can sit up in the tub instead of having to use the baby tub. So much easier! She LOVES it now!!

I can't talk enough about how much Ella and Luke love her and how much she loves them. She is really starting to interact with them more and respond to their silliness which makes them sooooo happy! In the mornings, I can't get her to them fast enough. Her eyes get so big like she is just dying to see what they are going to do next! She will sit back in their rooms with them and watch everything they do. They are so good about playing with her and being careful with her. She is so lucky to have such sweet older siblings. I hope they enjoy each other this much when they get older;)

We love you so much, Peep! Keep growing strong baby girl!

Bath tub fun!

Now that AB is sitting on her own I allowed all the kids to take a bath together. Ella and Luke have been begging to take one with her since she was about a week old. I thought I better get it in before Ella feels to grown up to take a bath with her siblings. Man, she is growing fast!! I remember her and Luke's first bath together:)

They all had fun but I think you can tell by that huge grin on her face who had the most fun! Annabeth loves those two soooo much!!

Sweet boy!

Luke wrote these sweet notes this morning and had them sitting at our chairs when we came in for breakfast. I will translate...clearly we need to work on spelling:)

Dad, thank you for my sports! Luke

Mom, thank you for my school! Luke

Luke, thank you for being me! Luke

Ella, thank you for my games! Luke

AB thank you for being my little sister! Luke

Thank you Luke! You are the best little boy! Keep that sweet heart!

He finished his Work Book!

Lyle has this deal going with the kids. He buys them workbooks and if they finish them then they get a very special gift of their choosing. This is actually a pretty hard job. These workbooks are pretty long and are always a grade or two ahead of what they are in....Lyle definitely believes in pushing the kids which drives them crazy! When Ella finished one of hers she got to get an American Girl doll. A couple weeks ago, Luke finished one of his workbooks.

Just like Ella, he had to take a test before he could get his prize. He was a little nervous about it :) But after correcting two problems he passed!!

So, Lyle took him to the store to pick out his prize! That is one proud little boy (although he looks a little miserable in this picture)!!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween felt a little rushed this year because Lyle and I went to San Francisco and got home the day before. However, we had a great day! It started with parent/teacher conferences early that morning. I got great reports from both Ella and Luke's teachers so as a treat I took them to get donuts afterwards (they had the day off from school). We then spent the rest of the day getting ready for our Halloween party!
  We were so excited to celebrate Annabeth's firt Halloween! This year we had two beautiful princesses who were protected by one brave Knight in shining armor!

 Before going trick or treating, I took the kids to the Halloween carnival at their school. It was very small but we saw some of our good friends with their cute kids and got a really nice picture of all of them.

Little AB was so excited about all the attention she was getting. She was such a sweet little princess. Lyle walked her around with the other two kids to trick or treat but after one loop he brought her back sound asleep!

We had extra special guests this year. Not only did Craig and Lauren come over to enjoy dinner and apple cider around the campfire but this year they brought little Henry!! The cutest Bee ever! Craig was the Bee Keeper!

It was a really good night! I can't believe it is our last in this house:(

Pumpkin patch

Since this was Annabeth's first Halloween, we had to take her to the pumpkin patch just like we did each of the other kids. We went to the Motleys' pumpkin patch and it was fantastic! We couldn't have picked a better day to go. The weather was beautiful and the crowd was low. Ella and Luke were just if not more excited as I was to take AB. Although she really had know idea what was going on we do think she enjoyed herself!

Ella and Luke got a kick out of riding the train around the farm.

And picking out the pumpkins to take home with us. They lugged those silly pumpkins all over that farm in that wagon!

Silly kids!

AB hung out most of the time in her stroller. She is so sweet!! Not to sure what to make of those blues eyes!!

Do all pumpkin patches have these height charts? All of the ones we have been to have:)

Finally a photo by the big pumpkin...sort of photo anyway:)

Fall is officially here!